17 Oct 2018
The Official Google Blog
Open platforms like Android unlock potential
As a scientist, educator and businesswoman, my goal is to engage as many young minds as possible to get them excited about science and technology. That's why the explosion in affordable technology over the last few years has been so exciting for STEM evangelists like me. Technology is no longer available only to the affluent and the privileged; instead, computers, tablets and smartphones are in the hands of individuals across all income levels. Reaching such a diverse audience is critical to our society's ability to design the next generation of digital technologies and train the workforce of the future.
As a professor and the founder and Chief Technology Officer atZyrobotics, a company that develops interactive STEM games and learning tools for children, I want our company's educational programs to be available to the greatest number of people in order to have the greatest level of impact. In order to be successful, companies like mine need to reach kids where they spend their time-on their tablets, phones and other electronic learning devices. That means we want our apps to be compatible with as many devices as possible, and it's why we've chosen to use Android's open platform for our development. I've been able to reach far more people by building upon open platforms like Android than I ever could by teaching in a classroom.
As an app developer, I've benefited from Android's ease of use, open coding platform, and popularity within diverse segments of the population. We've been able to expand our reach to all audiences, particularly those in disadvantaged communities. Many lower-income people (and many in developing countries) rely on more affordable or older Android devices, and because Android lets us update apps on older-model phones, we can ensure we're providing the best experience to these users. Open platforms are also the main reason why most of our apps, including those that teach young children to code, are free.
Zyrobotics would be far less successful without the app stores housed on Android and Apple and the number of users we are able to reach through those platforms. Both Google and Apple's app stores have been especially useful in helping us maximize our apps' exposure to the children and parents with whom we want to connect, and helped us introduce important STEM concepts to children as early as five and six years old through30 STEM-focused apps and games, such as our award-winning Turtle "Learn to Code" app.
The United Statescontinues to lag behind other industrialized nations when it comes to preparing our children for STEM careers, and thattechnology workforce gap is partly a result of a lack of early engagement in STEM. Reaching children when their interests are just beginning to take shape is vital to building a more vibrant, diverse and successful STEM workforce for the future. Android helps us do that. I support smart regulation of technology companies that helps ensure that today's technology be made even more widely available, accessible and unbiased.
The benefits of technology to educate and empower the next generation are immeasurable. Open platforms create opportunities-for companies like mine, and the people we serve. Let's keep it that way.
Ayanna Howard, Ph.D., is Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Zyrobotics, an educational technology company, and the Linda J. and Mark C. Smith Professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Her artificial intelligence (AI), robotics and assistive technology research has resulted in more than 250 peer-reviewed publications and a number of commercialized products.
17 Oct 2018 9:45pm GMT
TalkAndroid
YouTube app on Android finally gets a beta program
The good thing about Gboard and Chrome on Android is that their beta program handles tests and features prior to them hitting the masses. YouTube has utilized server-side tests that basically use random users as guinea pigs, but it now has an official beta program to (supposedly) stop that practice. I'd much rather have tests […]
Come comment on this article: YouTube app on Android finally gets a beta program
17 Oct 2018 6:46pm GMT
Android Developers Blog
Building a Titan: Better security through a tiny chip
Posted by Nagendra Modadugu and Bill Richardson, Google Device Security Group
At the Made by Google event last week, we talked about the combination of AI + Software + Hardware to help organize your information. To better protect that information at a hardware level, our new Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL devices include a Titan M chip.We briefly introduced Titan M and some of its benefits on our Keyword Blog, and with this post we dive into some of its technical details.
Titan M is a second-generation, low-power security module designed and manufactured by Google, and is a part of the Titan family. As described in the Keyword Blog post, Titan M performs several security sensitive functions, including:
- Storing and enforcing the locks and rollback counters used by Android Verified Boot.
- Securely storing secrets and rate-limiting invalid attempts at retrieving them using the Weaver API.
- Providing backing for the Android Strongbox Keymaster module, including Trusted User Presence and Protected Confirmation. Titan M has direct electrical connections to the Pixel's side buttons, so a remote attacker can't fake button presses. These features are available to third-party apps, such as FIDO U2F Authentication.
- Enforcing factory-reset policies, so that lost or stolen phones can only be restored to operation by the authorized owner.
- Ensuring that even Google can't unlock a phone or install firmware updates without the owner's cooperation with Insider Attack Resistance.
