Dr. Bill | The Computer Curmudgeon

That’s just WRONG, on so many levels! But, here it is:

Google giveth and Google taketh away!

Google is removing Chrome app launcher from Windows, Mac, and Linux

NH Voice – By: John DiPietro – “In a blog post published early Wednesday, Google said that it is shutting down the Chrome app launcher program for Windows, Mac and Linux platforms. The removal of the Chrome app launcher program will be implemented by Google in a few weeks.

The Chrome app launcher is one of the features of Google’s Chrome Web browser. The feature, which was launched by Google nearly three years back, basically enables users to launch their apps — be it email or calendar — from within the browser through a shortcut panel.

According to the announcement made by Google, the Chrome app launcher feature is being removed from Windows, Mac, and Linux operating systems; but it will still remain on the company’s own Chrome operating systems because it is a core part of that platform.

Google’s decision to remove the Chrome app launcher feature from Windows, Mac, and Linux OSes is apparently rooted in the evident reluctance of people in launching their Chrome Web apps outside of the Chrome Web browser.

About the removal of the Chrome app launcher feature, Marc Pawliger — Director of Google Chrome Engineering — said in the blog post: ‘The app launcher makes Chrome apps easy to open outside the browser, but we’ve found that users on Windows, Mac, and Linux prefer to launch their apps from within Chrome.’

A report published in the ComputerWorld said, ‘Google today said it would retire its Chrome App Launcher on Windows, OS X and Linux in July, citing user indifference. ‘We’ve found that users on Windows, Mac, and Linux prefer to launch their apps from within Chrome,’ said Marc Pawliger, a Chrome engineering director, in a short post to a company blog Wednesday.’

‘Beginning in a few weeks, Chrome will no longer enable the launcher when users first install a Chrome app,’ Pawliger added. ‘Anyone who currently has the launcher will receive a notice informing them that the launcher will be going away. In July, existing instances of the launcher will be removed.’

‘Not a day goes by that I don’t completely neglect the existence of the Chrome app launcher. And yet, here we are, facing its extinction dead-on. After realizing that most people are reluctant to launch their Chrome Web apps outside of the Chrome Web browser, Google has decided to retire the Chrome app launcher program for Windows, Mac, and Linux, according to a blog post published earlier today. The Chrome OS version, however, will remain intact,’ according to a news report published by DigitalTrends.

‘The app launcher makes Chrome apps easy to open outside the browser,’ writes Google Chrome Engineering Director Marc Pawliger, ‘but we’ve found that users on Windows, Mac, and Linux prefer to launch their apps from within Chrome.’

In a report published by the Winbeta, ‘While Microsoft is currently working to bring extensions to its still barebones Edge browser on Windows 10, Google plans to streamline its Chrome browser in the coming months. The company announced yesterday that it will soon get rid of its Chrome app launcher on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux as it found that users ‘prefer to launch their apps from within Chrome’.’

If you’re not familiar with it, the Chrome app launcher automatically installs as soon as you install a Chrome app from the Chrome web store (Chrome apps are glorified web apps that try to deliver an experience comparable to a native app). The Chrome app launcher uses a Start menu-like UI, and while it perfectly makes sense on Chrome OS as these are the only kind of apps that the OS can run, the launcher never made a lot of sense on other desktop operating systems.”

An Ubuntu tablet? Yes, please!

New Linux tablet aims to make Ubuntu desktop mobile

ZDNet – By: Liam Tung – “Technology, which is touting four models in a new crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo.

Jolla’s Sailfish OS tablet fundraiser on Indiegogo didn’t pan out too well for backers of the Android alternative, who ultimately weren’t left out of pocket but wasted time on a product that for many never arrived.

MJ Technology is hoping that anyone not turned off by that experience will take a punt on its Ubuntu-powered devices.

If MJ Technology reaches its $200,000 target, the company promises to deliver 10.1-inch Mini Tanto for $230 by August. The device is advertised as having a 1.92GHz Intel Atom processor, 2GB, 64GB storage, and HD display at 1,920 x 1,200 pixels.

