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Google rolls out AI writing assistant to Gmail and Docs

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Google has unveiled a set of integrative Functionalities for its Workspace apps, which include Google Docs, Sheets, Gmail, and Slides.

The latest Google updates incorporate advanced AI techniques to produce, summarize, and enhance text content in Google Docs. This technology is equivalent to the capacity of ChatGPT powered by OpenAI, which is widely used by many people.

Google
Image Source: theverge.com

Additionally, Gmail users can now generate full emails based on their brief main points using this feature. Furthermore, Google Slides now have the capability to create AI-generated visuals, sound, and videos for presentations, similar to the functionalities available in Microsoft Designer, backed by OpenAI’s DALL-E, and Canva, supported by Stable Diffusion.

Also Read: Google expands Gmail client-side encryption to more users

These new updates bring cutting-edge technology to Google’s suite of tools, providing users with improved capabilities and an easier way to create, edit, and present their content.

“We’re now making it possible for Workspace users to harness the power of generative AI to create, connect, and collaborate like never before,” writes Johanna Voolich Wright, VP of Product at Google Workspace.

Source: freethink.com

The official statement demonstrates Google’s willingness to overtake opponents in the latest AI race. Ever since the introduction of ChatGPT a year ago and the release of Microsoft’s chatbot-enabled Bing in February, the internet giant has indeed been rushing to release similar AI functionalities.

The tech giant decreed a “code red” in December, instructing employees to add Ai technologies to all of its user products, which are utilized by a billion individuals, within months.

“We’re so excited by the potential of generative AI, and the opportunities it will unlock,” Kurian wrote in a blog post.

Source: cnbc.com

But search engine giant Google is getting way ahead of itself. Despite the firm’s announcement of a slew of innovative capabilities, just one of them which is the AI writing software in Docs as well as Gmail will be made accessible to a team of US-based trustworthy testers this month.

Also Read: Google tests blocking news content for some Canadians

This is also the method by which the search engine giant officially confirmed ChatGPT competitor Bard’s presence. Google has confirmed that these and additional features will be made accessible to everyone later this year but doesn’t say when.

Google expands on these potential functions in its press release, “Whether you’re a busy HR professional who needs to create customized job descriptions, or a parent drafting the invitation for your child’s pirate-themed birthday party, Workspace saves you the time and effort of writing that first version. Simply type a topic you’d like to write about, and a draft will instantly be generated for you. With your collaborative Al partner, you can continue to refine and edit, getting more suggestions as needed.”

Source: theverge.com
client-side encryption

Google expands Gmail client-side encryption to more users

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After launching in the beta the previous year, Google recently made public that Gmail’s client-side encryption mode has now become readily accessible for companies and education providers.

The feature prevents even Google from viewing the contents of the emails it hosts, with data encoded before it enters Google servers. According to the firm, this can be beneficial for businesses that must meet stringent compliance or confidentiality standards.

client-side encryption
Image Source: uctoday.com

Although Workspace “encrypts data at rest and in transit by using secure-by-design cryptographic libraries,” CSE gives organizations total control over their encryption keys. “Starting today, users can send and receive emails or create meeting events with internal colleagues and external parties, knowing that their sensitive data (including inline images and attachments) has been encrypted before it reaches Google servers,” Google wrote in a blog post.

Source: engadget.com

Also Read: Are all Google One subscribers now able to access Magic Eraser?

Claims about the firm striving to enhance the encryption for its email service date as far as 2014, so it’s encouraging to discover that client-side encryption is officially ready.

Even So, the functionality is not aimed at everyone; it’s solely accessible by individuals who have Education Standard, Workspace Enterprise Plus, or Education Plus accounts and not personal accounts. It’s also not especially simple to install, as the process seems to be geared toward IT departments.

This functionality is disabled by default, which will annoy many security professionals, and can be activated after a consumer deploys an important management service incorporated with their authentication server.

Although encrypting Drive files & Calendar events are a great addition, CSE protections might be most impactful in Gmail. After all, organizations can send an email to third-party companies instead of sharing data as well as calendar invites with them. In any case, Google claims that CSE is now available for all vital Workspace applications.

