Nearly 200 Google DeepMind workers signed a letter urging Google to cease its military contracts, expressing concerns that the AI technology they develop is being used in warfare, which they believe violates Google's own AI ethics principles. "The letter is a sign of a growing dispute within Google between at least some workers in its AI division -- which has pledged to never work on military technology -- and its Cloud business, which has contracts to sell Google services, including AI developed inside DeepMind, to several governments and militaries including those of Israel and the United States," reports TIME Magazine. "The signatures represent some 5% of DeepMind's overall headcount -- a small portion to be sure, but a significant level of worker unease for an industry where top machine learning talent is in high demand." From the report: The DeepMind letter, dated May 16 of this year, begins by stating that workers are "concerned by recent reports of Google's contracts with military organizations." It does not refer to any specific militaries by name -- saying "we emphasize that this letter is not about the geopolitics of any particular conflict." But it links out to an April report in TIME which revealed that Google has a direct contract to supply cloud computing and AI services to the Israeli Military Defense, under a wider contract with Israel called Project Nimbus. The letter also links to other stories alleging that the Israeli military uses AI to carry out mass surveillance and target selection for its bombing campaign in Gaza, and that Israeli weapons firms are required by the government to buy cloud services from Google and Amazon.

"Any involvement with military and weapon manufacturing impacts our position as leaders in ethical and responsible AI, and goes against our mission statement and stated AI Principles," the letter that circulated inside Google DeepMind says. (Those principles state the company will not pursue applications of AI that are likely to cause "overall harm," contribute to weapons or other technologies whose "principal purpose or implementation" is to cause injury, or build technologies "whose purpose contravenes widely accepted principles of international law and human rights.") The letter says its signatories are concerned with "ensuring that Google's AI Principles are upheld," and adds: "We believe [DeepMind's] leadership shares our concerns." [...]

The letter calls on DeepMind's leaders to investigate allegations that militaries and weapons manufacturers are Google Cloud users; terminate access to DeepMind technology for military users; and set up a new governance body responsible for preventing DeepMind technology from being used by military clients in the future. Three months on from the letter's circulation, Google has done none of those things, according to four people with knowledge of the matter. "We have received no meaningful response from leadership," one said, "and we are growing increasingly frustrated."

Google is making a new desktop app called Essentials that packages a few Google services, like Messages and Photos, and includes links to download many others. The app will be included with many new Windows laptops, with the first ones coming from HP. From a report: The Essentials app lets you "discover and install many of our best Google services," according to Google's announcement, and lets you browse Google Photos as well as send and receive Google Messages in the app. A full list of apps has not yet been announced, but Google's announcement art showcases icons including Google Sheets, Google Drive, Nearby Share, and Google One (a two-month free trial is offered through Essentials for new subscribers).

HP will start including Google Essentials across its computer brands, like Envy, Pavilion, Omen, and more. Google says you're "in control of your experience" and can uninstall any part of Essentials or the whole thing.

Android Authority's Mishaal Rahman reports: Security vulnerabilities are lurking in most of the apps you use on a day-to-day basis; there's just no way for most companies to preemptively fix every possible security issue because of human error, deadlines, lack of resources, and a multitude of other factors. That's why many organizations run bug bounty programs to get external help with fixing these issues. The Google Play Security Reward Program (GPSRP) is an example of a bug bounty program that paid security researchers to find vulnerabilities in popular Android apps, but it's being shut down later this month. Google announced the Google Play Security Reward Program back in October 2017 as a way to incentivize security searchers to find and, most importantly, responsibly disclose vulnerabilities in popular Android apps distributed through the Google Play Store. [...]

The purpose of the Google Play Security Reward Program was simple: Google wanted to make the Play Store a more secure destination for Android apps. According to the company, vulnerability data they collected from the program was used to help create automated checks that scanned all apps available in Google Play for similar vulnerabilities. In 2019, Google said these automated checks helped more than 300,000 developers fix more than 1,000,000 apps on Google Play. Thus, the downstream effect of the GPSRP is that fewer vulnerable apps are distributed to Android users.

However, Google has now decided to wind down the Google Play Security Reward Program. In an email to participating developers, such as Sean Pesce, the company announced that the GPSRP will end on August 31st. The reason Google gave is that the program has seen a decrease in the number of actionable vulnerabilities reported. The company credits this success to the "overall increase in the Android OS security posture and feature hardening efforts."

