darkoshi

The design of the Google Search results page has changed lately. I don't remember exactly how it looked before (it often changes in subtle ways), so it is hard to be sure what changed and when.

Each search result having an icon is a change, I think.

There seems to be a lot of wasted space on the right side of the page. I don't remember what used to be there.
Oh, I see. Depending on what you search on, it shows something in the upper right. I remember now, it often links to Wikipedia there.
Searching on famous people, the layout of results definitely looks different than they used to.

The semi-continuous scrolling is definitely new. It now loads 15 pages of results before showing a "More results" button. The bottom of each results page no longer has links to the next/previous pages of results and the links to the 2nd/3rd/4th/etc./last pages of results.

The Settings button lets you turn off continuous scrolling, but then it still only shows a "More results" button at the bottom of the page instead of the old style navigation links.

.

Google Introduces Updated Desktop Search Design (2023/03/08)

Google Search Website Design History
This is a nice history, but the last example of the search results page is from 2012.

I compared Google's upcoming Terms of Service (effective 2022/01/05) to their current terms. Among various other differences (none of which concern me much) they changed this text:

Warranty

We provide our services using reasonable skill and care. If we don’t meet the quality level described in this warranty, you agree to tell us and we’ll work with you to try to resolve the issue.

Disclaimers

The only commitments we make about our services (including the content in the services, the specific functions of our services, or their reliability, availability, or ability to meet your needs) are (1) described in the Warranty section, (2) stated in the service-specific additional terms, or (3) provided under applicable laws. We don’t make any other commitments about our services.

And unless required by law, we don’t provide implied warranties, such as the implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement.

to:

Warranty disclaimer

We built our reputation on providing useful, reliable services like Google Search and Maps, and we’re continuously improving our services to meet your needs. However, for legal purposes, we offer our services without warranties unless explicitly stated in our service-specific additional terms. The law requires that we explain this using specific legal language and that we use capital letters to help make sure you see it, as follows:

TO THE EXTENT ALLOWED BY APPLICABLE LAW, WE PROVIDE OUR SERVICES “AS IS” WITHOUT ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. FOR EXAMPLE, WE DON’T MAKE ANY WARRANTIES ABOUT THE CONTENT OR FEATURES OF THE SERVICES, INCLUDING THEIR ACCURACY, RELIABILITY, AVAILABILITY, OR ABILITY TO MEET YOUR NEEDS.

(Boldness added to text by me.)

I never thought about there being a specific law about disclaimers needing to be in capital letters...

law.stackexchange.com : Do disclaimers need to be capitalized?

Do they have to use all caps? Well, no. It's just that companies feel that's the easiest way to make the text "conspicuous" which is required by the Uniform Commercial Code explicitly in § 2-316. Exclusion or Modification of Warranties.
...
The term "conspicuous" is defined in § 1-201. General Definitions.

"Conspicuous", with reference to a term, means so written, displayed, or presented that a reasonable person against which it is to operate ought to have noticed it. Whether a term is "conspicuous" or not is a decision for the court. Conspicuous terms include the following: (A) a heading in capitals equal to or greater in size than the surrounding text, or in contrasting type, font, or color to the surrounding text of the same or lesser size; and (B) language in the body of a record or display in larger type than the surrounding text, or in contrasting type, font, or color to the surrounding text of the same size, or set off from surrounding text of the same size by symbols or other marks that call attention to the language.

So you could make the text all bold and italic. You could make the font color purple. It's just that most companies use the caps lock key, whatever their individual reasons may be.

ADG7 is another Korean group whose music and performances I enjoy. They use traditional instruments, and the songs I've listened to so far are very lively and upbeat.

"The colorful costumes are derived from images of shamans who wear vividly colored clothes and bold jewelry. Crossdressing expresses shamans' genderless quality because they are mediums channeling heaven and earth. As for the vocalists, they often wear women's hanbok while putting on traditional hats worn by men," Park explained.

Like Leenalchi, I discovered them via the Arirang TV channel's club.KOM show.

