Jordan writes about all things Apple as Senior Editor of 9to5Mac. He covers Google for 9to5Google.com, the best gadgets and deals on 9to5Toys.com, and delivers a weekly roundup of EV and solar news on Electrek.co. Sometimes he makes weird electronic music as one half of Makamachine.
Contact Jordan with news tips and long-winded complaints:
After launching Skype for Web worldwide back in June and also bringing it to Chromebook users, today the previously chat-only web app is adding support for making phone calls and other new features.
Earlier this week we got our first peek inside the new Galaxy S7 as our friends over at iFixit did their normal teardown of the device. Today, the repair guide site gives us a look inside the device’s sibling with a teardown of the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge.
Here’s something Google’s voice features or competitors like Apple’s Siri can’t do yet: Amazon Echo and other devices that use the company’s Alexa voice-controlled personal assistant feature now let users access CapitalOne banking features using only voice commands.
Capital One announced today that it is the first company to provide customers with the ability to interact with their financial information through Alexa-enabled devices such as Amazon Echo, Amazon Tap, Echo Dot, and Fire TV.
After it’s been configured in the Alexa iOS or Android app, users will be able to ask Alexa to check balances and recent transactions, and check and pay upcoming credit card bills. Here’s an example of the commands:
You’ll be able to use the new features starting today with any Alexa device— Amazon Echo, Amazon Tap, Echo Dot, and Fire TV— after you’ve confirmed your CapitalOne credentials in the Amazon Alexa Android app.
YouTube Gaming, the platform the company first unveiled back in June to bring live gameplay broadcasting to YouTube, is today expanding to new territory including Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland.
Chrome 49 for Android, which introduces improved background sync, new APIs, notifications for nearby smart beacons, and more, is today available to all users through Google’s public, stable release channel.
Google is rolling out a new feature for Google Docs on Android and the web today that will make navigating through long documents much easier. The new “outline tool” adds a new pane on the left of the page adds quickly links to the document’s headers so you can quickly jump to that section without having to scroll through the whole document to get there.
Displayed in a pane to the left of the page, the outline features headers for each section of your document, making it simple to quickly jump from section to section. If you haven’t manually applied headers, no worries—we’ll do it for you, intelligently detecting the logical divisions within your work. You can then edit or remove these headers as necessary.
And there’s also a second component to it that lets users scroll through documents easier with a new “navigation handle” that will appear once you start to scroll. “Touching that handle will display the entire document’s structure, allowing you quickly skip from section to section, instead of slowly swiping up and down.”
Here’s a look at the feature in action:
Look out for the feature in Google Docs on Android and the web starting today.
Google is pushing forward with its Project Loon plans to bring Internet access to remote parts of India as The Economic Times today reported the company is currently in talks with local telecommunications providers.
The publication spoke with Google India chief Rajan Ananda who confirmed the talks with local providers for Loon without naming specific companies, but the report noted telco BSNL among other unnamed companies are actively included in the discussions.
Fortune is out today with its annual list of the “100 Best Companies to Work For” and in 2016 Google takes the top spot for the fifth year running and the 7th time total in the 10 years it’s been included.
Google is today adding new templates to the initial selection it first rolled out to Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides back in September of last year.
YouTube announced a new blurring tool for creators today that lets them apply custom blurring effects to any objects in their videos. The new functionality is an enhancement of the face blurring feature that YouTube has had for a few years now.
After rolling out voice typing functionality to Google Docs on the web in Chrome back in September, today the web app is adding the ability to make edits using your voice too.
Google is announcing two notable new features for Gmail for Android today, including support for rich text formatting and a new “Instant RSVPs” feature that offers one-tap access to responding to Calendar invites.
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Coca-Cola could easily equip just about everyone in the country with a free Google Cardboard-style VR viewer if the above experiment turns into reality.
As part of its Mobile World Congress announcements this week, Acer today announced the Acer Liquid Jade 2, the latest in the company’s lineup of flagship Liquid Jade branded smartphones.
