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Huawei to replace Google on smartphones as it faces US threat

TAIPEI — Huawei Technologies on Thursday remained defiant in the teeth of a U.S. crackdown, insisting it will put its own operating system into its smartphones and expand its ecosystem of apps as it tries to survive a battle over tech between Washington and Beijing.

The Chinese tech champion — the world’s biggest seller of smartphones in the most recent quarter — said all its phones next year will be upgraded to support HarmonyOS, the company’s own version of Google’s Android operating system.

“We are going to release all the development kits for smartphones this December,” Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei’s consumer electronics business group, told the company’s developer conference on Thursday.

“Huawei will play a role to help all the Chinese developers to expand to the global market and help all the global developers to better service Chinese users. Like ByteDance’s TikTok does so well in servicing overseas customers

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Programming
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Apple and Google give states new options for exposure notification software

The software, which is built into the operating systems on Google’s Android phones and Apple’s iPhones, uses Bluetooth to tell whether people have spent significant time near one another. If a participant in the exposure notification program tests positive for the coronavirus, that person’s close contacts may get a notification.

“I would say this is an improvement,” said Jeffrey Kahn, director of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics. Kahn, who has been studying the use of technology to fight the virus, said states have been hamstrung by indecision around which technology vendors they should use to build their apps, among other issues. He said this may help speed up adoption, but shouldn’t be considered a magic bullet. “It’s still not probably serving all the interests that public health would want, but it’s better than nothing,” he said.

First launched in May, coronavirus tracking software got off to a rocky

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Software
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Google conducts largest chemical simulation on a quantum computer to date

Google conducts largest chemical simulation on a quantum computer to date
Google’s Sycamore processor mounted in a cryostat, recently used to demonstrate quantum supremacy and the largest quantum chemistry simulation on a quantum computer. Credit: Rocco Ceselin

A team of researchers with Google’s AI Quantum team (working with unspecified collaborators) has conducted the largest chemical simulation on a quantum computer to date. In their paper published in the journal Science, the group describes their work and why they believe it was a step forward in quantum computing. Xiao Yuan of Stanford University has written a Perspective piece outlining the potential benefits of quantum computer use to conduct chemical simulations and the work by the team at AI Quantum, published in the same journal issue.


Developing an ability to predict chemical processes by simulating them on computers would be of great benefit to chemists—currently, they do most of it through trial and error. Prediction would open up the door to the

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Computer
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Google Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL discontinued in U.S. and other markets!

A couple of days ago, Google launched its much-awaited affordable Pixel 4a smartphone. Along with the $349 price tag, the search engine giant also announced its flagship Pixel 5. Well, Google has now discontinued its fourth iteration of devices i.e. Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL. The newly announced discontinuation will be applicable in the US and other markets as well.

Google sold through its Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL inventory!

According to the report by The Verge, the search engine giant has sold through its inventory of both the devices meaning you might not be able to buy them in the coming months. Of course, Google Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL is currently available through the official website and some other retailers as well. The availability of the device is only till stock lasts.

Google Pixel 4

What’s more interesting is the fact that the lineup is not even

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Programming
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How the CEOs of Apple, Google, Amazon, and Facebook plan to defend Big Tech today

Ahead of the antitrust hearing that’s due to take place later today, the opening statements from the CEOs of Apple, Google, Amazon, and Facebook have been published on the House Judiciary Committee’s website. Ranging in length from four to eight pages, the statements give us our best look yet at how Tim Cook, Sundar Pichai, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg plan to defend their companies from this latest wave of antitrust scrutiny, and accusations that some of their actions harm consumers and stifle competition.

There are a lot of similarities between the four statements which you can read in their entirety here:

For example, they all make appeals to American patriotism (“The rest of the world would love even the tiniest sip of the elixir we have here in the U.S,” Bezos claims), and talk about the benefits their products offer to consumers, as well as small businesses. All four

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Programming
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What is Google Pay, and how do you use it?

Like everything else, the way you pay for anything, from a movie theater ticket to a new car, is changing. Google Pay completely takes your finances and makes them high-tech by allowing you to combine all your accounts in one secure place.