Google has reached a groundbreaking deal with California lawmakers to contribute millions to local newsrooms, aiming to support journalism amid its decline as readers migrate online and advertising dollars evaporate. The agreement also includes a controversial provision for artificial intelligence funding. Politico reports: California emulated a strategy that other countries like Canada have used to try and reverse the journalism industry's decline as readership migrated online and advertising dollars evaporated. [...] Under the deal, the details of which were first reported by POLITICO on Monday, Google and the state of California would jointly contribute a minimum of $125 million over five years to support local newsrooms through a nonprofit public charity housed at UC Berkeley's journalism school. Google would contribute at least $55 million, and state officials would kick in at least $70 million. The search giant would also commit $50 million over five years to unspecified "existing journalism programs."

The deal would also steer millions in tax-exempt private dollars toward an artificial intelligence initiative that people familiar with the negotiations described as an effort to cultivate tech industry buy-in. Funding for artificial intelligence was not included in the bill at the core of negotiations, authored by Assemblymember Buffy Wicks. The agreement has drawn criticism from a journalists' union that had so far championed Wicks' effort. Media Guild of the West President Matt Pearce in an email to union members Sunday evening said such a deal would entrench "Google's monopoly power over our newsrooms." "This public-private partnership builds on our long history of working with journalism and the local news ecosystem in our home state, while developing a national center of excellence on AI policy," said Kent Walker, chief legal officer for Alphabet, the parent company of Google.

Media Guild of the West President Matt Pearce wasn't so chipper. He criticized the plan in emails with union members, calling it a "total rout of the state's attempts to check Google's stranglehold over our newsrooms."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Chrome users who declined to sync their Google accounts with their browsing data secured a big privacy win this week after previously losing a proposed class action claiming that Google secretly collected personal data without consent from over 100 million Chrome users who opted out of syncing. On Tuesday, the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals reversed (PDF) the prior court's finding that Google had properly gained consent for the contested data collection. The appeals court said that the US district court had erred in ruling that Google's general privacy policies secured consent for the data collection. The district court failed to consider conflicts with Google's Chrome Privacy Notice (CPN), which said that users' "choice not to sync Chrome with their Google accounts meant that certain personal information would not be collected and used by Google," the appeals court ruled.

Rather than analyzing the CPN, it appears that the US district court completely bought into Google's argument that the CPN didn't apply because the data collection at issue was "browser agnostic" and occurred whether a user was browsing with Chrome or not. But the appeals court -- by a 3-0 vote -- did not. In his opinion, Circuit Judge Milan Smith wrote that the "district court should have reviewed the terms of Google's various disclosures and decided whether a reasonable user reading them would think that he or she was consenting to the data collection." "By focusing on 'browser agnosticism' instead of conducting the reasonable person inquiry, the district court failed to apply the correct standard," Smith wrote. "Viewed in the light most favorable to Plaintiffs, browser agnosticism is irrelevant because nothing in Google's disclosures is tied to what other browsers do."

Smith seemed to suggest that the US district court wasted time holding a "7.5-hour evidentiary hearing which included expert testimony about 'whether the data collection at issue'" was "browser-agnostic." "Rather than trying to determine how a reasonable user would understand Google's various privacy policies," the district court improperly "made the case turn on a technical distinction unfamiliar to most 'reasonable'" users, Smith wrote. Now, the case has been remanded to the district court where Google will face a trial over the alleged failure to get consent for the data collection. If the class action is certified, Google risks owing currently unknown damages to any Chrome users who opted out of syncing between 2016 and 2024. According to Smith, the key focus of the trial will be weighing the CPN terms and determining "what a 'reasonable user' of a service would understand they were consenting to, not what a technical expert would."

Global technology giants are pushing back against attempts by India's telecom networks to bring internet services under stricter regulation, rejecting arguments that such measures are necessary to create a "level playing field" and address national security concerns. From a report: The Asia Internet Coalition (AIC), a powerful industry body that represents Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Netflix and Spotify, has forcefully argued against inclusion of the so-called over-the-top (OTT) services in the proposed regulatory framework for telecom operators. In a submission to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), the AIC said there are fundamental differences in technology, operations and functionality between OTT services and traditional telecom operations.

[...] This resistance comes in response to a coordinated push by India's top telecom operators -- Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio and Vodafone Idea -- to bring OTT services under a new authorization framework. Jio, India's largest telecom operator with more than 475 million subscribers, along with other telco operators have recommended that OTT providers contribute to network development costs based on their traffic consumption, turnover and user base.

