Google's latest 'Datally' app blocks other apps from misusing data

By Anuj Sharma - November 30, 2017
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The app lets you see data usage on an hourly, daily, weekly or monthly basis and also offers personalised recommendations to save it and provides a Data Saver bubble to block background data usage.

Mobile data is expensive for many people around the world and to help use it wisely, Google has released “Datally,” an Android app that helps you track, control and save mobile data.

The app lets you see data usage on an hourly, daily, weekly or monthly basis and also offers personalised recommendations to save it and provides a Data Saver bubble to block background data usage.

The apps tracks real-time data usage acting as a speedometer telling you which app is using data and even tells you to connect to a public Wi-Fi to save on data.

After testing the app in the Philippines for the past few months, where people saved almost 30 per cent on their data, Google has made Datally globally available on the Google Play Store for all phones running Android 5.0 (Lollipop) and higher.

Datally comes under Google’s Next Billion Users initiative, which is focused on making Google products more usable in countries that have limited mobile connections.

In an all-together different scenario, the researchers at Google have reportedly developed an "electronic screen protector" that can alert you when users’ are spying at your phone over shoulder.

According to a report in Britain-based news website The Register, the electronic screen is specifically a machine-learning-powered software that utilises front camera on a smartphone to detect faces, barring the face of the owner, and if they are found staring at the display, the software signals the user indicating there's someone snooping on their screen (texts or web browsing, etc.), in real time.

Currently, the technology is only an academic project and there is no official statement from Google as to when it will be rolled out. The researchers will present the technique at the Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS) conference in the coming week in California.

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