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Crypto lender Celsius' top three executives withdrew $42.13 million in cryptocurrency between May and June 2022, right before the company suspended withdrawals and filed for bankruptcy, new court records show. From a report: According to a Statement of Financial Affairs filed late Wednesday, former CEO Alex Mashinsky, former CSO Daniel Leon and CTO Nuke Goldstein withdrew the funds largely from custody accounts in the form of bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH), USDC (USDC) and CEL tokens (CEL). Over a dozen other executives, including the company's Chief Compliance Officer, Oren Blonstein, Chief Risk Officer Rodney Sunada-Wong and new CEO Chris Ferraro did not make any significant withdrawals during that time period, according to the document, one of several filed to the Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. Mashinsky withdrew about $10 million in cryptocurrency in May 2022. Leon withdrew about $7 million (and an additional $4 million worth of CEL denoted as "collateral") between May 27 and May 31. Goldstein withdrew around $13 million (and an additional $7.8 million worth of CEL also denoted "collateral").

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Princeton University is so rich it has become a perpetual motion machine -- an institution that can operate with no outside financial support whatsoever. That's the claim made by Malcolm Gladwell, in a recent newsletter, and opposed by Harvard economics professor John Campbell, in a letter to The Browser. Gladwell is broadly correct. Campbell's quibbles might change the exact numbers, but Princeton really does seem to have reached the point at which it's capable of funding itself in perpetuity, even without research grants or tuition income. A handful of ultra-rich universities increasingly resemble hedge funds with a nonprofit educational arm attached. Critics like Gladwell say that endowments have become so huge that Princeton and its ilk no longer need to beg for money from alumni; that such donations would almost certainly be better spent at almost any other nonprofit; and that even charging tuition seems unnecessary at this point. Princeton's endowment hit $37.7 billion in 2021, or $4.5 million per student. The school's entire annual operating expense that year was $1.86 billion, which is less than 5% of the value of the endowment. The endowment will probably decline in value in 2022; such are the markets. But over the long term, it's reasonable to expect the endowment to continue to grow more quickly than the university's expenses. Princeton's historical investment returns alone have been significantly higher than the rate of inflation in tuition and other education costs -- that explains why proceeds from the endowment account for an ever-greater share of spending every year. On top of that, Princeton continues to be very good at persuading its alumni to continue to donate generously to the fund.

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Companies such as Amazon and Microsoft, as well as banks, police services and government departments, shred millions of data-storing devices each year, the Financial Times has learnt through interviews with more than 30 people who work in and around the decommissioning industry and via dozens of freedom of information requests. From the report: This is despite a growing chorus of industry insiders who say there is another, better option to safely dispose of data: using computer software to securely wipe the devices before selling them on the secondary market. "From a data security perspective, you do not need to shred," says Felice Alfieri, a European Commission official who co-authored a report about how to make data centres more sustainable and is promoting "data deletion" over device destruction. Underpinning the reluctance to move away from shredding is the fear that data could leak, triggering fury from customers and huge fines from regulators. Last month, the US Securities and Exchange Commission fined Morgan Stanley $35mn for an "astonishing" failure to protect customer data, after the bank's decommissioned servers and hard drives were sold on without being properly wiped by an inexperienced company it had contracted. This was on top of a $60mn fine in 2020 and a $60mn class action settlement reached earlier this year. Some of the hardware containing bank data ended up being auctioned online. While the incident stemmed from a failure to wipe the devices before selling them on, the bank now mandates that every one of its data-storing devices is destroyed -- the vast majority on site. This approach is widespread. One employee at Amazon Web Services, who spoke on condition of anonymity, explained that the company shreds every single data-storing device once it is deemed obsolete, usually after three to five years of use: "If we let one [piece of data] slip through, we lose the trust of our customers." A person with knowledge of Microsoft's data disposal operations says the company shreds everything at its 200-plus Azure data centres.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Tools helping China's netizens to bypass the Great Firewall appear to be facing a fresh round of crackdowns in the run-up to the country's quinquennial party congress that will see a top leadership reshuffle. From a report: Greater censorship is not at all uncommon during countries' politically sensitive periods, but the stress facing censorship circumvention tools in China appears to be on a whole new level. "Starting from October 3, 2022 (Beijing Time), more than 100 users reported that at least one of their TLS-based censorship circumvention servers had been blocked," writes GFW Report, a censorship monitoring platform focused on China, in a GitHub post. TLS, or transport layer security, is a ubiquitous internet security protocol used for encrypting data sent across the internet. Because data shared over a TLS connection is encrypted and cannot be easily read, many censorship circumvention apps and services use TLS to keep people's conversations private. A TLS-based virtual private network, or VPN, directs internet traffic through a TLS connection instead of pushing that traffic to one's internet provider. But Chinese censors seem to have found a way of compromising this strategy. "The blocking is done by blocking the specific port that the circumvention services listen on. When the user changes the blocked port to a non-blocked port and keeps using the circumvention tools, the entire IP address may get blocked," GFW Report says in the post.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

As digital advertising changes, it's essential for advertisers to stay ahead of the curve while meeting people's expectations. Consumers want privacy but they also want relevant ads. In fact, 62% of consumers in the US consider it important to have a personalized experience with a brand.[96be74]We don’t believe this should be rocket science for programmatic advertisers. This is why we are building simple, off-the-shelf solutions in Display & Video 360 with first-party data and machine learning. We’re announcing two of these solutions today, optimized targeting and Exchange Provided Identifiers.

