More than 200k users said NO!
More than 70 organisations signed a letter saying NO!
#FDroid wrote posts on why NOT!
We've talked with you and your representatives, around the world.
We've made the #KeepAndroidOpen website to explain it.
If you read the #Android tech news, you saw it.
If you use a search engine, you found it.
If you've asked their own #Gemini, you got the summary.
But who didn't see, hear or read anything from above? Yes, #Google
For your saftety? https://f-droid.org/2026/07/01/adv-malware.html
I've taken part in numerous computer science research projects that involved IRB review. I believe the system can work, even for cases like the above post. But Google and Stanford are bad actors that are taken at their word, and no system, IRB based or otherwise, is going to function properly if it cannot appropriately metabolize this reality.
I was once in a meeting where a Google X person gushed about a project that used smartphone sensor data to detect earthquakes. The calculus being set up here is that detecting earthquakes is a social good that outweighs any particular individual's right to privacy and even outweighs their right to know that their smartphone is being used in this way, let alone consent to it in any meaningful way. (*) Let me be clear and say I reject this framing, but it does appeal to a lot of people, even well-meaning ones. A mess.
#Google #IRB #ethics #EthicsReview #ComputerScience #research #ResearchEthics #tech #dev
(*) I assume there's some contortion involving EULAs whereby Google X can pretend that anyone using Android consented to having their smartphone's sensor data used for any future purpose Google et al. cooks up.
TIL two things:
1/ share.google is banned by Reddit
2/ this ban appears to be soft.
Whilst the pictured comment is neither approved nor removed, the link to the banned domain is visible to the public.
(lesson learned)
https://www.reddit.com/r/freebsd/comments/1v05bkz/comment/oykl4w2/
Google's AI Overview has the correct order for the listed steps – despite at least one of its three sources putting things in the wrong order.
For the benefit of people who love to facefart the words "AI slop" wherever there's a hint of artificial intelligence: I'll describe the wrongness in this case as natural human slop. …
#AI #human #slop #partnership #Reddit #Google #OpenAI #facefart
Ok, so we're all just sitting here waiting for PM Carney to rename Lake Superior to Lake Gitche Gumee, right?
and then we'll just wait and see how long it takes Google to update our maps
Any guesses?
This new AI image generator feature for #Google Earth is in the running for at least one of the most utterly stupid and dangerous and tone deaf features that has ever come out of Google in its history. Still trying to find the bottom, eh guys?
@Ayzacoder: Attention if you have a Gmail account:
Google's AI now scans your emails and attachments, bank statements, tax files, medical letters, all of it. It turned on by default, and there's a class-action lawsuit over how.
Here are 5 moves to shut it off, the switch is hidden in two places:
RE: https://mastodon.social/@randahl/117025495645108489
the #MAGA #gringolarchy are actively sabotaging PM Pedro Sáchez of #Spain
when i read the #Ceuta crisis was incited on social media, it’s clear it was a #psyops, not just thru #Xitter, but most likely TikTokUSA.
who is to say the #MAGA controlled #TikTokUSA isn't being used to swap out the Chinese owned one in places like #Morocco? who is to say TikTokUSA is not paying #Google and #Apple swap the apps in regions like #MENA?
after all, USA won't regulate nor audit #techbros social media.
Google's kowtowing to fascist madman Trump -- a man literally trying to steal the next election by preventing millions of people from voting -- is rapidly pushing the firm and by extension Alphabet into the unenviable historical position of IBM's servicing of the Third Reich.
香港8月5日——Google旗下網誌服務提供商Blogger突然下架大量網誌（部落格），理由皆是違反〈惡意軟件和類似惡意內容〉政策。
【8月6日更新】Google證實出現程式錯誤（bug）導致「一些」網誌遭標記為惡意程式，惟拒絕回應受影響規模。
詳情： https://www.tonytse.cloud/2026/08/blogger-incorrectly-removes-blogs.html
BREAKING: #Google has acknowledged what appears to be a global outage of all Google Home devices
Welcome to the future. -L
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages, it's all true!
It's now basically inevitable that we'll have AGI superintelligence by the end of 2024.
And there's a 10% chance this AGI superintelligence, which will basically be LLM software running on physical hardware that fills a massive data centre with the energy and water use of a small European country, will cause humans to go extinct by 2030.
And by extinct, I don't mean as a result of climate change from the fossil fuel air pollution we're using to fuel it. Please don't think about that stuff!
No, I mean by, erm... Things like hacking the power grid and such... Which would also presumably cause it to cease existing... Which wouldn't exactly be superintelligent.
But... y'know... details!
How will we ever stop it?!
I mean, it's not like we live in a world where less intelligent creatures and even inanimate objects kill off more intelligent creatures every day.
It's not like we live in a world where virii and microbes and bricks can kill off more intelligent creatures.
Brains beat brawn every time!
Put a statistician in a fight with an MMA champion and clearly the maths professor is going to win, right?
And if that doesn't sound true when it's phrased like that, then you need to just shush for a moment and pretend that it does.
And if one of our LLMs in a massive hyperscale AI data centre somehow magically became sentient, it's not like we could just shut off the water. Or the electricity. Or stop delivering massive quantities of gas and oil to the onsite gas turbines.
Or just find the nearest Telstra pit and put a bloody shovel through the fibre optic cables that connect it to the outside world.
So we need to immediately figure out ways to stop this happening!
What's that?
You say we could prevent this happening by just not building the massive AI data centres?