Video title: [Club.KOM] ADG7 (악단광칠) & Aucha (어차)
Posted by: Club KOM - 클럽닷컴
Date posted: Oct 14, 2020

Video title: Ak Dan Gwang Chil - “Youngjeonggeori” (Bonus Track)
Posted by: Skirball Cultural Center
Date posted: Sep 3, 2020

~~I haven't yet been able to find out what ADG7 (Ak Dan Gwang Chil) stands for.~~ (see below)
(Google Translate says it is Haitian Creole for "and chilled teeth"! LOL, but doesn't give any result for Korean.)
I am guessing that "Ak Dan Gwang" is Korean for the letters A, D, G, and Chil is Korean for the number 7 (which still wouldn't tell me what they stand for), but I haven't even been able to confirm that much. When you count from one to ten, seven is not "chil", but... oh yes, I posted about the different Korean counting systems before, and "chil" does mean seven!

Their Bandcamp page: https://adg7.bandcamp.com/

Update:

mellowtigger found an explanation of the band's name. In this video, bandmembers answered:
"Akdan" means a group of musicians; And we were formed on the 70th anniversary of Gwangbok-jeol [the National Liberation Day]. And that is why we're called AKDAN-GWANG-7.
We came up with the name with an intention to remember the true meaning of liberation and those who are still suffering after all these years."

I've determined that the Google Translate webpage only translates Korean text which is entered/pasted in the Korean alphabet (Hangul). It doesn't work for romanized versions of Korean text in the Latin alphabet.

Privacy checkup: Limit Ad Tracking up 216% on iOS, but down 85% on Android (March 2020)

That makes sense as I didn't even know there was such a setting in Android.
It is under Settings - Google - Ads - "Opt out of Ads Personalization".

There is also an option on that page to "Reset advertising ID". The Google Advertising ID (GAID), from what I understand, is a way for advertisers to track your ad-related activity across different apps.

That said, I'm leaving the personalization on for now, as I use very few apps with ads, and don't recall being annoyed by any at the moment.

I tried to be nonchalant about it in the prior post, but have been in low-level panic mode since that evening. Only a low level because:

- for the time being at least, I can still access all my Gmail accounts via IMAP.
- I always save emails and attachments to files on my computer as I read them, so being locked out of Gmail *won't* result in me losing any data. (But it's time to backup my computer files; I don't yet have that automated.)
- I have many different accounts and emails, and only a few of them are Gmail/Google.
- I suspect that if I try to log in from my own house, it may well succeed, as maybe that's the IP address I last logged in successfully from.
- If absolutely necessary, I could find some phone number, possibly a temporary throw-away one, to use for the account (though based on a link below, even this might not suffice!)

Still, it feels like the rug has been pulled out from under me, that the rules have been changed, that it's no longer sufficient to know your own password and security answers, that regardless of all that, an unreachable machine can decide to no longer let me in based on whatever criteria *it* chooses.

Once I am able to log in, I can finish deleting any remaining content and close down the account(s) to ensure this never happens again. I've already signed up for two replacement non-Gmail email accounts, and have switched over my LJ and DW accounts to them.

The thing that pains me most to consider is closing down my YouTube channel and removing all the videos that I've posted there over the years. That's the account I *was* able to login to the other day. But again, the rug is gone; I feel like I could lose access to it any time now. I could leave the channel and videos up and simply not post anything new there. But I don't like the idea of not being able to take the videos down in the future, if I someday wanted to.

I could delete the videos from YouTube and upload them to Vimeo instead, but I've never felt they were good enough for Vimeo, so I don't know if I really would. Do Vimeo embeds work in Dreamwidth? I don't remember.

.

It's not only Google; I no longer trust any of my free accounts to remain accessible. It sounds like what may trigger this problem is deleting cookies (so that your device is not "recognized") and using your device in different locations or with different ISPs (so that your IP number is not recognized). Possibly also using various different browsers. I've been doing that for years already though, and haven't had this problem with Gmail before now. But I don't login to these accounts on the web very often, as I mostly access them via IMAP and Thunderbird, so I honestly don't know which browser I used the last time, or whether it was from this house or that one. I recall a similar problem with Yahoo some years back, though that may have been triggered by entering my password wrong too many times before getting it right.

The below posts are all recent; I wonder if Google's changed their security algorithms in a bad way lately.

