Jordan Kahn

There are a few products that we might get a look at during an upcoming event that Samsung just announced for June 20th in London. While we don’t get much information from the invite itself, we do see that Samsung will have both Galaxy and Ativ related product announcements. That of course leads us to believe we might get our first official look at one of the rumored Galaxy devices that have yet to launch. A few that come to mind include the Galaxy S4 Mini, the much rumored Galaxy S4 Zoom camera/smartphone hybrid, and the S4 Active, a device that is said to be waterproof, dustproof, and specifically geared towards government and corporate customers. There is also no shortage of Galaxy tabs rumored to be landing sometime this year, but we’ll have to wait until next month to find out for sure.

The image above is being passed around by an anonymous tipster this evening that claims to have screenshots alongside some new information about an upcoming version of Gmail for both the web and mobile devices.

According to the tipster, the update Gmail for web will have new Category tabs that organize emails into separate inboxes based on the content within (as pictured above). Examples given include Main (for family, friends and everything that doesn’t belong in another category), ‘Social’ for emails related to social networks, ‘Offers’ for promotional material, ‘Notifications’ for reservations, bills, etc, and ‘Forums’ for mailing lists and forums.

We have no way of verifying the legitimacy of the tip, but it’s an interesting concept nonetheless and it will apparently also be hitting the new Gmail mobile apps when it begins rolling out this Wednesday…
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According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, Google is now in the middle of a new project that will see the company develop wireless networks in emerging countries including sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia. Google plans on teaming up with local companies to develop the wireless networks, which are said to use airwaves normally reserved for TV, but will first have to get government approvals:

Some of those efforts revolve around using certain airwaves reserved for TV broadcasts to create wireless networks, but only if government regulators allowed it, these people said. Google has long been involved in public trials to prove the technology—which operates at lower frequencies than some cell networks, allowing signals to be more easily transmitted through buildings and other obstacles and across longer distances—can work. And it has begun talking to regulators in countries such as South Africa and Kenya about changing current rules to allow such networks to be built en masse.

The report mentions that Google is also “building an ecosystem of new microprocessors and low-cost smartphones powered by its Android mobile operating system to connect to the wireless networks,” although it didn’t offer up any other specific information on the devices.

It also points out a Google X project that takes advantage of “special balloons or blimps, known as high-altitude platforms, to transmit signals to an area of hundreds of square miles,” but it’s unclear whether or not the two projects are connected.
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In a Google I/O presentation titled “Structure in Android App Design,” Google might have given us a sneak peak at what’s to come for the Gmail Android app. Much of the talk focused on the new navigation drawer that is already present in the latest Google app updates including Earth and Shopper for Android. One slide, as pointed out by AndroidPolice, appears to show off a redesigned Gmail app equipped with the sliding drawer for navigating inboxes (similar to Gmail on iOS) and a number of other tweaks including the removal of the navigation buttons along the bottom of the app. We’ll have to wait and find out for sure if this was simply a mock up for the presentation or the next redesign of the official Gmail app for Android. 
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While it might not be an official app coming straight from the company (who in this case happens to be partially funded by Google), selfscreens.com points us to a new piece of Glassware developed to control the $249 Nest thermostat using Google Glass. The app, dubbed “Glass Nest” was developed by +James Rundquist who for a short time was making it available to all through his website. As highlighted in the image below, it allows users to set the temperature, set Nest to away mode, and automatically wake Nest up upon arriving home with a number of different commands for each. Keep your eye on http://www.glass-nest.com to find out when the Glassware becomes available again. 
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When Google unveiled its brand new $9.99/month “All Access” Google Play music streaming service earlier this month at its I/O keynote, we quickly learned that the service would not be coming to iOS initially. Google didn’t get into why, but today developers of the popular gMusic iOS app has unofficially brought support for the service to iPhone and iPad.

The app previously acted as client for songs stored in your Google Music library, but with an update to version 6.0 today the All Access subscription service is now officially available to iOS users. The changelog on iTunes also lists the ability to “Create/play Radio Stations” and “Search, listen, and add music to your library from inside the app.”

