Technology - Google News

Samsung unveils the Galaxy Note 20 and its latest foldable phone - CNN

Posted: 05 Aug 2020 08:54 AM PDT

The Korean electronics giant is shoring up its new flagship smartphone with an ecosystem of interconnected gadgets to try to snatch its top spot in the global market back from Chinese rival Huawei.

Samsung's latest smartphone, the Galaxy Note 20, was one of five new devices it unveiled on Wednesday — along with an updated tablet, smart watch, wireless earbuds and a folding smartphone — in a livestreamed virtual unveiling that has become the norm for tech announcements amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Unlike other recent launches that have been recorded or streamed without an audience, Samsung chose to nod to the new videoconferencing reality many of us are dealing with during the pandemic, by beaming in dozens of fans displayed on a large curved screen behind the event's host, Samsung executive Federico Casalegno.

The world is relying on technology more than ever during the pandemic, said TM Roh, Samsung's president and head of mobile communications.

"It's how we are staying connected as we navigate the extraordinary challenges faced around the world," he said.

As people hunker down to work and socialize from home, Roh said the company's new lineup of devices is designed to "work together seamlessly" as part of an ecosystem of Galaxy products.

The event kicks off at 10 am ET / 7 am PT. Watch it live here and follow our updates on CNN.com.

Here's everything Samsung is rolling out in the coming days and weeks:

Galaxy Note 20

Samsung's latest smartphone comes in two versions — the 6.7-inch Galaxy Note 20, starting at $999.99, and the 6.9-inch Note 20 Ultra starting at $1,299.99.

The phones come in five colors — green, gray and bronze for the Note 20 and white, black and bronze for the Note 20 Ultra — and are available for pre-order starting August 6 before going on sale August 21.

The Note 20 is powered by the fastest processor in Samsung's Galaxy series, the company said, and features what Samsung calls its "best screen yet." It also works with 5G, a capability Samsung has focused on. (Apple is yet to release its first 5G smartphone.)

The new Note 20 comes in three colors: gray, green and bronze and will go on sale August 21.

The smartphone comes with a new version of Samsung's Bluetooth-enabled stylus, the S-Pen, which the company says allows a wider range of gesture controls and more accurate note-taking abilities.

The Note 20 will also come equipped with Nearby Share — Android's version of Apple's AirDrop — which will allow users to swap files just by pointing their phones at each other, and a feature called DeX to connect wirelessly with smart TVs.

Samsung is also making it easier to sync messages and apps with PCs running Windows 10 and offering more than 100 games through a $14.99/month XBox Game Pass Ultimate subscription starting September 15.

Galaxy Tab S7

Samsung is also rolling out two more 5G devices — the 11-inch Galaxy Tab S7 and 12.4-inch S7+, which the company claims will be the "first tablets that support 5G available in the United States."

The tablets, which cost $649.99 and $849.99, respectively, feature several of the productivity and gaming tools that come with the Note 20, and come with add-ons such as the S Pen, a keyboard and a wireless mouse that can be bought separately.

They will not be available until the fall, however.

Samsung's new lineup is part of an "ecosystem" of connected Galaxy devices.

Galaxy Watch3

The newest iteration of Samsung's smart watch focuses on health, with new fitness tracking enhancements and a feature that automatically notifies emergency contacts when it detects you've fallen down.

However, the watch's more advanced heart monitoring functions, such as echocardiogram (ECG) and blood pressure monitoring, are only available in South Korea as of now.

Samsung made dozens of fans part of its live-streamed launch, showing them on a large screen behind host and company executive Federico Castalegno.

The Galaxy Watch3 will go on sale August 6 and has four versions, ranging in price from $399.99 to $479.99.

Galaxy Buds Live

The final connected device in Samsung's lineup is a new version of its wireless earbuds called the Galaxy Buds Live.

