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Google+ is dead again, maybe for good this time
Google Workspaces announced that it has killed off Google+ spinoff Currents, marking the final end of its social network or whatever G+ was.
Steve Dent02.11.2022
Facebook will be liable for future Cambridge Analytica-style scandals
Facebook is updating its terms and conditions after agreeing several changes with the EU. It will have to clearly explain to users they can access the social network for free because it uses targeted ads that rely on user data. Facebook will also have to disclose what revenues it generates through the use of such data.
Kris Holt04.09.2019
Internet Archive races to preserve public Google+ posts
Just because Google+ is shutting down on April 2nd doesn't mean your years of social posts will be lost in the void. The ArchiveTeam recently started caching public Google+ content to make it available on the Internet Archive after the fateful day. This won't include content that was deleted or made private before the archival process began, and might not include all comments or full-resolution media. Still, this will ensure that you have some way of reliving moments years down the road.
Jon Fingas03.17.2019
Google is killing its Notifications Widget
As the death knell sounds for Google+, so too comes the end for the Google's Notification Widget. Introduced in 2011 alongside Google+, the bell icon in the top-right corner of every Google page was designed to alert users to activity on the social network, eventually expanding to include Google Photos and Hangout Chat. Now, though, a warning message indicates that the service will end on March 7th. After this date, the navigation bar will only feature your profile avatar and other settings, including the app launcher. Not to worry if you still rely on the feature for Photos, Hangout Chat or Google+ enterprise, though, as you can still enable alerts in the settings section of each individual app.
Rachel England02.06.2019
Uber, Google, Facebook: Your experiments have gone too far
It was 2014, around the time when Travis Kalanick referred to Uber as his chick-magnet "Boober" in a GQ article, that I'd realized congestion in San Francisco had gone insane. Before there was Uber, getting across town took about ten minutes by car and there was nowhere to park, ever. With Boober in play, there was parking in places there never were spaces, but the streets were so jammed with empty, one-person "gig economy" cars circling, sitting in bus zones, mowing down bicyclists whilst fussing with their phones, still endlessly going nowhere, alone, that walking across the city was faster.
Violet Blue10.19.2018
Congress seeks more information on the Google+ data exposure
Since the Google+ data exposure came to light earlier this week, European regulatory authorities have announced investigations into the matter and a US Senator has called for an FTC probe. Now, the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation has sent the company a letter requesting more information about the incident and Google's decision to keep it under wraps.
Mallory Locklear10.11.2018
Senator calls for FTC investigation into Google+ data exposure
Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) said during a Congressional hearing today on consumer data privacy that he's calling for an investigation into Google's latest data exposure. During his questioning of those testifying before the committee -- which included Andrea Jelinek, chair of the European Data Protection Board, and Alastair Mactaggart, the real estate developer who introduced a consumer privacy ballot measure in California -- he called the Google+ data exposure "the elephant in the room" and emphasized the need for greater consumer privacy protections in the US.
Mallory Locklear10.10.2018
Google+ is dead, but its legacy lives on
Following the revelation of a security vulnerability that exposed the private data of up to 500,000 Google+ users, Google is finally ready to pull the plug on the consumer version of its troubled social network. Simply put, the company said Monday, Google+ has not achieved the broad consumer or developer adoption it had hoped for. Google even said that 90 percent of Google+ user sessions were lasting less than five seconds. This sums up the sad state of a service that, when it launched in 2011, Google dreamed of turning into a serious Facebook competitor.
Edgar Alvarez10.09.2018
Germany is investigating the Google+ data exposure
Yesterday Google disclosed that it had inadvertently exposed Google+ users' personal data and that up to 500,000 accounts might have been affected. But the issue, which was discovered in March, was kept under wraps -- a decision Google said was made because there was no evidence that the data had been misused and no way to fully determine which users were affected. However, it appears that concerns over regulatory scrutiny and bad press may have played into that decision as well. Well now the company is being put under that magnifying glass it had been looking to avoid, as Germany's data protection commissioner has announced an investigation into the incident.
Mallory Locklear10.09.2018
The worst part about the Google+ security flaw was the silence
Google+ was the search giant's attempt to build a Google-owned social network that could take on Facebook. Despite the obvious benefits of Google's scale and reach, Google+ was a ghost town, and quickly became a punchline. The gag became that the only people who ever used it were Google employees and the company's die-hardest fans.
