Google’s search engine now converts color values

There are plenty of nerdy things that Google’s search engine can do, and the latest is a peach if you’re a graphic designer. If you type in “RGB to Hex,” you’ll be shown a color converter that’ll let you pick a shade and get the RBG and Hex values for both. In addition, you can hit the Show Color Values toggle and get a breakdown of the HSV, HSL and CMYK counts for those shades. Yes, it’s not the most useful feature in the world, but it’ll save you having to open up Photoshop just to get a color value for your web design project.

Via: Android Police

Source: Reddit

Spy photos capture Google’s self-driving Chrysler minivans

Google will soon have self-driving minivans on the roads, judging by spy shots leaked by Electrek. The photos, taken from a Google facility in Mountain View, show a half-dozen Chrysler Pacifica vans being set up with Google’s latest self-driving sensors. In total, it will equip 100 such vehicles with the tech, thanks to a deal with Fiat Chrysler.

While a minivan may not be the self-driving vehicle of your dreams, Google said in May that it “gives us an opportunity to test a larger vehicle that could be easier for passengers to enter and exit, particularly with features like hands-free sliding doors.” Judging by the photos, it has also developed a roof-mounted sensor pack, including radar, lidar and cameras that protrudes less, and some kind of bumper-mounted device.

While a minivan may not be the self-driving vehicle of your dreams, Google said in May that it “gives us an opportunity to test a larger vehicle that could be easier for passengers to enter and exit, particularly with features like hands-free sliding doors.”

Google also said that the Pacifica design makes it “easy for us to install our self-driving systems, including the computers that hold our self-driving software, and the sensors that enable our software to see what’s on the road around the vehicle.” The model they chose is also a rechargeable hybrid minivan with a 16 kWh battery and 30 miles of range, providing the “robust” electrical system Google needs for its tech.

Mountain View kicked off the self-driving vehicle craze after it developed some of the first models after recruiting researchers that won a DARPA challenge in 2010. However, despite recently hitting the two million milestone, it’s lagging considerably behind Tesla, which has logged over 200 million “autopilot” miles. 100 new vehicles means it has tripled its fleet size, so it’s now aiming to “make transportation more accessible for millions of people” with its autonomous technology, it said.

Source: Electrek

Recommended Reading: Behind the scenes of Google’s Pixel phones

Behind the Pixel:
Google’s First Real
Threat to Apple’s iPhone
Mark Gurman,
Bloomberg

Before Google’s Pixel event had even started on Tuesday, Bloomberg already posted a behind-the-scenes article on how the phones were made. There’s some solid perspective to complement all of the news and analysis you’ve likely already read, so this is certainly worth as you settle in for a relaxing weekend.

Alphabet is working to squash the Zika virus, too

There are a few ways to kill off a pest: eliminate its food supply, or, make sure it can’t effectively procreate. Since the pest in question for this post is mosquitos, the former solution isn’t an option. So, Verily, the life-science division of Alphabet Inc., is addressing the Zika-carrier with a spin on the latter, according to MIT Technology Review.

As is normal with the company’s far-fetched projects, the anti-mosquito experiments have mostly been done under the veil of secrecy. But because one of the tests involves driving vans into neighborhoods and releasing millions of altered male mosquitoes, Verily is pulling the curtain back a little bit.

“People in some parts of the U.S. are asking for help,” Verily’s vice president of engineering Linus Upson told Technology Review. “But if we are going to release mosquitoes in the real world, we need to talk to communities. This isn’t like launching a consumer internet service.”

And he’s right. One method of stopping the diminutive airborne scourge is administering a gene drive, a DNA construct that turns poisonous when passed onto offspring. That’s still in its infancy. Another is infecting the bugs with the bacteria Wolbachia, which, when carried by males, causes females eggs to not be fertilized properly. From the sounds of it, that one is in the embryonic stages as well, but the closest to being tested and accepted by communities. For example, trials from other companies using methods similar to that haven’t caused any public outcry.

The FDA has already approved using genetically modified mosquitoes to combat Zika, so perhaps Verily’s efforts will see the light of day sooner rather than later.

Source: MIT Technology Review

Google Assistant is gender-neutral(ish), but it’s not feminist

In a world occupied by Siri, Cortana and Alexa, Google Assistant is a bit of an anomaly. It’s the first widely used voice assistant to eschew a female name, which the company reportedly did to avoid giving it a personality. The company would rather you imagined yourself talking directly to “Google the search engine” than a go-between. Avoiding a gendered name just happened to be a happy coincidence, it seems.

Despite Google (perhaps unintentionally) shunning obvious sexism in its AI, it still fell into the gender bias trap by giving Assistant a female voice. And that’s a problem, a problem that will require the collective effort of the industry’s powerhouses to fix.

A Google spokesperson told Engadget that the company started with a female voice for Assistant “as it’s something we already had available via the Google voice search technology.” This is the same voice that’s been used in many Android devices for years now, responding to our “OK Google” commands and requests. It’s been extensively fine tuned and worked on over time. A male voice was not available in Android, except via the text-to-speech output settings, which required users to install and switch to new language packs (such as British English). Google’s spokesperson said that the company is “thinking about how to expand beyond a female voice but (has) nothing to share at this time.”

Using a woman’s voice for a bot named “Assistant” is a problem because it ties that subservient role directly to gender. But the thing is, it’s not Google’s fault. It’s not even really the tech industry’s fault. Studies have shown that people prefer female voices for biological and historical reasons. The modern generation has also grown used to them — in-car GPS units and plenty of other audio devices have long used calm-sounding feminine voices to talk to us. It’s so ingrained in our collective subconscious that, even though you can already change Siri’s voice to a male one, the female version is the one that’s become iconic. Can you imagine Siri as a guy? Probably not. But it’s time for a change.

AI makers can start by offering options. It’s not going to be easy to just implement a new voice altogether, but at least Google says it’s thinking about the issue. Amazon and Microsoft still don’t have male options for their assistants and don’t appear to have plans to change that. Apple is the only one right now that lets you pick from a variety of languages, accents and genders for Siri, though it still uses a female name. That should also be changed. It’s not enough to just offer male vocal alternatives without changing the character’s basic identity. Companies should also work towards providing different characters of all genders that users can choose and avoid defaulting to a woman all the time.

Creating options is a good first step, but it’s important for these tech titans to work toward crafting a gender-neutral assistant. Startup Kasisto has proven it’s possible with its androgynous MyKai chatbot, although, like Facebook’s M, it doesn’t have a voice. If these bots are meant to be nothing more than helpers that yield to our every will, it’s better to dehumanize them altogether by not assigning genders than to pretend we have a person (or a feminine non-human) at our beck and call.