At I/O 2018, Google noted how celebrity voices are a top Assistant feature request. Following Amazon last month bringing its first voice to Echo, Google Assistant today is getting its second with Issa Rae.
Back in May, Google revamped mobile Search results by adding site favicons to each listing. The company is now A/B testing a similar redesign for the Google Search results page on desktop web that also removes URLs.
Celebrity Assistant voices were announced at I/O 2018 and the first one rolled out in April. At the time, Google specified that John Legend would only be available for a limited time. Another Assistant celebrity voice is now being teased and set to be announced tomorrow.
In addition to the dark theme being more widely available over the past day, the latest update to Google Play is also rolling out on Android. However, the latest version has an annoying little bug that breaks inline app changelogs.
While YouTube was one of the first Google apps to adopt a dark theme, the Android client is finally moving away from a custom implementation. As a result, it will respect Android 10’s system-level setting.
Google has a whole ecosystem of home Assistant devices from Smart Displays and speakers to Chromecast-connected TVs. With a new “Stream transfer” feature today, all three categories will work better to move playing media from room to room.
Grasshopper comes from Google’s Area 120 incubator and the coding tool is today gaining a desktop web client. Previously limited to Android and iOS, it’s now better suited for larger screens and adding new lessons.
While Drive was one of the first Google apps to adopt the Material Theme, Docs, Sheets, and Slides followed later on the web and mobile. The latest set of updates brings Material Theme tweaks to the productivity app’s editor interfaces on Android.
Back in September, the Camera app found on the Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL leaked. We now have access to Google Camera 7.1, which should be a near-final version ahead of next week’s announcement at Made by Google 2019.
In recent years, video has become an increasingly important format in Google Search. To help webmasters better optimize performance, the Search Console is adding and expanding two new reports related to video.
Earlier this month, Google announced a slew of Photos features, including in-store prints and story-like Memories. We first got wind of that latter feature in July, along with another called “Photo frames.” That ability to control what Google Photos content appears on your Smart Display is now beginning to roll out.
Google Assistant has a lot of third-party capabilities called Actions. To aid discoverability, Google has long offered a browsable Explore page, and there’s now an updated card in Assistant’s Updates feed.
Back in July, we spotted Assistant replacing the old “Voice search” capability in the Google app. There have been more reports of that occurring recently, with new Google app help videos suggesting that’s still on track.
Last month, we spotted the YouTube for Android offering to open YouTube Music when playing songs. A new cross-service integration sees the YouTube app recommend new songs from the Music service.
Google was a big HTTPS proponent over the past decade and led a successful adoption push. Chrome is now making further security enhancements by blocking mixed content — insecure http:// subresources on https:// pages — by default.
Following Google Play’s night-friendly appearance more widely rolling out last night, Play Books is gaining a dark theme. It becomes the last modern Android app in the Play family to get the look.
Following the website and mobile apps, the new Google Shopping is officially available in the U.S. This is Google’s new unified service for product lookup and delivery, with Google Lens also picking up a “style ideas” feature today.
With the launch of Android 10 at the beginning of September, there are still some major Google apps that have yet to gain a dark theme. The Play Store is now the latest to roll out a dark theme after the last 24 hours saw both the Google app and Gmail.
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Underpinning Assistant are voice interactions that make day-to-day tasks more natural. Google is now bringing that same level of convenience to those with accessibility needs through Actions Blocks.
Originally announced as a Chrome Extension, Google is expanding and integrating Password Checkup across two key products. This feature, which checks the strength and security of your saved credentials, is coming to the Google Account’s built-in password manager and the Chrome browser.
The Google app has long had a built-in bookmarking feature to save links, images, and places found through Search. An update is rolling out today on Android that redesigns the interface, and prominently elevates it to the bottom bar.
Following the launch of the new Fi Unlimited plan last month, Google today is rolling out a night-friendly look for the Android client. The Google Fi dark theme is a quite straightforward implementation.
While Google Messages adopted a dark theme relatively early on, its implementation did not match other first-party applications. With the latest beta, Google’s default SMS/RCS client now respects the Android 10 dark theme.