Business
Gmail Revolutionized Email 20 Years Ago. People Thought It Was Google’s April Fool’s Day Joke
SAN FRANCISCO — Gmail Revolutionized Email 20 Years Ago. Larry Page and Sergey Brin, co-founders of Google, enjoyed conducting pranks so much that they began releasing absurd ideas every April Fool’s Day shortly after founding the company more than a quarter century ago. One year ago, Google advertised a job posting for a Copernicus research center on the moon. Another year, the corporation stated it intended to launch a “scratch and sniff” capability on its search engine.
The jokes were so persistently ridiculous that people learned to dismiss them as yet another example of Google’s mischief. That’s why, on April Fool’s Day, Page and Brin decided to reveal something no one could have predicted 20 years ago.
It was Gmail, a free service with 1 gigabyte of storage per account, which seems insignificant in an era of one-terabyte iPhones. However, it sounded like an absurd amount of email capacity back then, enough to hold approximately 13,500 emails before running out of space, compared to only 30 to 60 emails in the then-leading webmail services run by Yahoo and Microsoft. This translated to 250 to 500 times greater email storage space.
Aside from the quantum leap in storage, Gmail included Google’s search capability, allowing users to easily recover a nugget from an old email, photo, or other personal information saved on the site. It also automatically tied together a series of conversations about the same topic, making everything flow like a single discussion.
“The original pitch we put together was all about the three ‘S’s” — storage, search, and speed,” said former Google executive Marissa Mayer, who worked on Gmail and other firm products before becoming Yahoo’s CEO.
Gmail Revolutionized Email 20 Years Ago. People Thought It Was Google’s April Fool’s Day Joke
It was such a bizarre concept that, immediately after The Associated Press published a report about Gmail late on April Fool’s Day 2004, users began calling and writing the news agency to notify them that Google’s pranksters had deceived them.
“That was part of the appeal: creating a product that people won’t think is real. It transformed people’s conceptions of the types of applications that could be built within a web browser,” former Google engineer Paul Buchheit said in a recent AP interview about his work on Gmail.
It took three years to complete as part of the “Caribou” project, named after a running gag in the Dilbert comic strip. “There was something sort of absurd about the name Caribou, it just made me laugh,” said Buchheit, the company’s 23rd employee. Caribou presently employs over 180,000 people.
The Associated Press knew Google wasn’t joking about Gmail when an AP reporter was summoned from San Francisco to the company’s Mountain View, California, headquarters to witness something worth the trip.
After arriving at a still-developing corporate facility that would eventually become known as the “Googleplex,” the AP reporter was shown into a modest office where Page sat in front of his laptop computer, wearing a mischievous grin.
Page, who was only 31 years old then, went on to show off Gmail’s sleekly designed inbox and how rapidly it ran in Microsoft’s now-retired Explorer web browser. He pointed out that there was no delete button in the main control panel because it was unnecessary given Gmail’s large storage capacity and ease of search. “I think people will really enjoy this,” Page said.
As with so many other things, Page was correct. Gmail currently boasts an estimated 1.8 billion active accounts, each offering 15 gigabytes of free storage, Google Photos, and Google Drive. Even while that’s 15 times more storage than Gmail first provided, more is needed for many users, who rarely see the need to erase their accounts, as Google anticipated.
Gmail Revolutionized Email 20 Years Ago. People Thought It Was Google’s April Fool’s Day Joke
Google, Apple, and other corporations now profit from selling additional storage capacity in their data centers as a result of the digital hoarding of email, images, and other stuff. (Google charges between $30 and $250 per year for 200 gigabytes of storage and 5 terabytes). The existence of Gmail also explains why other free email services and internal email accounts used by people at work provide significantly more storage than was anticipated 20 years ago.
“We were trying to shift the way people had been thinking because people were working in this model of storage scarcity for so long that deleting became a default action,” Buchheit told me.
Gmail was a major changer in various ways, including serving as the first building stone in the growth of Google’s online empire outside its still-dominant search engine.
