Weekly output: Chrome for iOS/iPadOS, Google AI Overview clickthroughs, Trump “AI Action Plan,” Cricket Wireless

My schedule this week includes Nationals Park–not to see the home team find a new way to lose a game, but to attend a two-day conference about drone policy happening there that will feature a few drone-delivery demos.

Speaking of poor decisions in D.C., I wrote a post Friday for Patreon readers about the home clean-energy upgrades that I can’t push through before the early demise of the Inflation Reduction Act’s tax credits at the hands of Republicans in Congress.

7/21/2025: Google Adds Limited Multiple-Account Support to Chrome for iOS, iPadOS, PCMag

This is not a huge change to the experience of using Google’s browser on Apple’s mobile devices, but I used this post as an opportunity to point out how the major browsers all fail to offer a mobile equivalent to their desktop apps’ abilities to keep a browsing session isolated from the rest of your use over browser restarts.

7/23/2025: Few People Are Clicking Past Google’s ‘AI Overviews’ Search Results, PCMag

Google keeps denying that it’s seen any major dropoff in how often people follow links to sites in its AI Overview results even as news and other sites report that they’ve seen Google traffic plummet. I do not find those denials as persuasive as Google might hope.

7/24/2025: Trump’s ‘AI Action Plan’ Looks to Boost Data Center Buildouts, Ban ‘Woke’ AI, PCMag

I spent a chunk of Wednesday afternoon reading up on this plan, then spent a chunk of that evening watching Trump’s rambling, 50-minute speech that often wandered into completely unrelated topics. As a result, dinner was a little late Wednesday.

7/26/2025: Cricket Wireless Unwraps New Plans That Lower the Cost Of Mobile Hotspot Use, PCMag

I knew Cricket had stuck with its older plan lineup for a long time, but I didn’t realize the last comprehensive rewrite happened in 2017.

#AIActionPlan #AIOverview #ChromeIOS #ChromeIPadOS #CricketWireless #GoogleAccounts #GoogleAI #prepaidWireless #searchClickthroughs #TrumpAI

A researcher discovered a vulnerability that exposed phone numbers linked to Google accounts, which has since been fixed. Google awarded the researcher $5,000 for the discovery.

#VulnerabilityDiscovery, #GoogleSecurity, #BugBounty, #DataPrivacy, #TechNews, #Cybersecurity, #ResearcherReward, #GoogleAccounts, #SecurityPatch, #EthicalHacking

a forever edit button is much better than a 15 minute edit button. almost to the point where it's like, id rather have "the best or nothing" like mercedes might say, because, i wouldn't want to be like "saying" that they have an edit button, when, to me, a 15 minute edit button isn't really an edit button. a forever edit button *is* an edit button. a 15 minute edit button is like "an excuse".

"Google Messages...allows you to do something very useful, for which Twitter charges you...Google has released a series of updates and new features for Android, highlighting the ability to edit messages in the Google Messages app, an increasingly common feature in messaging and social media apps (except for Twitter). Now, users can modify their messages up to 15 minutes after sending them."

https://en.softonic.com/articles/google-messages-already-allows-you-to-do-something-very-useful-for-which-twitter-charges-you

I feel like the title of this article should say something to the effect of "Mastodon...allows you to do something very useful, for which Twitter charges you"

and mastodon doesn't limit you to 15 minutes.

other services that allow you to make edits and don't limit you to 15 minutes?

Microsoft Teams

Google Chat

I put microsoft teams first because, in android, when you login to one google app, it logs into all the other google apps. which is good for maybe 50 percent of people. but for the other 50 percent of people, who may want to use multiple user profiles and appreciate data segregation, it'd be nice if google would offer us a "more options" at the login screen on android to the google signin screen. in this "more options" area could be an option for something to the effect of:

"login *only* to Google Chat" (require logging in again to other google apps for this account)

and

"login only to Gmail (require logging in again to other google apps for this account)"

I chose google chat and gmail as the apps most requiring this functionality because they are google communication apps which would/could most benefit from a segregated google account login scheme.

with multiple user profiles, one may have a work profile and a personal profile. in the personal profile, they still might want to access their work google chat and/or their work gmail, but wouldn't want the android system to login to all their other google apps with that work google account.

ok, and now, lets get back to how an edit button relates to multiple user profiles and data segregation.

fictional observer: how does it relate?

me: well, i guess what happened was, as i was typing about an article related to the edit button, my brain sort of started thinking about apps that were important enough to have a functionality on android where android would allow us to signin to specific google apps *without signing us into all the other google apps*. and i put google chat as more important than gmail...

fictional observer: why?

me: why? because google chat has an edit button, and the best kind. a forever edit button

fictional observer: so?

me: so, to me, that makes it more important than gmail, while, still a good thing to have gmail on the list of apps that should have the option to ""login only to [insert google app title] (require logging in again to other google apps for this account)"", i think google chat is slightly more important. although it'd be best if both apps had this ability. google chat is a little more personal than gmail. one might use google chat to have an ongoing cloud chat with friends and family, whereas gmail might be used more for like, maybe work or stuff like that. so i'd say they're almost equally important, but for me at least, id appreciate google chat getting the ability to have a separate / segregated login function first. although, i'd happily take both apps getting the functionality at the same time. would love it.

oh, another thing. so, gmail does actually have a pretty cool privacy / digital footprint management function called "gmail confidential mode". which actually sort of takes things a step beyond the google chat / microsoft teams forever edit buttons. so, you can "revoke access" to a "confidential mode" message in gmail, which allows you the sender/writer to continue to view the message while the recipient cannot see it, and then if you ever want to "renew" access to that message, you can. I kinda wish we'd get this functionality in google chat / microsoft teams as well.

#googlechat
#microsoftteams
#communication
#friends
#family
#talktherapy
#gmail
#gmailconfidentialmode
#editbutton
#forevereditbutton
#digitalfootprint
#googleaccounts
#sso
#singlesignon
#android
#android15
#android16
#pixel8
#pixel
#pixel6
#pixel6a
#pixel7a
#pixel9
#tensorg5
#tensorg6
#tensorg4
#tensorg3
#tensor