Optimized targeting helps advertisers expand reach across relevant audiences and increase return on investment with the touch of just a button. Exchange Provided Identifier, also known as EPID, provides Display & Video 360 with new signals which will be used to automatically future-proof frequency management tools. In the future, EPIDs will be powering a variety of other marketing use cases in Display & Video 360 with no action required by advertisers.

Programmatic buys automatically powered with publishers’ data

Advertisers increasingly rely on publishers' first-party data to enrich their marketing strategies. That’s why we’re evolving our programmatic technology to organically inform Display & Video 360 solutions with those valuable signals.

You may be familiar with Publisher Provided Identifiers, also known as PPIDs, which became available for publishers to use programmatically last year. PPID allows publishers to send Google Ad Manager a first-party identifier for marketing use-cases. EPID expands on this technology. It makes it available to more exchanges, publishers, or vendors looking to share their first-party identifiers with Display & Video 360’s backend to improve the quality of programmatic ads served on their respective properties. EPIDs from a given exchange or publisher cannot be used to inform marketing strategies outside of that publisher’s inventory. This protects people from being tracked across the web.

Earlier this year, we started testing this feature and receiving EPIDs from several publishers and exchanges, including Magnite. Based on partner feedback, we began improving this feature. We’re excited to grow our list of partners and progressively enhance advertisers’ programmatic campaigns with these new durable signals.

In the coming months, EPID will be used to inform Display & Video 360 users’ frequency management solutions. This will ensure brands can continue avoiding ad repetition while maximizing reach efficiency even when third-party cookies go away. Advertisers won’t have to make any changes in their account since EPIDs will be organically embedded in Display & Video’s technology. Brands and agencies will automatically benefit from EPID when setting frequency goals.

In the near future, EPID will be used as a signal for building Google audience segments in Display & Video 360. This will give advertisers a chance to deliver more personalized ads on publishers’ sites for which EPIDs are received. Down the line, EPID will also help brands unlock other core advertising functionalities, like cross-device reach on a domain by domain basis, and invalid traffic prevention in a privacy-safe way.

Expand reach across audiences more easily

Reaching the right people with a message is one thing. But to be successful, advertisers have to reach enough of these people and scale their audience strategy. This is where machine learning and optimized targeting come in.

Optimized targeting lets advertisers find new and relevant customers likely to convert within their campaign goals. Campaign settings, such as manually-selected audiences including first-party data and Google audiences, influence the machine learning algorithm. Optimized targeting then uses machine learning to expand reach across other relevant groups without relying on third-party cookies.

Because it uses the same goals as our automated and custom bidding solutions, optimized targeting reaches people most likely to drive impressions, clicks, or conversions as defined and customized by the advertiser to drive business outcomes. This ultimately leads to better performance and increased conversions. In our early tests, we found that advertisers who use optimized targeting in Display & Video 360 can see, on average, a 25% improvement in their campaign objectives when using Google audiences and can see, on average, a 55% improvement when using first-party data.[4f8fcc]

In Display & Video 360, optimized targeting is currently available for YouTube Video Action campaigns and will expand beyond YouTube to all display and video campaigns in the coming months. Once launched, new eligible display and video campaigns will be opted into optimized targeting with the ability to opt out.

We are continuing to create Display & Video 360 solutions that will allow marketers to successfully reach and influence their most relevant audiences, while ensuring consumers feel safe online. EPID and optimized targeting are two of many new audience tools and features we are building for programmatic buyers.

Adding Exchange Provided Identifiers and optimized targeting capabilities to Display & Video 360.

Toxic air pollution particles have been found in the lungs, livers and brains of unborn babies, long before they have taken their first breath. Researchers said their "groundbreaking" discovery was "very worrying," as the gestation period of foetuses is the most vulnerable stage of human development. From a report: Thousands of black carbon particles were found in each cubic millimetre of tissue, which were breathed in by the mother during pregnancy and then passed through the bloodstream and placenta to the foetus. Dirty air was already known to strongly correlate with increased miscarriages, premature births, low birth weights and disturbed brain development. But the new study provides direct evidence of how that harm may be caused. The scientists said the pollution could cause lifelong health effects. The particles are made of soot from the burning of fossil fuels in vehicles, homes and factories and cause inflammation in the body, as well as carrying toxic chemicals. The study was conducted with non-smoking mothers in Scotland and Belgium, in places with relatively low air pollution. "We have shown for the first time that black carbon nanoparticles not only get into the first and second trimester placenta, but then also find their way into the organs of the developing foetus," said Prof Paul Fowler, at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. "What is even more worrying is that these particles also get into the developing human brain," he said. "This means that it is possible for these nanoparticles to directly interact with control systems within human foetal organs and cells."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Alphabet's Google on Thursday said its new Pixel phones will deliver improved voice and camera features while bringing back facial recognition for unlocking the device as it seeks to better compete with Apple and Samsung Electronics. From a report: The company's Pixel 7 and 7 Pro devices offer more affordable prices than the dominant duo of the mobile market, coming in at $599 and $899, respectively, and introduce the second generation of Google's in-house Tensor chip. The 6.7-inch Pro version has an additional zoom camera, better display and more memory than the 6.3-inch Pixel 7. Google's Pixel phones every year serve as the showcase for the company's latest Android software and artificial intelligence-based services, such as the Google Assistant. They demonstrate how Google hopes device-making partners will best use its operating system. Google continues developing its own hardware, which has only ever sold in small numbers, in part as insurance against missteps by Samsung, the only credible Apple rival in the US. Google AI shows up in the upgraded language-processing capabilities of its latest software. The Recorder app for voice memos can now automatically label different speakers in transcriptions, and transcriptions are also being added to audio messages in the new Pixels' messaging app.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Australian Federal Police have arrested a 19-year-old Sydney man for allegedly trying to blackmail victims of a giant data breach at mobile-phone company Optus. From a report: The man allegedly texted 93 people who were affected by last month's hack of the Australian telecommunications provider, demanding they transfer A$2,000 ($1,300) to a bank account or face having their personal information be used for financial crimes, the AFP said in a statement Thursday. At this stage it appears none of the people who received the text message transferred money to the account, the AFP said.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The redesigned Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro are here. Powered by our next-generation Google Tensor G2 processor and shipping with Android 13, these phones are at the center of our ever-expanding hardware portfolio that also includes a watch, tablet[569c9d]and earbuds. All of these devices come with the smarts you expect from Google and work together to help you.