Including Titan M in Pixel 3 devices substantially reduces the attack surface. Because Titan M is a separate chip, the physical isolation mitigates against entire classes of hardware-level exploits such as Rowhammer, Spectre, and Meltdown. Titan M's processor, caches, memory, and persistent storage are not shared with the rest of the phone's system, so side channel attacks like these-which rely on subtle, unplanned interactions between internal circuits of a single component-are nearly impossible. In addition to its physical isolation, the Titan M chip contains many defenses to protect against external attacks.
But Titan M is not just a hardened security microcontroller, but rather a full-lifecycle approach to security with Pixel devices in mind. Titan M's security takes into consideration all the features visible to Android down to the lowest level physical and electrical circuit design and extends beyond each physical device to our supply chain and manufacturing processes. At the physical level, we incorporated essential features optimized for the mobile experience: low power usage, low-latency, hardware crypto acceleration, tamper detection, and secure, timely firmware updates. We improved and invested in the supply chain for Titan M by creating a custom provisioning process, which provides us with transparency and control starting from the earliest silicon stages.
Finally, in the interest of transparency, the Titan M firmware source code will be publicly available soon. While Google holds the root keys necessary to sign Titan M firmware, it will be possible to reproduce binary builds based on the public source for the purpose of binary transparency.
A closer look at Titan M
Titan (left) and Titan M (right)
Titan M's CPU is an ARM Cortex-M3 microprocessor specially hardened against side-channel attacks and augmented with defensive features to detect and respond to abnormal conditions. The Titan M CPU core also exposes several control registers, which can be used to taper access to chip configuration settings and peripherals. Once powered on, Titan M verifies the signature of its flash-based firmware using a public key built into the chip's silicon. If the signature is valid, the flash is locked so it can't be modified, and then the firmware begins executing.
Titan M also features several hardware accelerators: AES, SHA, and a programmable big number coprocessor for public key algorithms. These accelerators are flexible and can either be initialized with keys provided by firmware or with chip-specific and hardware-bound keys generated by the Key Manager module. Chip-specific keys are generated internally based on entropy derived from the True Random Number Generator (TRNG), and thus such keys are never externally available outside the chip over its entire lifetime.
While implementing Titan M firmware, we had to take many system constraints into consideration. For example, packing as many security features into Titan M's 64 Kbytes of RAM required all firmware to execute exclusively off the stack. And to reduce flash-wear, RAM contents can be preserved even during low-power mode when most hardware modules are turned off.
The diagram below provides a high-level view of the chip components described here.
Better security through transparency and innovation
At the heart of our implementation of Titan M are two broader trends: transparency and building a platform for future innovation.
Transparency around every step of the design process - from logic gates to boot code to the applications - gives us confidence in the defenses we're providing for our users. We know what's inside, how it got there, how it works, and who can make changes.
Custom hardware allows us to provide new features, capabilities, and performance not readily available in off-the-shelf components. These changes allow higher assurance use cases like two-factor authentication, medical device control, P2P payments, and others that we will help develop down the road.
As more of our lives are bound up in our phones, keeping those phones secure and trustworthy is increasingly important. Google takes that responsibility seriously. Titan M is just the latest step in our continuing efforts to improve the privacy and security of all our users.
17 Oct 2018 5:52pm GMT
The Official Google Blog
Finding my way back to Antarctica with the help of Google Earth
Editor's note: This guest post comes from Conrad Anker, a rock climber and adventurer who used Google Earth to aid his quest to explore Antarctica's remote Queen Maud Land with other athletes from The North Face team.
Nearly twenty-two years ago, my late friend Alex Lowe, Jon Krakauer and I huddled over a stack of tattered Norwegian maps from the"International Geophysical Year, 1957 - 58." These were the first maps of Antarctica's remote Queen Maud Land, a stark glacial landscape dotted with impossibly jagged granite spires protruding from thousands of feet of ice. As we scanned the only detailed account of this faraway land, the complex and cryptic landscape made it blatantly obvious why these were some of the last unclimbed peaks on earth.
Back in '98, our paper maps were a static window into this dynamic land. We peeked in with trepidation, knowing that once we arrived on the ice cap, our lives would depend on rough estimations and ballpark figures, which still left a lot to chance. How many days would it take to reach the towers from our base camp? What if a storm pinned us down? What if we were unable to cross a dangerously crevassed part of the glacier?