Following Gmail came Google Maps and Google Docs, which included word processing and spreadsheet apps. Then came the acquisition of video site YouTube, followed by the release of the Chrome browser and the Android operating system, which powers the majority of the world’s smartphones. With Gmail’s open objective to scan email content to better understand users’ interests, Google also made it clear that digital spying to sell more advertising would be part of its expanding ambitions.
Despite its instant popularity, Gmail began with a limited scope since Google only had adequate computational resources to accommodate a small number of users.
“When we launched, we only had 300 machines, and they were really old machines that no one else wanted,” Buchheit recalled, laughing. “We only had enough capacity for 10,000 users, which is a little absurd.”
Gmail Revolutionized Email 20 Years Ago. People Thought It Was Google’s April Fool’s Day Joke
However, the scarcity generated an air of exclusivity around Gmail, resulting in the intense desire for elusive invitations to sign up. Invitations to open a Gmail account used to sell for $250 each on eBay. “It became a bit like a social currency, where people would go, ‘Hey, I got a Gmail invite, you want one?'” Buchheit told me.
Although signing up for Gmail became easier as more of Google’s huge data centers went online, the business started accepting all new users when it opened the floodgates as a Valentine’s Day gift to the world in 2007.
A few weeks later, on April Fool’s Day 2007, Google announced a new tool called “Gmail Paper” that allows customers to have Google print off their email archive on “94% post-consumer organic soybean sputum” and then have it delivered to them via the Postal Service. Google was genuinely joking at the time.
Business
Google Says It Will Stop Linking To New Zealand News If A Law Passes Forcing It To Pay For Content
Wellington, New Zealand – Google announced on Friday that it will stop linking to New Zealand news content and will withdraw its support for local media sites if the government passes legislation requiring internet companies to pay for stories published on their platforms.
The search giant’s promise to cut off Google traffic to New Zealand news sites, revealed in a blog post on Friday, mimics techniques it used as Australia and Canada prepared to implement similar laws in recent years.
It came after New Zealand’s government said in July that MPs would go forward with a measure requiring tech companies to reach agreements with media outlets generating news material in exchange for revenue sharing.
Google Says It Will Stop Linking To New Zealand News If A Law Passes Forcing It To Pay For Content
The previous administration introduced the law in 2023, and the government, led by the center-right National, opposed it.
However, the loss of more than 200 newsroom positions earlier this year — in a national media business that had 1,600 reporters at the 2018 census and is sure to have fallen since then — pushed the current administration to reconsider requiring digital companies to pay publishers for showing material.
The law seeks to limit the flow of advertising money from New Zealand news items overseas.
Google New Zealand Country Director Caroline Rainsford stated on Friday that if the legislation passes, the company’s engagement in the country’s media ecosystem will change.
“Specifically, we’d be forced to stop linking to news content on Google Search, Google News, or Discover surfaces in New Zealand and discontinue our current commercial agreements and ecosystem support with New Zealand news publishers,” according to her.
Google’s licensing scheme in New Zealand delivered “millions of dollars per year to almost 50 local publications,” she added.
The News Publishers’ Association, a New Zealand industry group, said in a written statement Friday that Google’s guarantee constituted “threats” and reflected “the kind of pressure that it has been applying” to the government and news outlets, according to Public Affairs Director Andrew Holden.
Government officials “should be able to make laws to strengthen democracy in this country without being subjected to this kind of corporate bullying,” said Mr. Trump.
Australia was the first government to try to force digital companies, including Google and Meta, to negotiate with news outlets under a law passed in 2021. Initially, the internet titans imposed news restrictions for Australians on their platforms, but both finally caved, negotiating arrangements reportedly worth 200 million Australian dollars ($137 million) per year, given to Australian sources for the use of their content.
However, Belinda Barnet, a media expert at Swinburne University in Melbourne, claims Meta has refused to renew its contracts with Australian news outlets while Google is renegotiating its initial deals.
As Canada prepares to enact comparable digital news bargaining regulations in 2023, Google and Meta reiterated their commitment to ending their assistance for the country’s media. Last November, however, Google pledged to provide 100 million Canadian dollars ($74 million) in annual financial support to news organizations across the country, indexed for inflation.