As for why Google didn’t make it’s own All Access app for iOS, we’ve heard from sources close to the situation that Google wants to submit an app but is currently in a holding pattern with Apple regarding what they will accept.

gMusic: Google Music Player is available on the App Store now for $1.99. The updated app will require users to have a Google Play All Access subscription to access the new features. 
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Google is carrying on with its integration of Google+ across the rest of its services by today opening up the ability to search for photos from the service directly in Google search. Starting today, not only will Google search be able to display photos from friends and events in results, it will also be “using computer vision and machine learning to help recognize more general concepts in your photos such as sunsets, food and flowers.”

Here’s how it works:
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AT&T announced today that it will exclusively be offering the Samsung Galaxy S4 in Aurora Red starting June 14. The new color will be available on the 16GB variant for the usual $199 on a two-year contract and preorders will officially kick off tomorrow, May 24. Samsung is also planning to launch some more special edition colors this summer including: Blue Arctic, Purple Mirage and Brown Autumn.

Starting tomorrow you’ll be able to preorder the Galaxy S4 in Aurora Red exclusively through AT&T at  www.att.com/galaxys4 or at a brick and mortar location.

Good timing on the announcement because (coincidence!) Verizon’s Galaxy S4 is availabile today.

Google announced on its Google Drive blog today that it is rolling out an updated Google Drive app for Android that includes a couple notable new features.

The app’s UI has been overhauled and now displays your Drive files in a familiar grid style view:

You can swipe between files to see large previews that let you quickly review and discover the information you’re looking for. And if you want to keep some Drive files on your Android device, you’ll now be able to “download a copy” from the actions menu inside settings.

Another big update included in the latest version of Drive for Android is the ability to ‘scan’ and store physical documents as PDFs. The new scan option will allow users to snap photos of documents and save them within Drive as a PDF. Thanks to Optical Character Recognition, you’ll also be able to search for the scanned docs using keywords.

The update includes a number of other improvements as well including the ability to download a copy of your files in Drive your device’s local storage, improvements to editing features in Google Sheets, and much more:
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During its Google I/O keynote earlier this month, Google announced that it would be bringing conversational, Google-Now like voice search to the desktop. Using a UI similar to voice search and Google Now in its mobile apps, Google would soon allow Chrome users to search and drill down further into results using only their voice.

Today, Google appears to have finally started rolling out the feature for Chrome users on the stable and beta channels of Chrome.

After updating to the latest version 27.0.1453.93 of Chrome, users can navigate to Google.com, click the microphone icon, and choose to allow the new Google Voice search feature to begin listening. Google will only ask for permission to listen once and from then on users can simply speak in order to search. For certain search results such as questions Google will also provide audible results.

Not all of the functionality seems to be available as of yet. For example, when Google first showed off the feature users weren’t required to click at all. Google execs were activating the feature by simply saying “Ok, Google” and were able to continue searching with their voice, hands-free, from on the search results page. The feature as it’s currently implemented now requires users to click the mic icon in order to start a voice search.
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Sprint has made a few announcements today for new devices and services coming to its customers on its Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile USA prepaid brands. The company announced today that the Samsung Galaxy S III will be landing on both Boost and Virgin beginning in June. Both devices will be available on the two carriers’ no contract plans but Sprint didn’t make any details available for pricing on the device yet.

Also announced today is the waterproof Kyocera Hydro Edge smartphone, a 4.1-inch Android 4.1 device that’s capable of submersion up to 3.28 feet. No exact launch date or pricing as of yet, but Sprint will be making it available through both its Sprint and Boost Mobile brands later this summer.

Sprint also announced today that it is launching a new ‘Boost Mobile Wallet’ service powered by technology from mobile payments company Wipit. The service is available for Boost customers starting today through a free app on Google Play, but for now is only available to users in Los Angeles, San Diego and parts of New Jersey.

The app allows users to load cash into their wallet at Boost Mobile stores, send money to 135 countries, and Sprint will also be giving out reloadable Visa prepaid cards for ATM access:
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Some of you might have noticed that updating to Google’s new unified Hangouts chat service in Gmail meant giving up the Google Voice calling capabilities that were previously available to users in the US and Canada. We suspected Google had plans to bring the feature back and users currently have the option of reverting back to the old Gmail chat in order to access the feature. Now Google has responded to concerns by promising that “Hangouts is designed to be the future of Google Voice, and making/receiving phone calls” will return in a future update.

Google’s Nikhyl Singhal had this to say about Voice integration in Hangouts:
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Following showing off a redesigned three column version of Google+ for the web and new “Auto Awesome” photo editing features at I/O, Google is today bringing some of the new features to its Google+ for Android app.

