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Google, LLC is an American multinational technology company that specializes in Internet-related services and products, which include online advertising technologies, a search engine, cloud computing, software, and hardware.

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As noticed by Android Authority on Monday morning, some YouTube users are now seeing a disruptive prompt when they try to watch videos while using a browser with an ad blocker. The prompt notes that "ad blockers violate YouTube's Terms of Service" and urges users to either allow ads on YouTube or subscribe to YouTube Premium.

YouTube tries to kill ad blockers in push for ad dollars, Premium subs

Airbyte announced its "Powered by Airbyte" version that enables makers of software to embed over 100 integrations into their applications.

Powered by Airbyte Offers Software Makers More than 100 Data Integrations

This car owner redefined “search engine” when he used Google Earth to track down and recover both of his vehicles after they were pilfered from his driveway.

I used Google Earth to track down the thieves who stole my cars

Nick Clegg, Meta's president of global affairs, spoke ahead of the landmark AI Summit being hosted at Bletchley Park in the U.K. The summit is expected focus on mitigating the potential harms of AI.

Meta exec and former U.K. Deputy Prime Minister compares AI fears to past ‘moral panic’ over video games—and bicycles

The U.S. antitrust lawsuit against Alphabet ( NASDAQ: GOOG) ( NASDAQ: GOOGL) is starting to get to Barclays. “We’ve tracked the DoJ trial closely over the past several weeks and are growing increasingly concerned about the strength of the case against Google,” analysts led by Ross Sandler wrote in a note.

Antitrust suit against Google making Barclays 'increasingly concerned'

Available on Google Cloud Marketplace and Will Integrate with Vertex AI to Help Customers Process and Analyze Data Box, Inc. (NYSE:BOX), the leading Content Cloud, and Google Cloud today announced an

Box and Google Cloud Expand Strategic Partnership Across Generative AI and Go-to-Market

Alphabet experienced strong revenue growth during the pandemic but has started to normalize in the post-pandemic era. Read more about GOOG stock analysis here.

Google: Advertising Revenue Starts To Normalize, Initiates With 'Buy'

DeepMind co-founder Demis Hassabis hit back against criticisms from Meta Platforms Inc.’s chief AI scientist — who had criticized him and others in the industry for playing up the existential risks of the technology — calling them preposterous.

Google Deepmind Chief Calls Meta’s AI Criticisms ‘Preposterous’

In our experience at American Consumer Claims, we have never heard of a client proactively approaching a timeshare company intending to purchase. Perhaps it has happened, but the vast majority of

Escaping the $10.5 billion U.S. timeshare trap

The Microsoft 365 Copilot tool will appear in Word, Excel and other Office programs and cost $30 per person per month.

Microsoft starts selling AI tool for Office, which could generate $10 billion a year by 2026

Samsung has unveiled a new security feature called 'Auto Blocker' as part of the One UI 6 update, offering enhanced malware protection on Galaxy devices.

Samsung Galaxy gets new Auto Blocker anti-malware feature

Google DeepMind boss Demis Hassabis told CNBC that the company wasn't trying to achieve "regulatory capture" when it came to the discussion on how best to approach AI. Yann LeCun, Meta's chief AI scientist,

Google DeepMind boss hits back at Meta AI chief over ‘fearmongering’ claim

Cyberchondria is a term coined to describe the online research health-fear cycle. People with health anxiety appear to be tuned into the body but avoid their felt senses.

Dr. Google and the Search for Certainty

Fotomat was frequently the choice. Some might have said monopoly. The good news is that in commerce, the present is always and everywhere a look into the past. This truth is plainly lost on former attorney general William Barr.

As Google Searches For the Future, William Barr Looks For Fotomat

We asked Google if the feature is also coming to Android devices, and we'll let you know when we hear back. The company tested a Chrome Home interface that had the URL bar at the bottom way back in 2019, but it didn't make its way out of the experimental phase.

Chrome for iOS now lets you move the address bar to the bottom

People who use Facebook and Instagram in about 30 European countries will soon have a choice. Kind of. They can agree to see ads based on Meta’s tracking of what they do online and their whereabouts. Or they can stop ads on Facebook and Instagram if they pay about $17 a month. (Or they can quit those apps.)

Would you pay $17 a month for Facebook and Instagram?

Google’s latest artificial intelligence ad push is expected to generate even more demand from marketers. The company rolled out Demand Gen campaigns widely last week, and the ad

How Google’s new AI ad product is being used by Mondelēz and other major brands

The News Media Alliance, a trade group that represents newspapers, says that A.I. chatbots use news articles significantly more than generic content online.

News Group Says A.I. Chatbots Heavily Rely on News Content

To make coordinating meetings easier, Google has launched a new free Calendar feature called Appointment Schedule. The tool has been available to Google Workspace customers since early 2022, but earlier this month The Big G granted all users access to it—albeit with limitations, depending on whether they’re paying or not.