Two decades later, the same thirst for pushing limits in the face of the unknown is calling me back to Queen Maud Land. This time the adventure began with my family in the comfort of our living room in Bozeman, Montana-our paper maps are replaced with smartphones and laptops. With Google Earth, my family was able to explore Queen Maud Land with me before my boots ever touched the ground. Together, we flew over snow covered glaciers and found our way up the massive granite walls I hoped to scale with my fellow teammates who are climbing with me as a part of an expedition put together by The North Face. We understood the complexity and enormity of the expedition together.
I always tell my family that the most important part of the mission is coming home-a goal that requires obsessive preparation, planning and training. Google Earth allowed us to drop pins on potential landing zones suitable for the fixed wing aircraft we were going to travel in. With the ability to visually assess the landscape in 3D, we could better see hazards and challenges before embarking on the expedition. Climate change has dramatically altered the landscape of the Antarctica I explored in the nineties and looking at up-to-date satellite imagery helped me come up with a new approach to navigating the terrain.
When we finally touched down on the ice, my fellow climber Cedar Wright aptly mentioned that "it was pretty surreal to recognize a place you had never physically been by your time spent exploring it remotely using Google Earth." And he was right. After we got our bearings, we were able to confidently and strategically explore dozens of never-before-climbed peaks in this lunar landscape. The challenges of climbing in the frozen landscape were ever present, but the gift of being able to successfully put up so many stunning new climbs with a team of this caliber was an unforgettable privilege.
Conrad Anker working his way up Ulvetanna, "The Wolf's Tooth," in the Drygalski Mountain Range, in Antarctica. Photo by Savannah Cummins.
On expeditions like these we are reminded of why we explore. They're a physical and mental challenge that demonstrate how we are capable of succeeding in places we never before thought possible. The spirit of exploration is alive and well across our society-and technology like Google Earth opens up even more possibilities to explore ... so, what will your next adventure be?
Learn more about the expedition and check out all of the photos and videos from The North Face expedition to Antarctica.
17 Oct 2018 5:00pm GMT
Titan M makes Pixel 3 our most secure phone yet
Security has always been a top priority for Pixel, spanning both the hardware and software of our devices. This includes monthly security updates and yearly OS updates, so Pixel always has the most secure version of Android, as well as Google Play Protect to help safeguard your phone from malware. Last year on Pixel 2, we also included a dedicated tamper-resistant hardware security module to protect your lock screen and strengthen disk encryption.
This year, with Pixel 3, we're advancing our investment in secure hardware with Titan M, an enterprise-grade security chip custom built for Pixel 3 to secure your most sensitive on-device data and operating system. With Titan M, we took the best features from the Titan chip used in Google Cloud data centers and tailored it for mobile.
Here are a few ways Titan M protects your phone.
Security in the Bootloader
First, to protect Android from outside tampering, we've integrated Titan M into Verified Boot, our secure boot process.
Titan M helps the bootloader-the program that validates and loads Android when the phone turns on-make sure that you're running the right version of Android. Specifically, Titan M stores the last known safe Android version and prevents "bad actors" from moving your device back to run on an older, potentially vulnerable, version of Android behind your back. Titan M also prevents attackers running in Android attempting to unlock the bootloader.
Lock Screen Protection & Disk Encryption On-Device
Pixel 3 also uses Titan M to verify your lock screen passcode. It makes the process of guessing multiple password combinations harder by limiting the amount of logon attempts, making it difficult for bad actors to unlock your phone. Only upon successful verification of your passcode will Titan M allow for decryption.
In addition, the secure flash and fully independent computation of Titan M makes it harder for an attacker to tamper with this process to gain the secrets to decrypt your data.
Secure Transactions in Third-Party Apps
Third, Titan M is used not only to protect Android and its functionality, but also to protect third-party apps and secure sensitive transactions. With Android 9, apps can now take advantage of StrongBox KeyStore APIs to generate and store their private keys in Titan M. The Google Pay team is actively testing out these new APIs to secure transactions.
For apps that rely on user interaction to confirm a transaction, Titan M also enables Android 9 Protected Confirmation, an API for protecting the most security-critical operations. As more processes come online and go mobile-like e-voting, and P2P money transfers-these APIs can help to ensure that the user (not malware) has confirmed the transaction. Pixel 3 is the first device to ship with this protection.
Insider Attack Resistance
Last, but not least, to prevent tampering, Titan M is built with insider attack resistance. The firmware on Titan M will never be updated unless you have entered your passcode, meaning bad actors cannot bypass your lock screen to update the firmware to a malicious version.
