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Google Slides Are Very Efficient

May 6, 2016 By John Cooper Leave a Comment

Google icon represents people hugging.

Whether you are part of the audience, or you have to hold a public presentation, Google slides are very efficient and ready to make a presentation easier for everyone. Thanks to the new features, the members of the audience are able not only to ask questions but also to vote which question should first get answered. This way, people from the audience can make a good use of their smartphones during the presentations instead of wasting time and not paying attention.

Thanks to this system, any slide presentation will be different as it is especially up to the audience to decide which question needs the fastest answer. This way, the members are encouraged to be more active and focused on the subject.

Presenters are now able to connect better and at another level with their audiences. Presenters will have a button in the Slides view while on smartphones it will be right behind the “audience tools” button. A similar Q&A platform, Moderator, was launched by Google before but shut down in 2015.

Education is important for Google and nowadays Google has become in some ways important for education too. Pupils and students tend to get confused during classes and worse, shy. During any presentation, if you get confused you can no longer concentrate properly. Then you feel insecure and shy because you hesitate in asking your question.

That is why Google slides are very efficient. Because everyone, confused or shy, can pop their questions and even vote in which order they should get answered.

On the other hand, things can get pretty tough for a presenter too. Whether you are a very experienced one or merely a beginner there are still some issues that almost always occur, but which Google Slides can simplify.

First of all, it is very hard, even after a long time, to control your emotions without getting nervous about the presentation. Second of all, you can miss important questions from the audience and even hear some of them repeatedly. With Google Slides Q&A platform the presenter connects not only better but more efficient leaving no key questions unanswered and avoiding repeated answers.

The concluding question is: Is it really that good? Well, it is up to you to see for yourself wether Google slides are very efficient or not.

Image source: Nerdi Landia

Google Wants You to Know that 77% of Its Internet Traffic is Now Encrypted

March 16, 2016 By Dean Lamori Leave a Comment

Google disclosed in a recent Transparency Report how much of its online traffic is currently encrypted.

Encryption is now a hot topic in the tech world since the feds have been pressuring Apple and Facebook’s WhatsApp messaging service into loosening their products’ security. So, several tech companies including Facebook and Snapchat recently pledged that they would make their services’ encryption even stronger.

Google was also one of the companies that made such promise on Monday. But in a recently released transparency report, the web search giant took things one step further. On Tuesday, the company made the number of Google queries encrypted through HTTPS public.

According to the report, about 77 percent of Google online traffic is encrypted, which is a major progress from 2013’s mere 52 percent.

While HTTPS encryption has been around for years, securing online transactions and communications for zillions of services, it is the first time the tech giant decides to keep users up-to-date on its encryption practices and efforts to protect online privacy.

Google argued that introducing the new data into its Transparency Report was a necessary measure to hold the company “accountable” and to encourage other tech companies to use enhanced encryption to keep every one safe online.

The company also announced that it would provide weekly updates on its efforts to expand HTTPS encryption to all its products and services. So, expect even more services to make it on the list in the near future.

The latest report also includes some charts showing the traffic that was encrypted via HTTPS. Still, YouTube traffic did not feature on the graphs since the service, which is used by over 1 billion users, has yet to be secured. Google pledged to encrypt the service, too, by the end of the year.

In the report, Google also detailed the hurdles it has to overcome to use the encryption at its max. Apparently, the final goal is for online traffic to be fully encrypted, but there is a lot to be done until the search giant achieves that goal.

Yet, it is not the first time when Google makes a push for universal encryption. The company has been touting the importance of online encryption since 2013 in the wake of Snowden leaks showing that U.S. agencies had been harvesting personal data from unencrypted web traffic for years.

I recent years, Google has boosted its own services’ encryption, while it has also been pushing encryption on all websites. In 2014, it even demoted some websites in its search results, if they failed to encrypt their traffic.

Image Source: Pixabay

Google Tests Out ‘Hands Free’ Payment Service in SF Bay Area

March 3, 2016 By Dean Lamori Leave a Comment

You think paying with your smartphone is something? Wait and see Google’s ‘hands free’ payment service.

With the new ‘hands free’ payment service the tech giant is currently testing in San Francisco’s South Bay, it will be as simple as uttering the magic words: “I’ll Pay with Google” to pay for your stuff.

There’s no need to pull out your wallet, your credit card or to fumble for cash to buy that yummy hot dog or cup of Frappuccino.

The new payment method is called ‘Hands Free’ and it basically relies on pairing your smartphone’s sensors with a point of sales system as you whizz past a human cashier. Nevertheless, you’ll need to activate the service by saying “I’ll Pay with Google” phrase. The service will be first tested in San Francisco Bay Area starting March 2.

Pali Bhat, head of product management, explained that the new system would make wallets, phones, credit cards, and even cash unnecessary. All you will need is a smartphone connected to the Hands Free service and a bank account.

When you approach a cashier, the system will prompt the human operator that your phone is in the area and that Hands Free is ready to be used. After you tell the cashier that you’ll pay with Google and provide your initials, the system withdraws the necessary money from your bank account.

To prevent fraud, cashiers will check in real-time whether your face matches the one in the Google profile paired with the payment service. The new system, however, pushes things a little further than Android and Apple Pay did.

The two mobile payment services so far only allow users to pay for their shopping through their smartphones. But none of them managed to perform a transaction without the user physically pulling out their handsets.

If the new method is successful, it should help Android Pay become more popular. According to Google, the payment service sees 1.5 million new users every month in the U.S. alone, though there are only 2 million locations where you could use your Android phone to make a payment.

Nevertheless, the idea of a ‘hands free’ payment service is not new. Square had the idea first, but the technology it employed was slightly different. Square used geofencing technology, while the web search giant uses a different approach. Both services, however, aimed at the same result: completing a transaction without taking your wallet, credit card or smartphone out of pocket.

Bhat explained that Google has an edge against its competitors because its service heavily relies on Google Maps, and it is secured by an advanced fraud detection system.

Image Source: Wikimedia

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