Android Instant Apps are now open to all developers

After a year of testing, Android Instant Apps are now available for all developers.

Google unveiled Instant Apps at last year’s I/O, offering developers a way to build a lightweight version of their app that customers can use directly from search results. The idea is to offer a native app experience even when that particular app isn’t installed on your phone. Google trialled the service with select developers earlier this year, and is now making Instant Apps available for all developers.

All devices running Marshmallow and above support Instant Apps, with Google saying that Android O will offer a “more efficient runtime sandbox for instant apps.” Google is also working to expand available to older devices on Android 5.0 Lollipop.

In order to build an Instant App, developers have to modularize their app so customers can navigate to a particular section through deep links. If you’re a developer, you can get started by installing the latest preview of Android Studio 3.0 and the Android Instant Apps SDK.

Facebook fined €110 million for misleading EU over WhatsApp takeover

After months of deliberation, the European Commission has ruled that Facebook intentionally mislead officials over its ability to utilize data following its acquisition of WhatsApp in 2014. As a result, the social network has been fined €110 million ($122 million or £94 million) and becomes the first company to be penalized under the Commission’s Merger Regulation law since it was introduced in 2004.

The case, which was opened in December 2016, focused on Facebook’s admission that it would be unable to reliably automate the sharing of data between a user’s Facebook and WhatsApp accounts. However, in August 2016 — nearly two years after the companies had merged — Facebook announced an update to its terms of service, noting that it could link WhatsApp users’ phone numbers to their Facebook profile. The Commission filed a Statement of Objections three months later.

According to today’s statement, Facebook was judged to have lied on two occasions. The first was when it submitted documentation immediately after it asked the Commission (and competing companies) to investigate the deal. The second came in its response to Statement of Objections filed in December.

“Today’s decision sends a clear signal to companies that they must comply with all aspects of EU merger rules, including the obligation to provide correct information. And it imposes a proportionate and deterrent fine on Facebook,” said Commissioner Margrethe Vestager. “The Commission must be able to take decisions about mergers’ effects on competition in full knowledge of accurate facts.”

It believes Facebook employees “were aware of the user matching possibility” and knew that the Commission would critique its data-handling processes as part of the Merger Regulation. “The technical possibility of automatically matching Facebook and WhatsApp users’ identities already existed in 2014, and that Facebook staff were aware of such a possibility,” the Commission states. “Therefore, Facebook’s breach of procedural obligations was at least negligent.”

Yesterday, authorities in France and the Netherlands announced separate rulings on Facebook’s privacy practices. The French Commission Nationale de l’Informatique et des Libertés (CNIL) imposed a 150,000-euro fine (about $164,000) fine for not giving users enough control over their data and collecting information via partners without prior consent. The Dutch watchdog didn’t levy a penalty at all, but may do so in the future.

Under EU rules, the Commission can impose a fine of up to one percent of the aggregated turnover of companies that “intentionally or negligently provide incorrect or misleading information.” However, it did note that Facebook admitted its guilt and waived its rights to access the case and to have an oral hearing, assisting officials where possible. The company also halted data-sharing across Europe, pledging to make it opt-in rather than requiring users to manually remove themselves from data harvesting.

Facebook responded to the ruling with the following statement: “We’ve acted in good faith since our very first interactions with the Commission and we’ve sought to provide accurate information at every turn. The errors we made in our 2014 filings were not intentional and the Commission has confirmed that they did not impact the outcome of the merger review. Today’s announcement brings this matter to a close.”

Because it was able to conduct its investigation “more efficiently,” the Commission decided that the €110 million levy is “both proportionate and deterrent.”

Source: Europa

Gogoro and Bosch launch electric scooter-sharing service in Paris

The Gogoro EV Smartscooter is headed to France. A fleet of 600 scooters will be available starting this summer for short-term rentals via Bosch’s Coup Mobility service. This is the second city — Berlin being the first — that Coup and Gogoro have teamed up in.

Coup’s service uses an app to reserve and rent scooters. Users can check a bike out, ride it to their destination and leave it parked and end their rental. It’s like Car2Go, but with scooters. The pilot program that launched in Berlin last summer did so well, the fleet grew from the initial 200 to 1,000.

Gogoro CEO Horace Luke sees Paris as a natural fit for the Coup and the Gogoro Smartscooter. “If you’ve ever been to Paris, you know it’s one of the most congested cities in all of Europe,” Luke said.

