According to a recent announcement by Google’s Parent Company – Alphabet. It was gathered that the world’s fifth-largest technology company has officially finalized the terms of purchase towards the biggest independent wearables company – Fitbit for $2.1 billion. Even though this development has been speculative for quite a while now, it was however confirmed today following a press release by both companies.

In a statement released on Google’s Blog by Rick Osterloh – Senior Vice President Devices & Services, who disclosed that the company is proud of the partnership agreement. Osterloh also pointed out that collaborating with Fitbit would integrate the best of Google’s smartwatch platforms and health applications together. Similarly, the CEO of Fitbit – James Park highlights the advantages to be garnered from both ends. In his words, Park asserts that;

“With Google’s resources and global platform, Fitbit will be able to accelerate innovation in the wearables category, scale faster and make health even more accessible.”

This expansion nonetheless comes with regards to the deteriorating sales witnessed by Fitbit in late happenings. Which had created an opportunity for other competitors in the wearable technology market to take full advantages of such as Apple and Xiaomi. Hence in a bid to alleviate the completion and take back its stand Fitbit has decided to sell off its patent rights to the proprietors of Google. Therefore, the once most foremost wearable brand would be incorporated as one of Google’s hardware subsidiaries.

Evidently, this merger would leverage on Fitbit’s long term goal of providing its Consumers with a more healthier and active life. This could be further achieved through Google’s WearOS and Google Fit outlets which are already well acquainted with the fitness and health merchandise. And agreeing to a press release by Sameer Samat – Vice President, Product Management, Android, Google Play & Wear OS, this association would combine Fitbit’s established wearable hardware together with Google’s advanced software to furnish a more flexible platform.

In addition, Osterloh added that;

“By working closely with Fitbit’s team of experts, and bringing together the best AI, software and hardware, we can help spur innovation in wearables and build products to benefit even more people around the world.“

Despite being a subsidiary of Alphabet,  Google divulged that it would only collect Fitbit health and wellness data for other promotional and development purposes other than ads. On the other hand, Fitbit yet reveals that it would not only work with Google’s WearOS as it would also be working extensively with iOS and Android in the future.

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Technology is widely cutting across all facets of the global economy such that even the most ordinary accessories such as clothing are becoming instruments of technological advancements. Just a while ago, Google renewed its partnership with Levi Strauss – An American Clothing Company, to launch an upgraded version of the Jacquard jacket which is tech-enabled. 

The denim jacket is embedded with a small tab-like chip on the sleeve that permits Users to remotely access their smartphone devices right on the go, just in semblances to a touchpad. Additionally, this neoteric invention accessorizes the denim jacket with features that allows the wearer to answer calls, control your music, and get directions just by hand gestures such as swiping, touching and tapping the jacket cuff. 

The San Francisco-based clothing line announced on Monday that it would be teaming up with Google to incorporate the ‘Jacquard tag’ technology in its latest denim designs. Publishing that the Trucker and Sherpa Trucker Jackets for both men and women would roll out with the integrated ‘Jacquard Tag’ on Thursday, 3rd October, in some select few Levi stores in Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and US at a cost price of $198 for the classic Trucker and $248 for the Sherpa Trucker Jacker.

Even though this is not the first time Google is teaming up with a Clothing line company to distribute a smart accessory as it partnered with Yves Saint Laurent to produce a smart backpack sometime in 2016. More so the Multinational Technology Company had earlier partnered with the Levi in 2017 to debut the first-ever smart jacket. 

However, this latest innovation is only an enhanced model that fraughts with a smaller tag that can hardly be detected. In accordance to a press release by Paul Dillinger – The Vice President of Global Product Innovation at Levi, this new technology allows users to stay connected to their Smartphones at all point in time, stating that;

“Two years after we first launched Jacquard, the technology has become smaller and more discrete, more affordable and more useful, But the premise and purpose remain the same: You can keep your phone in your pocket and your eyes on the world around you, staying connected without being distracted.”

This research development was part of Google’s ATAP (Advanced Technology And Projects) that provisions designers the required tools to create highly connected products. With features such as getting a notification alert whenever your phone gets separated from your jacket, by means of such gestures as tapping the jacket to take photos on your phone’s camera, tagging where your car was parked and a lot more. Google further anticipates adding more functionality to the ‘Jacquard Jacket’ to make it even more ‘smarter’ in the near future.

