Today
Google Doodle celebrates Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2021
Across the United States, the third Monday of January is set aside as a day of service and community in honor of Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. This year, Google is joining in the celebration with a homepage Doodle depicting the past and present fights against racial injustice.
Back in June, Google made its energy saving tuning program available to all Nest Thermostat owners after previously restricting to certain partner public utilities. The wider availability of Seasonal Savings is continuing this winter with Nest Thermostats starting to show the prompt.
In announcing the big UI revamp for Assistant Smart Displays last October, Google also teased the addition of Sunrise Alarms. That Android feature is now beginning to roll out as part of a new alarms experience for the Nest Hub.
January 16
From AR navigation to business messaging and reviews, Google Maps is truly a platform. The latest update today is focused on improving the visual quality and details of the default layer — especially for nature — in Google Maps.
Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Breakpoint will be free on Stadia next weekend
Google Stadia has offered a few “free play” weekends for select games over the past several months, and next weekend Ubisoft is opening up Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Breakpoint to all users for free.
Google may require AV1 codec support on all new Android TV devices starting March 31
Google’s Android TV platform powers set-top boxes, dongles, projectors, and even TVs themselves. As the shift to Google TV has been ongoing, Google is laying down a new requirement for all new Android TV devices — they must support the AV1 streaming codec.