Google Calendar now lets everyone line up their schedules perfectly

Kyndryl developed the new services on Google Cloud's reference architecture for financial services, with a focus on automation, security, and making compliance easier for customers. Customers can utilize Google Cloud's security solutions,

Kyndryl Unveils Banking and Financial Industry Services for Google Cloud Customers

We’ve all been there: very politely asking the internet for a video of a cat engaging in some wacky antics. And then … the internet pauses, seeming to consider the request. What’s the problem here? It might be you (sorry). It might be the infrastructure you’re working with. It might be your internet provider. Let’s explore some causes and solutions together. What Is a “Good” Internet Speed? Step one is to conduct a so-called speed test. Jonathan Schwantes, senior policy counsel at Consumer Reports, who works on the organization’s , which is collecting consumers’ internet bills and speed test results as part of its advocacy work, suggests using a pair of tests, one from and another from . Fight for Fair Internet initiative Ookla MLab Each uses slightly different methods, so Schwantes recommends trying both to make sure they’re consistent. The tests show two important results: download speed (how quickly you’re receiving data from the internet) and upload speed (how quickly you’re sending data out to the internet), measured in megabits per second. A bit of data is a single unit of information, expressed in the binary code that computers can understand as either a one or a zero. A megabit is one million bits of data. If a speed test says your download speed is 100 megabits per second, your connection is pumping 100,000,000 ones and zeros into your device each second, and short kitty antics videos . should stream fine What qualifies as a “good” internet speed depends on what you’re using it for, however. If you have multiple users and need stable connections (think kids doing online schooling while you work in the next room), education advocacy group Common Sense Media recommends speeds of 200 mbps download and 10 mbps upload. Those recommended speeds can be high relative to available levels across much of the United States. For February of this year, Ookla median speeds in the U.S. for wired broadband connections at 146 mbps download and 20 mbps upload; speeds on mobile internet—63 mbps download and 9 upload—were far slower. pegged Amina Fazlullah, the organization’s director of equity policy, insists that stable video conferencing connections are crucial for things like virtual school. “What does it mean when a 7-year-old has an interruption?” Fazlullah said, noting that 25 mbps download and 3 mbps upload will technically work but likely with frequent service disruptions. “How long can you wait for them to get back up to speed? Will they be able to get back on track after those interruptions?” Netflix, on the other hand, a mere 15 mbps download speed for streaming content in 4K/Ultra HD. recommends What speed is available to you at home depends on the infrastructure available: the tubes through which your desired digital data flows. That infrastructure may seem intangible, but it exists both inside the walls of your home and in a corporeal series of tubes transmitting data across the globe. Understanding those factors, and how they work together, is crucial to understanding how the modern internet works—and how to get that cat video faster. Is the Slowdown Coming from Inside the House? When Schwantes gets a slow speed test result, his first suspicion is usually along the lines of “Something is up with my router.” If you’re reading this on a device connected to Wi-Fi, the first connection you have to the larger internet are your modem and wireless router or your modem/wireless router combo beaming out Wi-Fi to the immediate area. The first two things to try if your internet is slow are restart the router and get your device closer to the router. Like a computer, routers store information in their memory, and sometimes an error gets saved mistakenly. Restarting is a way to shake out the cobwebs. And Wi-Fi signals degrade the farther they travel. If distance is slowing your speed, consider your options: Your Wi-Fi router may offer the choice between a 2.4 GHz connection and a 5 GHz connection; 5 GHz offers faster speeds over shorter distances, and 2.4 GHz provides slower speeds over longer distances. The 2.4 GHz frequency can also get congested with traffic from other wireless networks in the area, so sometimes switching to 5 GHz will provide a less obstructed path for your cat video. If your device has an ethernet port, you can also plug directly into the router and avoid the Wi-Fi issue altogether. Around the start of the pandemic, Schwantes noticed his internet slowing down. In this case, the problem was him. He was using a decade-old wireless router. After replacing it, he said, his speeds improved dramatically. What’s Happening on the Other Side of the Wall? The biggest speed variances come from the different ways data flows through the tubes directly outside your home. Data can travel on different types of tubes—fiber optic, coaxial cable, and copper wire, and even on wireless cellular networks—each providing very different speeds for uploading and downloading. Sometimes the technology that leads to your home is too out of date to support faster speeds. The effects of this fall more on communities of color and poorer residents, an . AT&T, Verizon, Earthlink, and CenturyLink charged customers in 38 cities the same price for sluggish DSL connections as they did for zippy fiber connections. investigation by The Markup found In 36 of those cities, the worst deals tended to go to households located in neighborhoods that were lower-income, less-White, or historically redlined. Fiber optic cables consist of a core of ultra-thin glass surrounded by a reflective coating that transmits information as pulses of light at the speed of, well, light traveling through glass. The fastest