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Eric Schmidt to step down as executive chairman of Alphabet
Eric Schmidt will no longer serve as the executive chairman of Alphabet's board of directors. According to a company statement, he will be transitioning to a new role as technical advisor on "science and technology issues."
Google will downrank Russian state news agencies
The extent to which fake news is propagating the internet has become increasingly clear in recent months. In October Facebook revealed some 3,000 politically-charged adverts had been placed in crucial swing states in the US, while Freedom House this month demonstrated that governments in no less than 30 countries are creating content to distort the digital landscape in their favour. Russia's influence appears time and again in these stories, and Google is now preparing to take action by "de-ranking" the Russian news sites it believes is at the heart of the issue.
Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs is building an 'internet city' in Toronto
The next step for Alphabet's Sidewalk Labs is making a 2,000 acre smart neighborhood in Toronto. Google Canada will relocate its headquarters to the newly created Quayside neighborhood along the Eastern Waterfront to serve as an anchor for the area, and will invest some $50 million in the first phase of planning and project testing, according to a press release. The entire project could cost as much as $1 billion, Wall Street Journal reports. TechCrunch writes that an additional $1.25 billion will come from Toronto itself. Prime minister Justin Trudeau said that the move is to make for "smarter, greener, more inclusive" cities that he hopes will expand across Toronto and eventually the globe.
Microsoft and Google agree to work out regulatory disputes
Microsoft and Google have reached a worldwide ceasefire agreement in their ongoing regulatory disputes, Re/code reports today. In September, the two tech superpowers dropped the boatload of lawsuits they'd carried against each other for years. Today, the pair announced they will work together to settle any further disputes before going to court or involving any number of regulatory bodies around the globe.
Alphabet's Eric Schmidt to lead military innovation board
Alphabet executive chairman Eric Schmidt will soon head up an advisory board for the US military. Defense Secretary Ash Carter revealed today that Schmidt had agreed to lead the Pentagon's new Defense Innovation Advisory Board. The group is tasked with leveraging the innovation of Silicon Valley to the US military by bridging the divide between the government and the tech industry. Secretary Carter announced the board during the RSA cybersecurity conference that's taking place in San Francisco this week, where he also plans to meet with the Schmidt.
Eric Schmidt: Apple Music's human curation is 'elitist'
Every now and again, executives from the world's largest tech companies like to throw some thinly-veiled shade in the direction of their rivals. Depending on who you ask, Eric Schmidt's editorial for BBC News can be taken as a stinging attack on Apple Music, which he calls "elitist" and out-dated. The Alphabet chief was writing about the benefits of artificial intelligence, specifically talking about how machine learning can benefit various projects including speech recognition and self-driving cars.
Google to block child sex abuse search results globally over the next six months
Eric Schmidt himself took to the British press to announce that Google has made a big step in ridding its search results of links to underage sexual abuse -- with some image detection assistance from Microsoft. The Google chairman said he hired a 200-strong team to work out a solution over the last three months and that their work has already fixed up to 100,000 potential queries. The UK Prime Minister David Cameron has welcomed the news as "significant progress." He's also praised Google's previous set of measures, which displayed a warning to people attempting to search for illegal material and caused a 20 percent drop in illicit activity. For now, Google's newest improvements are limited to English-speaking countries, including the UK and US, although the search company says it'll roll out its adjusted search globally over the next six months, covering 158 more languages.
Google's Eric Schmidt slams NSA over 'outrageous' data center snooping and privacy invasion
Google's Executive Chairman and former CEO Eric Schmidt isn't a huge fan of the NSA or its surveillance methods, it seems. Speaking to The Wall Street Journal, Schmidt declared: "It's really outrageous that the National Security Agency was looking between the Google data centers, if true." His comment follows recent reports of a nefarious tool crafted by the agency and the UK's GCHQ that accessed Google and Yahoo data lairs without permission. Schmidt also said that to "potentially violate people's privacy, it's not OK," and that the broad public scrutiny months of leaks has uncovered is unnecessary to find a few bad eggs. Referring to claims that the NSA amassed phone records of 320 million people to actually investigate more like 300, the Google exec commented: "That's just bad public policy... and perhaps illegal." Not that the search giant has any personal experience with illegal data collection, of course.