An anonymous reader shares a report: The tech review world has been full of murky deals between companies and influencers for years, but it appears Google finally crossed a line with the Pixel 9. The company's invite-only Team Pixel program -- which seeds Pixel products to influencers before public availability -- stipulated that participating influencers were not allowed to feature Pixel products alongside competitors, and those who showed a preference for competing phones risked being kicked out of the program. For those hoping to break into the world of tech reviews, the new terms meant having to choose between keeping access or keeping their integrity.

The Verge has independently confirmed screenshots of the clause in this year's Team Pixel agreement for the new Pixel phones, which various influencers began posting on X and Threads last night. The agreement tells participants they're "expected to feature the Google Pixel device in place of any competitor mobile devices." It also notes that "if it appears other brands are being preferred over the Pixel, we will need to cease the relationship between the brand and the creator." The link to the form appears to have since been shut down.

Google is denying a recent report that it is no longer making Fitbit smartwatches. From a report: A company spokesperson told Ars Technica today that Google has no current plans to discontinue the Fitbit Sense or Fitbit Versa product lines. On Sunday, TechRadar published an article titled "RIP Fitbit smartwatches -- an end we could see coming a mile away." The article noted last week's announcement of the new Google Pixel Watch 3. Notably, the watch from Google, which acquired Fitbit in 2019, gives users free access to the Daily Readiness Score, a feature that previously required a Fitbit Premium subscription (Pixel Watch 3 owners also get six free months of Fitbit Premium). The publication said that Fitbit has been "consigned to wearable history" and reported: "Google quietly confirmed that there would never be another Fitbit Sense or Versa model produced. From now on, Fitbit-branded devices will be relegated to Google's best fitness trackers: the Fitbit Inspire, Luxe, and Charge ranges. The smartwatch form factor would be exclusively reserved for the Pixel Watch line."

Security Week brings news about CI/CD workflows using GitHub Actions in build processes. Some workflows can generate artifacts that "may inadvertently leak tokens for third party cloud services and GitHub, exposing repositories and services to compromise, Palo Alto Networks warns." [The artifacts] function as a mechanism for persisting and sharing data across jobs within the workflow and ensure that data is available even after the workflow finishes. [The artifacts] are stored for up to 90 days and, in open source projects, are publicly available... The identified issue, a combination of misconfigurations and security defects, allows anyone with read access to a repository to consume the leaked tokens, and threat actors could exploit it to push malicious code or steal secrets from the repository. "It's important to note that these tokens weren't part of the repository code but were only found in repository-produced artifacts," Palo Alto Networks' Yaron Avital explains...

"The Super-Linter log file is often uploaded as a build artifact for reasons like debuggability and maintenance. But this practice exposed sensitive tokens of the repository." Super-Linter has been updated and no longer prints environment variables to log files.

Avital was able to identify a leaked token that, unlike the GitHub token, would not expire as soon as the workflow job ends, and automated the process that downloads an artifact, extracts the token, and uses it to replace the artifact with a malicious one. Because subsequent workflow jobs would often use previously uploaded artifacts, an attacker could use this process to achieve remote code execution (RCE) on the job runner that uses the malicious artifact, potentially compromising workstations, Avital notes.
Avital's blog post notes other variations on the attack — and "The research laid out here allowed me to compromise dozens of projects maintained by well-known organizations, including firebase-js-sdk by Google, a JavaScript package directly referenced by 1.6 million public projects, according to GitHub. Another high-profile project involved adsys, a tool included in the Ubuntu distribution used by corporations for integration with Active Directory." (Avital says the issue even impacted projects from Microsoft, Red Hat, and AWS.) "All open-source projects I approached with this issue cooperated swiftly and patched their code. Some offered bounties and cool swag."

"This research was reported to GitHub's bug bounty program. They categorized the issue as informational, placing the onus on users to secure their uploaded artifacts." My aim in this article is to highlight the potential for unintentionally exposing sensitive information through artifacts in GitHub Actions workflows. To address the concern, I developed a proof of concept (PoC) custom action that safeguards against such leaks. The action uses the @actions/artifact package, which is also used by the upload-artifact GitHub action, adding a crucial security layer by using an open-source scanner to audit the source directory for secrets and blocking the artifact upload when risk of accidental secret exposure exists. This approach promotes a more secure workflow environment...