Colin Peacock, an analyst who leads the Mediawatch show on RNZ, New Zealand’s public radio broadcaster, stated that Google “doesn’t want headlines around the world that say another country has pushed back” by passing such a law.
Google Says It Will Stop Linking To New Zealand News If A Law Passes Forcing It To Pay For Content
While Google emphasized its support for local outlets on Friday, Peacock stated that one of its funding recipients, the publisher of a small daily, told a parliamentary committee earlier this year that the money he received was “a pittance” and insufficient to recruit a single graduate reporter.
Minister for Media and Communications, Paul Goldsmith, told The Associated Press in a written statement on Friday that he was still conferring on the next version of the law.
Goldsmith stated in July that he intended to approve the measure by the end of the year.
SOURCE | AP
OpenAI might be the future of Silicon Valley, the next Google, the Great Disruptor, the slayer of late capitalist workplace tedium, etc.
However, as the business transitions from a nonprofit-led research lab to a for-profit AI powerhouse, now is a good time to examine OpenAI and its brilliant (if often tumultuous) leadership team. Because, if we believe OpenAI’s fundamental assumption that better-than-human artificial intelligence is unavoidable, and that it is the best brand to harness that potential, it’s worth pausing to ask the age-old business question: Really?!
Here is the deal: OpenAI, the startup behind ChatGPT, recently secured a $6.6 billion private investment round – the largest in Silicon Valley history — giving the fledgling company a $157 billion valuation, despite an uncertain route to profitability.
OpenAI Just Secured A Ton Of New Cash. Now It Needs To Wow Us
(For reference, public corporations with comparable valuations include Goldman Sachs and Pfizer.)
According to reports, OpenAI’s latest investors include major tech companies such as Microsoft (which has already invested more than $13 billion since 2019), Thrive Capital, Nvidia, Cathie Wood’s Ark Investment Management, and Japanese conglomerate SoftBank.
But it’s worth remembering that Apple was in talks to join that scrum, but it backed out at the last minute, according to The Wall Street Journal.
It was unclear why Apple, which did not respond to CNN’s request for comment, appeared to back out.
That being said, the iPhone maker does not engage in many strategic alliances.
But you don’t need an MBA to notice several red flags about OpenAI’s operations and the true worth of its technology.
According to the New York Times, the corporation appears to be spending significantly more money than it is coming in.
Let’s run some numbers:
OpenAI hopes to generate approximately $3.7 billion in revenue this year. (This revenue is mostly derived from ChatGPT premium subscriptions and the licensing of its technology to third-party developers.)
However, the Times estimates that it will incur costs of $5 billion.
(That’s not ideal, but it may not be a dealbreaker for a young, buzzy firm with big goals like OpenAI’s.)
Here’s where it gets a little wild:
Next year, OpenAI expects its income to more than triple to $11.6 billion. (To which I respond, with all due respect: Really?)
By 2029, it expects to generate $100 billion in revenue. This represents a more than 2,600% gain over the following five years. (Again: Seriously?!)
It’s unclear how, or if, OpenAI is striving to reduce its substantial cash burn. (The business declined to respond to The Times and CNN.)
When I asked Gil Luria, a managing director at D.A. Davidson, if my OpenAI pessimism was justified, he politely pushed back.
“The path from $0 in revenue to nearly $4 billion was clearly the fastest in history,” Mr. Luria added. “Nobody’s ever grown this fast at this scale, and they’re doing it again straight out of the gate with only the first few evolutions of their product set.”
Fair!
However, Luria stated that in order to reach $11 billion in revenue, “a lot of things have to go right, and very little can go wrong.”
What about that $100 billion prediction for 2029? “It’s completely unrealistic,” he admits. “It has nothing to do with reality.”
One approach for OpenAI to enhance its margins is to reduce costs. Even if it becomes extremely meticulous, the generative AI business faces an economic quandary: training and operating huge language models costs a lot of money, which is a structural cost that varies from prior tech booms, as CNBC reported last year.
