Google Launches Its New AI-Powered Search Engine And Here’s What Users Can Expect From The Generative Experience

Google’s much anticipated I/O took place yesterday evening and that’s where the tech giant unveiled a series of new and exciting features to its already-existent search engine.

But what was really the talk of the town is how the company is adding a more generative AI experience to its Search initiative. And some of the new offerings entailed a further perspective of the AI-produced pictures and labels.

For starters, the company witnessed adding new perspective filters that enable searchers to filter the results of the search and produce better results from the likes of blogs, forums, and even videos. Such results are aimed to showcase a more lived experience when users are trying to search for something specific as confirmed by the firm’s VP for Search.

It’s quite clear that searchers of today are on the lookout for responses from those individuals who are putting out their personal experiences and responses across user interfaces that are deemed friendly and more consumable for the young searcher of today.

But what exactly such perspectives appear like is a question worth pondering.

Well, after clicking on the perspectives filter, you’ll witness long and short-form videos, pictures, and written posts that have people sharing discussion boards, social media apps, and sites for questions and answers.

The search engine giant would be displaying some more details regarding the content creators like names, profile pictures, and data on how popular such content is.

On the other hand, similar to how the firm rolled out its About This Result for producing results that are more based on text, another similar endeavor is getting rolled out for the likes of similar pictures that were indexed by its search engine. The latter is where the image might have popped up at the start and now, it’s about seeing where else you can find it like television, news, and more.

The company has also spoken in detail about its AI-produced labels for pictures. Google mentioned how it unveiled an innovative markup for the owners of websites so they could label pictures as being produced by AI technology when necessary.

This might be a new data label in meta and can be included through manual means by owners of a website as well as publishers. And in its Image Search, the tech giant would be revealing which pictures are produced by AI and which are not.

The tech giant does not have any plans to label pictures as AI through its algorithm because it just is not ready for that as the system cannot differentiate machines from humans. Therefore, they’re bound to rely more heavily on image creators to make such labels.

The new search engine that’s AI-powered is definitely being labeled as more human and visual. And if you wish to gain access, well, there’s a waitlist that lets you do just that. So you could be just a few weeks away before playing with just that.

As far as the interface is concerned, it’s going to set out answers through AI right above the listings for search responses. The company is going to label them as Generative AI and then it would be closely followed by another answer to the question.

This response would be boxed and the company plans to cite the sources used to find the response. Moreover, such a site could be clicked upon so you can dig deeper. Similarly, users could follow up with more queries and press the toggle buttons located at the top right-hand side to dig deeper.

This came with another explanation by the company regarding how ads would appear like on Google’s new generative experience.

It’s been revealed that advertisers will not be able to track down immediately how their ads would be performing. But this is just for now as the whole thing is experimental.

The company vows to keep a close eye on how such ads are placed including its performances and user experiences during this trial phase.

Clearly, it’s exciting times for users at Google and it’s going to be interesting to see how people take this new initiative.

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by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

Internet Restrictions Are On The Rise And Here Are The Places That Have Been Affected The Most in 2023

Internet blackouts are never appreciated, especially in a world like today where everything seems to be online.

The fast-paced IT industry is known to suffer the most and that’s why it’s always recommended to be aware of the places where the web has been restricted and what led to such drastic decisions in the first place.

Well, if you happen to be as curious as us, we’re shedding light on the latest data by Surfshark that discusses just that.

The political crisis in Pakistan saw one of the country’s most popular former Prime Ministers get arrested by paramilitary troops outside the courtroom. And this further aggravated tensions as people took to the streets to protest against this behavior that they deemed beyond unfair.

Many cities were affected including Peshawar where one local medical center spoke of at least three people dying after being shot. Meanwhile, at least 27 people were left injured. But that was just the start of the tragedy.

The province of Punjab saw an emergency situation being declared and the country’s army was forced to step in and take the law and order situation into its own hands. A total of 945 arrests were made and nearly 130 officers belonging to the state police were injured in the protests.

It’s a tense situation and the government is not only making a very strong call for ground troops but it’s also taking tech matters into its hand by enforcing a total disruption of mobile and internet services until further notice. This means limited access to social media websites.