With the Pixel 3, we've increased our investment in security and put industry-leading hardware features into the device, so you can rest assured that your security and privacy are well protected. In the coming months, the security community will be able to audit Titan through its open-source firmware. In the meantime, you can test out Titan M and all of the smarts Pixel 3 brings, when it goes on sale on Thursday, October 18 in the U.S.
17 Oct 2018 4:00pm GMT
TalkAndroid
[TA Deals] Learn to take better photos with the Hollywood Art Institute Photography certification!
Better hardware will improve your photos and videos, but you can give an excellent photographer a mediocre camera and still get some shots that will blow you away. Knowing how to handle the equipment is worth more than a higher megapixel count, and if you're serious about photography you'll definitely want to dig into this […]
Come comment on this article: [TA Deals] Learn to take better photos with the Hollywood Art Institute Photography certification!
17 Oct 2018 2:55pm GMT
YouTube is down for everyone right now, including YouTube TV and YouTube Music
Google's major video streaming platform, YouTube, is totally down right now. The home page on desktop is struggling to load anything, and while the mobile app seems like it's faring a little better at showing some videos, they totally error out when you actually try to watch them. Google's acknowledged the problem, although they haven't […]
Come comment on this article: YouTube is down for everyone right now, including YouTube TV and YouTube Music
17 Oct 2018 2:21am GMT
16 Oct 2018
Android Developers Blog
Modern background execution in Android
Posted by Luiz Gustavo Martins, Partner Developer Advocate, Partner DevRel
This is the third in a series of blog posts in which outline strategies and guidance in Android with regard to power.
Over the years, executing background tasks on Android has evolved. To write modern apps, it's important to learn how to run your background tasks in modern fashion.
When is an app in the background?
Before understanding what background execution is, we need to have a clear view of when Android understands an app to be in the foreground. An app is considered to be in the foreground if any of the following is true:
- The app has a visible activity, whether the activity is started or paused.
- The app has a foreground service.
- Another foreground app is connected to the app, either by binding to one of its services, or using one of its content providers. For example, an app is in the foreground if another app or the system binds to its:
- IME
- Wallpaper service
- Notification listener
- Voice or text service
- Music app when streaming music to your car. (Android Auto-specific case)
If none of those conditions is true, the app is considered to be in the background.
Background execution changes
Running tasks in the background consumes a device's limited resources, like RAM and battery. This might result in a bad user experience. For example, background tasks may degrade the battery life of the device or the user may experience poor device performance at times such as watching a video, playing a game, using the camera.
To improve battery life and give a better user experience, Android has evolved over several releases to establish limits on background execution. These limits include:
- Doze and App Standby, which restricts app behavior when the screen is off, and the device is idle and not charging.
- Background Location restrictions, limits how frequently background apps can retrieve the user's current location.
- Background Service Limits, that restrict background services from being run and consuming CPU/network in a hidden/non-visible way.
- Most recently, App Standby Buckets that can limit the device resources available to apps that aren't used by users, and App Restrictions where the system will prompt the user to restrict the app's access to system resources in the background if the app exhibits bad behaviors, and several Battery Saver improvements.
Use cases and solutions
Deciding which tools to use to implement background execution requires the developer to have a clear understanding of what they want to accomplish, and under which restrictions. This flowchart can help you make a decision:
- WorkManager is the recommended solution for background execution, taking into account all OS background execution limits. If you need to guarantee that a task will run even if it is deferred, you should use WorkManager. This API allows you to schedule jobs (one-off or repeating) and chain and combine jobs. You can also apply execution constraints to them such as triggering when the device is idle or charging, or executing when a content provider changes.
One example is if you need to compress logs to upload them to your server. To do this you can create two work requests:
- First: compress the file. On this step you may add the constraint that the device should be charging.
- Second: upload it to the server. For this request you should add a network connectivity constraint so that the work only gets triggered when you have a valid connection.
After enqueuing both tasks, WorkManager will take care of executing them when your app has access to the resources you need.
Another nice feature of WorkManager is that it respects power-management features, so that if a job is scheduled to run at a defined time and the device is in Doze at that time, WorkManager will try to run the task during a maintenance window if the constraints are met or after Doze is lifted.