The Gogoro electric scooter is different from other two-wheeled EVs thanks to its swappable battery system. Instead of charging the bike, riders pull up to a GoStation, exchange batteries and they’re on their way. The company launched the bike in Taipei and has installed over 300 of those stations and sold 20,000 bikes.

Source: Gogoro

Facebook Fined $122 Million for Misleading EU Regulators Over WhatsApp Deal

The European Commission has fined Facebook $122 million for misleading regulators over its 2014 acquisition of WhatsApp. The announcement came on Thursday in a press release in which the Commission said that the social media company had provided “incorrect or misleading information” when it told regulators that it would be unable to link the profiles of users on WhatsApp and Facebook.

However, WhatsApp announced in 2016 that it would start sharing some user data, including phone numbers, with Facebook, contradicting the earlier claim. In its press release, the Commission said that Facebook knew the data crossover was technically feasible in 2014 when it bought WhatsApp for $22 billion, but that it had stated otherwise when asked by merger regulators.

“When Facebook notified the acquisition of WhatsApp in 2014, it informed the Commission that it would be unable to establish reliable automated matching between Facebook users’ accounts and WhatsApp users’ accounts. It stated this both in the notification form and in a reply to a request of information from the Commission. However, in August 2016, WhatsApp announced updates to its terms of service and privacy policy, including the possibility of linking WhatsApp users’ phone numbers with Facebook users’ identities.

The Commission has found that, contrary to Facebook’s statements in the 2014 merger review process, the technical possibility of automatically matching Facebook and WhatsApp users’ identities already existed in 2014, and that Facebook staff were aware of such a possibility.”

The ruling by the Commission will not have any impact on its decision to rubber stamp the acquisition, and remains separate from data protection investigations that are currently ongoing, the EC explained in the press release. The separate investigations involve historical data collection of WhatsApp users in Germany, the U.K., and Italy. Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, in charge of competition policy, said:

“Today’s decision sends a clear signal to companies that they must comply with all aspects of EU merger rules, including the obligation to provide correct information. And it imposes a proportionate and deterrent fine on Facebook. The Commission must be able to take decisions about mergers’ effects on competition in full knowledge of accurate facts.”

Facebook responded to the decision in a statement published on its website on Thursday. The company said it had “acted in good faith” during its communications with the EC, and claimed that it had attempted to provide “accurate information at every turn”.

“The errors we made in our 2014 filings were not intentional and the Commission has confirmed that they did not impact the outcome of the merger review,” the statement reads. “Today’s announcement brings this matter to a close.”

Tags: Facebook, WhatsApp
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Microsoft’s Template Studio codes your Universal Windows apps for you

Back in 2015, Microsoft unveiled a visual way to write apps from a web browser without writing a single line of code. While the template-based Windows App Studio wasn’t powerful enough to build the most beautiful interface, it did offer a glimpse into Windows development and an introduction to the Windows Store marketplace. Today, Microsoft announced the App Studio’s successor, Windows Template Studio, is getting a fresh update to provide the same easy interface for building Universal Windows Platform apps.

This time around, the Template Studio actually runs as an extension in Visual Studio, rather than in-browser app, but the same guided wizard interface is still intact. The wizard will talk you step-by-step through the basics of your UWP as you select the project type, the app’s framework structure, app pages and features. The whole thing is available on GitHub and Microsoft is open-sourcing the project so other developers can help flesh out the wizard’s code generation engine.

Via: Windows Blog

Source: Windows Template Studio on GitHub

Google speeds up transactions even without Android Pay

Another small, but significant update from today’s I/O event comes courtesy of the Google Ads and Commerce team this afternoon. According to a blog post, the Google Payments API has been simplified to streamline things for users who might be confused about the difference between their Google Wallet, their Android Pay account and whatever cards they have saved in their browser.

Effectively, the new streamlined system makes any credit or debit card saved anywhere in your Google account available for purchases through any merchant or developer using the Google Payments. That means any card you’ve used to make a purchase on the Play store or saved in Chrome can now work with Android Pay. The API also extends to third party apps and mobile sites, so vendors can accept payment directly from your Google-linked cards, and you can be spared the headache of keying in your card number on a mobile page for the umpteenth time. (You will, of course, have to confirm any payments via fingerprint first.)

Besides saving users a couple keystrokes at checkout, the simplified payments also makes it easier for Google Assistant to work its magic and order Panera Bread for lunch without actually asking you to take out your wallet. On the other hand, the ease of use should be taken with a grain of salt: as with all things Google, that level of deep access to your purchase and spending history will likely lead to some eerily specific marketing opportunities or advertisements down the line.