The latest infographics by Surfshark prove how Pakistan is one of the world’s many countries whose government and telecom authorities step in and ban internet services due to a political crisis or some sort of civil unrest situation.

Before this, the data proved that this may not be the first time that we saw such a situation unfold. There have been 12 cases across the nation that have taken place in the recent past. Around 5 of those were linked to protests while one had to do with the current elections and six were linked to turmoil taking place around the entire country.

But it’s the neighboring country of India that has seen the greatest figure in terms of restrictions on the internet which stands today at 108. And a whopping 83 majority were linked to protests galore.

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by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

Google Rolls Out New Safety And Privacy Updates For Its Products Including A Spam Folder On Drive

Google’s much anticipated I/O 2023 event took place yesterday and the company was all geared up to launch a series of exciting updates for its products.

The company made it very clear how it is prioritizing safety and privacy for all of its users across different products. And that included a new spam folder that would be allocated to Google Drive.

The tech giant says users would find the feature aligned on the side of their Drive sidebar and it just made it so much simpler to review and separate such files. Moreover, it’s quite similar to Gmail and would end up classifying content in an automatic manner using both spam and abusive material.

Similarly, users can also end up doing such things in a manual manner for Google Drive, Docs, Sites, Forms, Slides, and Sheets, the company adds.

When there is some kind of unsolicited file that’s moved toward the fold of spam, users would be unsubscribed automatically and that would hinder all comments, shares, and mobile alerts regarding the file. After getting unsubscribed, users cannot find any file present inside Drive that’s located out of the spam folder.

Meanwhile, after a span of just one month in this spam folder, all such documents would be removed forever from the Drive, it adds. This would be up for grabs from across the website, Drive on Desktop, as well as for both iOS and Android users. Moreover, the rollout begins today for different accounts and would be coming out at a later date for things like Workspace.

When you go back to the month of March, Google One was seen gaining the dark web for things like monitoring subscribers. Such a scan would be coming toward Gmail IDs too. And it means that users having a Gmail account across the US could now run scans to see if the Gmail ID pops up. And in cases where it happens, you get tips on what can be done. Hence, such a feature would even get international expansion soon, it confirmed.

Google is also making some changes to its Maps feature by enabling users to delete all sorts of recent searches and just simply entering the Web and App Activity. It’s quite similar to Google Search where you simply long-press on any question found on the list.

Meanwhile, regarding the results of Google Search, users would see it being paired with the likes of ‘About this Image’. This is designed to assist in evaluating how authentic and reliable the visual images are that are seen online. Similarly, such a tool is designed to see if there is an image indexed by the search engine, which is actually where it popped up initially and where it can be seen online.

This can be seen when mentioned across the news, some social media platforms, or even a website designed for the sake of fact-checking.

Read next: Google Drops Waitlist For Its Bard Chatbot As It Expands To More Than 180 Different Countries
by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

Google I/O 2023 Recap: An Event Of Innovation!

A two-hour event filled with exciting new updates was unfolded at Google I/O 2023, the annual developer conference. With groundbreaking innovations in the field of artificial intelligence, the event showcased a large variety of the latest offerings by Google.

The event brought some expected product announcements such as the innovative Pixel 7a and the Google Pixel Fold in the first half of the event whereas Google arranged an exciting surprise that dominated the rest of the event. The artificial intelligence and the eye-catching Pixel hardware took the evening by storm.

With a plethora of innovative products fitted into the two-hour event, it is difficult to keep track of all of them. We’ve covered the most innovative products from all Google announcements to get a taste of Google’s exciting innovations.

The debut of Pixel Fold

A lot of rumors were going around for quite some time. Rumors had suggested the possibility of Google developing its very own foldable smartphone. By the time the Pixel Fold debuted at the Google I/O 2023 and due to the accidental teaser by Google released merely a couple of hours before the event, almost everything about the Pixel Fold was already known.

Since the market already offers multiple foldable smartphone options, Google took a unique approach with its new foldable smartphone. Pixel Fold captures the form factor and model of a conventional smartphone.