Eric Schmidt praises Myanmar's mobile efforts, but says North Korea hasn't called back
Google's Executive Chairman, Eric Schmidt, was at the Chinese University of Hong Kong earlier today to launch a local entrepreneurship program with the institute. As a man who believes in free and open internet to aid startups and innovation, the exec was happy to give an update on North Korea and Myanmar since he last visited there to promote better web access. For the former, Schmidt joked that no one called him back since the phones there still don't work for local folks. "North Korea is the most isolated country in the world. 23 million people, a million phones, they talk within the country but not out," Schmidt said. "You cannot get information in and out of the country, it's a terrible disservice to the citizens of the country." The exec continued that he can't tell if his visit had any impact at all: soon after he attempted to convince Kim Jong-un's government "to open up to a little bit of the internet," its recent territorial dispute with South Korea held back progress. "I think history will see if it gets better or not," Schmidt said.
Eric Schmidt calls Android more secure than the iPhone, elicits laughter from crowd of CIOs and IT execs
There's no denying that Eric Schmidt is an incredibly intelligent guy, but the former Google CEO certainly has a penchant for making rather bold and arguably laughable claims. Recall that, in late 2011, he confidently predicted that mobile developers, in just six months' time mind you, would begin developing apps for Android before shifting their attention to iOS. Outdoing himself, Schmidt also predicted that "by the summer of 2012, the majority of the televisions you see in stores will have Google TV embedded." In his latest verbal fumble, Schmidt told a packed house at the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo that Android is more secure than the iPhone. While the phrase "hilarity ensues" is often bandied about in jest, Schmidt's remark literally did elicit laughter from a crowd comprised of CIOs and senior IT executives. ZDNet reports: Gartner analyst David Willis, who is chief of research for mobility and communications and who runs Gartner's Senior Research Board, said to Schmidt: "If you polled many people in this audience, they would say Google Android is not their principal platform [...] When you say Android, people say, wait a minute, Android is not secure." Schmidt didn't miss a beat, replying, "Not secure? It's more secure than the iPhone." Schmidt's answer, the report claims, "drew laughter from a packed-house audience." Not surprisingly, the report also relays that Schmidt didn't attempt to explain his answer, but rather "danced around" by trotting out the fact that Android has over a billion users and that it "therefore goes through rigorous real-world security testing." As for the prevalence of malware across mobile platforms, here are some statistics Schmidt might want to consider. The US Department of Homeland Security, along with the US Department of Justice, issued a memo last August highlighting that 44 percent of Android users were using vulnerable versions of the Android OS that were originally released in 2011. It also found that 79 percent of mobile malware posed a threat to Android, whereas just 0.7 percent of mobile malware posed a threat to iOS devices. In another report, this one released by Juniper Networks in June of 2013, it was revealed that 92 percent of all mobile malware was designed to target Android devices. The Juniper Networks report does point out that while 77 percent of Android-based malware threats could be eliminated if all Android users were using the most recent Android release, only 4 percent of users were found to be using the most recent version of Android. This of course stands in stark contrast to iOS where users have adopted iOS 7 in record numbers.
See how the Moto X is made (video)
Not everyone gets to walk behind the tech industry's velvet ropes. So when Motorola opened the gates to its Fort Worth, Texas facility -- the place where custom Moto X's are made -- we were there to bring you an inside look. And in the interest of getting you even more intimately acquainted with the Google company's assembled in the USA smartphone production hub, we have something almost as good as being there: a behind-the-scenes video tour. So, what are you waiting for... an invite? Head past the break to glimpse phase one of this whole new Motorola and see Governor Rick Perry spike an iPhone 5.
