Dhaka, Aug 23 (UNB) - Google has just announced that it is dropping the dessert naming scheme for its Android operating system and that its upcoming Android Q operating system will simply be named Android 10. After this, all Android releases will sport numbers after the Android brand like Android 11, Android 12 and so on, reports The Inbdian Express.

The company states that it has decided to change the naming scheme as the earlier scheme wasn’t always understood by everyone globally.

This was also an issue for people to understand if their phone is running the latest version or not. It states that this change will help in making Android release names simpler and more intuitive for the global community.

The company will still be providing codenames to its Android releases, however, they will be limited to its internal teams and the operating system’s source code.

Alongside the reveal of the new naming scheme, the company has also revealed an updated logo for the operating system. The new logo consists of the ‘android’ wordmark with the little green robot mascot’s head on its right side.

In a blog post, Google stated that it has also changed the colour of the wordmark from green to black, saying that green is a hard to read colour for people with visual impairments. Even the colour of the robot’s head has a yellowish tinge to it.

Dhaka, Aug 22 (UNB)- Banglalink, has launched ‘Daktarbhai’, a digital health service platform to provide customers with a comprehensive healthcare solution with accessibility to useful health and medical information. 

The platform has been launched in collaboration with Healthcare Information System Limited (HISL), a service and technology partner of Banglalink. 

Erik Aas, CEO, Banglalink made the announcement at a launching ceremony held at Tiger’s Den, Banglalink’s head office at Gulshan in the city. 

Useful features such as electronic personal health record, health directory, medicine reminder, sleep reminder and health tips can be used free of charge on the platform.

The premium section of the platform includes health insurance coverage for diagnostic tests and hospitalization, complementary life insurance, discounts at hospitals, diagnostic centers, pharmacies and lifestyle outlets, doctors’ appointment booking and consultation with doctors. 

Pierre Boutros Obeid, Chief Technology Officer & Acting Chief Commercial Officer, Banglalink, Raihan Shamsi, Managing Director, Healthcare Information System Ltd., Prof M Harunur Rashid, Chairman and founder, Healthcare Information System Ltd. (HISL), Gaurav Kakkar, Digital Business Director, Banglalink, Abdul Muqit Ahmed, Digital Services Director, and other officials of the two organizations were present in the ceremony.

Customers can avail all the facilities by installing and subscribing to ‘Daktarbhai’ from Play Store. The service can also be availed by dialing the USSD code *16643# from any Banglalink number. Customers can avail the services in 3 different packs – Daily pack @BDT 2.55, Monthly pack @63.75 and Yearly pack @BDT 733.13 (VAT and Taxes Inclusive).  For details about ‘Daktarbhai’, please visit: https://www.banglalink.net/en/personal/digital-services/m-services/daktarbhai. 

Erik Aas, CEO, Banglalink said, “We are really delighted to bring ‘Daktarbhai’ as the latest addition to our wide portfolio of digital services. The features of this digital platform will help the users maintain a healthy lifestyle by enabling them to access useful health information and avail various medical services in a convenient way.” 

Raihan Shamsi, Managing Director, Healthcare Information System Ltd. said, “Partnering with Banglalink for launching ‘Daktarbhai’ is a matter of great privilege for us. The users will definitely benefit from this digital platform as they will be able to avail necessary health facilities with just a few taps on their devices.”

Dhaka, Aug 22 (UNB) -The co-founder of DeepMind, the British artificial intelligence company owned by Google's parent Alphabet, has gone on leave from the company, reports the BBC.

DeepMind did not say why Mustafa Suleyman was taking time off, but said it was a mutual decision.

"Mustafa's taking some time out right now after 10 hectic years," the company said in a statement.

The firm expects Mr Suleyman to return to his post as DeepMind's head of applied AI later this year.

The news was first reported by Bloomberg, which linked the move to recent controversies over some of DeepMind's work in the health sector.

The "applied" unit of DeepMind, which is tasked with finding and implementing practical applications of the company's research, faced heavy criticism in July 2017 over its mobile app Streams.

DeepMind had partnered with the Royal Free Hospital in London to help doctors predict instances of kidney injury by using the app. The UK's data regulator said the hospital did not tell patients enough about the way their data was used - but said the app could continue to be used if the "shortcomings" were addressed.

In November 2018, it was announced management and development of the Streams app would taken over by a newly-created Google Health division.

Since then, the app has received considerable praise by hospital managers, credited with significantly speeding up diagnoses.

"It's a huge change to be able to receive alerts about patients anywhere in the hospital," said Mary Emerson, from the Royal Free Hospital, in an interview with the BBC earlier this month.

"Healthcare is mobile and real time, and this is the first device that has enabled me to see results in a mobile real-time way."
 

Dhaka, Aug 21 (UNB) - Grameenphone has appointed Jens Becker as the new Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of the company, effective from this month.

He will be replacing Karl Erik Broten, said a media release on Wednesday.

Jens Becker has been serving as CFO of T-Mobile Poland. Previously, he was the CFO at T-Online International AG.  He has over 20 years of experience in Deutsche Telekom Group with leadership positions in Germany and Poland and responsibility for controlling T-Online’s subsidiaries in France and Spain.

“I am proud to be appointed as CFO of the largest telecom operator of the country that is providing telecommunications and digital services to over 74 million people. I am thrilled for the journey ahead as the market is about to experience the fourth industrial revolution,” Becker said in a statement.

The German national holds a Masters degree in Geography coupled with Economics and Business Administration from the Free University of Berlin.  He is also an alumnus of the Deutsche Telecom General Management Program of the London School of Economics and Political Science, better known as the LSE.

