2010 was a special year: Google voluntarily gave up money. After Chinese censorship authorities had tightened the thumbscrews, the US company faced the consequences and withdrew from the Chinese market, leaving the field to their competitors. This also meant services like Gmail, Google Drive or Playstore were no longer welcome in the Middle Kingdom. This move earned Google a lot of respect, further underpinning their "Don't be evil" mentality and their quest for freedom of information. Eight years later, both their noble mindset and scruples have seemingly gone up in smoke. Enter Dragonfly
You might have noticed I've been out of commission for a couple of weeks. I had broken my ankle at a classical music concert and was facing a long recovery period, aside from surgery. Dull times, some of which I naturally spent online digging through social networks. After two days with Facebook, and on pain medicine, I kept asking myself why people couldn't just shut up for once.
Have you heard of Alex Jones? While US residents might be rolling their eyes, he's fairly unknown to the rest of the world. Alex Jones is a right-wing journalist, radio presenter and entrepreneur who makes a living off crude conspiracy theories. In his view, the US government was behind the 9/11 attacks, the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting was staged and various politicians are child-devouring satanists. Hard views that naturally polarize. Still, it got me thinking when he was suddenly banned from various areas on the internet.
When you look at your cellphone or any other LC display, you're looking at a product that contains rare earths. Nearly all electric cars, computers and various medical devices contain elements that had to be wrested from the earth. For example, cellphones contain almost half of the elements in the periodic table. Still, the importance of rare earths is underestimated by many. Read on to learn why the extraction process is complicated and what this means for the environment!
Ever since kids started using cellphones, there has been a debate about how much cellphone time they should be allowed and what restrictions should apply. A lot of software was developed to this effect years ago - and it often failed because it wasn't integrated deeply enough into the operating system, and therefore easy to circumvent. Google Family Link is Google's attempt at giving parents the tools they need to supervise their children online - and turn them into loyal Google users in the process.