Motorola's American Dream: unbridled customization, two-day shipping and a Texas factory
It wasn't supposed to happen this way: Motorola had picked the date for its Fort Worth, Texas facility's dedication ceremony first. But then Apple went ahead to claim the date and stole the day's spotlight with its new iPhone reveals. No matter, as the gathering of press, factory workers and bold-faced names -- Google Chairman Eric Schmidt and Texas Gov. Rick Perry -- seemed minorly preoccupied with the major news of the day. We were in the midst of Nokia's old manufacturing plant, after all, now the birthplace of all custom-made Moto X's and there was the spirit of American manufacturing to celebrate. To drive that point home, some very Springsteen-ish tunes were pumped over the loudspeakers as we all patiently awaited the end of Cupertino's product showcase and the start of Motorola's "we can too make it in the USA" toldja moment. I even half-expected Miley Cyrus to jump onstage with an assortment of teddy bears brandishing raver-hued Moto X's. She didn't and an Americana Twitter-trending hashtag moment was missed. Still there was one exceptional and unscripted highlight waiting in the wings. It wasn't CEO Dennis Woodside nose-thumbing at those unnamed rivals that said US-based production could and would never happen. Nor was it Schmidt's patriotic pledge to the Texas facility: "This is a bet we're taking on America ... on Texas [and] on this incredible workforce that's assembled here. We think this is a very, very safe bet." No. It was the moment Woodside presented Gov. Perry with a Moto X -- designed with Texan colors -- and Perry, in response, unceremoniously spiked his iPhone to the floor below. Yes, the moment is caught on tape.
EU regulators say Google must improve its antitrust concession offer (updated)
The European Union's antitrust chief, Joaquin Almunia, told a news conference today that the commission had deemed Google's recent concession offer insufficient. According to a Reuters report, Almunia has written a letter directly to Eric Schmidt demanding that the company "present better proposals," following the antitrust inquiry into Google's search and page ranking behavior. "After an analysis of the market test that was concluded on June 27, I concluded that the proposals that Google sent to us are not enough to overcome our concerns." These changes, which would be enacted in the next five years, included more labelling of links that promote Googles own search services (like shopping), along the lines of showing that they are promoted placements. There would also be more graphical separation of the above links -- again, like how you see promoted ads in the search results page. The company would also offer the ability for rival search sites to tag their results so that Google would be unable to improve its own search offering by indexing those pages. Given other recent issues between Google and some European countries, the proposals also touched on offering a way for publishers to control exactly what part of their content is used in Google News. The search giant's proposals were handed to the European Commission back in April, following its three-year investigation, with the regulator involving both Google's rivals and third parties in its decision-making process. We've reached out to Mountain View for comment and will tell you more when we hear it, and you can check out some of those rejected proposals at the More Coverage link. Update: Google spokesman Al Verney added that the company would continue to work with the EU on the matter. "Our proposal to the European Commission clearly addresses the four areas of concern."
The Daily Roundup for 07.12.2013
You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
Unannounced Motorola Moto X likely spotted in the hands of Google's Eric Schmidt
During the winter, Sun Valley is known for its skiing. This time of the year, however, it's quickly becoming a tech hotspot as some of the industry's top execs gather together at the annual Allen and Co media conference. Among the attendees is Google's Eric Schmidt, who brought along a mystery Motorola phone and couldn't resist showing it off. While Schmidt couldn't "comment on the nature of this phone," according to Variety's Rachel Abrams, it certainly didn't stop him from giving everyone a sneak peek. Multiple images of the device, which appears to feature a carbon fiber-like back and sleek curves, popped up on Twitter from the likes of Gary He and Taylor Wimberly. As it doesn't match the leaked pictures of the upcoming Droid Ultra or Maxx -- but carries an uncanny resemblance to the leaks and FCC diagrams we've seen of the X already -- we're guessing this is the legendary smartphone in the flesh; and judging by Schmidt's willingness to flaunt it, it's quite likely that we won't have to wait much longer before we see even more of it. There's one more shot of the device from the top past the break.