As this research shows, we have a gap in the current security conversation regarding artifact scanning. GitHub's deprecation of Artifacts V3 should prompt organizations using the artifacts mechanism to reevaluate the way they use it. Security defenders must adopt a holistic approach, meticulously scrutinizing every stage — from code to production — for potential vulnerabilities. Overlooked elements like build artifacts often become prime targets for attackers. Reduce workflow permissions of runner tokens according to least privilege and review artifact creation in your CI/CD pipelines. By implementing a proactive and vigilant approach to security, defenders can significantly strengthen their project's security posture.
The blog post also notes protection and mitigation features from Palo Alto Networks....

"AI is already able to mimic sight and hearing," writes CNBC. And now a startup named Osmo "wants to use the technology to digitize another: smell."

Co-founded by a former Google research scientist, the company built an AI that's "superhuman in its ability to predict what things smelled like," the company's co-founder says. And he believes this might actually prove useful. "We've known that smell contains information we can use to detect disease. But computers can't speak that language and can't interpret that data yet... We will eventually be able to detect disease with scent and we're on our way to building that technology. It's not going to happen this year or anytime soon, but we're on our way."

CoinTelegraph describes how the company invented a training dataset from scratch — a kind of "smell map" with labelled examples of molecular bond associations to teach the AI to identify specific patterns. The team also hopes to develop a method to recreate smells using molecular synthesis. This would, for example, allow a computer in one place to "smell" something and then send that information to another computer for resynthesis — essentially teleporting odor over the internet. This also means scent could join sight and sound as part of the marketing and branding world.

Data center construction "could delay California's transition away from fossil fuels and raise electric bills for everyone else," warns the Los Angeles Times — and also increase the risk of blackouts: Even now, California is at the verge of not having enough power. An analysis of public data by the nonprofit GridClue ranks California 49th of the 50 states in resilience — or the ability to avoid blackouts by having more electricity available than homes and businesses need at peak hours... The state has already extended the lives of Pacific Gas & Electric Co.'s Diablo Canyon nuclear plant as well as some natural gas-fueled plants in an attempt to avoid blackouts on sweltering days when power use surges... "I'm just surprised that the state isn't tracking this, with so much attention on power and water use here in California," said Shaolei Ren, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at UC Riverside. Ren and his colleagues calculated that the global use of AI could require as much fresh water in 2027 as that now used by four to six countries the size of Denmark.

Driving the data center construction is money. Today's stock market rewards companies that say they are investing in AI. Electric utilities profit as power use rises. And local governments benefit from the property taxes paid by data centers.
The article notes a Goldman Sachs estimate that by 2030, data centers could consume up to 11% of all U.S. power demand — up from 3% now. And it shows how the sprawling build-out of data centers across America is impacting surrounding communities:

• The article notes that California's biggest concentration of data centers — more than 50 near the Silicon Valley city of Santa Clara — are powered by a utility emitting "more greenhouse gas than the average California electric utility because 23% of its power for commercial customers comes from gas-fired plants. Another 35% is purchased on the open market where the electricity's origin can't be traced." Consumer electric rates are rising "as the municipal utility spends heavily on transmission lines and other infrastructure," while the data centers now consume 60% of the city's electricity.

• Energy officials in northern Virginia "have proposed a transmission line to shore up the grid that would depend on coal plants that had been expected to be shuttered."

• In 2022 an Oregon newspaper discovered Google data centers were consuming 29% of one city's water supply.

• "Earlier this year, Pacific Gas & Electric told investors that its customers have proposed more than two dozen data centers, requiring 3.5 gigawatts of power — the output of three new nuclear reactors."

The Los Angeles Times spoke to Ryan Kiskis, an environmentally-conscious owner of a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle (the Toyota Mirai): He soon learned that hydrogen refueling stations are scarce and reliably unreliable. He learned that apps to identify broken stations hand out bad information. He learned that the state of California, which is funding the station buildout, is far behind schedule — 200 stations were supposed to be up and running by 2025, but only 54 exist. And since Kiskis bought his car, the price of hydrogen has more than doubled, currently the equivalent of $15 a gallon of gasoline.