Like just about every Android device manufacturer this week, Lenovo is showing off its latest at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona and today officially unveiled its new lineup of TAB3 tablets.
it looks like that $10 million offer from Martin Shkreli to exclusively acquire Kanye West’s new album wasn’t even in the ballpark. Today Kanye has taken to Twitter to publicly plead with tech execs for investments as the artist delays the release of his much anticipated album “The Life of Pablo” and cites $53 million in personal debt.
Google Forms is getting a welcomed update today that brings an enhanced user interface and new features for all users and some specifically for Google Apps for Work and Education users.
Image via Noah Berger for The New York Times
After joining genetics research firm Illumina’s board of directors back in 2014, long-time Google employee and Senior VP Jeff Huber is now leaving Google for a full-time position at the company. Huber noted the change on his LinkedIn profile where he lists his new role as CEO at Illumina’s Grail Inc as of this month, a startup developing cancer detecting technologies, and the company made an official announcement today via Bloomberg:
Wired has an excellent profile on Andy Rubin and his latest ventures post-Google. As creator of the original Android operating system that Google would eventually acquire and later a long-time Google employee on various Internet efforts at the company, a lot of people are waiting to see what Rubin does next since leaving Google over a year ago.
In 2013, Rubin discussed his restlessness with Larry Page, and—as Rubin recounts it—the two men agreed it was time for a change. That March, Rubin stepped down from Android… For a year, Rubin spun up Google’s new robotics division, but he quickly realized that Google’s goals, which reportedly involve creating humanoid assistants, would take a decade of basic research.
We already knew that Rubin’s new company, Playground Global, would provide support and hands-on engineering assistance to hardware tech startups it’s investing in, but Rubin elaborated on the company’s plans, including describing what he hopes will eventually become an open platform for all companies building AI into their products:
YouTube and its YouTube AdBlitz channel are always popular destinations for watching Super Bowl ads that will air on TV during and online leading up to the game– and this year even an alternative half-time show. Following yesterday’s Super Bowl 50 with the Carolina Panthers and Denver Broncos, YouTube has now shared some data on what the most popular ads were this year based on views as of this morning, and we’ve embedded the list in video form below for easy viewing…
Google has finally launched a full-fledged iOS app for users of its AdWords advertising service. The AdWords app arrives today as the first official iOS app for the service and it’s available for both iPhone and iPad users now.
Following an announcement for a revamped news discovery and commenting experience for its homepage and Yahoo mobile apps, the company is also rolling out an updated Yahoo Mail Android app today.
Yahoo today announced that it’s revamping the way it aggregates news content and in the process launching redesigned commenting, news discovery, and notification features to users on Android, iOS, and through its Yahoo homepage on the web.
Google today announced a few updates for Google Docs, Sheets and Slides that add new feature for both iOS and Android users.
All of the updated apps add the ability to comment from mobile devices, meaning users can now add comments to docs, sheets or slides they’re collaborating on with others directly from their iPhone, iPad, or Android device.
Google gives us a look at the new feature in the video below showing two people working on a receipt together in Slides:
And in addition, the updated apps for Android get even more new features including support for new file formats, filtering options, and languages. The new supported file types include:
“Import and export additional file formats in Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides – As long as you’re online, you can now import and export the following file formats in and from the Docs, Sheets, and Slides Android apps:
- Import – .txt, .rtf, and .html (in Docs)
- Export – .docx, .rtf, .pdf, .txt., and .html (from Docs), .xlsx, .pdf, .html, .csv, and .tsv (from Sheets), and .pptx, .pdf, and .txt (from Slides)
Google also says you’ll be able to open CSV and TSV files in Google Sheets in the new Android apps.
As for new language support, Google Sheets now officially supports reading from right to left. “If you use a right-to-left language (e.g. Hebrew) in Sheets, you’ll now see an option in the Android app to format your spreadsheet in that same direction. Once enabled, your columns will progress from right to left (starting with “A”), and your row numbers will appear on the right-hand side of your screen.”
Google has more info on the Android specific updates here and the updates are available on Google Play (and the App Store) now.