The updated app, which should be hitting Google Play some time today, will include a number of new photo editing features including the new Auto Awesome effects, auto backup for photos, and other photo editing tools from Snapseed:

• Auto Backup, to safely and privately store your photos as you snap them
• Auto Highlight, to browse a selection of top shots from every set of photos you add
• Auto Enhance, to make subtle improvements to the people and places in your images, automatically
• Auto Awesome, to create fun new versions of your pictures (like animations and panoramas) based on the photos in your library

The updated Google+ for Android app will also offer improved location sharing with a new Locations section that lets you view your friends’ current locations on a map.

Lastly, after updating you’ll have the ability to access Google’s new intelligent related hashtags feature:

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Another instalment in Microsoft’s “Scroogled” smear campaign attempting to point out the downsides of using Google services. While Microsoft has released many ads attacking Gmail, search and other Google products as part of the 7 figures it plans to drop on the campaign, this one was apparently supposed to be an internal video for employees anyway.

Whether it was a controlled leak or not, the ad, which takes cues from one of Google’s own Chrome ads, has happened to make its way online right in the middle of Google I/O and it doesn’t appear that a take down notice is getting issued.

Google has responded to the ads several times calling Microsoft’s approach ‘misleading and intellectually dishonest.’
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YouTube has been allowing live streaming from a number of select partner channels over the last year for everything from sports events to hangouts with politicians and today it is finally expanding live streaming to others.

A post on the YouTube Creator blog today announced that all channels with over one thousand subscribers (as long as the channel is in good standing) will now be able to apply to have live streaming capabilities:

• You get real-time transcoding in the cloud, so you only need to send us your highest quality stream and we make it instantly available in all resolutions and device formats
• You can show multiple camera angles, add closed captions, and insert ads and slates
• Viewers can watch the live stream from any device, get the best quality constantly adjusting to their Internet connection, and can skip back and forth in the live stream

You can check if your account is eligible by navigating to Account Features and checking for an “Enable” button for YouTube Live.

The feature will be rolling out in the next couple of weeks.

Following its I/O keynote address today, Google just announced on its commerce blog that it will soon be integrating Google Wallet features into Gmail to allow users to send and receive money. The feature will be available to those with a Google Wallet account and will initially be available to users 18 and older in the US:

Google Wallet is now integrated with Gmail, so you can quickly and securely send money to friends and family directly within Gmail — even if they don’t have a Gmail address. It’s free to send money if your bank account is linked to Google Wallet or using your Google Wallet balance, and low fees apply to send money using your linked credit or debit card.

Google will be adding a new $ icon next to the paperclip icon for attachements that will allow users to “attach money” to messages in Gmail by simply entering the amount and clicking send.

Google noted that the feature will first only be available on the desktop, but that users can also send money through wallet.google.com on mobile devices.

Look for the feature to start rolling out in the coming weeks but earlier access will be granted to those that receive money from others using the feature. You can learn more about sending money with Gmail here.

Google today announced that it is revamping the Google voice search feature available in Chrome. While users have always been able to search with their voice through Chrome, Google is attempting to make the service work more like it does through Google Search apps and Google Now on mobile devices.

Chrome will now include “conversational search” with a brand new interface that doesn’t require users to click in order to search with their voice. Like on mobile devices with Google Now, users will now be able to simple say “Google” in order to activate voice search.

Today, we previewed what this conversational experience will look like in Chrome on your desktops and laptops. Soon, you’ll be able to just say, hands-free, “OK Google, will it be sunny in Santa Cruz this weekend?” and get a spoken answer. Then, you’ll be able to continue the conversation and just follow up with “how far is it from here?” if you care about the drive or “how about Monterey?” if you want to check weather somewhere else, and get Google to tell you the answer.

The new interface, as pictured above from Google’s demo of the feature, is much like the voice search interface for Google Now on Android devices.

While not a full blown Google Now experience yet, the feature will allow users to pull up flight information, email, calendar entries and more by taking advantage of Gmail field trial features that some users have already opted in to try.

The new feature will be coming to Macs and PCs through Chrome soon.

Google also briefly showed off some new content coming to Google Now including new cards for Reminders, Music Albums, TV Shows, Books, Public Transit, and Video games rolling out today:
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