For all the latest news and updates from Google I/O 2017, follow along here

Source: Google Inside AdWords

NSA would have to disclose its cyber exploit policies under new bill

It wasn’t long after last week’s devastating international ransomware attack before details surfaced about how the hackers found the exploit to target: It was stolen from the NSA, which stockpiles the digital vulnerabilities. Now, Democratic Texas Senator Brian Schatz has introduced a bill that would create policy regulating how and when federal agencies would disclose known attack vectors.

Schatz’ legislation (PDF), the Protecting our Ability to Counter Hacking Act of 2017, would establish a Vulnerability Equities Review Board consisting of the heads of US security agencies along with Presidential Cabinet members on an ad-hoc basis. The board would create policies and regulations establishing when to tell non-government entities about known tech exploits, a process that could potentially prevent another WannaCry ransomware disaster.

The bill’s acronym, PATCH Act, is something of a dig at how the mishandled NSA exploit became a malware catastrophe. When a hacking group known as The Shadow Brokers dropped a cache of Windows exploits taken from the NSA back in April, Microsoft quickly issued a security patch to fix a code execution vulnerability called EternalBlue. Unfortunately, the software giant can’t force its worldwide users to upgrade, especially for systems like Windows XP and 2000 that are no longer supported. Less than a month later, attackers reconfigured the exploit into the WannaCry ransomware. Only by chance did a British security expert activate its global killswitch.

Days ago, Microsoft criticized US cybersecurity policy for stockpiling the exploit instead of informing the company in order to protect its users worldwide. While individuals who deign to upgrade their systems can quickly install single patches, rolling out updates to many companies and organizations is a time-consuming endeavor, making rapid response essential to protect infrastructure. It wasn’t just companies that WannaCry locked out of their systems, either: thousands of operations and appointments were canceled as the ransomware crippled computers in state-run hospitals across the United Kingdom.

Whether this bill makes it to law or not, the clock is ticking for a better approach to sealing vulnerabilities: The Shadow Broker collective has threatened to dump more exploits next month.

Via: The Verge

Source: Protect Our Ability to Counter Hacking Act of 2017

Android Device Manager has a new name: Find My Device

Since Google introduced Android Device Manager in 2013 it has updated the feature periodically, but the latest change gives it a new name — Find My Device — and a few new features. It’s now a part of the Google Play Protect service mentioned earlier during I/O, and most Android owners should see an update for it on their devices. The standard features (similar to iOS’ Find My iPhone) are still intact with the ability to locate, ring, lock down or wipe your hardware remotely — you can even Google Search “Find My Phone” to use it — while it has added information about the current battery level and WiFi network connection.

For all the latest news and updates from Google I/O 2017, follow along here.

Source: Google Play, Google Find My Device, Android Blog

Google Photos makes it easier to share your shots, create physical photo books

Why it matters to you

Do you forget to send your photos to friends and family? Google Photos will now suggest images to share — all you have to do is tap a button.

With a hefty 500 million users, Google Photos is one of Google’s most-loved products, and Wednesday at Google I/O the company announced a number of new features to the service. Most notably, Google is making it much easier to share photos with your friends, both automatically and manually.

Perhaps the biggest new feature is “Suggested Sharing,” which will allow users to share photos with their friends as photos are taken. For example, if you take a photo of a friend, using facial recognition and a series of other smart guesses, Google Photos will be able to tell who that person is, and ask if you want to share the photos with them.

Google Photos will also now feature a new tab at the bottom of the Photos UI. Titled “Sharing,” the tab will offer a number of suggestions on how to share photos with your friends and family. From there, you can review the photos included that you’ll be sharing, then hit the share button. It’s really rather quick and easy.

Photos can also automatically share photos, if you choose to let it do so. For example, if you want your photo library to be automatically shared with your significant other, Google Photos can automatically update their library every time you add new photos to it.

Google knows photos aren’t just digital — many prefer to have actual printed photos — and so it’s launching a new feature to help with that. The feature is called Google Photo Book, and it’s rolling out to Android and iOS in the United States, though it will expand to more countries soon. Through the feature, you’ll be able to select photos that you want printed as part of a Photo Book, then organize them to be printed into a nice-looking, high-quality printed book. Those books will range from $10 to $20, depending on if you want a softcover or hardcover.

On top of those features, Google is also baking Google Lens into Photos. Google Lens is a newly launched service from the company that uses AI to intelligently recognize a range of different pieces of information. For example, you can point Lens at a sign in another language, and it will translate it for you. Point it at a painting, and you can get historical information about that painting.