The earbuds have a bigger speaker than their predecessor, the Galaxy Buds+ released earlier this year, and three microphones that users can choose from to cancel out background noise more easily.

The Galaxy Buds Live will go on sale August 6 for $169.99.

Galaxy Z Fold2

Samsung also debuted the next generation of its folding smartphone — the Galaxy Z Fold2.

The phone looks similar to its predecessor that Samsung released last year but with a bigger display — a 6.2-inch screen that folds out to 7.6 inches.

The Galaxy Z Fold2 won't be available until later in the year, however, with Samsung saying it will share launch details for the device in September.

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Here’s what Google’s complicated privacy email about audio is really about - The Verge

Posted: 05 Aug 2020 08:00 AM PDT

Google is returning to having humans analyze and rate anonymized audio snippets from its users. However, it's also taken the major step of automatically opting every single user out of the setting that allows Google to store their audio. That's why you might be getting an email today: Google would like you to opt back in to the program, and it's trying to provide clearer information detailing what it's all about.

Those are very big moves that affect a huge number of people — though Google says the precise number of users getting the email is confidential. It should land in the inbox of anybody who has interacted with a product that uses Google's voice AI, including apps like Google Maps and services like Google Assistant.

Here's a PDF of the email that is being sent to virtually everybody who's spoken into a microphone with a Google logo next to it, which reads in part:

To keep you in control of your audio recording setting, we've turned it off for you until you are able to review the updated information. Visit your Google Account to review and enable the audio recordings setting if you choose.

It will link to this URL (which I'm listing out because you should never just click a URL to an account setting without double-checking it): https://myactivity.google.com/consent/assistant/vaa

It is difficult to remember now, but last summer, one of the biggest stories in tech was how every major company was using humans to review the quality of their AI transcriptions. When some of those audio recordings began to leak, it rocked Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, and Facebook.

That meant tech's 2019 summer of scandal was characterized by technical explanations of how machine learning works, apologies, outrage, walkbacks, and ultimately every company finally started making it easier for users to know what data was being stored and how to delete it. I'll put a bunch of the stories in a sidebar just to give you a sense of how intense it was.

All of those companies got significantly better at providing real disclosures about how audio data was used and made it easier to delete it or opt out of providing it entirely. Most of those big tech companies also went back to using human reviewers to improve their services — with disclosures and / or asking users to consent again.

But Google didn't bring back human reviewers after it paused the practice globally last September. When it did, it promised: "We won't include your audio in the human review process unless you've re-confirmed your [Voice & Audio Activity] VAA setting as on." Today's email, then, is that promise made real — albeit it much later than everybody else.

Google's website for opting back in to having audio recordings saved

Some of the details you read if you click

When you click the link in the email, you'll be taken to a very short website that has the YouTube video below explaining Google's policies. You'll also be able to click a link that provides more granular detail on how Google stores and uses audio.

If you opt in to allowing Google to store your audio, it gets used in two ways. There is a period where is it associated with your account. Google uses that data to improve voice matching, and you can go there to review or delete any of that data. As of June 2020, the default timeline for data getting automatically deleted is 18 months.

After that, your audio will be chopped up and "anonymized," at which point it may be sent along to human reviewers to check for transcription accuracy. And as it's been a point of contention, I'll add that some of those reviewers will be at third-party vendors. Only anonymized data will be sent to humans, Google says.

One strange caveat to all this: although Google is turning the setting to save audio recordings for everyone, it's not changing the policies for audio that has already been uploaded. If you want that deleted, you can go and do it yourself. If you don't bother, however, Google tells me that humans won't be reviewing any audio that was uploaded during the pause.

Google is presenting all of this as a setting change rather than a policy shift. In fact, the company tells me that its privacy policy isn't changing; this is a "separate opt-in consent" that's allowed under its terms. There's no official blog post or other communication, so the email and that website it links cover it for Google.

If you are looking to opt out or delete data from any of these big companies, here are a few links to get you started:

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