The best part is it turns your phone into your personal banking system, letting you make payments or transfer money in the blink of an eye. Learn all the steps you need to follow to get up and running with this service right now.

Google Pay for smartphones

In iOS or Android, you can use Google Pay within Gmail to send money to any email address — even a non-Google one.  While services vary according to country, you can also request or accept money using Gmail. Whether you’re paying or accepting payment, your information is encrypted and you can easily revoke access to your Google account on

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Technology
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The CEOs of Apple, Google, Facebook, and Amazon are set to testify before Congress in a historic antitrust hearing next week. Here’s what’s at stake for each company.

From left to right, Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai, Tim Cook, and Jeff Bezos.
From left to right, Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai, Tim Cook, and Jeff Bezos.

Getty/Carsten Koall/Michael Kovac/Business Insider composite

  • The tech CEOs of Apple, Google, Amazon, and Facebook will appear before Congress in a first-of-its-kind hearing on Wednesday.

  • They’ll be testifying as part of an antitrust investigation into the dominance of digital platforms that has been running since last June. The CEOs, who will likely appear remotely over video, will have to defend the growing power of their tech companies to skeptical lawmakers.

  • Here’s why each CEO has been asked to appear, the types of questions they will likely be asked, and how the day might play out.

  • Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.

The CEOs of four tech giants will appear before Congress next week, where they’ll have to defend their companies’ growing power to skeptical lawmakers.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg,

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Software
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Inside Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google versus the Feds

Sometime very soon, four of the most powerful men on the planet will face off against a small congressional subcommittee. 

The stakes couldn’t be higher. 

Yes tech execs are called into D.C. regularly these days, but this time is different. These are the CEOs of the four mega-tech companies, starting with Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest man, who’s never appeared before Congress. He’ll be joined by two other iconic personages: Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg (world’s fourth richest, worth $88 billion), and Apple’s Tim Cook. The fourth member of the quartet, Alphabet’s (Google’s) Sundar Pichai has a lower profile but carries no less weight.

Even more than all of that though, this hearing could mark a new beginning in the tug and pull between big business and society in America—for better or for worse. 

“This is the end of a one-year investigation where we’ve looked at these big tech platforms

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Internet
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Google ad portal equated ‘Black girls’ with porn

This article contains graphically sexual language.

Google’s Keywords Planner, which helps advertisers choose which search terms to associate with their ads, offered hundreds of keyword suggestions related to “Black girls,” “Latina girls,” and “Asian Girls” — the majority of them pornographic, The Markup found in its research.

Searches in the keyword planner for “boys” of those same ethnicities also primarily returned suggestions related to pornography.

Searches for “White girls” and “White boys,” however, returned no suggested terms at all.

Google appears to have blocked results from terms combining a race or ethnicity and either “boys” or “girls” from being returned by the Keyword Planner shortly after The Markup reached out to the company for comment about the issue.

These findings indicate that, until The Markup brought it to the company’s attention, Google’s systems contained a racial bias that equated people of color with objectified sexualization while exempting White

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Internet
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Google Brings 5 Game Studios To Stadia To Make Exclusive Games

Alphabet Inc.’s (GOOGL) Google has announced that it has signed five game development companies to make exclusive titles for its cloud gaming service, Stadia.

The July 14 announcement brings developer, Harmonix and studio, Supermassive Games for a slate of exclusives in the future. The arrangement for Stadia is a win considering some of the publishers are high profile game development companies with a record of game successes such as Harmonix’s Rock Band and Supermassive Games’ Until Dawn. The other game developers to be included in Stadia’s exclusive deal are Splash Damage and Uppercut Games.

The live-streamed event called, “Stadia Connect” also provided a viewing of the first-party exclusive, Orcs Must Die 3 (OMD3) from Robot Entertainment. Last year, Google reached an exclusive agreement for the title which was released on July 14.

Robot Entertainment CEO Patrick Hudson said on August 19 of last year, “OMD3 would not be

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Technology