Shove is a hilarious Chrome extension that lets you take over a friend’s browser

I am not 100% sure on exactly why you would want to do this, but a new Chrome extension called Shove will let you basically take over a friend’s browser. Not only that, but your friend can do the same to you.

The way it works is you go to whatever website you want and “shove” it to a friend’s computer. Your friends can do the same thing to you too and neither of you can stop it from happening.

To me, this seems super dangerous since your friends could send potentially harmful webpages over to you and there is nothing you can do. The only way to stop bad things from happening is Chrome’s built in security. Although, the friends you add have to accept your friend request. So, if someone adds you, or the other way around, you would have to know the person and accept their request before anything can be shoved. Excellent feature as you would not want just anybody sending you webpages.

However, it could also be pretty hilarious to add some friends and all pray the other doesn’t send them something unwanted. Kind of like a modern Russian roulette, you have no idea if something bad will happen, but you know that next website could be a huge problem.

I guess it could be useful as well. For example, if you and your team are working on a project and you want to send them a website, rather than email them the link, wait for them to open it, and then have to wait for them to click the link. With Shove, you can just send it directly to them whether they like it or not. This way it guarantees they get the exact webpage you want them to see right away.

Mike Lacher, who wrote most of the back-end code for the project said:

“At first we wanted to limit it to something where you could only send other people things a couple of times a day,” and “But then, as we started using it, the fun thing isn’t finding the most shocking thing or whatever and sending it to a friend. It was creative conversation… We don’t inspect the URLs going back and forth at all. And we don’t want to be watching what people are doing with it. So there’s no real controls on that level.”

Source: Shove
Via: Wired

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Google drones appear in FAA database

Two new drones have been added to the FAA database and the listed manufacturer name is none other than Google. The listings appear to be consistent with previous work by Google to develop drones for use with a delivery project originating from the Google X labs. The latest devices may be the successors to the Project Wing concept that Google was testing in Australia. The new drones are codenamed the M2 and the B3 and were submitted to the FAA on October 2nd and October 7th respectively.

Earlier this year Google X labs head Astro Teller indicated the testing of a UAV in Australia had not panned out as intended, so Google was going back to the drawing board with some new designs. Although details are scant, the new devices are both listed as being fixed-wing craft with two electric motors and weighing less than 55 pounds.

For the FAA, Google supplied the address of their Boulder, Colorado location rather than their headquarters in Mountain View. Since the aircraft have two different model numbers, sources think Google may be testing two distinct designs. The move to list the UAVs with the FAA also appears to be step taken by Google to keep the project out of hot water, like allegations from earlier this year that they may have been sidestepping FAA rules by testing drones under the auspices of their work with NASA.

You can check out a video below for some of the work Google did on Project Wing.

Click here to view the embedded video.

source: FAA
via: Engadget

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Google registers two delivery drones for US testing

Google X’s Project Wing concept was a unique take on the delivery drone: a single-winged UAV that took off and landed vertically. Despite extensive testing in Australia, the plan didn’t work as well as the company hoped. In March this year Google X head Astro Teller announced the organization was working on a new design, and now, FAA documents show that two Google-built UAVs, codenamed the M2 and the B3, have been registered this month in the US. The M2 made the FAA registry on October 2nd, while the B3 was listed October 7th.

The Guardian broke a story back in August about Google sidestepping certain FAA rules, leveraging its relationship with NASA in order to test its drones in remote California. By virtue of the registration documents, it appears that Google is planning on legitimizing its efforts, actively and openly testing the drones in the US. You only need register a UAV with the FAA if you’re flying for non-recreational reasons outdoors. What’s more, given the two distinct model numbers — rather than the same model with different serial numbers — it’s a reasonable assumption that Google has two designs currently in the works.

Beyond that, though, we can’t discern too much from the documents. Both drones are registered near to the company’s Boulder, CO office, rather than its main campus in Mountain View, CA. Both are fixed-wing aircraft with two electric motors, and both weigh less than 55 pounds. This flies well with information uncovered by The Guardian, which suggested the craft would “weigh less than 25kg (55lbs), using multiple electric engines to fly at up to 100mph and as high as 120 meters.” Teller has already said he plans an update on the drone program at some point this year, so hopefully we’ll find out more about the company’s drone(s) sooner rather than later.

We’ve reached out to Google for more information on the documents and the new drones, and will update this article with any response we receive.

Thanks, Eu-Jin.

Source: FAA

YouTube trains its thumbnailer to generate better images

Since a YouTube video’s thumbnail could convince or deter viewers from hitting play, we’re sure a lot of creators would love the website’s new and improved automatic thumbnailer. According to the Google Research Blog’s announcement post, the website analyzes videos you upload at one frame per second and scores each frame based on their quality. The generator will then display images that scored high enough during analysis. But, how exactly does YouTube’s algorithm know how to score images? Apparently, by training it to recognize between good and bad photos.

YouTube’s developers fed its deep neural network with examples: they used typically well-constructed custom thumbnails uploaded by creators to represent good/high-quality ones, while the bad/low-quality samples were just random screen captures. Based on the comparison images the YT team posted, the upgraded algorithm successfully learned from the process and can pinpoint HQ photos. Thankfully, the generator’s now live, so you can try it out for yourself and see if that’s really the case.

Source: Google Research