The ABC’s of Google

You may have already heard rumors about Google’s most recent restructuring but, its true, Google has created a new parent company called “Alphabet.” The reasoning behind this new restructuring is to allow for Alphabet to manage the many different entities of what previously fell under Google and have been distracting Google’s main goals - perfecting search, Chrome, Android, Advertising and more. Alphabet’s main focus will be everything but -- working on making the first driverless car, curing diseases and other world-changing innovations.

So what does this all mean for Google users?...Honestly, not a whole lot. The corporate structure change will only allow for Google as a child-company of Alphabet to focus more on making Google-specific products better and allow for Alphabet’s other projects to evolve separately.

Find out more about the change in business structure in "What does Google's new Alphabet mean for you?" here!

“Mischief Managed”

We all have a soft spot in our hearts for the Harry Potter series, but it has been reported that Facebook recently fired a Harvard intern for creating a “Marauder’s Map” Chrome Extension similar to Harry’s magical map. The tool created the ability to track a user’s Facebook friends whereabouts down to the meter. The device used location tracking derived from using the Facebook Messenger App which makes your geolocation available to the Facebook interface.

While the App went live for only a few short days, Facebook immediately shut it down and fired intern, Aran Khana, because it violated the Facebook User Agreement, he misused user data and put people at risk. Khana reports that he created this app to ultimately expose the accessibility of user’s data and forewarn the world of the possibilities of this accessibility.

“With great power comes great responsibility”..a quote from Spiderman, but completely relevant to remembering to be aware of how you share your information and who else has the ability to share it once you've given it up.

Read Khana’s write up on his Marauder’s Map on Medium here!

New Itinerary Planning Tool helps you to Plan your trip better!

Traveling plans before the summer comes to an end?  There has been a new travel planning tool released called, Bucket, that allows for you to save webpages to add them to your itinerary list. When you select a location that you'd like to visit, you share the webpage you are viewing and the application extracts locations that are mentioned on the page and adds them to a “bucket list” itinerary.

Cool Features:

• When selecting a page to add to your list, the app does a Pinterest-style, “which item would you like to pin” pop-up that allows you to select the location you would like to add.
• The extension generates a map of all of the locations you have added to your bucket list to give you an idea of where your tourist attractions are located in relation to each other.
• Social collaborators can also be added to your list and add items if you want to allow your travel buddies to add to your list.

According to reports, the average trip-planner visits an average of 30 websites before actually booking a trip and this tool allows for easy tracking and planning so you can book faster. This tool is still in the early beta phases and only allows for planning in a few locations around the world but has plans on expanding to new locations on a consistent basis.

Learn more about Bucket here!