Daniel Cooper10.09.2018
Google is shutting down Google+ following massive data exposure
Following a massive data exposure first reported on by The Wall Street Journal, Google announced today that it is shutting down its social network Google+ for consumers. While data was exposed, there is no evidence that it was improperly accessed. The company finally admitted that Google+ never received the broad adoption or engagement with users that it had hoped for -- according to a blog post, 90 percent of Google+ user sessions last for less than five seconds. In light of these newly revealed security concerns with Google+'s API, the company has opted to put it out of its misery over the next ten months rather than try and make the social network more secure.
Swapna Krishna10.08.2018
EU: Facebook and Twitter must do more to protect users
New changes made by Facebook and Twitter to their terms of service still don't conform to the EU's demands to protect consumers, the European Commission said. Specifically, the social networks haven't properly told users why content is removed and that they have the right to terminate their accounts. On top of that, the companies still aren't saying how quickly they'll deal with requests from authorities to pull down harmful content.
Steve Dent02.15.2018
Google+ for Android gets rebuilt for the few that still use it
Remember Google+? The search giant's take on a social network, complete with 'Circles' for organising contacts and 'Communities' for connecting with like-minded people? Well the site is still up and running, even if its active user base remains low. If you're a holdout, however, good news — Google is working on a "brand new" version of the Google+ app for Android devices. Though it "closely resembles" the current app, the underlying rewrite means the team should be able to build new features "on a modern tech stack." That's according to Leo Deegan, anyway, an engineering manager for the Google+ team, who explained the changes in a public post.
Nick Summers02.06.2018
EU says social media is getting better at blocking hate speech
In 2016, Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft and YouTube signed on to a European Union code of conduct, agreeing to review all reports of hate speech on their platforms within 24 hours and taking down flagged posts if necessary. The EU has kept close tabs on the companies' performances since signing and today EU officials reported that the tech giants had improved substantially since May of last year. "Today's results clearly show that online platforms take seriously their commitment to review notifications and remove illegal hate speech within 24 hours," said European Commission Vice President Andrus Ansip.
Mallory Locklear01.19.2018
Google+ 'Topics' highlight active users and communities
Google's latest feature for its social network can make your home stream look a little bit less lonely. Next time you check Google+, you'll see a new block in your stream listing topics you can explore. The social network already has hundreds of topics on rotation that you can click through, including Black & White Photography, Art, Science, Toy Models & Crafts. They're all in English, Spanish and Portuguese, though, and it's unclear if they'll ever be available in other languages.
Mariella Moon04.28.2017
Snapseed makes it easier to add drama to your photos
Snapseed doesn't see quite the amount of updates that other Google-owned products do, but each one lately has been pretty significant. The name of the game for the latest is the addition of curves. Essentially, what this new feature does is allow manipulating things like contrast, brightness and color intensity in a given image. Oftentimes, it's one of the easiest and most dramatic ways you can edit a photo.
Timothy J. Seppala02.01.2017
Google+ revives one of its most useful features: Events
Google overhauled Google+ from top to bottom in late 2015 to shift the focus to communities. The company has been tweaking the social platform since that change and today its announcing the latest updates. First, events are back on Google+. Starting January 24th, one of the more handy features the social network had to offer will return. The means you will be able to create and join events on the web, but the tool won't be part of G Suite right now.
Billy Steele01.17.2017
The new Google+ is coming for all users soon
The new Google+ is slowly being rolled out to additional users over the next few days, according to Danielle Buckley, Product Manager at Google. Finally, anyone who wasn't able to take a look at the new features back when the preview was introduced last November will get a chance to sift through the changes.
Brittany Vincent08.30.2016
Huawei confirms that smartphone cameras still aren't DSLRs
It's not the camera, it's the photographer, right? Actually, sometimes it's both, as Huawei just proved. It recently posted a lovely image, complete with a lens flare, implying that it was taken with its photo-centric P9 smartphone. "The #HuaweiP9's dual Leica cameras makes taking photos in low light conditions like this a pleasure," says the Google+ post caption. The only problem? It was actually taken with a Canon EOS 5D Mark III equipped with a very pricey 70-200mm F/2.8 lens worth $4,500 total, as the EXIF data clearly proves.
Steve Dent07.05.2016
Google Photos gets some much-needed editing tools
When Google broke Photos out from Google+, there were a lot of benefits -- a canny search algorithm, unlimited storage for compressed photos and more. One thing that got lost, however, was the Snapseed-based photo editing tool in G+ that gave users a decent option to Adobe's Photoshop (Snapseed is still available as a standalone Android app, though). In the latest web-based version of Photos, Google has made some much-needed improvements to the editing tools.
Steve Dent03.02.2016