Google Launches Password Checkup Chrome Extension
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
| Google Launches Password Checkup Chrome Extension | |
| Number | 743 |
| Broadcast Date | FEBRUARY 5, 2019 |
| Episode Length | 4:24 |
| Hosts | Sarah Lane |
Alphabet reports heavy operating losses in Q4, Facebook rolls out Unsend feature for messages, Apple confirms it stores some user data in Russia.
Headlines
- Alphabet's Q4 earnings report showed the company took more than $1.3 billion of operating losses in its “Other Bets” category, which includes its experimental X lab, the internet group Access, LTE balloon initiative Loon, drone delivery project Wing, and self-driving car unit Waymo, as well as other groups focused on health sciences and investment. Sales are strong though...the company earned more than $39 billion last quarter, with a profit of $8.2 billion, net revenue up 23% from the same quarter last year, but payments to partners rose 26%.
- Sources tell Axios that Facebook is building unified messaging for businesses so they can access and manage Instagram Direct Messages alongside messages in Facebook Messenger itself. Last month, The New York Times reported Facebook was working on unifying the back-ends of Instagram, Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp on the consumer side. This business feature will reportedly add Instagram Direct messaging to a page owner's messaging inbox within the Facebook Pages Manager app, and users would not be able to see the difference when their message is answered.
- In other Messenger news, Facebook will now allow you to delete messages from a conversation after you’ve sent them for up to 10 minutes either for just you or for both sides of the conversation. Last April, Facebook announced that it would build an “unsend” feature for all users within the next few months after it was spotted that CEO Mark Zuckerberg already had this feature. The feature rolls out on Android and iOS today.
- Google launched Password Checkup for Chrome that will advise users to reset credentials breached on third-party sites. Another new feature called Cross Account Protection extends first-party tools to re-secure breached Google Sign In apps. Google already automatically resets Google Account passwords if they are exposed in a third-party data breach, and the new Chrome extension brings this same level of protection to all services on the web. Google says Password Checkup was designed in a joint effort with cryptography researchers at Stanford University.
- Apple is storing some user data on Russian servers to comply with a local law that took effect in 2015, according to a recent filing with the Russian government. Apple users in the region have data like names, delivery addresses, email addresses and phone numbers stored on the servers. Apple says it collects that information for customer service and to send users information on new products, according to the filing, which also says that Apple stores more information about its Russian employees in the country, like workers’ Russian passport numbers, permanent and temporary addresses; history of work evaluations; and information about income. Last year, Apple complied with Chinese law requiring the local storage of iCloud accounts for users in that country.
- Apple confirmed to Reuters that it has reached a deal with French authorities to back-pay 500 million euros ($571 million) in taxes. Apple's French branch confirmed the tax agreement but didn't reveal how much it would pay. French magazine L'Express reported the sum and said the deal was finalized in December.
- Sonos is partnering with Sonance for a line of in-ceiling, in-wall and outdoor Sonos speakers. All the speakers still need to connect to a Sonos Amp to control them from the Sonos app. Shipping for the indoor speakers starts on February 26 and you can pre-order them now for $599 each. Outdoor speakers, which come as a pair, aren’t available but they’ll cost $799 a pair whenever they ship.
- TomTom and Microsoft partnered up back in 2016 to bring TomTom's enterprise-grade location-based services to Azure. Today, Microsoft announced TomTom’s maps and traffic data will be extended across Microsoft’s cloud services. Although HERE, which partnered up with Amazon's AWS last year, tells MSPowerUser that Microsoft remains a longtime customer and strategic partner and that Bing Maps and the positioning services for both Bing and Azure Maps still use HERE location services. So Microsoft and TomTom's agreement is not an exclusive agreement but TomTom will be a leading location data provider for Microsoft Azure and Bing Maps and Microsoft Azure will become TomTom’s preferred cloud provider.
Links
| Preceded by: "Slack Files to Go Public" |
Google Launches Password Checkup Chrome Extension |
Followed by: "The New York Times is Profitable thanks to the Web" |