Our sleekest design yet

Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro are sleek, sophisticated and durable. Plus the aluminum enclosure for both phones is made of 100% recycled content.[1a177c]

With a 6.3-inch display and smaller bezels, Pixel 7 is purposefully more compact than Pixel 6 — packing more features and improvements into a smaller profile. Its new zirconia-blasted aluminum feels silky in your hand, and you can choose from three colors to suit your personal style: Snow, Obsidian and brand new Lemongrass.

Pixel 7 Pro has a 6.7-inch immersive display, a beautiful polished aluminum frame and a camera bar that’s perfectly complemented by the three color options: Snow, Obsidian and a new Hazel color.

Android 13 on Pixel 7

Android 13 on Pixel 7 brings you the best Android experience yet. It’s fast, smart and secure. Plus, the fresh new style and customization capabilities make it feel unique to you. You can recolor the look of your app icons to match the aesthetic of your phone’s wallpaper, and even assign specific languages to individual apps.

An even better camera (if you can believe it)

Say hello to the best picture-taking experience on a Pixel phone yet. Here are five camera features you don’t want to miss:

• Extend your range with our next-generation Super Res Zoom up to 8x on Pixel 7 and up to 30x on Pixel 7 Pro.[3ce020]You’ll be able to get sharp, quality images from a distance, so your friends will think you were courtside when you show them the pictures you took of your sports hero in action. We’ve also achieved optical quality similar to a dedicated 2x telephoto lens for Pixel 7 and a 10x telephoto lens for Pixel 7 Pro,[efd7cd]so you have the flexibility to creatively frame your shot at multiple magnifications while maintaining high quality.

• Photo taken with Pixel 7 Pro at 1x
• Photo taken with Pixel 7 Pro at 0x
• Photo taken with Pixel 7 Pro at 5x
• Photo taken with Pixel 7 Pro at 10x
• Photo taken with Pixel 7 Pro at 30x

• Use Pixel 7 Pro to get even closer with Macro Focus, which delivers Pixel HDR+ photo quality from as close as three centimeters away. Take photos of flower petals, raindrops, feathers and other tiny details with full sharpness and vivid color.

Photo taken with Macro Focus on Pixel 7 Pro

• Bring your blurry photos back to life with Photo Unblur, a Google Photos feature only on Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro.[dd77fe]Photo Unblur uses machine learning to improve your blurry pictures — even old ones. With just a few taps, remove blur and visual noise so you can relive the moment as clearly as you remember it. And you can also touch up those photos and easily remove distractions with Magic Eraser.[dd77fe]

Photo Unblur Before

Photo Unblur After

• We all love taking selfies. With Guided Frame, those who are blind or low-vision are now able to capture selfies with a combination of precise audio guidance, high-contrast visual animations and haptic feedback. Because selfies should be for everyone.
• Videos are getting an upgrade with new 10-bit HDR. Record brighter, higher contrast videos with wider color ranges. And Cinematic Blur lets you shoot cinema-like videos with beautiful, shallow depth-of-field.

We’ve also made updates to the things you already love about Pixel’s camera, our most inclusive camera to date. Real Tone’s camera algorithms have been trained with more than 10,000 additional portraits of people of color from our image expert partners to make sure that Pixel Camera consistently renders skin tones authentically. With this, we’ve improved Real Tone to work in low-light settings including Night Sight. And Night Sight now only needs half of the normal exposure time to produce beautiful low-light images that are sharper than before. You can read a recap of all of our new camera features here.

Image before improving Real Tone and Night Sight

Image after improving Real Tone and Night Sight

Smarts and speech

Google’s smarts and intelligence is a big part of what makes a Pixel, a Pixel, and Pixel 7 is no different. With Google Tensor G2, we've improved almost every major subsystem in the chip, and we’ve designed them to work really well together to handle the nuanced and complex nature of our software and machine learning. So your smartphone is even smarter, especially when it comes to understanding speech and language.[7e2194]

It can be frustrating when you call a business and have to memorize all the options for the extension you need, which is why we launched Direct My Call last year.[e6c745]This feature just got better with Pixel 7: For many of the most-called businesses, you’ll now be able to see a list of menu options before they’re even spoken, so you can cancel that flight or file an insurance claim even faster.