With a cover screen of 5.8 inches and a main screen of 7.6 inches, the display of both is approximately the same resolution and panels of 120 Hx OLED. Other features include a tensor G2 system-on-a-chip, 12 GB memory, a co-processor Titan M2, and a battery of 4,821 mAH. The Pixel Fold retails for $1,800.

New Pixel 7a vs. Pixel 7

The Pixel 7a is a mid-to-high-end Android smartphone that closely resembles the Pixel 7 in terms of design and features. It features a plastic-made back, a display of 6.1-inch and a camera sensor smaller in comparison to Pixel 7.

It comes at a lower price point of $499, a whopping $100 cheaper than last year’s Pixel 7. With its top-notch features and affordable price, the Pixel 7a is likely to become a top choice for many Android users.

Long awaited Pixel Tablet

Google also unveiled its much-awaited Pixel Tablet, which was first showcased at the Google I/O in 2022; an entire year before the release. The Pixel Tablet is priced at $499 for pre-orders and is expected to ship from June 20 onwards.

It comes in a variety of colors; Porcelain, Rose, and Hazel colors, with a charging speaker dock of the matching color. The Pixel Table also features built-in Google Home features, making it an ideal smart home controller.

AI Innovations

Artificial intelligence was the theme of the event in the first half, with Google showcasing how it can integrate AI technology with its existing products and services to offer an unrivaled user experience.

One of the major announcements was the replacement of Google's conversational chatbot, Bard, with PaLM 2, a more powerful language model that has the ability to specialize in certain fields such as medicine and cybersecurity.

Google also dropped the waitlist for Bard, making it available in over 180 countries. AI-powered tools and services were also introduced to Google Workspace, including generative AI that can help users create content and structure documents with just a few clicks.

The Google I/O 2023 was a showcase of Google's commitment to innovation and its drive to push the boundaries of technology. With its impressive lineup of new products and services, as well as its groundbreaking innovations in the field of artificial intelligence, Google is set to continue to dominate the tech industry in the years to come.



Read next: Google Drops Waitlist For Its Bard Chatbot As It Expands To More Than 180 Different Countries
by Ayesha Hasnain via Digital Information World

Study’s findings: Ads with a male voice tend to attract viewers more

Ads have become an integral part of our lives, as we see them between every video we watch, whether be it on TV or YouTube. Despite some people finding them irritating, they remain an important tool for marketing strategies. Advertisements not only increase product reach but also drive traffic to company websites. However, this is only possible if the ads capture people's interest. According to a study conducted by Extreme Reach, male voices used in ads play an important role in capturing people's attention.

The study surveyed nine regions across sixteen different countries to understand the male voice concept more clearly. The study’s main objective was to raise awareness of the diversity of the marketing field and help people set goals around diversity and creativity.

Starting off with North America, male audios comprised 74.9% of all ads, with 77% of these ads made up by the age segment of 20 to 39-year-olds, 11.9% making up the 40 to 59 year old bracket, 1.8% of 60 and above, under-19 were about 9.6%. This trend was noted in every region surveyed, indicating that the newly adult age bracket (20 to 39) is the top one in terms of male voice usage in ads.

The study also noted that while male populations in these regions were relatively low, their male voice usage was quite high when we compare both of them. For instance, North America's total male population percentages were lower than their male voice usage percentages in ads. It is interesting to note that East and Southeast Asia is the only region where male and female voice usages match their populations.

Moreover, the study found that male population worldwide(50.42%) is a bit higher than the female population (48.58%). This could be the reason why many regions, including North America were gaining a lot of attention through ads due to male audios. Other regions surveyed, such as LATAM and New Zealand along with Australia also had a high percentage of total male voices in ads with 75.7% and 67.4%, respectively.

To crown it all up, the study perfectly sheds light on the importance of male voice usage in ads and how it captures people's attention. Another observation was that East and Southeast Asia is the only region where male and female voice usages match their populations, surprisingly despite all the trends following these other regions.