Google Photos is likely to continue to evolve over the next few years, especially considering how popular it is.

Windows Insider build supports creatives with improved My People feature

Why it matters to you

If you’re a Windows Insider on the Fast Ring, then you’ll want to go check out the latest build for some improvements to My People and system settings.

Microsoft’s Build 2017 developers conference was last week, and one of its stars was Windows 10 Fall Creators Update. The next major Windows 10 revision will feature more functionality aimed at helping creative professionals get their work done along with ways to make Windows 10 a user’s technological hub.

One of the most visible features coming with Windows 10 Fall Creators Update is the Story Remix app, which has already arrived on the desktops of Windows Insiders in the first post-Build 2017 preview build. Microsoft has released the next preview build, 16199, and it offers quite a few updates of a few features that weren’t heavily covered at Microsoft’s event.

Before getting into what’s new in build 16199, Microsoft took a moment to explain why some Windows Insiders have received Story Remix and others have not. The answer is simple: Microsoft is testing the experience and needs a control group to be able to determine how Story Remix is affecting systems.

If you don’t have Story Remix on your system — and the easiest way to tell is to check for the Create pivot option in the Windows 10 Photos app — then you’re in that control group. If you want to get into the experimental group and get Story Remix installed, then send the app team an email for instructions on how to sign up.

In terms of build 16911, Microsoft’s emphasis seems to be on improving some of Windows 10’s core functionality along with improving the My People feature. Some of the changes in the latter include:

• • See emoji from pinned contacts: The My People feature lets you pin contact icons to the taskbar, and now Windows 10 will play emoji animations in pinned icons. You can turn the feature off in taskbar settings by right-clicking on the taskbar.
  • Notification Badging: The contact icons will now show a counter of the number of notifications you’ve received. This feature requires Skype version 11.16.556.0 to work.
  • People-first Sharing: There are now two ways to kick off a conversation with a contact. You can drag a file onto a contact icon to create an email and you can share directly to a contact by choosing from a list of recommended people in the share picker.

Next up are some improvements to the Windows 10 gaming options in Settings > Gaming and the Windows Game Bar:

• • • • Broadcast using game-only audio: You can now go to Settings > Gaming > Broadcasting and set your audio to “Per-app” rather than sending the entire PC’s audio through Beam.
      • Audio settings is now Game DVR in Game bar: Audio settings have been renamed to Game DVR, and all settings are now in that section in settings.
      • If you notice a “Game Monitor” page in Settings > Gaming, ignore it for now. It is a placeholder for future functionality.

Settings has received a few other updates as well. Here are the highlights:

• • • • Settings > System > About is now integrated with System Health. The About page will now show information from Windows Defender Security Center for a quick glance at your PC’s status.
      • Tips and Videos in Settings: Microsoft is adding tips and videos to help you learn more about the options you can configure in Windows 10. The first examples are in Settings > Ease of Access and Settings > Update & Security.
      • Expanding Storage Sense’s abilities: You can now configure your system to automatically clean up files that haven’t been changed for 30 days. Go to Settings > System > Storage to configure this option.

Microsoft also updated Cortana on Android to support incoming call notifications. On your Android smartphone, go to the Cortana app then Settings > Sync Notifications and turn on the complete list of Cortana cross-device features. Then, whenever you receive a call on your Android device you will get immediate notification on your Windows 10 PC with options to decline the call or send a text response.

Build 16199 also includes the usual list of fixes, changes, and improvements. Highlights include:

• • • • Windows Defender Application Guard now works on touch-enabled PCs.
      • An issue with third-party antivirus programs that causes Windows desktop apps to fail when launching has been fixed.
      • Disable drivers will no longer show up as an issue in Windows Defender Security Center.
      • The Note quick action has been removed due to low usage.

Of course, no Windows 10 preview build would be complete without some known issues to keep in mind. Here are a few in build 16199 in addition to a few that have been around in the past couple of builds:

• • • • Outlook 2016 may hang on launch due to a spam filter issue.
      • Microsoft is investigating issues with opening PDFs in Edge.
      • Some games, including Civilization VI, may not launch in this build.
      • Windows Mixed Reality doesn’t work in this build, and developers should hold off on updating if they’re actively working on a Windows Mixed Reality project.

As always, you will need to be a Windows Insider in the Fast Ring to receive this build. And be sure to keep those known issues in mind before hitting the update button. If you want to get even more involved with the development of Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, then you can check out the ongoing Bug Bash.