The Sunday Guardian

Android pie 9.0 comes to nokia 7 plus

- REUTERS IANS

Google Chief Executive Sundar Pichai has agreed to testify before the US House Judiciary Committee later this year over Republican concerns that the company is biased against conservati­ves and will also attend a meeting with President Donald Trump, government officials said on Friday.

Republican­s want to question Google, the search engine of Alphabet Inc, about whether its search algorithms are influenced by human bias. They also want to probe it on issues such as privacy, classifica­tion of news and opinion and dealing with countries with human rights violations.

Pichai met on Friday with White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow, White House spokeswoma­n Lindsay Walters said, and the pair “discussed a range of issues impacting internet platforms and the economy in general.”

Pichai accepted an invitation to attend a White House roundtable with Trump and other internet stakeholde­rs, the White House said.

Pichai met with senior Republican lawmakers on Friday to discuss their concerns, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy said.

McCarthy told reporters after the meeting that the meeting was “very productive” and “frank.”

“I think we’ve really shown that there is bias, which is human nature, but you have to have transparen­cy and fairness,” McCarthy said. “As big tech’s business grows, we have not had enough transparen­cy and that has led to an erosion of trust and, perhaps worse, harm to consumers.”

Google has repeatedly denied accusation­s of bias against conservati­ves.

Pichai said in a statement his talks with congressio­nal leaders were constructi­ve and informativ­e and the company remained committed to an “active dialogue with members from both sides of the aisle.”

He said he would testify before the House Judiciary Committee “in due course.”

Pichai wrote in an internal email last week that suggestion­s that Google would interfere in search results for political reasons were “absolutely false. We do not bias our products to favor any political agenda.”

The CEO had been scheduled to be in Asia this week but canceled the trip to be in Washington.

The hearing will take place after the congressio­nal elections in November, McCarthy said.

Google came under fire from members of both parties this month for refusing to send a top executive to a Senate Intelligen­ce Committee hearing that included Facebook Inc and Twitter Inc executives. Republican­s have also raised concerns about Google’s dominance. Earlier this week, the Justice Department met with state attorneys general to focus on the need to protect consumer privacy when big technology companies amass vast troves of data, but came to no immediate conclusion­s. Asked if Republican­s will push to break up Google, McCarthy said: “I don’t see that.” HELSINKI: Finnish company HMD Global, that manufactur­es and sells Nokia smartphone­s, has rolled out the Android Pie 9.0 operating system (OS) for the Nokia 7 Plus smartphone. Notably, this is the first device from the HMD stable to get Android Pie which is the ninth major update and the 16th version of the Android OS. “The update is happening in a phased rollout and it will soon expand beyond the first 10% install base. The Nokia 7 Plus is a budget $400 Android phone that’s not officially available in US but mainly targeted toward Asia and India,” The Verge reported late on Friday. However, the Nokia 6.1 that was launched in August and is available in US is expected to get the update soon.

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