In addition to getting Custom Text stickers with the latest Pixel Feature Drop, Gboard is now beginning to roll out an “Emojify” capability that’s marked by a magic wand button.
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Following the desktop browser and mobile apps, Google is detailing what’s new in Chrome OS 100, which starts rolling out later this week.
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Google released the initial beta of its browser in September 2008 and over 13.5 years later Chrome is getting updated to version 100 today.
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Markdown is a “lightweight markup language for applying formatting using plain text.” Google Docs already recognizes some Markdown syntax, and is now expanding its support.
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In the coming weeks, Google Chat will replace classic Hangouts for Workspace customers. As part of this, Google said it would disable the old Hangouts mobile apps, and that looks to be underway with the iPhone app now removed from the App Store.
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After first launching for iOS at the start of this year, YouTube Music is widely rolling out the “Save” queue to playlist feature on Android.
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Google’s cord-cutting service currently only offers 5.1 audio on two device classes. YouTube TV today gave an update on bringing 5.1 surround sound to more users.
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Viewer feedback on YouTube today consists of liking (or disliking) and leaving text comments on videos. YouTube is now experimenting with timed reactions that let you share emoji at an exact moment in a video.
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Google Shopping is in the midst of positioning itself as an open Amazon competitor by allowing free listings. The latest step to achieve this will be a “Trusted Store” badge on Google Shopping product pages.
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In March of last year, YouTube Music widely rolled out the ability to shuffle songs when Casting but bafflingly didn’t also enable repeat. As of today, that latter action is available again.
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Google is rolling out a new Side Panel UI in desktop Chrome that provides fast access to your bookmarks and Reading List.
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Since the start of this year, Assistant Smart Displays haven’t seen too many new capabilities. A small feature addition today does add birthday countdowns to the Nest Hub.
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With the small business-focused Workspace Individual tier last year, Google Calendar gained appointment scheduling. Google is now bringing Calendar booking pages to the other enterprise and education Workspace tiers.
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Google recently updated the default “Shopping List” experience used by Assistant and Home devices. For many users, it’s a huge visual and functional regression that has taken away useful capabilities.
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Four months after being “retired,” Spotify is letting customers test out a completely overhauled automotive interface called Car Mode.
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Back in 2020, Google announced that it would require all apps in the Play Store to use its billing system but later delayed that to this month. Google will soon allow Android apps to use their own payment system as long as Play Store billing is an option alongside it, with Spotify notably the first “User Choice Billing” partner.
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One Google Search critique of late blames targeted SEO content for the declining quality of results. Google today pushed back against that claim by saying Search has “decreased the number of irrelevant results by over 50%” in the last seven years.
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Since 2018, YouTube has offered a collection of free-to-watch movies that are supported by advertising. That YouTube library in the US is now expanding to TV shows with almost 4,000 free episodes.
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After the death of Play Music, Google Play was left with applications, books, and television. The Play Store will soon drop Movies & TV on Android with the Google TV app being the new place to buy and rent content.
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After updating the primary tab with interactive device toggles inspired by Android 11, the Google Home app wants to redesign the “Feed” to be more useful.
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Under the auspice of spring cleaning, Google Photos is redesigning its Library and Sharing tabs over the coming weeks. There’s a focus on easier sorting of albums and shared content, as well as the introduction of various shortcuts.
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In addition to rolling out a redesigned device grid, the Google Home app is getting new centralized Privacy settings to “help you learn about and manage your household activity data.”
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As classic Hangouts is set to go away for Workspace customers, Google continues to update Chat and Spaces with more capabilities. A small tweak sees Gmail for Android introduce new status bar icons that help differentiate notifications from Google Chat and Spaces.
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Google Maps is partially down this morning with the outage particularly impacting its website and APIs for third-party applications that use Google’s location services.
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