Google Tackles One of the Most Annoying Problems on the Internet
We’ve all been there: You’re surfing the Web and all of a sudden voices start coming out of nowhere. Quickly, you scramble to figure out which browser tab the autoplay media is coming from, and click around wildly trying to silence the offending intrusion.
If only there were some way to prevent such sonic irritations. According to Google, now there is.
Finally recognizing the problem of background audio from a video or ad that starts playing in a tab you’re not using, Google Chrome is now offering a solution. While Chrome already provided an icon that told you which tab was playing the audio, new versions of the browser let you mute the tabs with one click. And it gets even better.
Related: If You’re Reading This, Your Browser Could Be Hacked
Chrome will no longer automatically play media from backgrounded tabs unless you actually visit the tab. Not only does this feature reduce the annoyance of unwanted sound and trying to figure out where it’s coming from, but according to Google it will also conserve power. Chrome will consume less of your battery by playing only the videos and ads in the visible tab.
Take a (silent) bow, Google. You’ve earned it.
Top Reads From The Fiscal Times
- Air Force Brushes Off $27 Billion Accounting Error
- The 10 Worst States for Property Taxes
- If Clinton Loses Her Security Clearance, Could She Still Be President?
Stat of the Day: 0.2%
The New York Times’ Jim Tankersley tweets: “In order to raise enough revenue to start paying down the debt, Trump would need tariffs to be ~4% of GDP. They're currently 0.2%.”
Read Tankersley’s full breakdown of why tariffs won’t come close to eliminating the deficit or paying down the national debt here.
Number of the Day: 44%
The “short-term” health plans the Trump administration is promoting as low-cost alternatives to Obamacare aren’t bound by the Affordable Care Act’s requirement to spend a substantial majority of their premium revenues on medical care. UnitedHealth is the largest seller of short-term plans, according to Axios, which provided this interesting detail on just how profitable this type of insurance can be: “United’s short-term plans paid out 44% of their premium revenues last year for medical care. ACA plans have to pay out at least 80%.”
Number of the Day: 4,229
The Washington Post’s Fact Checkers on Wednesday updated their database of false and misleading claims made by President Trump: “As of day 558, he’s made 4,229 Trumpian claims — an increase of 978 in just two months.”
The tally, which works out to an average of almost 7.6 false or misleading claims a day, includes 432 problematics statements on trade and 336 claims on taxes. “Eighty-eight times, he has made the false assertion that he passed the biggest tax cut in U.S. history,” the Post says.
Number of the Day: $3 Billion
A new analysis by the Department of Health and Human Services finds that Medicare’s prescription drug program could have saved almost $3 billion in 2016 if pharmacies dispensed generic drugs instead of their brand-name counterparts, Axios reports. “But the savings total is inflated a bit, which HHS admits, because it doesn’t include rebates that brand-name drug makers give to [pharmacy benefit managers] and health plans — and PBMs are known to play games with generic drugs to juice their profits.”
Chart of the Day: Public Spending on Job Programs
President Trump announced on Thursday the creation of a National Council for the American Worker, charged with developing “a national strategy for training and retraining workers for high-demand industries,” his daughter Ivanka wrote in The Wall Street Journal. A report from the president’s National Council on Economic Advisers earlier this week made it clear that the U.S. currently spends less public money on job programs than many other developed countries.