You say we could tax the rich so they don't have the money to build massive AI data centres?
No! We absolutely must not do that under any circumstances!
See, our position is really quite straightforward.
We're claiming our product poses an existential risk to humanity that justifies urgent action to mitigate the risk, but also simultaneously we don't want you to think it /genuinely/ poses an existential risk to humanity that /actually/ justifies urgent action that would be guaranteed mitigate the risk, such as not building massive AI data centres, or by not providing access to the ginormous quantities of water and land and energy and capital that our product which is causing this supposed threat depends on.
So why say it?
Mostly, because if we say things like: "We can make a product that could make massive monopolistic short-term profits in a few years, but there's a 10% chance it kills everyone alive, give us money to build it," then the Silicon Valley VCs and Wall Street bankers will throw literal billions our way.
Whereas if we were to say: "We can make a product that solves a genuine problem and we have a sustainable business model for it that will deliver stable long-term returns," then they won't.
Because under American capitalism, "a chance it kills every person" is seen to be a worthwhile risk to take in exchange for short-term profits.
I really hope that clarifies our argument.
#AI #LLM #DataCenter #DataCentre #GenAI #tech #Anthropic #OpenAI #Google #Microsoft #Gemini #Copilot #Claude #AGI #capitalism #aimarketing #BigTech #tech
So Google showed off a new feature on their Android keyboard where you can use ASL for dictation. On paper it seems very useful, but when I stopped to think about it it didn't make much sense to me.
Voice dictation has advantages over typing in that it's faster (albeit with less control over the exact transcribed text), and can be done with one hand or sometimes even hands free without looking at the screen. Meanwhile the new ASL dictation is still faster with less control, but seemingly requires three hands (one of them can be a mount) and to look at the screen while you use both hands for signing. In what situations would this be better than typing?
Can I get any thoughts on this from any deaf/mute people? Or even from hearing/voiced people who use voice dictation, as I almost never use that feature. It's entirely possible I missed something, but my current analysis is that it's yet another flashy yet ultimately useless feature.
#Accessibility #A11y #Deaf #Mute #Google #Android #ASL #Gboard #SignLanguage
AI is TERRIBLE for the #internet
If we like it or not, traffic has always been the currency on the web. Many news outlets and #journalists would not be able to do their work without it
A lot of this traffic was coming from search engines like #Google, again like it or not. Nowadays Google uses their AI to pull info from sites making visiting websites for info obsolete and in turn killing traffic and a lot of sites
For the love of the internet, please DO NOT use the #AI summary but browse!♥️
Mural seen in San Francisco, California.
#bigtech #AI #Google #degoogle #oracle #microsoft #apple #Techbros #fascism #politics #streetart #graffiti #neoliberalisme #technology #Capitalism #Capitalisme #technofeudalism #technofascism
#Google is going to close down #Android platform, making installing "unverified" apps almost impossible for a regular user. This would completely kill #FDroid, something I rely on to get apps that don't track me, don't show me ads and don't try to exploit me.
If you care about #FreeSoftware, you should care about this. Maybe with enough public uproar, Google like many other corporations before it will back off from this plan. But it certainly won't happen on it's own.
BREAKING: MAGA-ass-kissing #Google changes name of Lake Ontario to Lake America for U.S. users
#Google Maps changes #LakeOntario to ‘Lake America’ in #US searches
Anyone in the US searching for Lake Ontario on #GoogleMaps can no longer find it as of this weekend.
Users in the country will now see the smallest of the #GreatLakes identified as “Lake America” on that site, following #Trump’s idiotic executive order on Thursday mandating the change in how the US government refers to the lake amid his tense #trade war with #Canada.
#idiocracy
https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/30/politics/google-maps-changes-lake-ontario-to-lake-america
This is hilarious to me because obviously it doesn't matter to anyone looking for directions what the app calls Lake Ontario. But of course it does. It tells you the company is willing to lie to you when it's politically convenient to. #GoogleMaps is #Spyware anyway. Everything #Google is spyware actually.
https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/08/31/1646204/mapquests-app-surges-to-no-1-in-navigation-after-refusing-to-rename-lake-ontario
So, not a surprise that Apple is renaming Lake Ontario to appease the child rapist that occupies the White House.
If you're stuck using an iPhone or other Apple device you don't have to use Apple Maps or their services. For maps download a privacy respecting, open source map app like Organic Maps.
Pull your data out of iCloud and use a service like Proton which offers a package that includes email, cloud storage, documents, Password manager, VPN, etc.
Boycott #Apple #Google #Meta #Amazon #Microsoft and any other #US #Tech that supports fascism.
No one forces you to use or pay for their services. Move your data. Boycott them.
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/organic-maps-offline-maps-gps/id1567437057
I stopped using #Google and any other #bigtech products a long, long time ago (2015-ish? maybe earlier). It's time for everyone else to move away too, and this includes #Apple, Microslop (#Microsoft), #Meta, #Amazon and many others.
ONLY use #openSource products:
- use #linux
- use degoogled Android ROMs like @GrapheneOS, and many others for any Android phone
- use @fdroidorg as your store
- use #OpenStreetMap clients (like @organicmaps)
- music: @powerampache
Reply here or DM me for guidance
My favorite Mastodon app, Fedilab, is no longer on Google Play, but you can still get it from F-Droid.
You can import your old settings, too. It's easy and only takes a few minutes. I'm not an experienced F-Droid user, but everything went smoothly...
Thanks for the great work! @apps