Based on this post, even giving Google a phone number may not be enough to prevent being locked out: Locked out of Google account for NO reason. How can I ensure this never happens again? (2020/10/22)

Locked out of google account despite multiple correct recovery answers (2020/11/29)

been locked out of my google account for now reason and account recovery does not work (2020/10/18)

"You might have attempted the recovery form many times in the last 24 hours. Try to wait for one week before attempting another account recovery form (do not attempt to sign in or submit account recovery form during the one week period).
After you wait for one week, kindly use the account recovery form: https://accounts.google.com/signin/recovery from previous logged in location/ip address and used device/computer for the account as Google will also check the location and used device/computer. "

What it's like to get locked out of Google indefinitely (2020/10/31)

Microsoft Outlook users had the same kind of problem: (2018/04/13)

I have a few Gmail accounts with "darkoshi" in the name, which like my other "darkoshi" accounts such as this Dreamwidth one, I don't want associated to my legal name and address.

So I don't believe I've ever entered a phone number for those accounts. Whenever their pages have prompted me to enter one, I've chosen the option to skip it.

I have these Gmail accounts set up via IMAP in my Thunderbird, so I'm still able to receive and send mail thru them.

I logged into one of these accounts without a problem today via the web. But when logging into another of the accounts (in a fresh browser window with cookies cleared, like always), after entering my email and password, I was prompted to verify it's me by entering my recovery email address, which I did. But then it prompted me to verify it's me again in another way:

"Verify it's you. This device isn't recognized. For your security, Google wants to make sure it's really you. Enter a phone number to get a text message with a verification code."

This smacks of downright deceit to me. Entering a phone number doesn't let them verify it is me, as I've never given them a phone number before. I can only presume Google wants to have a phone number associated with my account, and this is their way of obtaining it.

I am quite annoyed that they don't instead simply say "We now require a phone number to be associated with your account. Please enter one."

I still wouldn't want to enter one, but at least they'd be being honest.
Gmail didn't even send a verification code to my recovery email address to verify that I can access it; they only made me enter the email address to show that I know what it is.

What they did send to both the email account that I'm trying to log in to, as well as the recovery email account, is an email saying:
"Critical Security Alert. Sign-in attempt was blocked. Someone just used your password to try to sign in to your account. Google blocked them, but you should check what happened."

Yes, I used my password to try to sign into my account, DUH.

https://www.wikihow.com/Bypass-Gmail-Phone-Verification
"It is no longer possible to create a new Gmail account without verifying a mobile phone number."

https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/114129
"To help protect you from abuse, we will sometimes ask you to prove you’re not a robot before you can create or sign in to your account. This extra confirmation by phone helps keep spammers from abusing our systems.
Note: To verify your account, you need a mobile device. "

So I think I will have to stop using Gmail for my Darkoshi accounts.

But what email providers let you be anonymous and don't require a phone number?
I'm ok with it being a paid service, if I can pay anonymously; that may be reason for me to try out bitcoin. Although bitcoin's not really anonymous, is it?

So I just don't know.

::sigh:: It's always something.

Now I spent hours researching that instead of what I wanted to spend my post-midnight / pre-bed time on.
But GMX mail and ProtonMail look like good contenders.

...kids will still want to swap for a different color or style.

This search phrase returns what I was looking for on DuckDuckGo, but not on Google:
school facemask "paw patrol" spiderman lunch swap

That is unusual, and speaks well of DDG. Replacing "facemask" with "mask" brings back the wanted result on Google too, but it's odd that their algorithms aren't doing that replacement automatically. Normally Google returns as many or more relevant results for me than DDG, but not this time.

This is what I was looking for, a wryly prophetic* tweet I'd seen shared on FB yesterday:

You gon send your kid to school with the Paw Patrol mask and he gon come home with a Spider Man mask because he made a trade at lunch. Whole school gon be shut down the next day.

*I'd have written premoniscient, but the dictionaries are telling me that isn't a word no matter how much it sounds like one to me. "Premonitory" is a word but it doesn't sound right to me at all. "Prescient" is also a word, but isn't exactly the meaning I intended.

..

Auditory illusion, "Brainstorm or Green Needle?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pRY3wlKwm8

I only hear green needle. The first part could be either brain or green; those words sound similar. But how can the 2nd part possibly be "storm"? - it has clearly 2 syllables!? Even if I stretch out "storm" in my mind to be as long as 2 syllables, it sounds nothing at all like the sound in the video clip.

I got a strange voicemail in Chinese on my cellphone from the number 202-495-3793 (a Washington, DC area code). It's a short official-sounding recorded message in a female voice, with a simple musical tune in the background. (I like how the Chinese language, being tone-based, is itself melodic even without the music.)

