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Best go direct to the source for your answers:

Using a neural network trained on widely available weather forecasts and historical turbine data, we configured the DeepMind system to predict wind power output 36 hours ahead of actual generation.

So no, it doesn't do weather forecasts itself, but it is based on those.

Gmail used to scan your incoming mail for keywords in order to deliver contextually relevant advertising. It stopped that practice a year and a half ago. Since July 2017, Gmail ads are instead interest-based, drawing context from your browsing history on other Google properties and on third parties' websites that use Google analytics or advertising.

What is this garbage?

Hell, even the Surface hardware feels uninspired these days

Why is some lame Microsoft-hating blog being linked to instead of the original source?
https://www.blog.google/outrea...

Nothing in the statement from Google says this is an exclusive switch to only Chromebooks. This is just the government saying that they'll pay for special education licenses to manage Chromebooks for schools that want it. Probably because schools have been buying Chromebooks because they're the cheapest option, and now the school systems are having issues managing them. Obviously the government wouldn't be blowing money on these management tools if they weren't having issues with the Chromebooks that needed to be addressed. What I want to know is if the schools already bought Chromebooks, and Google has tools the manage them en masse, why is Google *charging* schools to use this tool? Google already has made money off the Chromebooks - they've already been purchased. This expenditure doesn't directly help the students. It's not buying more hardware, or more educational software. It's just to try and keep the Chromebooks running right. You'd think Google, with their billions, would provide these tools for free to any educational organization that wants it.

But this has to be spun as an anti-Microsoft move by New Zealand.

Yes, but the situation is a little more shady than that. It's not really 438 people, it's 438 third-party applications and therefore 438 organisations. How many people behind those organisations ?
Furthermore, it appears that Google only keeps the log of the third-party API access for two weeks. Given the time window of this vulnerability, it seems quite misleading to go out and say that there is no evidence that this was used.
I agree with you that the information leaked seems pretty benign. Therefore, they should have had no problems in disclosing the vulnerability... And furthermore, the phone book example you gave is interesting, because it seems that combining the information available within it with the information potentially leaked would give a good basis for identity theft. So, I do not know if this should be considered so benign.

You haven't paying much attention to that space, have you? https://blog.google/products/c...

Where and when?

June of last year in a blog post.

In the blog post, Google also called out its anti-spam, anti-phishing, and Smart Reply features for Gmail -- all of which require the company to analyze email content.

The way this works is that Google buys 120% of the power it needs from these renewable producers. It pays the grid operator to deliver 120% of its power requirement to its various data centers. It pays the grid to deliver the whole 120%. If Google only uses 100% of the power it is paying to have delivered, there is an additional 20% of power being fed into the grid. More likely, the renewable plants are delivering 200% or more of Google's instantaneous usage during the sunlight hours and that excess power get delivered to other consumers.

None of this makes sense. I don't see how it was moderated high

How do you "pay the grid operator to deliver 120% of its power requirement to its various data centers"? The grid doesn't just push power, something has to be consuming it. How could they deliver 20% more power than is actually used?

"If Google only uses 100% of the power it is paying to have delivered, there is an additional 20% of power being fed into the grid"
Huh? They used 100% of the power they payed for, what "additional 20%" is there?

"More likely, the renewable plants are delivering 200% or more of Google's instantaneous usage during the sunlight hours and that excess power get delivered to other consumers"
What a mess.

This is a much simpler story.
Google is buying Renewable Energy Credits as it clearly says on their blog post
https://www.blog.google/topics...

From another article"
https://www.counterpunch.org/2...

Despite their claims, none of the companies in the RE100 list is actually going to receive all of its energy from renewable sources. The “100% renewable” label is a façade, a marketing gimmick used by corporations to pretend they are the good guys while their unfettered thirst for profits continues unopposed. This corporate lie is enabled by the abuse of Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) which allow companies to buy their way into “green” without having to change any of their practices. Here is Google’s actual claim:

“Google will buy, on an annual basis, the same amount of MWh of renewable energy as the MWh of electricity that we consume for our operations around the world” [3].

Behold the magic of the RECs. When a renewable energy facility creates one MWh of energy, it not only creates electricity, it also gets a certificate, a REC, which states that one MWh of clean energy was created. The REC can then be sold, either together with the electricity or separate from it. The purchaser of the REC can then claim to have bought “green energy” without having ever done so. This means that you can buy 100 MWhs from your local utility provider, most likely produced in coal or natural gas power plants, and as long as you also buy 100MWhs worth of RECs, you can claim to be “powered by 100% renewables” even if that clearly is not the case. In that sense, RECs are the ultimate virtue signalers. They allow corporations to proudly wear the green badge without having to change in any way their energy consumption.