- If a long-running task is to be scheduled in response to an external event like syncing for new online content, use Firebase Cloud Messaging to notify your app and then create a work request with WorkManager to sync the content. You can learn more about this in "Notifying your users with FCM".
- If the app needs to complete a user-initiated task without deferring even if the user leaves the app or turns off the screen, such as in the case of music/video playback or navigation, you should use a Foreground service. (The next blog post in this series dives deeper into this use case.)
- If you need to run a task at an exact time that triggers actions, involves user interactions, and cannot be deferred, use AlarmManager (more specifically the method setExactAndAllowWhileIdle). Examples of time alarms include:
- a reminder to take medicine
- a notification that a TV show is about to start.
When the alarm is triggered, you have very few seconds to finish the work and your app may not have access to the network (for example during Doze or due to App Standby buckets). If you really need network or to do a long task, use WorkManager. Every time a wakeup alarm is triggered, the device comes out of low-power mode and holds a partial wake lock which can significantly impact the battery life over time. This can be monitored via excessive wakeups stats highlighted on Android Vitals, provided via Google Play Console.
In Summary:
| Use Case | Examples | Solution |
| Guaranteed execution of deferrable work |
|
WorkManager |
| A task initiated in response to an external event |
|
FCM + WorkManager |
| Continue user-initiated work that needs to run immediately even if the user leaves the app |
|
Foreground Service |
| Trigger actions that involve user interactions, like notifications at an exact time. |
|
AlarmManager |
Use background execution judiciously so that you can build cool apps that delight users while saving their battery. If you need more information on executing background tasks on Android, there's great content at the Android developer site.
Note: WorkManager is still in public preview. If you need an alternative solution right now, you should use JobScheduler, although it has limitations that don't apply to WorkManager. JobScheduler is part of the Android Framework, and only available for Android API 21 and above; WorkManager works on API 14 and above.
Acknowledgements: This series of blog posts is produced in collaboration between the Android Framework and DevRel teams
16 Oct 2018 5:01pm GMT
12 Oct 2018
Android Developers Blog
Get ready for #AndroidDevSummit, kicking off November 7!
In less than a month, we'll be kicking off Android Dev Summit 2018, broadcasting live from the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA on November 7 and 8. We'll have two days of deep technical sessions from the Android engineering team, with over 30 sessions livestreamed. The first wave of sessions were just posted to the website: check them out and start planning.
The summit kicks off on November 7 at 10AM PST with the keynote, where you'll hear directly from Dave Burke and others on the present and future of Android development. From there, we'll dive into two tracks (and two days!) of deep technical content from the Google engineering team, on topics such as Android Pie, Android Studio, Kotlin, Android Jetpack, Google Play and more. We'll also have demos and office hours for those attending in person; more on that in the coming weeks!
We received a ton of interest from developers looking to attend in person; if you were one of those who expressed interest but didn't receive a ticket, we've already reached out to you and shared this news, but we want to apologize again that we weren't able to find you a spot. Rest assured, though, that we're still doing all that we can to free up more tickets, and we'll be reaching out to folks we're able to accommodate in the lead-up to the show. And if you did receive a ticket but your plans have changed and you're no longer able to attend, please let us know by sending an email to android-dev-summit@google.com, and we'll free up your spot for others on the waitlist.
If you can't join in person, you can always join us online: we'll be livestreaming all of the sessions on the Android Dev Summit website and making them available on YouTube throughout the conference to watch at your own pace. Plus, we'll be sharing updates directly from the Computer History Museum to our social channels, so be sure to follow along!
12 Oct 2018 8:15pm GMT
08 Mar 2018
Matt Cutts: Gadgets, Google, and SEO
Some terrible personal news
Cindy Cutts, my wife and best friend, passed away earlier this week. While I was traveling for work recently, Cindy went to visit her family in Omaha, Nebraska. On Sunday, while enjoying time with family, Cindy started having trouble breathing. Her family quickly called 911 and paramedics took Cindy to the hospital, but Cindy lost […]
08 Mar 2018 12:17am GMT
22 Jan 2018
Matt Cutts: Gadgets, Google, and SEO
Talking to Mr. Money Mustache about the US Digital Service
Last week, I passed my one year anniversary as head of the US Digital Service (USDS). So when Mr. Money Mustache asked for an interview, I was delighted to talk about some of the work that the USDS does. If you aren't familiar with Mr. Money Mustache, he writes about a philosophy of badassity in […]
22 Jan 2018 6:58pm GMT
01 Apr 2017
Google Operating System
Google April Fools' Day 2017
April Fools' Day should probably be called Google Fools' Day, since there are so many Google hoaxes.