I was curious as to what the message said, so I saved it to an audio file on my laptop. Then I opened Google Translate in the Chrome browser (the option for translating from audio / microphone input is only available in Chrome, not Firefox). The page's text input box has a microphone icon in the lower left that you click for it to start listening. But first you need to select the language; it won't auto-detect when using the mic input. Then I played the audio file.

The translating didn't work very well. I tried it several times. Mostly, it didn't recognize any words, and showed no output. A couple of times, it showed the following output. This is only a small portion of what was said:
Zhongguó zhù mei dàshi
Chinese Ambassador to the United States

But I'm not even sure that much of it is correct. In the audio, I can hear "Zhongguó zhù" at the very beginning, but not "mei dàshi" after it. Maybe that is from a different part of it. It's spoken so fast that I can't tell.. I do hear "shi" a few times but not sure about the rest.

I tried again and this time got:
Zhongguó zhù mei dàshi guan
中国驻美大使馆
Chinese Embassy in the United States

Zhongguó = China
dàshi guan = Embassy

I also tried playing back the recording at 2/3s speed, in hopes that would let Google Translate hear the words better. But it did not help.

Hum, this is sort of fun: Try to say Chinese sounding things and see what it translates to. But you have to click the mic to stop and restart in between, as otherwise it seems to output the same thing over and over again. ("No no no")

I seem to have learned how to say "China" (Zhongguó) pretty well! (But I doubt I'll remember it.)

Ah, in my trying to read "Zhongguó zhù mei dàshi guan", it instead translates it to "The beauty of life".

But I tested translating from me speaking German, and it translates that very well! I can hardly say anything that it doesn't understand! Even with my not-so-great speaking voice.

I've been impressed lately with how pertinent some of the text reply suggestions are on my phone. (Although sometimes they aren't.) It makes replying easier and also seems a good way to learn "what is a good normal response to xyz" if a reply doesn't come easily to one's mind.

But I thought I had turned suggestions off before; hadn't I been concerned about it sending my texts to a server some where, to be analyzed, in order to return the suggestions? So I went into the settings, and found this... the "on-device intelligence part" surprised me:

Messages app - Settings - "Suggestions in chat"
(Google Assistant, Smart Reply, Suggested Actions)

"Smart Reply, suggested actions, and Assistant suggestions are generated with on-device intelligence by Messages.

Suggestions are not shared with Google nor anyone else until you tap them.

If you allow Messages to access your device's location, you'll see more local suggestions."

But what about that "until you tap them" part. I guess that means that once you select and use one of the suggested replies, then it probably sends both the other person's text as well as the selected reply to some server. So I guess my original concern remains.

Every once in a while Google sends an email asking me to "Confirm your recovery email". But the email address this is sent to isn't shown as a recovery email in any of my Google accounts. It is a non-Gmail email address, and is the *primary* email for one of my Google accounts (which was created from a YouTube account when Google bought YouTube). When I log into that Google account and check the email & security settings, it seems fine; no confirmation required.

The email itself doesn't mention which account it relates to; it only gives a general link (https://myaccount.google.com/security-checkup) for logging into an account. I may have created another Google account at some time and forgotten about it, but then the email should already have been confirmed back then whenever.

I think this email used to be the recovery email for one of my Gmail accounts, but I switched it to a different recovery email. So why would Google start wanting to confirm the old email again?

Anyway, note to self: IGNORE THESE DURNDED EMAILS. I already checked every single account. No need to check them again.

..

Update, 2019/11/27:

Today I got a similar email for one of my other Google accounts which has a gmail.com email address. That email clearly indicated which account the message was for (the email address it was sent to), as well as the (other) recovery email address it wanted me to confirm.

When I logged into that Google account, the settings pages didn't show any outstanding action required. But when I opened the "Take Action" link that was included in the email, that page asked me to confirm (Yes/No) that the listed recovery email was still good. I clicked Yes.

The other email I mentioned above does not list which recovery email address it wants me to confirm. When I open that email's "Take Action" link, it doesn't show any required actions regarding the email addresses. So I still don't know why I was getting those emails.

The recovery email listed is the same one as I use to log into the account. Since it is not a Gmail email address, apparently that makes it the recovery email address by default. There is no option to change it or to add any other recovery email to that account.