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Only recently, Cloudflare announced that it would be integrating Google’s experimental Internet Protocol – The Hypertext Transfer Protocol Version 3 (HTTP/3). Being that this is the first major upgrade to the HTTP protocol since it was established in 1989. Though originally a Google-funded project, however this nascent security standard, through the Internet Security Task Force (IETF) already enjoys widespread adoption by industry key players including Cloudflare and Mozilla Firefox.

On Thursday, Cloudflare published that websites subscribed to their platform would soon be able to toggle the option of HTTP/3 on their dashboards. Consequently, the same feature would allow all Cloudflare-hosted websites using an HTTP/3 enabled client to be automatically upgraded. A functionality that is already widely used by Google’s native browser app – Chrome Canary. 

Following this development, Mozilla Foundation had hinted that it would also enlist this new security protocol into its Firefox ‘Nightly’ browser app later this fall. Particularly, these features are only open to Users on ‘Chrome Canary’ and ‘Firefox Nightly’ who are more tech-savvy as an average User might find these options difficult to navigate to.

According to Ryan Hamilton – A Software Engineer at Google, this partnership could bring about an improved and better browsing experience to the Internet space. Subsequently, He added that;

“HTTP/3 should make the web better for everyone. The Chrome and Cloudflare teams have worked together closely to bring HTTP/3 and QUIC from nascent standards to widely adopted technologies for improving the web. Strong partnership between industry leaders is what makes Internet standards innovations possible, and we look forward to our continued work together.”

The HTTP3 Standard

The Hypertext Transfer Protocol Version 3 (HTTP/3) also widely referred to as HTTP-over-QUIC during its inception is a data transmission technology that utilizes the User Datagram Protocol (UDP). Unlike the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), this Standard naturally ships in with reduced latency, high reliability as well as much more faster speed. 

The [QUIC Protocol] – Quick UDP  Internet Connections, is a hybrid innovation that builds upon the super fast packet delivery that fraughts with the UDP standard together with the intermittent packet verification procedure familiar with the TCP protocol alongside an improved TLS/SSL security.

Conversely, this new internet security standard for the web is designed extensively on a layer 4 transport protocol to ensure a secure, reliable and fast connections to web endpoints by means of APIs and Websites that support this standard.

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Google recently disclosed its plan to coalesce its ‘Shopping Search’ and ‘Express’ Apps together to give rise to the ‘Google Shopping’ App. Google Shopping is originally designed to find these merchandise in addition to outsourcing from the best markets with affordable prices and incentives.

Also, the Google Express App – where Google oversees all purchase related issues, along with its many features would be incorporated into this new Google Shopping App.

Whereas the Google Shopping and Google Product Ads collectively referred to as the Google Merchant Center aids Third-party Website administrators to boost the traffic to their website by linking to Google through the Google Shopping App.

Just as the previous Shopping Search App searches for products from a number of retailers on the World Wide Web. By means of the former Google Express, this latter Google Shopping App would maintain additional attributes that allow for the option to place an order for such products directly from Google. Evidently Google enjoys a wide network of Internet and Social media platforms and as such it utilizes this chain of sites to its advantages with regards to its online shopping procedure. 

Although not basically capitalizing on its popularity, however the Internet and Advertising Technology Company aims to achieve an increased interoperability between all services sustained by the Google parent company.

Already, Google Shopping embodies other services and products provisioned by the Technology Company such as links to its Google Images, Google Shopping Feed, and YouTube Apps. Hence the Shopping App furnishes Users with a more personalized shopping experience along with an opportunity to explore more products from multiple vendors in juxtaposition.

This recent development centers around Google’s idea towards a competitive approach to stay ahead of all possible means through which customers shop for items online. Whether by searching for an image on Google Images or via an external source such as Pinterest.

The Google Shopping App grants Users a much wider scope such that they can log in to their Google accounts to access this Shopping App and as well watch videos with more details on the products they are willing to purchase right on YouTube. 

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A group of LGBTQ rights defenders in the US recently arraigned Google and YouTube in federal court. This band, including a handful of LGBTQ social media celebrities such as Chase Ross, Bria Kam, Chrissy Chambers, Brett Somers as well as the executives of GlitterbombTV.com, Alleges that YouTube’s ‘ad-friendly’ policies were actually not friendly to them in all ramifications.