Texting just got more fun with Assistant voice typing, which now automatically suggests emojis that are relevant to your messages. You can also search for emojis with your voice.[ee3736]Don’t worry if you don’t know the name of the emoji you’re looking for. It’s forgiving, so “hey emoji”

Today, we’re introducing a true portfolio of Pixel products for the first time: the new Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro, and the very first Google Pixel Watch. Every Pixel device is designed to deliver a level of personal intelligence that turns day to day problems into truly delightful experiences. All of this is brought to life thanks to our combination of foundational technologies, artificial intelligence, Android and Google Tensor.

This is what we have been building up to for a while: delivering a lineup of beautifully designed Pixel phones, watches and earbuds that work together to understand your needs and deliver the helpfulness you expect from Google. We believe Pixel isn't only a phone experience, it's a personal, intelligent, cohesive computing experience.

The latest products from Google

As the Pixel portfolio expands the phone is at the center of it all. The new Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro take all the helpfulness and personal intelligence people love about Pixel, and make them even better. The design is the ultimate refinement of Pixel, simplifying the parts and construction to make phones that are sophisticated and distinct.

Underneath, they’re powered by the second-generation Google Tensor G2, the only processor that makes it possible to bring Google’s artificial intelligence and machine learning directly to the phone. The new Pixel phones are great for photography, with features that can sharpen your photos and shoot cinema-quality videos. Pixel Call Assist is a new suite of features that helps with everything from making calls to avoiding them. They also provide fast, accurate voice assistance with Live Translate and Assistant voice typing.

Pixel 7 is engineered to understand you and your world, putting Google’s personalized intelligence right in your hand. And Pixel 7 Pro is Google’s most powerful phone. It brings serious performance, and an upgraded telephoto lens, for people who want an even better zoom experience.

Our new Google Pixel Watch, is the first smartwatch to provide the best of Google and Fitbit, and it’s the perfect companion to our Pixel phones. Pixel Watch features a beautiful, custom-developed 3-D coverglass that’s durable and scratch resistant, with three distinct jewelry inspired stainless steel finishes in black, silver and gold. Watches are so personal, so we offer many watch bands — active, stretch and woven, metal and leather — along with customizable watch faces and an easily personalizable user interface. Google Pixel Watch helps simplify your life by integrating with your favorite Google apps, to listen to music, manage your smart home, get directions, make payments and more. Google Pixel Watch is the first WearOS device that combines Google's helpfulness with best health and fitness insights from Fitbit.

Earlier this year at I/O, we previewed plans to build an Android tablet powered by our custom Tensor G2 processor. And today, we shared more about our vision for making the PixelTablet the most helpful tablet whether you’re at home or on the go.[d0af56]We’re taking years of everything we’ve learned from making products for the home and Pixel and combining that experience into one device. Pixel Tablet pairs with a charging Speaker Dock to keep your device fully charged. It offers a terrific audio experience, while bringing some of the best features from a smart display to your tablet. Pixel Tablet is designed to seamlessly transition from an at home display to an entertainment device you can take anywhere - making it one of the most versatile tablets that easily adapts to you. We’ll share more details when it launches next year.

From their design to the high-tech features, these latest products embody the best of Google. You can learn more about them and pre-order the new Pixel phones and the new Google Pixel Watch in the Google Store, or from our partners around the world. In fact, we're expanding the availability of Pixel phones to more places, including Denmark, Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden for the first time. Google now has a comprehensive portfolio of devices and services, for your home and for on the go, and we hope you’ll love this latest generation of products.

Google Pixel Watch and Pixel 7 and 7 Pro phones are now available for preorder.

With phones getting smarter and faster every year, it’s easy to forget why we ever started carrying them around in the first place: phone calling and texting. Let’s take a look at the newest Messages and Phone features on Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro that make it easier than ever to stay connected.

Video format not supported

It can be frustrating when you can’t hear the person on the other side of an important phone call, like when you’re on a work call with your team, or while Mom’s giving you directions to the family reunion. So we improved the audio experience for Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro users with Clear Calling, rolling out in the coming months. It uses machine learning to automatically filter out background noise and enhance the voice on the other end of the line, so it’s easier to hear the person you’re talking to, even if they’re on a windy street or in a noisy restaurant.

Video format not supported

If you have your hands full, you can send and receive calls and messages from your Google Pixel Watch too. The watch works with your phone to display Caller ID and spam warnings from incoming callers, so you don’t have to pull out your phone every time it rings. Plus, your watch will intelligently route the audio where you want it. So if you’re listening to a podcast on your Pixel Buds Pro and you answer a call from your watch, no problem — the audio will automatically connect to your earbuds.

Save time when you call a business

Pixel solves some of life’s most tedious tasks by using Google’s AI to make your phone calls more helpful.

Direct My Call, powered by Google’s Duplex technology, helps you navigate automated phone menus by transcribing the menu options and showing them on your screen for you to tap, so you don’t need to listen to or memorize them. Since launch, it has helped Pixel users navigate over 50 million calls with businesses. The new Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro take this even further by showing you the menu options right away, before they’re even spoken, so you get to the right department even faster.

You can expect to see the menu options ahead of time when you call many of the most popular toll-free numbers in the U.S., and we're bringing this experience to more business numbers over time.

Security by design

We know privacy is top of mind for Pixel users. That’s why we designed these features to work on your Pixel device itself – the audio data never leaves the phone or is sent to anyone, including Google, unless you explicitly decide to share it to help improve these features. Your conversations stay private.