Google Japan developed a "bubble wrap" version of the Japanese keyboard. "The Google Japanese input bubble wrap version is a keyboard that realizes 'I want to press in my mind, I want to keep pressing'," according to Google Translate.
Another product for your smart home? Meet Google Gnome, "a voice-activated, hands-free tool designed to make backyard living effortless. Need to know what animal is squeaking in your bushes? Stay still and ask Gnome what sound an opossum makes. Running low on birdseed? That's where Gnome comes in. You can even use Gnome's proprietary high-intensity lasers to trim your hedges into whatever shape your heart desires."
The Chrome OS team brings the most popular mobile accessories to the Chromebook, which already blurs the line between mobile and desktop. Chromebook Groupie Stick, Chromebook Cardboard, Chromebook Workout Armband will soon be available in the Google Store. "To take advantage of beautiful, high-resolution displays, as well as great photo editing apps, we've carefully engineered the first Chromebook-sized selfie stick. Never again will you miss the perfect groupie."
Haptic Helpers make VR even more immersive. "We're taking VR to the next level with Haptic Helpers. Using a modest set of everyday tools, these VR virtuosos can simulate more than 10,000 unique experiences, all from the comfort of your own home. Smell the roses. Listen to the ocean. Feel a fluffy dog!"
You can now play the classic arcade game MS. PAC-MAN in Google Maps. "Avoid Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Sue as you swerve the streets of real places around the world. But eat the pac-dots fast, because this game will only be around for a little while." Just go to the Google Maps site or open the Google Maps app for Android or iOS and click or tap MS. PAC-MAN at the bottom.
Google Cloud Platform expands to Mars. "By opening a dedicated extraterrestrial cloud region, we're bringing the power of Google's compute, network, and storage to the rest of the solar system, unlocking a plethora of possibilities for astronomy research, exploration of Martian natural resources and interplanetary life sciences. This region will also serve as an important node in an extensive network throughout the solar system. Our first interplanetary data center - affectionately nicknamed 'Ziggy Stardust' - will open in 2018," mentions Google.
Google Netherlands came up with Google Wind, a machine learning technology that controls the weather. "The Netherlands has many windmills, some no longer in use, we can connect to Google Cloud Platform. So we use the existing Dutch infrastructure, machine learning, weather patterns to control the network of windmills when rain is approaching. The first test results are very promising: we seem to be able to provide sun and clear skies for everyone in the Netherlands," mentions Google Netherlands blog.
Google's search app for iOS is now optimized for cats and dogs. "On the Google app for iOS, you can now use 3D Touch on the app icon or head to settings and select I'm Feeling Woof or I'm Feeling Meow to let your dogs and cats get info on topics they care about-whether that means squeaky toys or a bowl of milk!"
Google also launched Google Play for Pets, a new category of Android games designed for cats, dogs and other pets.
Google Translate's Word Lens feature supports a new language: Heptapod B, the alien language from the movie "Arrival". "The challenge with understanding Heptapod B is its nonlinear orthography. Fortunately, Google's neural machine translation system employs an encoder/decoder system that internally represents sentences as high-dimensional vectors. These vectors map well to the non-linear orthography of the Heptapod language and they are really the enabling technical factor in translating Heptapod B."
01 Apr 2017 7:25am GMT
19 Feb 2017
Google Operating System
Gmail Blocks JavaScript Attachments
If you try to send a JavaScript attachment using Gmail or if you want to download a .js attachment, you'll get a new anti-virus warning: "Blocked for security reasons", "1 attachment contains a virus or blocked file. Downloading this attachment is disabled".
.JS has been added to the long list of file types that are blocked by Gmail for security reasons. The full list: .ADE, .ADP, .BAT, .CHM, .CMD, .COM, .CPL, .EXE, .HTA, .INS, .ISP, .JAR, .JS (NEW), .JSE, .LIB, .LNK, .MDE, .MSC, .MSI, .MSP, .MST, .NSH .PIF, .SCR, .SCT, .SHB, .SYS, .VB, .VBE, .VBS, .VXD, .WSC, .WSF, .WSH. "To prevent against potential viruses, Gmail doesn't allow you to attach certain types of files, including: certain file types (listed above), including their compressed form (like .gz or .bz2 files) or when found within archives (like .zip or .tgz files), documents with malicious macros, archives whose listed file content is password protected, archives whose content includes a password protected archive."