The dialer on the phone knows that 911 is 'special'. Or at least, that is trivial to program. So it can turn on the gps and try its best to get a position. Then the problem is to get the information across. It could send the coordinates to 911 by SMS. They would need to have a mobile phone there receiving 911 SMSes, not that hard.

The funny thing is that every Android phone since Gingerbread (2010) can already send an SMS with location data when an emergency call is made. That's 99% of all Android phones. Google call it Emergency Location Service although it's actually Google's implementation of Advanced Mobile Location. It's currently used by the emergency services in the UK, Estonia, Lithuania, Belgium, Iceland, Finland, Ireland, New Zealand and parts of Austria. All it takes is for the mobile providers to configure a number to send the SMSes to, and to forward them to the 911 responders.

...why the FUCK would you even link to CNET? What the hell, is this HuffPost now?

The only links that should be present are GOOGLE MAPS BLOG: https://www.blog.google/produc... and the gmaps link itself (which the OP did link).

Augmented Reality

iOS 11 introduces ARKit, a new framework that allows you to easily create unparalleled augmented reality experiences for iPhone and iPad. Introducing ARKit

Today, we’re releasing a preview of a new software development kit (SDK) called ARCore. It brings augmented reality capabilities to existing and future Android phones. Developers can start experimenting with it right now. ARCore: Augmented reality at Android scale

On the other had, firing him doesn't feel like the right thing to do at all, atleast not until he's proven that he's such a dick that nobody will work with him anymore (if that was to be the case).

Coworkers did complain that they didn't want to work with him. Didn't they? I find it hard to read the CEO's comments any other way:

The memo has clearly impacted our co-workers, some of whom are hurting and feel judged based on their gender.

The media tends to frame this manifesto as a national issue. The author seems to think this way, too: he writes about right-wing and left-wing politics. The national frame is nonsense. This is an office, not Congress. He sent his manifesto to his coworkers and his managers, not to voters. They are the ones whose opinions matter.

We all have those days when the espresso machine is broken and there are paper towels in the bathroom sink and the mini-fridge is empty. Most of us don't write 10-page manifestos about how it's our coworkers' and bosses' faults. If we did, we'd offend our colleagues. Then we'd be fired.

It's interesting that they didn't make a doodle about it, but it was at the top of blog https://www.blog.google/topics....

None of the companies allegedly supporting net neutrality is mentioning this on their home page today.

I have a big grey banner across the top of my Neflix screen right now that proves otherwise.
Amazon's major deal of the day was a notice about Net Neutrality.
Mark Zuckerberg's post would have been at the top of his 93million follower's feeds.
And Google while they didn't put it on their home page for search definitely put it on the top of their blog: https://www.blog.google/topics...

https://blog.google/products/s...

What's interesting is that Google themselves say that this is for Americans (they don't say US, just Americans, so one assumes Canadians too, maybe?), and the articles that picked it up dropped that fact. A fact that's important on an international tech news site, like Slashdot!

Unfortunately they make no mention of when this might roll out to the rest of the world. Or even _if_ it will roll out to the rest of the world.

Or, you know, the sun to power the machines.

https://blog.google/topics/env...

(... because I'm sure they read /. and value my opinion... )

1. NEVER hide ANY part of the URL. If the URL extends beyond the size of the location box, give a nice big '...' for people to click on to see it.

2. ALWAYS show a status bar that ALWAYS shows what URL I'll go to if I click a link. NEVER allow ANYTHING to change this behavior.

3. NEVER hide the protocol.

4. Don't allow 'data' URIs in the URL bar by default. https://www.wordfence.com/blog... (This also relates to #1)

5. Don't make SUCH a big damn deal about 'https' -- big green text, giant padlock icons, etc. I've been telling people for YEARS that an HTTPS connection to bankofamurica.ru is worth NOTHING.

This won't solve everything, but the least that browser makers can do is give people the tools they need to help them make good decisions. Long story short, QUIT HIDING SHIT!

6. Bonus: enough with all these new shit TLDs. Is a world where http://blog.google/ exists (note: it does) REALLY a better place than one where it doesn't? Or is it just more confusing?

https://blog.google/products/g...

Because I hate going to a site to go to a site to...you get the point.

At times like this, I'd like to remember Google for having sold us out on the TPP:

https://blog.google/topics/pub...

Thanks for nothing, sellouts.