Together with existing features like Call Screen, Wait Times, and Hold For Me, these updates on the new Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro help you communicate and connect, whether by avoiding missing key moments with those closest to you, or by saving your precious time and patience, so you can focus on more important things in your life. Both devices launch today.

Let’s take a look at the latest Messages and Phone features on Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro that make it easier than ever to stay connected.

As part of our latest offering of Google devices this fall, we’re officially unveiling our first full-featured premium smartwatch: Google Pixel Watch. A natural extension of the Pixel family, the Google Pixel Watch combines the smarts and helpfulness you know and love from Google with Fitbit’s health and fitness expertise, all in an elegant design.

A design you can truly make your own

Designed with comfort and durability in mind, the Google Pixel Watch is sophisticated for a night out or a business meeting, can endure your activities and workouts, and is pleasant to sleep in. The bold, circular 3D domed glass blends seamlessly into the stainless steel body giving it a slim look on the wrist. It is both water-resistant (up to 5 ATM/50 meters) and scratch-resistant, meant to be worn all day and night. Inspired by a classic timepiece, the tactile crown controls on-screen scrolling, accesses shortcuts and initiates the app tray to get you the helpful information you need. The side button subtly above the crown opens your most-recently used apps, so favorites are just a click away.

Wrapped in a stainless steel body and slim, sophisticated design, Google Pixel Watch has your favorite features just a swipe away.

The unique band attach mechanism — inspired by how a camera lens attaches to a camera body — makes it easy to change bands to transform the overall look of the watch. Switch up your style with 20 available band choices, and choose from a wide assortment of classic or modern bands in woven, stretch, active and leather styles, with metal coming next spring.[0a45c7]

And the comprehensive family of 19 customizable watch faces, each with many personalization options – from the colors to the layout and the information you need most – provide thousands of options. You can even set your favorite photos as your watch face with Google Photos.

• Video image of the active band being attached to the Google Pixel Watch bezel, showcasing the easy band attachment mechanism.

  Google Pixel Watch’s unique band attach mechanism makes it easy to change bands to transform the overall look of the watch.

• Google Pixel Watch lineup with a variety of accessory bands, including active, woven, stretch, two-tone leather, crafted leather, and metal mesh and metal links (both coming in Spring 2023).

  Whether it’s a new watch face or accessory band, Google Pixel Watch offers thousands of combinations to personalize your look.

• A grouping of more than 35 watch faces with various on-screen designs appear in several rows.

  Switch up your day-to-day look with a family of 19 customizable watch faces to choose from.

Google help goes with you

Google Pixel Watch is powered with Wear OS by Google (Wear OS 3.5) and delivers the information you need at a glance, making tasks more convenient and providing help whenever and wherever you need it. Interaction is extremely smooth, responsive and easy to use. With tiles and watch faces you can easily customize to be full of information or minimal – the experience is uniquely yours to choose what you see at a glance. With Google Assistant built in, your personalized help on the go is quick and hands-free. You can easily control your smart home devices through the Google Home app or just say “Hey, Google” to your watch to adjust the thermostat, turn on or off the lights, and get notifications from your Nest doorbell when a person or package is at the door (with compatible smart devices).

From adjusting the thermostat to turning off the lights, Google Pixel Watch offers various features with the Google Home app to make life more convenient.

Check your notifications from Gmail and Google Calendar, make contactless payments in stores and at transit with Google Wallet, and get turn-by-turn directions with Maps, including an interactive view that makes it easy to see where you are and where you’re going. Enjoy access to over 100 million songs with YouTube Music Premium (three months included), and cache your favorite playlists using ample 32GB of on-device storage, or streaming phone-free over built-in 4G LTE-cellular. And access even more apps with Google Play Store right on your wrist, including Adidas Running, Calm, Spotify, MyFitnessPal and Strava.

• A man uses his Google Pixel Watch to pay at a train turnstile.

  No matter where you are or where you’re going, Google Pixel Watch is easy to set up and keep you going.

• A man checks his Google Pixel Watch while waiting at a crosswalk on his bike.

  No matter where you are or where you’re going, Google Pixel Watch is easy to set up and keep you going.

• A woman stands on the sidewalk smiling after checking her Google Pixel Watch notifications.

  No matter where you are or where you’re going, Google Pixel Watch is easy to set up and keep you going.

• A woman in a black tank top uses Pixel Buds and a Google Pixel Watch.

  No matter where you are or where you’re going, Google Pixel Watch is easy to set up and keep you going.

• A runner sits on a track in a spot of light wearing a Google Pixel Watch.

  No matter where you are or where you’re going, Google Pixel Watch is easy to set up and keep you going.

• A man at a coffee shop uses a Pixel 7, Pixel Buds and a Google Pixel Watch near a Nest Hub.

  No matter where you are or where you’re going, Google Pixel Watch is easy to set up and keep you going.

The Google Pixel Watch is a great companion to the Pixel devices you already love. With Fast Pair, your Pixel Buds will automatically connect to your watch once paired with your phone, and you can start a call on the watch and conveniently transition to your phone once in reach. You get music playback controls and turn-by-turn directions on your watch, even if you start them on the phone.

Google Pixel Watch is a great companion to the Pixel family and will work seamlessly with the products you know and love.