If I click the Gmail link while logged into that non-Gmail Google account, I get this message:

Add Gmail to your Google Account

By completing this form, you're upgrading to Gmail, email from Google. Gmail works on any device, blocks spam, and much more.

You'll be able to sign in using your new Gmail address, which will become the primary email address associated with this account. We'll send account updates, invitations, and other notifications to your Gmail address.

[old non-Gmail email address] will become an alternate email address on this account, and you'll still be able to sign in with it.

If you prefer, you can create a new Google Account with email, and leave this one as-is.

The Google maps Street View car drove through this intersection after an accident had occurred in November 2018. It shows the damaged cars, police, and firetruck.

https://www.google.com/maps/@34.0705297,-80.9588718,3a,75y,175.75h,80.76t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sUerT-OTn4vjBmgI5g8uBWw!2e0!7i16384!8i8192

Translated video description: Flen in Sörmland has long had a hidden existence. In the summer of 2019, the residents gathered to change this with the help of GB Glace, which has its ice cream factory in the middle of Flen. Over one night, together and with joy, they managed to create a whole new image of Flen in Google Street View, visible worldwide. This is the video that shows how it went.

"När Flen tog Google Street View i egna händer" (Watch on YouTube)

Video title: När Flen tog Google Street View i egna händer
Posted by: GB Glace
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzABuiImLXk
Date posted: Jul 19, 2019

I'm sure they're visible somewhere, but I wasn't able to find the people shown in the video, in the actual Google Maps Streetview. In many places, the streetview doesn't even seem to work right as I can advance to an intersection, but then it doesn't let me go anywhere from there.

But I did find this which amused me:

https://www.google.com/maps/@59.0568429,16.571043,3a,75y,161.84h,81.16t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sAF1QipP4eySlGmhTyGvgKecMO3C3de970JzG_RyGgRW-!2e10!7i7680!8i3840

https://www.google.com/maps/@59.0568422,16.5711295,3a,75y,211.41h,87.79t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sAF1QipOCQXskx8--pijMmURkW16KOX7dvAQXtSYQ6wVv!2e10!7i7680!8i3840

Woman and 2 children: Yay, the Streetview car is passing by, let's hold up signs!
Man: Let me quickly vacuum the yard so it looks good!

I let my phone's stock camera app update recently, and the updated Settings screen has a new option for enabling/disabling Google Lens. I had to look up what that is. When it is enabled, the camera UI has a button for selecting Google Lens mode. In that mode, when you point your phone at something and tap the screen, the app will search for and show you info on the item you were pointing at.

At first, the thought of this was quite concerning to me, from a privacy point of view and from a data usage point of view. Does it upload the images to some server on the web? Does the app on the phone determine (on its own) what is in the photo, or is that processing done on a server somewhere else, and the results are sent back to the phone? I wasn't able to find an answer to that yet.

(I've also wondered, when you give an app permission to take photos and record video, etc., is it able to use those permissions even when the app is not in the foreground? What if you swipe the app out of your Recent Apps view - is that a sure way to make sure it isn't still spying on you in the background, or not?)

But the Google Lens functionality also sounded appealing, so I tried it out today. It presented an initial informational screen that said your images and search info would be uploaded/saved to your "Web Activity" unless you turned that option off in your Google Account. So I checked and verified that I have that turned off.

I tested it by pointing the camera at one of our drink coasters, and it came back with a product image and link to where the exact same coasters were for sale. That was pretty neat.

The next few things I tried didn't have as specific results. But it still seems a promising and useful tool. As long as I can be sure that it won't be sending image data somewhere on the internet without my knowledge.

Update: I tested using it with both wifi and data turned off. This way it doesn't give any error message, but doesn't show any results (even when scanning something simple like text). So I guess it must require uploading the images somewhere and then processing them there, not only on the phone.

.

Not long back, I installed a separate non-stock camera app, Open Camera:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.sourceforge.opencamera

My main reason for getting a separate camera app was that I wanted one with a manual focus option. Auto-focus sometimes focuses on the wrong thing, especially when taking close-ups of plants in windy weather.

Logging onto the nytimes.com website, they present me with a Google Recaptcha. I select the appropriate images and click to continue, and the page displays a new set of images. After 3 or 4 pages of image tiles, I realize this is going to be never-ending, as it has been several times in the past. I try a different browser, as I might have already fixed the uMatrix settings for this there. But that browser has the same problem.

