This week’s top stories: Thanos in Google Search, EMUI 9.1, Anker Roav Bolt review, more

Kyle Bradshaw | Apr 27 2019 - 9:30 am PT

In this week’s top stories: Thanos snaps his way through Google Search results page in an Avengers: Endgame Easter Egg, Huawei announces EMUI 9.1 for almost 50 more devices, we review the Anker Roav Bolt the first standalone Google Assistant device for the car, and more.

Google got in the Avengers’ spirit this weekend by adding a fun Easter Egg to Thanos’s Knowledge Graph, involving an Infinity Gauntlet. Clicking the gauntlet will animate it to show Thanos’s signature “snap,” then the page will scroll around to show The Decimation of half of your Google Search results.

This Thanos Google Easter Egg is not the only tie-in with Avengers: Endgame. Last week, Google introduced more Marvel superhero Playmoji to Pixel phones. Captain Marvel, Rocket, War Machine, Thor, and Black Widow join Iron Man, Captain America, Hulk, Nebula, and Okoye from last fall.

Speaking of destroying half of something, Google Fi inadvertently followed in Thanos’s footsteps to celebrate their 4th birthday by taking half off the price of the Google Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL in a one-day sale. While discounts are always appreciated, it just goes to further prove our Ben Schoon’s point of not buying a Pixel at launch.

At half off, this birthday deal [brought] the 64GB Pixel 3 to $399 (128GB: $449) and the 64GB Pixel 3 XL to $449 (128GB: $499). This [was] better than previous offers in January and February that discounted the phones by only $150.

In a strong show of support for their existing customers’ devices, Huawei has announced that their Android Pie-based EMUI 9.1 will be arriving on nearly fifty Huawei and Honor phones and tablets released in the past few years, in addition to the handful of devices EMUI 9.1 has already landed on. Later in the week, Huawei began beta testing for twelve of these devices in China, with no word on whether global devices will receive any beta updates.

This week, our Ben Schoon got to review a first-of-its-kind device: the Anker Roav Bolt, a Google Assistant-powered car accessory. The device—like a Google Home Mini for your car—is definitely the best way for vehicles without Android Auto to get connected with our phones and the Google ecosystem.

My favorite bit, though, is that it even makes Android Auto look complicated. For long road trips, I’d absolutely still recommend using Auto if you have access to it, but the Anker Roav Bolt gives you an immediate, wireless connection, as well as freeing up your USB-C port for charging. 8 times out of 10, I don’t even use Android Auto in my car just because I don’t like waiting for it to load up. With the Bolt, I can get in, start the car, and the Assistant is ready and waiting.

Google confirms Android TV casting from Google Home has been re-enabled for all but a few users

Last month, a bug in Google Photos with potentially serious privacy implications required that Google disable ability to cast to Android TV from a Google Home. Earlier this week, Google confirmed to us that a proper fix has finally been rolled out to almost all Android TV devices.

However, if you’re like me, the problem was still affecting your device. Google has an answer for that too. Apparently, the process of disabling those functions may not come back on perfectly for all users. The company says that a factory reset (for the Android TV device) should fix the issue going forward, and I’ve been able to verify that on my Nvidia Shield.