The litigation brought before the US district court in California accuses YouTube of such activities as limiting video contents tied to famous LGBTQ identities.

The Emerging Rights War

Following the recent developments, a lawsuit was filed on Tuesday against YouTube and its parent company – Google. These LGBTQ users leveraged upon the company’s purported ideology of “creating a platform of self-expression for all” and making a shit-load of money while at it. This perception of ‘freedom of expression’ and ‘freedom of information’ was however received differently by LGBTQ users, once they sensed a pre-planned discrimination towards the contents they upload on YouTube. 

Accordingly, the court order highlights that YouTube engaged in;

“unlawful content regulation, distribution, and monetization practices that stigmatize, restrict, block, demonetize, and financially harm the LGBTQ+ Plaintiffs and the greater LGBTQ+ Community.”

The Plaintiff acknowledged that Google/YouTube supervises over 95% of all the digitally distributed video-based contents on a global scale. And as such, YouTube is registered as the largest for-profit channel dedicated to free speech and expression in the history of the world.

Furthermore, the Prosecuting party maintains that the Defendants generated an excess of $25 billion on an annual basis. Claiming that such profits are derived from regulating, distributing, and monetizing the free speech and expression of the 2.3 billion YouTubers worldwide. 

Google Apology

Still, Google upholds that it has always been a silent propagator of LGBTQ rights in the past. Demonstrating this, Google asserts to have advocated for gay rights around the world and officially sponsoring the San Francisco Pride parade. Nonetheless, this is not the first time Google/YouTube would be charged with such malfeasance. 

The social media giant took to Twitter during the 2018 ‘Pride Month’ to relay an apology with regards its biased ads sharing policies. But this time, the LGBTQ community does not seem to care about Google’s apology but rather a call for the restructuring of Google’s business model.

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Apple has Reportedly Acquired the PullString Startup based in
San Francisco that Powers Voice Recognition Apps. This could help Siri better compete with Amazon’s Alexa and Google Home Assistant.

Founded in 2011 by a group of Ex-Pixar executives, PullString was basically used to power interactive voice apps for toys like the Hello Barbie in 2015.
Pullstring later widened its path with the introduction of such IoT products as Google Assistant and Amazon Echo.

The Acquisition is said to be valued around $30 million and will give Apple a boost in the Voice Industry as well as making siri more advanced and rapidly adopted.

As Amazon and Google Continues to Improve and Invest heavily in the Voice Development Business, Apple also doesn’t seem to be relenting, Of which the company has been way behind both Google and Amazon.

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The web is recently seen as very unsafe as there are a lot of stories of phishing attacks, email scams, and malware. Eventually, Google has thought of its users and has made an effort to save users from such issues as according to a report from ZDNet, it has included a feature to their popular web browser, Chrome which is aimed to caution users about replicated misspelled URLs that can imitate real websites. A member of Google’s usable security team, Emily Stark also showed the feature during a recent presentation focused on web security.

The reports reveal the feature is at present in beta testing with Google Chrome Canary 70, yet can be enabled with the chrome://flags/#enable-lookalike-url-navigation-suggestions flag. Chrome will display a caution message when the feature is selected, the message is under the Ombnibar, and if the user types in a URL of a website that has false determines or seem to steal login credentials, the feature will bring out new suggestions.

An instant by ZDNet is that websites like paypall.com or coịnbạse.com are examples of fake websites, but, as per the test results, standard versions of Google Chrome will auto redirects to the official websites.

Google Chrome has a similar flag on standard non-beta. However, it does not seem to operate like in the Canary ring.  This makes it clear that the feature might not be ready yet and looking at how things are going might officially be released in the future.

Google has many security-themed features as this is not the first that the company has introduced to their Chrome browser. Google recently tried to battle sites that takeover users back button and tab history to generate views on ads. The company recently brought a quiz aimed to inform the user on how to avoid attacks.

It is quite exciting to see Google Chrome with attempts to provide auto supports. Nevertheless, I think web users must be careful and should try checking URLs they visit on the web. An indicator of a secure connection, site certificates, and other web settings is a green lock next to the URL; users are always advised to check that.

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