Eric Schmidt: Relationship with Apple has improved
It's funny how quickly things can change in the world of tech. One second, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt is on stage with Steve Jobs during the iPhone introduction, and the next, Jobs is threatening to destroy Android and go "thermonuclear" against Google for "slavishly copying" the look and feel of Apple's crown jewel -- iOS. You might also recall that Jobs, during an Apple town hall meeting in 2010, didn't mince words when asked a question about Google. We did not enter the search business. They entered the phone business. Make no mistake: they want to kill the iPhone. We won't let them [...] This don't be evil mantra? It's bullshit. All that said, it hardly comes as a surprise that Apple over the past few years has removed every Google property from the iOS home screen. You may have also noticed that Bing is now the search engine that powers Siri's web search results in iOS 7. Suffice it to say, Google and Apple are full-on competitors and have been for quite some time. Indeed, it almost seems like eons ago when Schmidt actually held a seat on Apple's board of directors. But the vitriol between the two companies, as evidenced by Jobs' statements above, appears to have died down a bit -- at least if you're inclined to believe Schmidt. Speaking to reporters on Thursday at the Allen and Co media conference, Schmidt said that relations between Apple and Google have improved and that the two companies are having "lots and lots of meetings." Reuters reports: He noted that Google Chief Business Officer Nikesh Arora, who joined him at the press briefing, was leading many of the discussions. The two companies are in "constant business discussions on a long list of issues," Schmidt said. That's all well and good if it's in fact true, but it's easy to be skeptical when Google and Schmidt have always played it coy when it comes to publicly characterizing their relationship with Apple.
Google's Eric Schmidt admits talking to Glass is 'the weirdest thing'
We're still getting to grips with an Explorer edition of Google's Glass ourselves, but Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt has noted that Glass may take some getting used to. Talking to an audience on Thursday at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, he said that alongside the unusual sensation of voice control, people would have to develop new etiquette to deal with the fact that incoming wearables like Google Glass would be able to capture images and access information at whim. "There are obviously places where Google Glasses are inappropriate," he said, while stifling a cheeky wink. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Eric Schmidt: Google now at 1.5 million Android activations per day
There's a Google exec speaking at a tech conference, and that means one thing: more Android statistics. At Dive Into Mobile today, Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt confirmed that the company is now seeing 1.5 million Android activations per day, which is up from 1.3 million per day last fall and 1.4 million as of last month (seemingly an uptick after a short period of slower growth). Schmidt also says that the company remains on track for one billion total devices by the end of the year, which would be a sizeable increase from the 750 million that CEO Larry Page confirmed in his most recent statement last month. Schmidt further notes that the key to that future growth -- or reaching the "next five billion people looking to get connected," as he puts it -- will be the $100 price point, something he suggests they'll quickly get to.
Liveblog: Google's Eric Schmidt at Dive Into Mobile 2013
Fresh off of a trip to North Korea, Google's executive chairman has found himself on stage here in New York City. Eric Schmidt is kicking off the second day of D: Dive Into Mobile 2013 here in the Big Apple, and we're just a few feet away -- you know, so we can liveblog every last word of it. And, to ogle his fashionable sneakers. For those looking for a glimpse into yesteryear, you can relive our liveblog from Schmidt's D9 keynote in 2011 right here. Head on past the break for today's interview!
Zuckerberg, Schmidt, Mayer and others back FWD.us tech political lobby group
If you thought that Mark Zuckerberg's aspirations ended at commanding your smartphone, then think again. The Facebook chief has teamed up with a raft of other tech heavyweights including Eric Schmidt, Marissa Mayer and Elon Musk to form FWD.us, a political lobby group designed to promote tech-friendly causes. The first issue it wants to tackle is immigration reform to make it easier to woo foreign engineering talent, but it also has designs on scientific research, education reform and job creation. Evidently, these people still have spare time even after their stressful day jobs.