In other words, the more people use ChatGPT, the more it costs to “compute,” as the business refers to it. Running these massive language models necessitates the use of numerous powerful semiconductors within massive data centers that consume a lot of electricity. It’s no surprise, however, that practically every major AI player wants to get their hands on good old-fashioned nuclear energy (as I discussed here earlier this week).
OpenAI’s challenges include more than just the economics of AI.
There’s also a Bravo-worthy soap opera going on with its founders, nearly all of whom have gone, and board of directors.
In 2015, CEO Sam Altman and ten others launched OpenAI as a nonprofit with the purpose of “building safe and beneficial artificial general intelligence for the benefit of humanity.”
OpenAI Just Secured A Ton Of New Cash. Now It Needs To Wow Us
Then it evolved into a hybrid: a for-profit firm led by a nonprofit board.
With 1,700 workers, it is now prepared to mainly abandon the nonprofit model in favor of a “public benefit corporation” — effectively a for-profit company with do-gooder intentions.
Several executives have left during this transition, raising concerns about Altman’s devotion to the firm’s initial objective in the face of, say, boatloads of cash.
What happens now? With new funding, OpenAI can focus on the next iteration of ChatGPT, which, according to Luria, is one of the Big Things that must go right for the company. Whatever OpenAI’s next product looks like, it must knock our socks off.
“If we’ve gone from a model that’s as smart as a high school student to GPT-4o being as smart as a PhD student, the next version must be getting us closer to a model that’s smarter than any human.” to make the investment worthwhile.”
SOURCE | CNN
(VOR News) – It will soon be possible for American customers who frequently visit McDonald’s to order the Chicken Big Mac, a dish that has shown a great deal of popularity with those specific customers.
This will become available to them in the not too distant future.
When it was initially released in this nation in 2022, it was entirely sold out in both Ireland and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland due to its extreme popularity.
The sandwich may be found on menus everywhere because it has previously been placed on menus in every part of the globe. This is due to the fact that menus already feature it. It was found that both of those countries have this same situation after further inquiry.
McDonald’s scheduled this object’s return to the US for Thursday, October 10, prior to its occurrence.
There is extremely little chance that the recently added item to the menu will remain available for an unusually long time. This is due to the extremely low likelihood that this will occur. This is specifically because the availability of the new item is contingent upon the availability of supply.
It has been demonstrated by the announcement that the rumors were accurate in what they reported based on the information they had.
McDonald’s has a history of doing many different things that are thought to be improper. These practices had previously been identified.
There was a sandwich that was served in Los Angeles the weekend before that was kind of similar to what you are eating right now. You have this sandwich at your disposal. The sandwich was easily obtainable.
The pop-up restaurant McDonnell’s by Chain, located in Los Angeles, was only open for business on one day. The only people who can enjoy this exclusive eating experience are customers. On that specific day, customers were able to enjoy the restaurant’s signature meal, which is widely known as “The Chicken Sandwich.”
The dinner that was being served to attendees could be purchased. This dish’s recipe was remarkably similar to the one utilized by McDonald’s for their Chicken Big Mac, which had two chicken patties instead of the original Big Mac’s two patties made completely of beef.
Two beef patties were used to create the first Big Mac. There were two beef patties utilized in the creation of the original Big Mac.
McDonald’s and the company’s formulas had many similarities.
It was McDonald’s that applied the formula. Regarding the toppings used, there is no difference between the two scenarios that have been described in full.
Customers expressed such high delight that they even called it a McDonald’s knockoff. This is because they found it to be quite satisfactory. They did this because they were quite happy with how things turned out.
The story takes an unexpected and shocking turn when it is revealed that McDonald’s was the establishment that was there the entire time.
The company released a press release that said, “We are able to serve up more than just a sandwich.” This message was sent to McDonald’s USA Chief Marketing and Customer Experience Officer Tariq Hassan.
“We are able to serve up more than just a sandwich,” These are the words from the website of the company that provided the information, from which the information was taken.
“We are able to do this by tapping into some of our fans’ biggest passions, which range from live-streaming to dupe culture.” “There truly is something for everyone to enjoy in this campaign and we’re bringing experiences that will surprise and delight them, all before the Chicken Big Mac hits restaurants.”
SOURCE: NY
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