Read next: 59% of Customers Are Uncomfortable with AI Personalization
by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

Pornography is having a negative impact on children's behavior

Dame Rachel De Souza, who serves as the children's commissioner for England, has expressed worry over the impact of pornography on children starting from merely eight years of age. A report published by the commissioner highlights the negative impact of porn on the behavior of children and its influence causing harmful explicit behavior. The report calls for technology companies to take more responsibility and remove harmful images from their platforms. The commissioner emphasized that most children are exposed to pornography by the age of 13, while some as young as eight or nine have seen it.

Dame Rachel De Souza, the Children’s Commissioner for England, has pointed out that social media platforms are the main channel for children to access pornographic content. She has further suggested that schools must enhance their education system, and parents must set effective boundaries to prevent children from exposure to salacious content. The report also highlights that the language of violent pornography is being adopted by some children, and this has a concerning impact on their behavior. Dame Rachel strongly advocates that pornographic content should be inaccessible to young children, and tech companies must implement better measures to keep children safe from such inappropriate images.

Despite the 13-plus age limit on both Twitter and Snapchat, children are still managing to access pornographic content on these platforms. Snapchat officials have stated that their community guidelines strictly prohibit the promotion and distribution of inappropriate pornographic content. They have implemented mechanisms to detect and immediately remove such content from their platform. On the other hand, Twitter has yet to respond to concerns regarding the accessibility of salacious behavior and adult nudity on its platform. According to Twitter's guidelines, such content is not allowed in highly visible areas and is restricted to viewers under the age of 18.

The Online Safety Bill, currently under review by the Lords, aims to provide more responsibility for companies to take measures to ensure the safety of the users on their social media platforms. The bill will allow regulator Ofcom to fine companies or block access to social media sites that fail to take the necessary precautions.

Michael Conroy, the founder of Men at Work, has been training numerous professionals in order to initiate safe conversations with boys and young men. According to him, he has worked with approximately 1,000 teachers, youth and social workers over the past year. During these sessions, he has asked whether the young individuals they work with are influenced by pornography, to which the majority of respondents have answered yes. Conroy also emphasized that this is the first generation to have unrestricted access to a vast range of content, and the implications of this warrant serious consideration, as children have been exposed to content that was previously unavailable to them.

In conclusion, the Children's Commissioner for England's report highlights the impact of pornography on children's behavior, particularly when they view it at a young age. The report emphasizes the need for tech companies to take more responsibility and remove harmful images from their platforms. The Online Safety Bill will provide more authority to the regulator to prevent companies from failing to take the necessary precautions. Parents and schools must also take appropriate steps to educate children and set boundaries to prevent them from accessing harmful content.

Read next: 70% of Adolescents Are Sleep Deprived Because of Social Media
by Ayesha Hasnain via Digital Information World

Half an Hour of Weekly Smartphone Usage Can Increase Hypertension by 12%, New Study Finds

It is widely acknowledged that using smartphones too much can cause a wide array of negative physical and mental health symptoms. Most users try to mitigate this harm by reducing their usage to just half an hour a day, but in spite of the fact that this is the case a new study showed that this might be bad enough.

Research conducted at the Southern Medical University in China revealed that 30 minutes of weekly smartphone usage increases hypertension risk by as much as 12%. With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that this risk does not go much higher in proportion with increased usage. For example, study participants who used their smartphones twelve times more, or for six hours a week to be precise, did not see a twelvefold increase in hypertension risk.

Rather, their risk of hypertension only doubled, which indicates that reduction is not a clear path to preventing an increase in high blood pressure related symptoms with all things having been considered and taken into account. It should be mentioned that this study looked at phone calls rather than overall smartphone usage.

Making over thirty minutes of unnecessary calls a week might be harmful because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up raising hypertension risks to unmanageable levels. More research will need to be done in order to vet the results and findings, and until those studies come out there will be no way to conclusively determine the veracities of these findings.

One thing that becomes clear thanks to this study is that phones in general are having a harmful impact on human health. Even if you only use your phone for basic things like making calls, it can still negatively affect your body in ways that are hard to predict. Studies like this reveal the extent of damage that is occurring due to our overuse of smartphones, and there is no insight as of yet on what might serve as a cure.

Read next: Experts Raise The Alarm Against AI Voice Cloning As Scams Reach An All-Time High
by Zia Muhammad via Digital Information World