To give you added peace of mind, Google Pixel Watch is equipped with an Emergency SOS feature to alert emergency responders or trusted contacts when you’re in an emergency or feeling unsafe. Fall detection (coming in 2023) can sense if you’ve taken a hard fall, connecting you to emergency services and even auto-dialing if you’re unresponsive.

Health and fitness favorites from Fitbit

Google Pixel Watch has deep integration with Fitbit to provide leading health and fitness features, including our most accurate heart rate tracking yet. With on-device machine learning and deep optimization down to the processor level, it gives you an accurate measurement of your heart rate continuously tracking at once per second. The Fitbit experience is completely redesigned for Google Pixel Watch, with 40 exercise modes available to track your favorite workouts and all-day activities including steps, distance with built-in GPS and Active Zone Minutes, to help you push for that extra rep during workouts.

Continuously tracking at once per second, Google Pixel Watch offers an accurate measurement of your heart rate all day long.

It helps you keep tabs on your health with an ECG app to detect signs of Atrial Fibrillation (AFib), better understand your sleep with Sleep Score and Sleep Stages, and receive guidance powered by Fitbit’s 20 billion nights tracked.[7eb3e3]Get insights into key metrics like your breathing rate, heart rate variability and more — all on the Health Metrics Dashboard in the Fitbit app. With Fitbit Premium, you get deeper insights and access to features like Daily Readiness Score so you know when to go all-out in your workout or prioritize rest. More than 1,000 workouts and 400 mindfulness sessions are available to help you take action and approach each day based on what your body is telling you.

Keep your health information right at your fingertips, both on your Google Pixel Watch face and in the Fitbit app.

Getting started is easy

In addition to compatibility with Pixel phones, Google Pixel Watch also works with other Android 8.0+ phones and is available in two connectivity configurations: built-in 4G LTE for phone-free convenience or Bluetooth/Wi-Fi only. Google Fi subscribers can even set up LTE without additional line fees on most plans. Fast Pair makes it easy to set-up your Google Pixel Watch with your Pixel phone, plus existing Fitbit users can pick up where they left off from their current device and won’t lose any stats or personal data.

Google Pixel Watch keeps you going through the day reliably with up to 24 hours of battery life, even with all-day continuous per second heart rate, and health and activity tracking.[fb9cb7]And when you do need a quick charge, get back 50% battery life in just 30 minutes, ideal for pre-bedtime charging for your sleep tracking.[1d7c22]

Google Pixel Watch is available for $349 for Bluetooth/Wi-Fi, and $399 for 4G LTE, including six months of Fitbit Premium and three months of YouTube Music Premium (available in applicable markets). Accessory bands range from $49-$199.

Beginning today, pre-order Google Pixel Watch online at the Google Store, Fitbit.com and select global retailers and your favorite carriers, with availability in nine countries, including US, Canada, United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, France, Japan, Australia and Taiwan, starting October 13.

Pre-order the Google Pixel Watch of your choice starting today.

Introducing Google Pixel Watch, combining the best of Google smarts and Fitbit’s health and fitness, all in a beautiful new design.

When we launched Google Assistant six years ago, we envisioned a world in which you could control lights and thermostats with your voice, naturally communicate with your devices in multiple languages, and simplify your daily tasks with voice controls and proactive reminders. Fast forward to today, and every month more than 700 million people in over 95 countries – and across 29 languages! – get things done reliably with their Assistant. As voice has become a primary way we engage with technology, Assistant makes it easy to get things done across different devices, whether you're at home or on the go.

Today at Made by Google, we shared some of our latest improvements to Assistant’s powerful AI capabilities, including new ways to interact more naturally with Assistant across Pixel 7 and the Google Pixel Watch. Here’s a look at a few of our favorites.

Use your voice to get things done faster and more easilySend messages faster with Assistant voice typing

With Assistant voice typing, you can easily talk to Google to type, edit and send messages on average 2.5x faster than typing on the keyboard, and now in more languages – Spanish, Italian and French. It’s also getting more fun! When you’re writing a message, Assistant voice typing can now suggest emojis relevant to your messages and lets you search the emoji to insert with your voice even without knowing the exact name for it. Just say “LOL emoji” and Assistant will know what you mean

Find out what's new, from the Pixel 7 and 7 Pro to the Google Pixel Watch.

An obscure software system synchronizes the network's clocks. Who will keep it running? From a report: To solve the problem of time synchronization on the arpanet, computer scientist David Mills built what programmers call a protocol -- a collection of rules and procedures that creates a lingua franca for disparate devices. The arpanet was experimental and capricious: electronics failed regularly, and technological misbehavior was common. His protocol sought to detect and correct for those misdeeds, creating a consensus about the time through an ingenious system of suspicion. Mills prided himself on puckish nomenclature, and so his clock-synchronizing system distinguished reliable "truechimers" from misleading "falsetickers." An operating system named Fuzzball, which he designed, facilitated the early work. Mills called his creation the Network Time Protocol, and N.T.P. soon became a key component of the nascent Internet. Programmers followed its instructions when they wrote timekeeping code for their computers. By 1988, Mills had refined N.T.P. to the point where it could synchronize the clocks of connected computers that had been telling vastly differing times to within tens of milliseconds -- a fraction of a blink of an eye. "I always thought that was sort of black magic," Vint Cerf, a pioneer of Internet infrastructure, told me. Today, we take global time synchronization for granted. It is critical to the Internet, and therefore to civilization. Vital systems -- power grids, financial markets, telecommunications networks -- rely on it to keep records and sort cause from effect. N.T.P. works in partnership with satellite systems, such as the Global Positioning System (G.P.S.), and other technologies to synchronize time on our many online devices. The time kept by precise and closely aligned atomic clocks, for instance, can be broadcast via G.P.S. to numerous receivers, including those in cell towers; those receivers can be attached to N.T.P. servers that then distribute the time across devices linked together by the Internet, almost all of which run N.T.P. (Atomic clocks can also directly feed the time to N.T.P. servers.) The protocol operates on billions of devices, coÃrdinating the time on every continent. Society has never been more synchronized.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Welcome to the latest edition of “My Path to Google,” where we talk to Googlers, interns, apprentices and alumni about how they got to Google, what their roles are like and even some tips on how to prepare for interviews.

