Tech

Silicon Valley giants are drawing battle lines over personal data collection practices and targeted ads as the threat of regulation looms. As Apple presses ahead with plans to give users greater control over their privacy, companies like Facebook and Google have aligned themselves over the latter's more measured approach to scaling back tracking features. In what was billed as the latest step toward data privacy, Google announced this week that it would not replace its tracking features used for personalized ads once it phases out its existing method. ADVERTISEMENT That move came after Apple drew Facebook's ire with its own anticipated anti-tracking feature, which could significantly affect the social media giant's revenue given its reliance on targeted ads. Experts and pro-privacy advocates say that while Google’s update may be a small step toward giving users more control over their data protection, the change may hurt Google’s rivals more than the company itself. … [Read more...] about Tech giants in brewing battle over tracking, ads

The importance of digital technologies has never been clearer than during the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, top industry experts and entrepreneurs said at the World Internet Conference - Internet Development Forum which kicked off on Monday in Wuzhen, East China's Zhejiang province. Information and communication technologies have provided powerful support for epidemic prevention and control and have shown great strength in case studies, decision-making, information sharing and epidemiological analysis, said Zhong Nanshan, China's leading respiratory disease expert, via video link at a main forum during the conference. "We should stick to the driving force of information and science and technology innovation. Facing the sudden outbreak of COVID-19, those who work on network information across the country worked day and night to make breakthroughs in their strong support for epidemic prevention and control, including contact tracing and screening, logistics and big data … [Read more...] about Digital tech essential to curbing pandemic, experts say

(Subscribe to our Today's Cache newsletter for a quick snapshot of top 5 tech stories. Click here to subscribe for free.) Google rolled out a slew of new features for its education products to support learning as the pandemic accelerated the use of technology for education. The California-based tech giant said in a blog post it would like to unveil more than 50 new features to Google Workspace, Classroom, Meet, Chrome OS and others. To start with, Google has updated the G Suite for Education to Google Workspace for Education and has renamed its free edition G Suite for Education to Google Workspace for Education Fundamentals. Google moved away from its original storage policy that offered unlimited storage to qualifying schools and universities. The new policy will provide schools and universities with a baseline of 100 TB of cloud storage. Google said it would be enough for over 100 million docs, 8 million presentations or 400,000 hours of video. The policy will come into … [Read more...] about Google Meet, Classroom and Chrome OS to get several new features

Google’s grip on the web has never been stronger. Its Chrome web browser has almost 70 percent of the market and its search engine a whopping 92 percent share. That’s a lot of data—and advertising revenue—for one of the world’s most powerful companies. But Google’s dominance is being challenged. Regulators are questioning its monopoly position and claim the company has used anticompetitive tactics to strengthen its dominance . At the same time, a new wave of Google rivals hopes to capitalize on greater public desire for online privacy. Two years after publicly launching a privacy-focused browser, Brave, founded by former Mozilla executive Brendan Eich, is taking on Google’s search business too. The announcement of Brave Search puts the upstart in the rare position of taking on both Google’s browser and search dominance. Eich says that Brave Search , which has opened a waitlist and will launch in the first half of this year, won’t track or profile people who use it. … [Read more...] about Privacy-First Browser Brave Is Launching a Search Engine

THE Tarlac Agricultural University (TAU), Laguna State Polytechnic University (LSPU) and Batangas State University (BatStateU) have recently partnered with the Los Baños-based Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (Searca). TAU and LSPU have formalized ties with Searca on areas of mutual interest such as education, research and training while BatStateU agreed to cooperate in the same areas with special focus on innovative agricultural technologies, agribusiness incubation and technology transfer. Under the partnership, a five-year memoranda of understanding (MoU) was signed by Glenn Gregorio, Searca director; Max Guillermo, TAU president; Mario R. Briones, LSPU president; and Tirso Ronquillo, BatStateU president. “Searca’s collaboration with agricultural universities is part of its strategy to harness academe-industry-government interconnectivity to revitalize the agriculture sector in the country,” Gregorio said. He said Searca … [Read more...] about 3 state universities, Searca partner for agri innovation