With fueling so expensive and stations so undependable, Kiskis — who lives in Pacific Palisades and works at Google in Playa Vista — drives a gasoline Jeep for everything but short trips around the neighborhood. "I've got a great car that sits in the driveway," he said. Bryan Caluwe can relate. The retired Santa Monican bought a Mirai in 2022. He likes his car too. "But it's been a total inconvenience." Hydrogen stations "are either down for mechanical reasons, or they're out of fuel, or, in the case of Shell, they've rolled up the carpet and gone home." And don't get Irving Alden started. He runs a commercial print shop in North Hollywood. He leases a Mirai. He too loves the car. But the refueling system? "It's a frickin' joke."

The three are part of a class action lawsuit filed in July against Toyota. They claim that Toyota salespeople misled them about the sorry state of California's hydrogen refueling system. "They were told the stations were convenient and readily available," said lawyer Nilofar Nouri of Beverly Hills Trial Attorneys. "That turned out to be far from reality." The class action now amounts to two dozen plaintiffs and growing, Nouri said. "We have thousands of these individuals in California who are stuck with this vehicle." Kiskis believes Toyota sales staff duped him — but says, "I'm just as irritated with the state of California" for poor oversight of the program it's funding...

Hyundai also sells a fuel cell car in California called the Nexo, and although the the suit is aimed only at Toyota, the hydrogen station situation affects Hyundai too.
Toyota told The Times it's "committed to customer satisfaction and will continue to evaluate how we can best support our customers. We will respond to the allegations in this lawsuit in the appropriate forum."

The article does note that the California Energy Commission awarded an extra $9.4 million to hydrogen station operators this year to cover "operations and maintenance" — and that hydrogen cars have their advantages. "The full tank range is 350 to 400 miles. A fill-up usually takes no more than five or 10 minutes.

"But unlike electric vehicles, you can't fill up at home. You have to travel to a dedicated fueling station...."

Eric Schmidt, at a recent talk where he also talked -- and then walked back the comment -- on Google's work-culture: If TikTok is banned, here's what I propose each and every one of you do: Say to your LLM the following: "Make me a copy of TikTok, steal all the users, steal all the music, put my preferences in it, produce this program in the next 30 seconds, release it, and in one hour, if it's not viral, do something different along the same lines."

That's the command. Boom, boom, boom, boom.

So, in the example that I gave of the TikTok competitor -- and by the way, I was not arguing that you should illegally steal everybody's music -- what you would do if you're a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, which hopefully all of you will be, is if it took off, then you'd hire a whole bunch of lawyers to go clean the mess up, right? But if nobody uses your product, it doesn't matter that you stole all the content.

And do not quote me.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Traffic along some of Seattle's stop-and-go streets is running a little smoother after Google tested out a new machine-learning system to optimize stoplight timing at five intersections. The company launched this test as part of its Green Light pilot program in 2023 in Seattle and a dozen other cities, including some notoriously congested places such as Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and Kolkata, India. Across these test sites, local traffic engineers use Green Light's suggestions -- based on artificial intelligence and Google Maps data -- to adjust stoplight timing. Google intends for these changes to curb waiting at lights while increasing vehicle flow across busy throughways and intersections -- and, ultimately, to reduce greenhouse gases.

"We have seen positive results," says Mariam Ali, a Seattle Department of Transportation spokesperson. Green Light has provided "specific, actionable recommendations," she adds, and it has identified bottlenecks (and confirmed known ones) within the traffic system.

Managing the movement of vehicles through urban streets requires lots of time, money and consideration of factors such as pedestrian safety and truck routes. Google's foray into the field is one of many ongoing attempts to modernize traffic engineering by incorporating GPS app data, connected cars and artificial intelligence. Preliminary data suggest the system could reduce stops by up to 30 percent and emissions at intersections by up to 10 percent as a result of reduced idling, according to Google's 2024 Environmental Report. The company plans to expand to more cities soon. The newfangled stoplight system doesn't come close to replacing human decision-making in traffic engineering, however, and it may not be the sustainability solution Google claims it is.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Google now displays convenient AI-based answers at the top of its search pages -- meaning users may never click through to the websites whose data is being used to power those results. But many site owners say they can't afford to block Google's AI from summarizing their content. That's because the Google tool that sifts through web content to come up with its AI answers is the same one that keeps track of web pages for search results, according to publishers. Blocking Alphabet's Google the way sites have blocked some of its AI competitors would also hamper a site's ability to be discovered online.

Google's dominance in search -- which a federal court ruled last week is an illegal monopoly -- is giving it a decisive advantage in the brewing AI wars, which search startups and publishers say is unfair as the industry takes shape. The dilemma is particularly acute for publishers, which face a choice between offering up their content for use by AI models that could make their sites obsolete and disappearing from Google search, a top source of traffic.