Today’s post is all about Frances Wang, a test engineering director for the Google Pixel team based in Taiwan.

Can you tell us a bit about yourself?

I grew up in Taiwan and moved to Canada to pursue my bachelor’s degree in life science. After working in the mobile industry for 22 years, I returned to Taiwan to do an Executive MBA, and then started a new chapter of my career here. I enjoy outdoor activities like cycling and golfing, so it’s great to be in Taiwan. There are so many places here where I’m immersed in nature, and I find myself growing in confidence through conquering steeper and longer gradient rides.

Frances enjoying a bike ride.

What’s your role at Google?

I am a Test Engineering Director in our Google Pixel software test team. We’re involved in phone software testing, enhancing test efficiency and effectiveness through automation. My goal every day is to keep our team focused on delivering quality products and improving efficiency. It’s a mix of meetings, project reviews and communicating with other Googlers.

What inspires you to come in (or log on) every day?

Google is growing rapidly in Asia Pacific, and Taiwan is the company’s hub for software and hardware innovation. We have the largest engineering site in APAC and the second largest tech site outside of the US. It’s great to know I am contributing to this growth and working on products used by billions of people around the world.

I’m passionate about product quality and creating a great customer experience. The mobile phone industry is always evolving and as part of the Pixel team, it’s exciting to see how the products and technologies we work on help solve real problems and make people’s lives better. It’s a big plus to work in an environment that encourages innovation while still focusing on data and technical expertise.

How would you describe Google’s culture in Taiwan?

We have an inclusive culture and innovative approach to problem solving. The people here are driven, open and truly find success in collaboration. Google Taiwan is a place for talented people to challenge themselves and maximize their potential.

What advice do you have for someone thinking about applying to Google?

Be ready to deal with ambiguity and solve problems differently. If you’re looking for opportunities in both software and hardware, and you want to work on product used by people around the world, this is the place for you.

Meet Frances Wang, a test engineering director at Google Pixel.

Mark Zuckerberg and other Facebook leaders have given many hints that a reorganization is coming. Now, a specific number of workers are to be deemed "needs support," Insider has learned. From the report: The company is already telling some to find other jobs, leaving workers to call it "quiet layoffs." It told staff last week in a weekly Q&A with CEO Mark Zuckerberg that it was extending a hiring freeze that's been in place since May. Just before this meeting, executives told directors across the company that they should select at least 15% of their teams to be labeled as "needs support" in an internal review process, one of the people who spoke with Insider said. All the workers asked not to be identified discussing nonpublic information. This was also discussed last week in a post from a Meta worker on Blind, an app popular with tech workers that requires a valid company email address to use anonymously. "These 15% will likely be put on PIP and be let go," the person wrote. The post prompted hundreds of comments from many other Meta workers who debated how many people would be let go. In Facebook's employee-review process, someone deemed in need of support is ostensibly dipping below performance goals. It is broadly seen by workers as a "performance-improvement plan," or PIP, and a precursor to losing your job. In July, Maher Saba, Meta's head of engineering, told managers they needed to identify everyone on their teams who fell into the "needs-support" category but did not specify a percentage of people who should be labeled that way.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Guardian: An artificial intelligence tool that scans eyes can accurately predict a person's risk of heart disease in less than a minute, researchers say. [...] Researchers developed a fully automated AI-enabled tool, Quartz, to assess the potential of retinal vasculature imaging -- plus known risk factors -- to predict vascular health and death. They used the tool to scan images from 88,052 UK Biobank participants aged 40 to 69. The researchers looked specifically at the width, vessel area and degree of curviness of the arteries and veins in the retina to develop prediction models for stroke, heart attack and death from circulatory disease. They subsequently applied the models to the retinal images of 7,411 participants, aged 48 to 92, of the European prospective investigation into cancer (Epic)-Norfolk study. The performance of Quartz was compared with the widely used Framingham risk scores framework. Everyone's health was tracked for an average of seven to nine years. In men, the width, curviness and width variation of veins and arteries in their retinas were found to be important predictors of death from circulatory disease. In women, artery area and width and vein curviness and width variation contributed to risk prediction. The AI tool harnessed data from participants including any history of smoking, drugs to treat high blood pressure, and previous heart attacks. Researchers found the retina data computed by Quartz was significantly associated with cardiovascular disease, deaths and strokes, with similar predictive performance to the Framingham clinical risk score. Their findings were published in the British Journal of Ophthalmology.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

“Design is about solving problems,” says Ivy Ross who leads the team that creates how a Google product — including new products announced today at our Made by Google event — looks, feels and acts when you hold it in your hands. When designing this new line of products her team had to solve a whole host of choices — from designing a WiFi router you actually want to put on your shelf to deciding what Google's first-ever watch should look like.