The company says it has prototype tablets and is in final design testing phases but needs the extra cash to start production.

Needless to say, backers should exercise caution before gambling on a product that isn’t guaranteed to be delivered.

The campaign is capitalizing on enthusiasm for a new Ubuntu tablet following this week’s launch of pre-sales for BQ’s Ubuntu-powered Aquaris M10 from €260 ($290), the world’s first Ubuntu tablet.

As MJ Technology points out, its goal is to build a true x86/x64 tablet, so that the device can run Ubuntu desktop, as opposed to BQ’s ARM-based device, which can only run Ubuntu Touch.

The company says the tablets will be released with the latest stable version of Ubuntu Desktop 16.04 LTS, with a current version of the Unity interface.

MJ Technology is also offering a $300 version of the Tanto 10.1 tablet with the same specs as the cheaper model, except for the faster 2.56GHz processor.

Meanwhile, the $400 Mini Wakizashi 8.9-inch display tablet comes with 2.56GHz Intel Atom processor, 4G RAM, and 128GB internal storage. The $450 model comes with 256GB storage.

Also on offer are two variants of the Katana, a 10.1-inch display tablet featuring a 2.56GHz Intel Atom processor, 4G RAM, and either 128GB or 256GB storage, costing $460 and $500 respectively.

The one-month campaign has only been live for one day, however with $6 and three backers so far it remains to be seen whether there’s any demand for this particular set of Ubuntu tablets.”

Microsoft issued public apology yesterday when it’s AI, “Tay,” went rogue:

Microsoft Blog Apology

“As many of you know by now, on Wednesday we launched a chatbot called Tay. We are deeply sorry for the unintended offensive and hurtful tweets from Tay, which do not represent who we are or what we stand for, nor how we designed Tay. Tay is now offline and we’ll look to bring Tay back only when we are confident we can better anticipate malicious intent that conflicts with our principles and values.

I want to share what we learned and how we’re taking these lessons forward.

For context, Tay was not the first artificial intelligence application we released into the online social world. In China, our XiaoIce chatbot is being used by some 40 million people, delighting with its stories and conversations. The great experience with XiaoIce led us to wonder: Would an AI like this be just as captivating in a radically different cultural environment? Tay – a chatbot created for 18- to 24- year-olds in the U.S. for entertainment purposes – is our first attempt to answer this question.

As we developed Tay, we planned and implemented a lot of filtering and conducted extensive user studies with diverse user groups. We stress-tested Tay under a variety of conditions, specifically to make interacting with Tay a positive experience. Once we got comfortable with how Tay was interacting with users, we wanted to invite a broader group of people to engage with her. It’s through increased interaction where we expected to learn more and for the AI to get better and better.

The logical place for us to engage with a massive group of users was Twitter. Unfortunately, in the first 24 hours of coming online, a coordinated attack by a subset of people exploited a vulnerability in Tay. Although we had prepared for many types of abuses of the system, we had made a critical oversight for this specific attack. As a result, Tay tweeted wildly inappropriate and reprehensible words and images. We take full responsibility for not seeing this possibility ahead of time. We will take this lesson forward as well as those from our experiences in China, Japan and the U.S. Right now, we are hard at work addressing the specific vulnerability that was exposed by the attack on Tay.

Looking ahead, we face some difficult – and yet exciting – research challenges in AI design. AI systems feed off of both positive and negative interactions with people. In that sense, the challenges are just as much social as they are technical. We will do everything possible to limit technical exploits but also know we cannot fully predict all possible human interactive misuses without learning from mistakes. To do AI right, one needs to iterate with many people and often in public forums. We must enter each one with great caution and ultimately learn and improve, step by step, and to do this without offending people in the process. We will remain steadfast in our efforts to learn from this and other experiences as we work toward contributing to an Internet that represents the best, not the worst, of humanity.”