 “Jens has over a decade’s experience as a Telecom CFO with a leading multinational operator and is a valuable addition to our team. I am delighted to welcome Jens to Bangladesh and the GP family,” said Michael Foley, CEO of Grameenphone. 

 END/UNB/MK/ssk
 

San Francisco, Aug 21 (AP/UNB) — President Donald Trump has been on a tear about Google that traces back to a series of unfounded claims about the technology giant circulating among conservatives. Among those claims: that Google interferes with U.S. elections, is biased against conservatives and prefers working with the Chinese military over the Pentagon.

In several tweets issued this August, Trump assailed Google for alleged electoral interference and again brought up claims of its alleged secret involvement with the Chinese government. On Monday, the president reiterated a baseless claim that Google had "manipulated " the 2016 election in favor of Hillary Clinton, which his campaign's Twitter feed also picked up .

All of these claims emerged from reports and commentary from conservative pundits and Trump supporters, none backed by convincing evidence. Google has also denied them.

"Distorting results for political purposes would harm our business and go against our mission of providing helpful content to all of our users," Google spokeswoman Julie Tarallo said.

Here's where these claims emerged and what's known about them.

ELECTION INTERFERENCE

On Aug. 6, Trump implicitly suggested that Google had favored Clinton's 2016 campaign over his and that the company planned to "illegally subvert" the 2020 election as well. On Monday he made the first part explicit , referencing an unspecified study that, he claimed, showed that "Google manipulated from 2.6 million to 16 million votes for Hillary Clinton in 2016 Election."

Trump won the presidency with an Electoral College majority but lost the popular tally to Clinton by almost 2.9 million votes. Trump has falsely insisted for years that he actually won the popular vote.

The president's campaign Twitter feed suggested Monday that Trump referenced a 2017 study by psychologist Robert Epstein  that found Google showed more pro-Clinton results to undecided voters than pro-Trump results. Google and others have questioned the methodology of the study, which was not peer reviewed by other researchers.

In its final paragraph, the four-page study extrapolated experimental findings from a small group of 21 undecided voters to the electorate as a whole using mathematical models Epstein reported in an earlier paper. Reached by phone, Epstein said his results only showed that search results were biased toward Clinton, not that Google was doing so intentionally to sway elections.

Epstein also noted that those extrapolated findings suggested a pro-Clinton vote shift of 2.6 million to 10 million votes, not the 16 million cited by Trump.

Even that may be too much of a stretch, said Ramesh Srinivasan, an information-studies professor at UCLA, who noted that the study's finding of alleged search-result bias doesn't account for other possible influences on voters. "We can't jump to conclusions that it gave any a candidate millions of votes," he said.

Like other researchers, Epstein and Srinavasan emphasize that they remain concerned about the opacity of tech platforms like Google and Facebook and their unbridled power to influence elections.

CONSERVATIVE BIAS

In his early August tweets, Trump singled out former Google engineer Kevin Cernekee, who claims Google fired him for posting Republican viewpoints on internal message boards. Google said Cernekee was fired for downloading confidential company documents onto a personal device.

Cernekee apparently drew Trump's attention after he told Fox News host Tucker Carlson on Aug. 2 that Google executives "really want Trump to lose in 2020. That's their agenda." Cernekee offered no evidence for his claim.

"The statements made by this disgruntled former employee are absolutely false," Google's Tarallo said.

Cernekee's situation reflects a larger belief among conservatives that major platforms such as Google and Facebook are biased against conservative viewpoints, both internally and on their public services. Republican legislators have convened several hearings on the subject.

But experts say there's little evidence to support such claims, which the companies themselves have long denied.

"Trump wants to remind (big tech) that he is watching them," said Frank Pasquale, a law professor at the University of Maryland and an expert on algorithms and society. He pointed out that some also claim that Google-owned YouTube funnels viewers to far-right videos and conspiracy theories.

All these allegations, Pasquale said, "assume that neutrality or objectivity means having half negative and half positive results." But if more negative pages about a person or topic exist on the web, he said, a search result will likely produce more negative results.

Cernekee's personal situation may also be more complex than it first appeared. On Aug. 5, the conservative publication The Daily Caller published posts Cernekee made on Google message boards in which he called for a fund to help white nationalist Richard Spencer after he was punched by a protester.

Cernekee told The Associated Press in a statement that he has "always supported free speech and opposed white nationalism," and that he spoke in opposition to other employees who supported Spencer getting punched.

GOOGLE AND CHINA

Trump also indirectly referred on Aug. 6 to another unfounded claim gaining currency among conservatives, which is that Google is spurning the U.S. military and instead working with the Chinese. In mid-July, he tweeted about unsupported claims to that effect by technology investor Peter Thiel, a Trump supporter who is also a board member of Google rival Facebook.

In an appearance on Fox News , Thiel offered no proof for claims that Google is working with the Chinese government on artificial intelligence projects and has "likely" been infiltrated by Chinese agents.

Google left China in 2010, and confirmed this summer in a congressional hearing that it shut down an experimental program to relaunch a censored version of its search service in the country. Under pressure from its employees, it has also withdrawn from at least one Pentagon contract.

Google said it has not been infiltrated, and executive Karan Bhatia denied Thiel's claims in a congressional hearing last month, saying "We take extremely seriously the threat of any penetration of our systems."

Google does have an AI office in China, which it positioned as a way to employ Chinese engineers who specialize in AI research. Thiel wrote in a New York Times opinion piece that Google's close AI ties in China are bad for the U.S.

Google said it still works with the Defense Department on other projects, including cybersecurity. And it denies working with the Chinese military.

Others in Trump's administration have said Google's work in China isn't problematic. "I think they're working for our military, for America, not for China," Larry Kudlow, director of the National Economic Council, said on Fox News last month.