internet connections available today are termed “fiber to the home” because the fiber optic cables begin where you live and run all the way to where they join the larger maze of fiber optic tubes making up the internet. (There are also systems called “fiber to the node” or “fiber to the curb,” where fiber runs to a connection hub somewhere in your neighborhood, and then the signal moves to slower wires the rest of the way.) If the internet is a road, fiber is like an expressway with five lanes in each direction and a 75 mph speed limit. Not everyone in the United States even has access to fiber internet. According to a study released in January by the Fiber Broadband Association, of U.S. homes have that option. less than half At the other end of the spectrum, copper wire is like a one-lane road where you can’t go above 25. Not only can Fiber Expressway get you home faster than Copper Lane, but it can also handle far more traffic without congestion, which is important because your data runs through the same tubes as those of your neighbors who use the same ISP. The longer you can stay on fiber before having to turn off to something that’s not fiber, the faster your connection. What is copper wire? DSL, which stands for Digital Subscriber Line, operates on the same copper wires that phone companies use for traditional telephone service—so-called landlines—albeit on a higher frequency range that doesn’t necessitate tying up a phone line the way dial-up service does. ( .) Kids, ask your parents Phone lines were built to transmit voice, which doesn’t require a whole lot of data, so they tend to be s‑l‑o‑w. DSL speeds are dependent on the distance from where they hook into the fiber connections leading to the internet’s backbone. They need to be boosted frequently to push data over longer distances. In the middle is cable internet, which is generally slower than fiber but can provide relatively high speeds. Copper wire is like a one-lane road where you can’t go above 25. Cable internet is piped through coaxial cables carrying signals on a copper conductor surrounded by layers of plastic and metal coating to shield it from interference (an improvement over DSL). Since the coaxial cables were originally developed to transmit cable TV, which is fairly data-intensive video and audio information, they can move a lot of data. Since cable TV is traditionally a one-way broadcast medium, cable connections generally have faster downloads than uploads. A relatively new entrant to the residential broadband market is fixed wireless. As the name implies, this type of connection doesn’t involve a tube running directly into your home. Getting a fixed wireless connection typically involves installing a receiver pulling in cellular service that is then converted to Wi-Fi. Fixed wireless home service across the country, but some services advertise speeds that can give cable connections a run for their money. isn’t universally available For remote locations, where it’s not feasible for ISPs to install any kind of wired connection between the internet’s fiber backbone and your home, satellite internet, which allows data to be transmitted up to a satellite and then beamed down to an antenna at your residence, is an option. Satellite internet is generally not as fast as fiber or cable internet. Ookla found the median speed for SpaceX’s Starlink, the fastest satellite internet available in the U.S., was around 100 mbps download and 13 mbps upload. Can I Just Switch to a Different Provider and Get Faster Internet? You can certainly give it a shot! However, a dearth of competition in the broadband market across the United States may make that tricky. “The U.S. market for internet service is dominated by just four companies: AT&T, Charter, Comcast, and Verizon,” reads the 2020 edition of the Open Technology Institute’s Cost of Connectivity about the state of the U.S. broadband market compared to that in other developed countries. report “In most cities, there were only, like, two providers, and there are large swaths of addresses that only had one provider,” said Claire Park, one of the report’s authors. A 2020 from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance found that 83.3 million Americans are only able to purchase broadband internet from a single provider. report PSA: If your household income is lower than , you may qualify for the (ACP), which was created by the 2021 infrastructure bill and provides a $30 monthly subsidy for internet service. these guidelines Affordable Connectivity Program That subsidy increases to $75 for folks living on tribal lands. If you’re already signed up for free and reduced lunch for your dependent at school, the , , , or a number of other public-benefit programs, you . Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Medicaid Supplemental Security Income likely qualify (But hurry: An analysis by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance suggests that the pool of money Congress allocated for the ACP as soon as 2024 if it is not replenished.) could run out Many ISPs have created their that would allow households that qualify for the ACP to effectively get monthly internet service for free when combined with the governmental benefit. own reduced-cost internet plans Even if you can afford your internet bill, you can still shop around to see if you can get faster and/or cheaper service. To check your options, enter your address into the to see which ISPs serve your address. FCC’s National Broadband Map What’s listed as available for every address isn’t always accurate, so after seeing your search results, go to each ISP’s website, search for your address and see what prices and speeds they offer you. Maybe, just maybe, you can get an upgrade that will get you that cat video a whole lot faster. Update This story has been updated to include the findings of an investigation by The Markup. Written by: Aaron Sankin Also published here Photo by on Pascal van de Vendel Unsplash

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