Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt is resigning from Alphabet’s board

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Eric Schmidt, the former Google CEO, will not be seeking reelection to the board of directors of Google’s parent company. Schmidt plans to step down from Alphabet’s board after his term expires on June 19^th. He will, however, continue to serve the board in an advisory role. Schmidt first joined Google as CEO in 2001. He has slowly been making his exit from the company in the past few years. Back in 2017, he stepped down as executive chairman of Alphabet’s board so he can devote time to his family’s foundation. His departure also comes at a time when Alphabet has been falling short of its earnings goals.

Aside from Schmidt, former Google Cloud CEO Diane Greene is also leaving the board this summer. She stepped down as CEO of Google Cloud back in November. Meanwhile, Robin L. Washington, the current Executive Vice President and CFO of Gilead Sciences, will be joining the board.

After 18 years of board mtgs, I'm following coach Bill Campbell's legacy & helping the next generation of talent to serve. Thanks to Larry, Sergey & all my BOD colleagues! Onward for me as Technical Advisor to coach Alphabet and Google businesses/tech, plus…..

— Eric Schmidt (@ericschmidt) April 30, 2019

 

Source: Engadget

Canadian group sues government over Google-backed smart neighbourhood in Toronto

Sidewalk Labs—a company owned by Google’s parent company Alphabet—has plans to build a smart neighbourhood in Toronto that would collect data from different sources in the area. And it seems a local association is not happy with this development. The Canadian Civil Liberties Association is suing three levels of government over this proposed plan. The association claims the project is “invalid and needs to be reset.” They are concerned about the increase in surveillance it entails and how the government seems to be outsourcing its responsibilities to a private corporation. The Sidewalk Labs project is run alongside the publicly funded Waterfront Toronto.

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This Alphabet-made Chrome extension will filter out toxic comments online

Aptly called Tune, a new experimental Chrome open-source extension from Alphabet incubator Jigsaw hopes to make your online browsing experience a bit more pleasant and free of toxic comments. How does it do that? It uses machine learning. As the name suggests, it allows you to see varying levels of polite or aggressive comments online. It moderates comments on YouTube, Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, and Disqus. “Zen mode” turns off all comments completely, while “volume levels” let you choose from “quiet” to “blaring,” which shows you different amounts of toxicity—which include attacks, insults, profanity, etc.

The extension uses Perspective, which is an API created by Jigsaw and Google’s Counter Abuse Technology team back in 2017. News organizations like The New York Times and The Guardian to experiment with online moderation. You can see in the GIF above how Perspective sorts through comes by toxicity. Since this is an experiment, it’s expected that Tune can be inaccurate when it comes to labeling what comments are considered toxic. Jigsaw’s goal is to show how machine learning can be used to improve discussions online. Should machines get involved in the messy yet nuanced world of comment moderation? We can’t say. And the potential for it to do more harm than good is there. But perhaps it’s a good place to start for a conversation about online decorum.

Source: The Verge

Amazon becomes the world’s second most valuable company

The e-commerce giant overtakes Google as the world’s second most valuable company. Amazon has had its stock skyrocket for the past couple of years with things like the popularity of its shopping services, Alexa-powered devices, and even its offline efforts like the Go store and the acquisition of Whole Foods. Basically, as Android Authority points out, it’s due to the company being a market leader in several businesses. Amazon has overtaken Google’s parent company Alphabet with the former now valued at US$768 billion and the latter at $716 billion. Apple remains the world’s most valuable company with a market cap of $889 billion.