I check my uMatrix settings, and enable some more domains. Then I click the appropriate images on the Recaptha page and continue. It still doesn't work, so I enable practically all of the non-redlisted domains that are shown in the uMatrix popup.

It still doesn't work, and I'm annoyed enough to want to hit things. I only want to unsubscribe from the mailing lists I had subscribed to a while back, as I don't have time to read the emails and I'm tired of seeing them pile up in my inbox. Now I can't even login in order to unsubscribe!! Gah!! (Maybe I could just click the unsubscribe link in the emails, but dagnabbit I wanted to do it from the website.)

I look up how to make Google Recaptcha work with uMatrix. I find out about ruleset recipes, but I don't see how to enable them. The puzzle icon in the uMatrix popup is disabled.

So I walk away from the computer for a while. After an hour, I come back and find out there's a checkbox in the uMatrix settings (at the bottom of the Assets tab) that you have to select, for the rulesets to be enabled. But after selecting that, the puzzle icon still remains disabled for me...

Later, it's enabled but I don't remember what I did, if anything, for that to happen.

So now I am able to import the ruleset which is supposed to make Google Recaptchas work. (I swear, those are the same rules that I already enabled manually via the uMatrix popup, but who knows...) It still doesn't work!!!!

I try clicking the Audio icon on the Recaptcha page, as some other webpage indicates it will tell you if it thinks you failed, versus the images which just keep redisplaying with no error message. That gives me the popup message,
"Your computer or network may be sending automated queries. To protect our users, we can't process your request right now. For more details visit our help page."

Does that mean there's still a problem with my browser/uMatrix settings, or are they completely blocking my IP number now?

I try logging in with Chrome, which doesn't have uMatrix installed. It worked after only a single page of Recaptcha images. I unsubscribe from all the mailing lists, hallelujah!

So anyway, my IP number must not be blocked. But wait, what happens if I click the Recaptcha audio icon in Chrome? So I log out and click the Audio icon when logging in again. It shows a popup with a "Play" button. But nothing happens when I click on Play. I make sure my speaker volume is turned up, and click Play umpteen times, but nothing plays. So much for that.

I'm still not able to login from the other browsers. I still think Google has blocked me as it's still giving that same error message for the audio; maybe the block is based on IP number plus browser id. I wonder how long it takes for the block to expire.

If it were only nytimes.com that had this problem, I could ignore it. But I have the same problem on other websites which use Google Recaptcha too, sometimes.

Google Search techniques:
https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/2466433?hl=en

I didn't realize that wildcards could still be used (but only in place of full words, not part of a word).

You can put "cache:" in front of a URL to view Google's cache of the page, even when the entry for that URL in their search results didn't include the option to view the cached page.

..

In the past I had found a way of searching the Google Play Store for apps without ads. But I don't remember how I did it, as adding -"Contains Ads" to the search string doesn't work today; it still returns apps whose pages show "Contains Ads"

This seems to work ok, but you have to do it as a regular Google search, not from within the Play Store:
site:play.google.com/store/apps/details -"Contains ads" -"in-app purchases"

From:
https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/34759/advanced-searching-in-play-app-store

Pink house, with some kind of tiny house beside it.

https://www.google.com/maps/@31.5799623,-84.1272199,3a,51.6y,213.13h,79.45t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1scjf8cOIopcKJ_Nsnoclu1A!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

I took a photo of that house a couple years ago while we were driving by, on a road trip. At the time, it no longer had those signs on front. I didn't have the address, but with a few other clues, I was able to find it using Google Street View.

My phone is annoying me. I want to disable "OK Google" detection, so that it won't listen for those trigger words; I don't want it potentially recording my voice all the time. But I don't want to completely disable microphone access for Google searches. I would like the microphone to be used *after* I click the microphone icon in the Google search box.

Yet no matter what settings I change, when my home screen is displayed (which has the search box at the top), when I say "OK Google", it still always brings up the "Listening..." screen and will then search on the next thing I say.

I've never even enabled the Google assistant; I wonder if that has something to do with it. Whenever the screens come up where one would enable it, I click to Cancel, as I don't want to give it all the permissions it asks for. It seems like maybe you have to enable the assistant in order to subsequently and effectively disable it? But that doesn't really make sense.

The phone settings screens confuse me. After clicking more than a few items deep into them, I lose track of where I came from. Some of the screens can be accessed more than one way, which adds to the confusion.