“Users can continue to collaborate across other essential apps in Google Workspace while IT and security teams can ensure that sensitive data stays compliant with regulations,” the Googlers said.

Source: theregister.com

Also Read: Google tests blocking news content for some Canadians

Whilst also Gmail is undoubtedly among the most efficient applications for client-side encryption, Google has also made the feature available in a number of its various other Workspace apps, including Drive, Docs, as well as Meet.

It also stated earlier in the month that client-side encryption is now readily accessible for Google Calendar, allowing businesses to add extra security to an event’s synopsis and attachments.

end-to-end encryption

Google announced end-to-end encryption for Gmail web

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To render its emails more difficult to hack, Google is deploying a new update. According to a Google announcement, Gmail will soon support end-to-end encryption in web browsers. The capability, which is presently in beta, enables customers to send and get encrypted emails both inside and outside of their domain, according to a blog post from the company.

end-to-end encryption
Image Source: gizmodo.com.au

The new technology, which Google describes as client-side encryption, will make sure that important information in the body of the email and attachments is unreadable by Google servers. Additionally, it will provide customers access to the encryption keys while allowing the identity service to access them.

Google noted, “Google Workspace already uses the latest cryptographic standards to encrypt all data at rest and in transit between our facilities Client-side encryption helps strengthen the confidentiality of your data while helping to address a broad range of data sovereignty and compliance needs.”

Client-side encryption (CSE) in Google Workspace enables the processing of data encryption in the client’s browser prior to data transmission or cloud-based storage in Drive. The company emphasized will not be able to access users’ encryption keys. It noted, “You can use your own encryption keys to encrypt your organization’s data, in addition to using the default encryption that Google Workspace provides.

Read More: 15.5-Inch MacBook Air Expected to unveil in Spring 2023

With Google Workspace Client-side encryption (CSE), content encryption is handled in the client’s browser before any data is transmitted or stored in Drive’s cloud-based storage. That way, Google servers can’t access your encryption keys and decrypt your data. After you set up CSE, you can choose which users can create client-side encrypted content and share it internally or externally.”

Gmail’s end-to-end encryption will make sure that all email communications sent by users are encrypted by the sender and can only be decoded on the device of the intended receiver.

The emails and attachments transmitted with them cannot be decrypted or read by any organization or third party, including Google’s own email server. The fact that Google already offers client-side encryption on Google Drive, Sheets, Docs, Google Meet, Slides, Google Calendar and Google is noteworthy.

According to Google, customers with Google Workspace Enterprise Plus, Education Plus, or Education Standard are eligible to sign up for the Gmail client-side encryption (CSE) beta program. The beta program is accepting applications through January 2023. Users must submit a Gmail CSE Beta Test Application, which must include details like their email id, test group domain, and Project ID.

Users of Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Education Fundamentals, Frontline, and Nonprofits, as well as older G Suite Basic and Business customers, will not be able to use the new feature as of now. According to Google, the public release will be made available at a later time in 2023.

Google has made it clear that the new functionality would encrypt both the email content and all attachments, including embedded photos. Google, however, will not encrypt the email’s header, which contains the topic, timestamps, and recipient lists.

Additionally, Google has stated that “in an upcoming release” it will add client-side encryption to its Gmail application for iOS and Android devices.

gmail dark mode

Gmail Finally Released the Dark Mode for the iOS and Android Users

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Though the smartphone makers can’t keep people from using their phones more, they are trying hard to help them escape any kind of healthwww.yourtechstory.com/2019/09/11/apple-event-2019-products-apple-talked-about/ issues. Last year, companies like Microsoft and Apple included such features to their OS that would alarm the user about how long they had been using their smartphone. Another thing that those companies have done is that included dark mode to the new OS they released.

On the same league, we had been waiting for similar dark theme on Gmail, too, and finally, the company has released the dark mode for Gmail. The new dark theme will turn the default white background into black. Gmail launched the dark mode theme for both iOS and Android today, but some of the users may only use it after fifteen or more days.