We chatted with Ivy — along with Isabelle Olsson, who leads design for home and wearable products and our team that develops colors, materials and finishes for hardware products, and Claude Zellweger, who leads industrial design for Pixel phones — to get the scoop on 10 design details in our latest hardware products that were made with you in mind.

• Image of a woman holding the new Pixel phone up to her ear and wearing a watch in a matching color

  The Pixel 7 in the new energizing Lemongrass color.

• Close up of two phones showing the front and back cameras

  The horizontal camera bars blend into the frame.

• The edge of the Pixel phone tapping up against the Google Pixel Watch face.

  Color combos and finishes you can coordinate across products.

• A silhouette of the Google Pixel Watch set agains a light pink background

  Inspired by water droplets, the smooth domed glass face of the Google Pixel Watch.

Colors to calm you

Pixel 7 Pro comes in a fresh new color: Hazel. The nature-inspired greenish hue is soothing, and the warm gold metal finish adds some polish. The Pixel 7 comes in a new energizing color: Lemongrass. “We wanted to create colors that are calming, yet also surprising,” Isabelle says. If being matchy-matchy is the kind of look that calms your mood, you’ll be happy to see matching color combos and finishes across products.

Line up the lenses

Both phones have horizontal camera bars that now blend seamlessly into the frames — and the aluminum in the housing and camera bar is 100% recycled content.[ba4e13]This simplified design reduces the number of parts to make the phone, and just feels better in your hand thanks to its fluid and smooth surfaces. “At the core of it, we wanted to bring more emphasis to the camera,” Claude says.

Silky to the touch

Pixel 7 has a silky smooth feel thanks to our new zirconia-blasted matte finish. Meanwhile, Pixel 7 Pro has a high-polished aluminum finish that takes inspiration from jewelry and watches.

You bezel believe it

The phones feature a bezel that’s even thinner than the Pixel 6 phones. With a thinner bezel — which is the frame on the front of the device that isn’t the screen — you can look at more content that’s relevant to you as opposed to extraneous borders.

A smartwatch dripping with inspiration

Inspired by water droplets, the smooth domed glass face of the Google Pixel Watch keeps it from snagging on your shirts or sleeves. But that design choice was more than just a functional one. “A smartwatch first and foremost is a watch,” says Ivy, who pulled from her background as a jeweler and her love for collecting traditional watches to help design this watch. “The round design represents the ancient shape of time and balances the fact that we fit all of the modern smarts of Google and health and wellness features from Fitbit into the watch.”

• The Google Pixel Watch with a soft green band against a green background

  The Google Pixel Watch up close.

• An overhead shot of watch bands in the process of being designed

  The team thoughtfully chose materials and colors for the watch bands.

• A line of images showing how a plastic fork ends up as a watch band

  The woven band accessory is made with recycled materials .

• The Nest Wifi Pro sitting on a shelf

  The Nest WiFi Pro is designed to look good out in the open.

• A photo of the hardware portfolio in neutral colors

  The neutral tones and subtle hues match any vibe.

• A close up of the Nest Wifi Pro showing the soft edges and high-gloss finish

  The high-gloss finish was inspired by ceramics and glassware.

Bands that click with any mood

From casual to formal to active, there’s a watch band designed for all your moods and needs. Plus, according to Isabelle, the way the bands click into place to attach is incredibly easy and satisfying.

A color combo to rule them all

To get the perfect mix of colors for the woven fabric watch band accessory — which is made of recycled plastic yarn[4cefda]— the team tested at least 200 different color combos in one week. The result is a band that looks simple and understated from far away, but catches people’s attention up close.

A shelf-worthy design

You’ll want to give some countertop real estate to the new Nest WiFi Pro, which was designed to look good out in the open. “The areas where WiFi routers go — like countertops, side tables and shelves — usually have beautiful collected items from people's lives like a flower vase, a sculpture or a stack of books,” Isabelle says. To make sure the Nest WiFi Pro fits in with people’s treasured objects, the team chose a high-gloss finish — inspired by ceramics and glassware — and subtle hues that match any vibe.

Good things come in small packages

You might notice that the Pixel phone packaging has less plastic — the packaging is now 99% plastic free. The team ditched extraneous materials and created a box the phones fit safely and snugly inside.

Sustainability as the guide

From choosing recycled materials for our packaging and products to coming up with designs that create less waste and are built to last — sustainability is built into so many of the decisions our designers make. Because of these thoughtful choices, we’ve used even more recycled materials in our newest products, like the Nest Wifi Pro which is made of more than 60% recycled materials. And it doesn’t stop here. By 2025, we aim to use recycled or renewable materials for at least 50% of the plastic used across our hardware products. And we’re on track to eliminate plastic from our packaging by that same time. Each of these goals is another challenge our design team is ready to tackle.

Learn more about the design behind our new hardware products from three Google designers.

{Updated} In this tip, I will explain how we can iterate over a list of files with blank or white spaces in their names. This is a common problem in bash, where space is usually interpreted as a delimiter when using with for loop.The post BASH Shell: For Loop File Names With Spaces appeared first on nixCraft. 2022-09-19T18:06:00Z 2022-09-19T18:06:00Z Vivek Gite