Some of the settings I've updated:

Phone Settings - Google - Search, Assistant & Voice - Voice - Voice Match
"Access with Voice Match" is disabled
"While driving" is disabled
Everything else on this page is greyed out/disabled

Google Maps - Settings - Navigation Settings - "Ok Google" detection
"While driving" is disabled

Phone Settings - Apps - (gear icon) Configure apps - Assist & Voice Input
"Assist App" - is set to None.

Phone Settings - Google - Google Account - Data & Personalization - Activity Controls
"Voice & Audio Activity" (and all the other items) are "Paused"

Did you know that you can change the voice used when search results are spoken? This setting is enabled for me, even though I haven't enabled the Assistant:
Phone Settings - Google - Search, Assistant & Voice - Google Assistant / Settings - Preferences - Assistant Voice

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Yesterday, it was Google Maps that annoyed me. While out shopping, I tried to bring up my offline map, but couldn't as it had expired. What's the point of having an offline map, if it expires all the time so that I can't use it!? I only get reminded that it's expiring ahead of time if I go into Maps. Why should I have to re-download it every 3 months? Yes, Google provides them as a free service, so they can make their own rules. But it feels like they are taking away something from me that I downloaded fair and square. I'd be willing to pay a single time fee, to be able to keep my maps downloaded permanently, and to choose when to update them.

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I've been wanting to switch to CyanogenMod or do something which would let me have more control over things like this. Haven't gotten around to it yet. The last thing I did was to unlock my boot loader.

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Something else odd:
Phone Settings - Google - Connected apps
This showed "McClatchy Social Signin" as a connected app. I have no idea what that was for or where it came from, so I disconnected it.
The only other connected app listed on that screen is "Android device".

I recently came across this message on the accuweather website:

Please allow ads to display for AccuWeather.com, and help us keep our weather news free.
- Allow ads on AccuWeather.com
- Buy an ad removal pass

The ad removal pass is managed by Google Contributor. The main URL redirects to "https://contributor.google.com/v/beta", which indicates it is still in beta mode, even though the current version has been available since June 2017.

From the website:

Each time you visit a page without ads, a per-page fee is deducted from your pass to pay the creators of the website, after a small portion is kept by Google to cover the cost of running the service. The price per page is set by the creator of the site. [Currently one cent per page, for the accuweather site.]

When you visit a site that you have added to your Contributor pass all of the ads will be removed.
It even plays nicely with other browser extensions.

You load your pass with $5. When your balance drops below $1 it will top-up by $5 automatically.

How Contributor works

After you add a website to your Contributor pass, ads are removed whenever you access that site while signed in to your Google account from your browsers and devices.

You can apply your ad removal pass to additional participating sites at any time.

Sites that use Contributor - not very many, so far.

I like the idea of being able to support sites in an easy per-page manner like that, even if I don't visit them very often. But I don't like that it would require staying logged into a Google account.

Things I learned about okra from its Wikipedia page:
There's a red variety, which tastes the same as the green one.
The leaves can be cooked and eaten like other greens.
"Okra seeds may be roasted and ground to form a caffeine-free substitute for coffee."
An oil can be pressed from the seeds.

In case you're bored, here's a funny little story (not at all about okra) I came across after reading one about okra:
Mr. Mathrubootham is exasperated with national stupidity
(In sharing that story, I don't mean to make fun of India, as I think just as many people here in the U.S. and elsewhere are fascinated by those kind of videos.)

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Lately Google Maps shows location balloons for hotels when I search on places, so that I can hardly find what I'm looking for, because of the balloons and hotel text covering the map. Does anyone know if there's a way to disable that layer in the options somewhere? I'm viewing it on a computer, not on a phone.

Yahoo Mail (aka OATH) has a new Terms of Service and Privacy Policy starting May 25. The parts of the privacy policy which pertain to how Yahoo may access the information contained in emails disturbs me.

This page appears to have Yahoo's legacy privacy policy, dated June 2017. Based on what that page says, some or all of the policies listed below may not be new, but I'm not sure.

I was wondering if Yahoo's policies are really much different from Google's TOS and Privacy Policy. So I checked.

Google:
Our automated systems analyze your content (including emails) to provide you personally relevant product features, such as customized search results, tailored advertising, and spam and malware detection. This analysis occurs as the content is sent, received, and when it is stored.

