Stephen is Growth Director at 9to5. You can find his current work at 9to5Mac, 9to5Google9to5Toys, Electrek, and more. If you want to get in touch, follow me on Twitter. Or, email at stephen (at) 9to5mac (dot) com, or an encrypted email at hallstephenj (at) protonmail (dot) com.
Today we’ve got my first entry into my Nest Diary with a review of the Nest Thermostat E, Google app’s built-in Podcasts player, and Android Instant Apps for games at GDC.
Before last week, I had very little first-hand experience with smart home products. I guess it really depends on how you define a smart home product, as I’ve had ample time with smart speakers like the Google Home, mesh WiFi systems like the Google Wifi, and plenty of others. But prototypical smart home products, like the Nest Thermostat, Philips Hue bulbs, or the August smart lock, have been mostly foreign to me up to this point. Now, that’s changing.
I figured many readers here are probably in the same boat. You’ve heard of all these products, but maybe you live in an apartment that doesn’t let you make the necessary changes. Or maybe you’ve thought about diving in for a while, but have never been able to justify the costs. Regardless, I thought I’d share my journey with you, starting with the Nest Thermostat E.
In this week’s top stories: Google announces devices that will receive Wear OS update, Nest announces a new temperature sensor device, and Android Messages 3.1 continues preparing Messages for web. Expand Expanding Close
This week, we talk all about our Google Fun House impressions, rumors we’ve heard from a source about navigation in Android P, the rebrand of Android Wear as Wear OS and what it might mean, Stephen’s early experiences with a slew of Nest products, a handful of app updates, and much more.
Today we’ve got a rebrand of Android Wear as Wear OS, a couple of Nest announcements including the new Nest Temperature Sensor, and an exclusive Android Messages 3.1 APK Insight.
Hidden in today’s announcement regarding Nest Hello and Nest x Yale lock availability, Nest has debuted an altogether new product. Called the Nest Temperature Sensor, it’s a cheap add-on for your Nest Thermostat or Nest Thermostat E to prioritize temperatures in specific rooms.
First announced last fall, the Nest Hello smart doorbell is now available to buy at various retailers and at Nest’s website. The Nest x Yale Lock is now available via Nest’s online store as well.
Today we’ve got YouTube plans to add Wikipedia links below conspiracy videos, AdWords bans all cryptocurrency-related ads, and Google Maps powering more Pokemon Go-like games.
Today in Austin, Texas at the annual South by Southwest festival, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki announced that Google is planning several moves over the next year to tackle misinformation on the platform. The first of this round of initiatives is called “information cues,” and basically adds links to Wikipedia articles below videos about topics that often the center of debate…
Google and Ubisoft have today announced Agones, an in-development game server hosting project. Agones, which appropriately means “contest” in greek, is powered by Google-made Kubernetes, which is an open source system “for building complex workloads and distributed systems.”
We’re here in Austin at the famed South by Southwest music and film (and “interactive”) festival, and Google once again has a significant presence this year, as expected. Besides its Assistant telephone booths and electric cabs, though, the biggest showcase is the Google Assistant Fun House.
If you’re not as fortunate as us and aren’t in Austin right now (sorry for the not-so humble brag), there’s still a good chance you might want to check out the house. Well, you can. We took dozens of photos (and a couple videos, too!) so you can see everything we saw…
In this week’s top stories: Rumors of significant layoffs at Motorola in Chicago, Android P is shaping up to be a big update, and Google+ for Android gets a bright new redesign. Expand Expanding Close
This week, we talk all about Android P (mostly about its support for “notched” devices…), Samsung Galaxy S9 reviews, Motorola layoffs, a slew of app updates, SXSW, and much more.
Alphabet Scoop will soon be available on Google Play, iTunes and Apple’s Podcasts app, Stitcher, and through our dedicated RSS feed for Pocket Casts and other podcast players.
Following our report yesterday that Motorola is laying off a significant portion of its engineering staff in Chicago, Android Police is now out with some details on what exactly this will mean. Apparently, the company is planning to cancel the Moto X5 entirely, and plans to significantly scale back its efforts to partner with third-party Moto Mod makers…
Rumors of significant layoffs at Motorola Mobility in Chicago have begun to swirl this week, with one supposed ex-employee saying that the company has told as much as half of its Chicago workforce that their last day of work will be April 6th. Meanwhile, the maker of a popular Moto Mod for the Moto Z line is also seemingly fearful of the future…
It feels like it was just yesterday that I dropped my Nexus 6P on the concrete getting out of my car. On that day in 2016, I put my Nexus 6P to rest — thankfully only for a few weeks before I got my Pixel. But after manydeaths it has already endured, Nexus is dying yet again today. The latest major release of Android, Android P, will never be released on the platform.
Facebook has today introduced a new video chat feature to its Messenger Lite app. For those unaware, the app is meant to be just the barebones Messenger experience with only its core functionality. Now, the app is gaining one more feature considered necessary.
Today we’ve got Google partnering with the U.S. military to analyze drone footage with machine learning, Disney parks in Street View, and Chrome 65 for Android.
Today we’ve got the March security patch rolling out to Pixel and Nexus devices, Uber reportedly wants to partner with Waymo, and Google planning an Assistant ‘fun house’ for SXSW.
The annual South by Southwest music (and a lot more than music!) festival in Austin, Texas, kicks off this weekend, and as usual, Google is going to have pretty significant presence. This year, it looks like everything will revolve around Google Assistant.