Fitbit Public Preview adds food & water logging, more as app redesign comes to free users
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Meizu settles with Qualcomm over licensing dispute, resuming international expansion
Back in June, Meizu — known for interesting designs and high specs at low prices — was sued by Qualcomm for refusing to pay licensing fees. The two companies have since settled (via Bloomberg), with four lawsuits around the world coming to a close and Meizu agreeing to license its usage of various tech.
Google deal with LyricFind makes finding song lyrics a pleasant experience again
If you’ve ever Googled for song lyrics, you know what a messy experience it can be – half the sites proving to be just links to other sites, others looking really sketchy. For those in the US, though, things should be much simpler. Google has licensed lyrics from LyricFind, which in turn licenses them from labels, so that a search for a song title with ‘lyrics’ on the end should generate an immediate link.
Of course, Google is arriving rather late to the party …
Google is currently working on bringing ‘Gboard’ search features to Android
After announcing Gboard for iOS, the team behind it had a chat on the curation site Product Hunt to discuss the new keyboard. When asked about Android support, product manager Bri Connelly said Google is currently working on porting over the features.
Google testing black links instead of blue in search results
For many, many years, whenever you search for anything on Google, chances are that you see a sea of blue unread links fill your web browser. Unless you’re in China, that is, in which case you see red ones.
Still, blue web links have been a feature within Google Search for a long time. So it comes as something of a minor shock to see that the company is now testing a new color: black.
Google focusing on search, AI, and more in Founders’ Letter from Sundar Pichai
Every year, Larry Page and Sergey Brin write a Founders’ Letter to inform stockholders of recent developments and their vision for the future. For 2016, Page had recently-anointed Google CEO Sundar Pichai write the letter as a majority of ‘bets’ are under his purview. The letter focuses on six main areas.
Google Photos for Android drops FAB for a search bar in latest update
Update: According to a post on Google+, this update adds the ability to customize automatically created movies with your own music, photos, and videos. It’s also now possible to rename or delete device folders and manage photos on SD cards.
Rolling out to users now, version 1.19 of Google Photos brings quite a few design tweaks to the Android app. The biggest change replaces the floating action button (FAB) with a search bar that is reminiscent of a recent A/B test to Play Music.
Microsoft and Google agree to drop all complaints to regulators against each other
Microsoft and Google have reached an agreement to stop complaining about each other to regulators. Speaking to Re/code, the companies have said they will attempt to work out any issues between themselves in the future, before getting regulators involved.
Canada ends investigation into anti-competitive search and ad practices by Google
With imminent troubles looming in Europe, Canada just closed its three year investigation into anti-competitive practices involving Google’s search and advertising business (via The Verge). The country’s Competition Bureau ultimately “did not find sufficient evidence” that Google’s practices harmed local rivals.
Google can now play animal sounds directly from search
Very often, Google realizes that there’s a common search query that it can make more convenient for users by adding its own content directly to the search engine. The perfect example was last year, when Google effectively sherlocked dozens of lyrics-dedicated websites by adding its own lyrics directly to the top of search results for many songs. I don’t think as many websites are going to feel the brunt of this change, but Google has now added animal sounds to Search…
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Google somehow got through China’s firewall for nearly two hours last night
For a brief spell last night, uncensored Google search was alive and kicking within China’s borders. For roughly 105 mins, according to the South China Morning Post, residents inside the People’s Republic had free, unrestricted use of Google’s popular search domain.
You can now add a shortcut to your homescreen to quickly access weather info in the Google app
Google is rolling out a new feature that allows users to more easily access one of the most commonly searched terms. With this rollout, if a user searches for the weather in their location or another location, Google will ask if that user would like to add a shortcut to their homescreen to “access weather instantly from your homescreen.”
Google is giving another ranking boost to mobile-friendly pages
Google announced in April of last year that it tweaked search results to give a ranking boost to sites that offer mobile-friendly versions, and now the Mountain View company is prepping to give even more ranking weight to these sites. The company is planning a change that “increases the effect of the ranking signal” for mobile searches to put even more mobile pages on the top…
Amsterdam judge asks Google to hand over IP addresses & more of people behind fake reviews
In the Netherlands, Google has been battling it out in court over fake reviews on several of its sites. TechCrunch today reports that a nursery in Amsterdam has recently won the lawsuit against Google, not only forcing the company to take down the fake reviews, but also forcing it to hand over the details of those who initially posted the reviews.