Yahoo/OATH:
OATH Privacy Center, main
Oath analyzes and stores all communications content, including email content from incoming and outgoing mail. This allows us to deliver, personalize and develop relevant features, content, advertising and Services.

OATH FAQ for Communications Products
Oath’s automated systems may analyze all content (such as Mail and Messenger content including instant messages and SMS messages) to detect, among other things, certain words and phrases (we call them "keywords") within these communications. This analysis may occur on all content as it is sent, received, and when it is stored, including communications content from Services synced with your account.

...
Our automated systems may analyze all communications content (such as Mail and Messenger content including instant messages and SMS messages) and all photos and other content uploaded to your account

...
For example, after automatically removing any information that on its own could reasonably identify the recipient, we may manually review certain commercial communications to develop tools to assist the automated scanning process, improve segmentation and other automated functions and create generic templates of such documents (e.g., using common language to identify the elements of an airline receipt). Oath employees may review the templates to improve our services and our personalization of your experience.

The automated analysis and storage of all content can include information within or about the content you provide, such as photos, attachments and other communications. We may collect information about the photos and videos uploaded, including EXIF data. Exchangeable Image File Format (“EXIF”) data is a record of the settings and other relevant metadata inserted by a camera or device when you take a photo or video, such as camera or device type, aperture, shutter speed, focal length, and location , among other information.

We also may use image recognition algorithms for the purposes bulleted above. For example, the algorithms might identify and tag scenes, color, best crop coordinates, text, actions, objects, or public figures.

It also disturbs me to read how much information Yahoo may be collecting about me from multiple sources:

OATH Privacy Center, main
We collect information from your devices (computers, mobile phones, tablets, etc.), including information about how you interact with our Services and those of our third-party partners and information that allows us to recognize and associate your activity across devices and Services. This information includes device specific identifiers and information such as IP address, cookie information, mobile device and advertising identifiers, browser version, operating system type and version, mobile network information, device settings, and software data. We may recognize your devices to provide you with personalized experiences and advertising across the devices you use.

...
This information also includes the kind of content or ads served, viewed or clicked on; the frequency and duration of your activities; the sites or apps you used before accessing our Services and where you went next; whether you engaged with specific content or ads; and whether you went on to visit an advertiser's website, downloaded an advertiser’s app, purchased a product or service advertised, or took other actions.
...
Information from Others. We collect information about you when we receive it from other users, third-parties, and affiliates, such as:

When you connect your account to third-party services or sign in using a third-party partner (like Facebook or Twitter).
From publicly-available sources.
From advertisers about your experiences or interactions with their offerings.
When we obtain information from third-parties or other companies, such as those that use our Services. This may include your activity on other sites and apps as well as information those third-parties provide to you or us.
We may also receive information from Verizon and will honor the choices Verizon customers have made about the uses of this information when we receive and use this data.

...
We also may use the information we have about you for the following purposes:
...
Associate your activity across our Services and your different devices as well as associate any accounts you may use across Oath Services together. We may associate activity and accounts under a single user ID.

Automated scanning emails for certain keywords is something I was aware that Google has been doing for quite a while. But the idea of mail providers scanning email image attachments, and applying facial recognition to see who is in the images, etc., is new to me*. I know that Facebook does that for images uploaded to its site, but I didn't know that email providers would do it too, for images attached to emails. And I hadn't thought much about how much info so many different companies may be sharing with each other to get a "big picture" about a person's activities, as opposed to each company just maintaining its own small set of data for its own analysis, of what people do on their particular website.

*Updated, 2018/05/20: OATH's pages only specifically mention "image recognition", which must mean to see what is in the photos. So they may or may not use "facial recognition" to see who is in photos. But based on the above, the image recognition may recognize "public figures", so it probably does include facial recognition too.

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Darkoshi

Darkoshi's Enchantment

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Entries tagged with google

Google search UI

there's a law for that

ADG7

Android privacy settings

being locked out of your own house even though you have the key

apparently Gmail now requires you give them a phone number?

even if they enforce solid colors...

translating spoken Chinese from audio file

smart reply

confirm confirm you whoever you are, confirm

caught on street view

Sweden streetview

phone camera, Google Lens

uMatrix and Google Recaptcha, frustration

google search & app playstore notes

pink house

No, Google, no.

Google Contributor ad passes

okra with no aitch

privacy policy - Google vs Yahoo/OATH