Epic Games launched its digital app store on iOS and Android devices on Friday, marking Fortnite's return to Apple's platform in the European Union after a four-year absence. The move follows the implementation of the EU's Digital Markets Act, which mandates Apple to allow third-party app stores. Epic's store is available globally on Android and in the EU for iOS devices running iOS 17.6 or later.

Fortnite, along with Rocket League Sideswipe and Fall Guys, are now accessible through Epic's mobile store and the EU's AltStore. This marks Fall Guys' mobile debut. Epic CEO Tim Sweeney hailed the development as "tangible progress" but noted challenges remain, including Apple's new fees for third-party app distribution. The company aims for 100 million mobile store installations by year-end and plans to offer third-party games by December, with self-publishing slated for early 2025. Epic's 88/12 revenue split model will extend to mobile, potentially disrupting the mobile gaming marketplace dominated by Apple and Google.

Californians' driver's licenses are going digital as people will soon be able to carry them in their Apple or Google wallets. From a report: The governor's office says it's a secure and convenient tool that will allow users to more easily undergo ID verification, such as airport screenings. The virtual wallet capabilities, which are set to roll out "in the coming weeks," will allow users to add and access California driver's licenses and ID cards on their iPhones, Apple Watch and Android devices -- similar to credit cards.

They will be authorized for use in TSA screenings, select apps and select businesses, such as Circle K. Participating airports in the state include SFO, SJC and LAX. The new format, which Gov. Gavin Newsom is expected to announce Thursday, is part of the DMV's broader mobile driver's license (mDL) pilot, which launched last year. "This is a big step in our efforts to better serve all Californians, meeting people where they're at and with technology people use every day," Newsom said in a statement shared first with Axios.

Roku has removed the Redbox app from its platform, effectively cutting off users' access to purchased content following Redbox parent company Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment's bankruptcy filing. The move signals the likely end of Redbox's digital streaming service, which launched in 2017 to complement its DVD rental kiosks. Customers attempting to use the Redbox app on Roku devices now receive an error message directing them to other streaming services. While the app remains downloadable on some platforms, including Apple's App Store and Google Play, its functionality is severely limited. The shutdown raises questions about the fate of content purchased through Redbox's streaming service and the company's remaining 24,000 physical kiosks.

Google's master software for some Android phones includes a hidden feature that is insecure and could be activated to allow remote control or spying on users, according to a security company that found it inside phones at a U.S. intelligence contractor. From a report: The feature appears intended to give employees at stores selling Pixel phones and other models deep access to the devices so they can demonstrate how they work, according to researchers at iVerify who shared their findings with The Washington Post. The discovery and Google's lack of explanation alarmed the intelligence contractor, data analysis platform vendor Palantir Technologies, to the extent that it has stopped issuing Android phones to employees, Palantir told The Post.

"Mobile security is a very real concern for us, given where we're operating and who we're serving," Palantir Chief Information Security Officer Dane Stuckey said. "This was very deleterious of trust, to have third-party, unvetted insecure software on it. We have no idea how it got there, so we made the decision to effectively ban Androids internally." The security company said it contacted Google about its findings more than 90 days ago and that the tech giant has not indicated whether it would remove or fix the application. On Wednesday night, Google told The Post that it would issue an update to remove the application. "Out of an abundance of precaution, we will be removing this from all supported in-market Pixel devices with an upcoming Pixel software update," said company spokesperson Ed Fernandez. He said distributors of other Android phones would also be notified.

Eric Schmidt, ex-CEO and executive chairman at Google, walked back remarks in which he said his former company was losing the AI race because of its remote-work policies. From a report: "I misspoke about Google and their work hours," Schmidt said Wednesday in an email to The Wall Street Journal. "I regret my error." Schmidt, who left Google parent Alphabet's board more than five years ago, spoke earlier at a wide-ranging discussion at Stanford University. He criticized Google's remote-work policies in response to a question about Google competing with OpenAI. "Google decided that work-life balance and going home early and working from home was more important than winning," Schmidt said at Stanford. "The reason startups work is because the people work like hell."

Video of Schmidt's talk was posted on YouTube this week by Stanford Online, a division of the university that offers online courses. The video, which had more than 40,000 views as of Wednesday afternoon, has since been set to private. Schmidt said he asked for the video to be taken down.