The GSuite Blog informs that "for inbound mail, senders will get a bounce message explaining why the email was blocked. If you still need to send .js files for legitimate reasons, you can use Google Drive, Google Cloud Storage, or other storage solutions to share or send your files."
You can still send JavaScript files using Gmail if you change the extension. What about downloading old .js attachments? Try the workarounds from this post.
19 Feb 2017 10:39am GMT
25 Jan 2017
Google Operating System
Google Image Search Shows Colorful Suggestions
Google Image Search has a different way to display suggestions: it now shows a long list of colorful boxes with related searches. You can click one or more boxes to dynamically refine search results.
For example, when searching for [sportswear], Google shows suggestions like: [women basketball], [tennis], [badminton], [golf], [volleyball], [nike woman], [alexander wang], [adidas], [fashion], [performance], [vintage], [trendy], [urban], [school], [gym], [90's], [70's], [vogue], [luxe], [avant garde], [korean], [italian], [french] and more. It's interesting to notice that each category of suggestions has a different color.
Here's the old interface, which had fewer suggestions and displayed thumbnails next to suggestions:
25 Jan 2017 9:39pm GMT
19 Jan 2017
Matt Cutts: Gadgets, Google, and SEO
Staying with the US Digital Service
A few months ago, I took a leave of absence from Google to do a stint with the US Digital Service. A lot of people know about the US Digital Service because they helped rescue the healthcare.gov website. But you might not realize that the US Digital Service has helped veterans get their health benefits, […]
19 Jan 2017 3:47am GMT
10 Nov 2011
Android Forums
Latest action game INC from OrangePixel now available!
From the developer of Meganoid and Stardash comes a new action arcade game: INC! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9j5OEG-3RyM Get it from the...
10 Nov 2011 9:31am GMT
Free online video chat
More than 1000 broadcast cameras for you online - the most incendiary models in Russia. 1000 girls, 1000, the temptations, 1000, full of desire - all...
10 Nov 2011 7:48am GMT
Layout problem
Hi Friends I decided to work with a tab layout application. Program consist of 3 tabs and a button. I like to place the button below the tab. ...
10 Nov 2011 5:20am GMT
26 Aug 2011
Google Blogoscoped
The Emperor's Garden
The Emperor instructed the gardener to set up the new court's garden. "I want you to plant five trees growing the Crataan fruit," the Emperor said, "Because we asked people what fruit they like best, and most named the Crataan fruit!" The gardener replied, "Emperor, that is excellent thinking! But let me make some suggestions: First, how about we make one of the five trees bear the Muran fruit. Only one out of ten citizens loves it, but those peculiar citizens tend to love multiple times as much!" "Second," the gardener continued, "How about we make one of the five trees bear the Dratean fruit. No one loves it, but that's because no one knows it yet!" "Third," the gardener said, "How about we leave one spot in the garden empty. Who knows what new type of tree we'll discover that we can put there in the fut ...
26 Aug 2011 12:12pm GMT
15 Aug 2011
Google Blogoscoped
Color Sound Machine (and what else I've been doing lately)
For those of you who've been wondering whether I had turned to stone, fallen into a bottomless pit, or been climbing the Himalaya... no, none of that is true, even though you probably did notice I'm not actively blogging about Google here anymore*! Just now, a new iPad app I've been working on called Color Sound Machine went live, and this -- and all the other apps and games at Versus Pad** -- are actually what I am doing while not blogoscoping. *I've drafted unpublished posts explaining much more about past, present and future of Blogoscoped, and the history of Google news reporting, but ... oh, for now le ...
15 Aug 2011 4:00pm GMT
25 Feb 2011
Google Blogoscoped
Google drops reverse phone number lookup
One of the earliest specialist services provided by Google was reverse phone number lookup. If you used the "phonebook:" or "rphonebook:" operators together with a 10-digit US phone number, Google would show you the owner of that phone number, unless the number was unlisted. Google no longer provides that service. Not surprisingly, there was no press release marking the closure, but Google employee Daniel Russell has acknowledged the closure of the service in his blog. He hints at the possible pressures leading to the shuttering of the service: "As you can imagine, this was an endless source of hassles for people (who were surprised to see themselves searchable on Google) and for Google (who had to constantly de ...
25 Feb 2011 11:23am GMT