Latest Google app beta adds OCR image recognition to Now on Tap
For all the features the Google app has added, it still does not have any image recognition capabilities. Google Goggles from 2010 could recognize book covers, landmarks, and even solve Sudoku, but was ultimately discontinued due to a lack of use. However, Now on Tap has gained some of those features in a recent update.
Google joins other tech companies in filing court brief supporting Apple in FBI case
Google today has joined over twenty other tech companies and filed a joint amicus brief with the U.S. federal court, expressing support for Apple in its battle with the FBI over unlocking an iPhone used by one of the gunmen in the San Bernardino terrorist attack. Google filed a joint brief with companies such as Facebook, Microsoft, and Snapchat. Another joint brief was also filed today by Twitter, Airbnb, and others. Google explained its motives in a blog post, curiously never mentioning Apple by name…
Google searches for ‘How to move to Canada’ spike in response to Super Tuesday results
It goes without saying that the American people aren’t exactly ecstatic about the prospective options for the US presidency, but just how unexcited are they? In response to the Super Tuesday results, which showed both Republican frontrunner Donald J. Trump and Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton both winning 7 of 11 states, it looks like many Americans are looking for a way to jump ship. And by jump ship, I mean head north to Canada…
Play Music for Android will now show related YouTube videos in search results
A Google Play Music update is rolling out that allows users to search for music-related YouTube videos from within the app. The video search feature is available to all Play Music users, including those who don’t subscribe to the streaming service.
Google wins UK court case against antitrust accusers, Streetmap
Google has won a UK court case filed against it by a European mapping company named Streetmap.EU, which claimed the search giant had been skewing results in its own favor. Streetmap will appeal the decision, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Google to start showing anti-ISIS ads in search results relating to extremism and radicalization
According to a report from The Guardian, Google will soon start showing anti-ISIS ads in search results. The report claims that when a user searches for a topic relating to Islamic extremism or radicalization, they will see ads that encourage them to view the “counter narrative” to their search query.
Longtime Search SVP Amit Singhal leaving Google after 15 years, head of AI taking over
Google’s longtime Senior Vice President of Search Amit Singhal is leaving the company after 15 years. In a Google+ post, he said that February 26th would be the last day and that he would be looking into philanthropy in the future. Re/Code is reporting that the Search will be merged with the company’s other artificial intelligence and machine learning efforts.
Google reveals how much it paid to get Google.com back last year
You may remember last year a story broke stating that someone had managed to buy the Google.com domain name. Sanmay Ved had only owned it for about one minute, but he owned it nonetheless. As a result, he was rewarded generously by Google …
Google’s new Australian voice can better pronounce names and understand phrases
Google is now further localizing the voice in their apps for Australian users. The new accent will sound more familiar to those down under and be better able to pronounce place names and understand local colloquialisms for tasks and actions.
Google rolling out HTTPS cached website pages for HTTPS-enabled sites
HTTPS has become the rule, rather than the exception to the rule, in recent years. And in an effort to usher in the encrypted and more-secure communication protocol, Google announced last month that it would begin prioritizing HTTPS sites over HTTP sites when indexing the web. Unsurprisingly, Google is also slowly-but-surely making sure all of its own web properties use HTTPS over standard HTTP. Google’s cached pages available on the search site are now part of the club…
Google blocked more than 17M fake ‘software system warning’ ads, 12.5M misleading medicinal ads in 2015
Google has published a blog post revealing just how many bad ads it removed from the web in 2015. Spoiler: they removed a lot.
There can be all kinds of bad ads, whether they’re ads which falsely claim to help weight loss, or phishing sites that trick unassuming web users to submit personal information. Thanks to a team of some 1,000 employees, and some clever computer algorithms, the company was able to remove a ton of ads and ban a huge number of misbehaving advertisers…