There are many users who use their smartphones and work on their laptops at night. Considering which, Gmail has incorporated the dark mode to it as the users won’t feel any strain on their eyes while using Gmail in the night time. And, it is not necessary that one can only the dark theme in the night. The dark theme can be turned on in the day time as well. Also having the dark mode will also save the device’s battery, as darker pixels need less power than lighter pixels.

gmail dark mode

The users already using Android 10 or iOS 13 with dark theme enabled on their device will get the dark mode on Gmail auto-adjusted. The dark theme will also be automatically turned on for Gmail on the Pixel smartphones if the user has enabled the battery saving mode on it. For the users using an older version of iOS or Android must make changes to their settings to get the dark theme on their Gmail.

You can check if your Gmail app has got the dark theme or not, from its settings. Go to the Gmail settings and under theme option, you will find the option to activate the dark theme. Else you might be among the users who, according to Google, will get the theme within or after fifteen days.

A Forgotten Tool in Gmail Tracks Your Purchase History Through the Receipts

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Image Source: searchengineland.com

According to a piece of recent news from CNBC, “Google has been quietly keeping track of nearly every single online purchase you’ve ever made, thanks to purchase receipts sent to your personal Gmail account.”

CNBC broke the news on Friday afternoon, according to which Google has been saving the purchase history of the people who have used their Gmail account during their purchase on the various e-commerce websites through the receipt they receive on Gmail. Though the company has included privacy settings that can enable the users to stop the tracking, most of the people have got to know about the purchase history tracking only after the revelation from CNBC.

The way CNBC has said about the mentioned matter, it seems like Google had been hiding the fact that it was saving users’ private information and might be using it somewhere else without letting the users know, but Google has come in front to defend itself.

“To help you easily view and keep track of your purchases, bookings and subscriptions in one place, we’ve created a private destination that can only be seen by you. You can delete this information at any time. We don’t use any information from your Gmail messages to serve you ads, and that includes the email receipts and confirmations shown on the Purchase page.” Google told The Verge in a statement.

In the past years, the company used such information to personalise ads for its users, but in 2017, Google had decided that it won’t collect and use any of the users’ information from Gmail for displaying personalised ads.

Google did not mention how long this tool has been there to track the purchase history of its users, but many Gmail users have found their purchase history even older than a decade. According to Google, this history is hard to find, and the users can delete the history or disable the tracking. Also, no one else except the users can see their purchase history on the tool.

Google Celebrates Gmail’s 15th Birthday; Adds New Features to it

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Gmail has turned 15 today, and Google has added a few new useful features to it, to celebrate the 15th birthday of its most successful product. Google launched Gmail on 1 April 2004 in order to experiment with the email process, and after 15 years, Gmail is the most used email service across the world. In fact, despite being a Google product, it is also really popular among iPhone and iPad users.

gmail birthday
Image Source: techcrunch.com

Although Yahoo and Hotmail were leading the email business over a decade ago, Gmail slowly got into the race and finally became the number one email service. Gmail has a global user-base of over a billion people and is free to use. However, it also has got a paid enterprises suite.

In recent years, Gmail saw remarkable changes. Paul Buchheit started developing Gmail as the ‘Caribou’ project, and after working for years on it, Google launched Gmail in 2004. It was faster and offered an initial storage capacity of one gigabyte, per user. Hence, within no time Gmail took off to the success ride. Currently, Gmail offers 15 GB of free storage to its users, and the storage can be extended further as a paid service.

Google was the first to start the reply to all, i.e. group conversation, chat, priority inbox and calendar. Being the first successful product, Gmail also encouraged Google to experiment with other fields, and Google launched products like Google map, Google Drive, and even Android OS.

With Gmail, Google moved ahead from the searches and even launched its own browser, i.e., Google Chrome.

As a part of birthday celebrations, Google has added new features to Gmail, including improved Smart Compose (with four added languages Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese) and email schedule features. The earlier version of Smart Compose for Android was only available on Pixel 3, but now every Android user will be able to access this feature.

In January this year, Google had launched a new interface for Gmail mobile app that allowed users to see the attachments without opening the email. According to Google, it is also testing new features including pinned messages, reminders and category bundles to be added to Gmail for Android. Noticeably, the company has just shut down Inbox and tomorrow Google+ will also stop functioning, as now Google wants to solely focus on the improvement of Gmail.