A fairly common complaint with Smart Displays and Home speakers is how the Google Assistant voice is tied to the standard media volume. This can result in search results and responses being too loud or too quiet. Google is now readying a solution with “Custom TTS Volume” in the Home app.
Announced at Google Marketing Live in May, the new Google Shopping homepage is live in the United States. Focussed on personalization and browsing, this experience has been in testing around the world since last year.
Launched last year, the Google Assistant Updates feed is a spiritual successor to Google Now dedicated to showing calendar events, where you last parked, and more. This “visual snapshot” of your day has just gained a “Resume your podcast” Assistant card.
Earlier today, YouTube Music rolled out fast, seamless switching between audio and music videos. The Android app is now A/B testing an elevation of search to the bottom bar.
Unsurprisingly, YouTube’s streaming service has always maintained a big focus on video. The latest YouTube Music feature adds seamless switching between songs and music videos.
Google has long maintained bug bounties that pay researchers for discovering and submitting security issues directly. The Chrome Vulnerability Reward Program is now increasing amounts across the board, with a standing $150,000 prize for Chrome OS compromises.
Back in May, Google announced that Android developers have to specify a “target age range” for all apps in the Play Store. Aimed at boosting child safety, a related effort is the ability to mark applications as “Not designed for children.” Those warning labels are now beginning to appear in Google Play.
Area 120 — Google’s workshop for experimental projects — has produced social networks, travel tools, and educational apps. Recently, the group has veered toward business services, with the latest being Byteboard, an interview tool that measures real-world technical skills.
Last year, Google Maps began listing the status of bike sharing services in New York City. This useful real-time feature is now getting a global launch with availability in 24 cities across 16 countries.
Google Search on the desktop web has seen a slew of visual refreshes in recent weeks. The latest is a substantial redesign of the News tab that does a better job of highlighting headlines and publishers.
Besides building vehicles and operating a delivery service, Wing is working on an air traffic control system for all drones. The Alphabet division today officially introduced an app called OpenSky to help pilots operate their vehicles in Australia.
Early last year, Google hired a “public liaison of search” to help clarify how its flagship product works. The latest in this Search explainer series discusses what appears in Featured Snippets, the Knowledge Graph, and Autocomplete.
AdSense allows publishers to easily place advertising on their sites, with Google offering mobile apps to track views and revenue. Google today announced that it is killing the Android and iOS clients, with the web positioned as an upcoming alternative.
At VidCon 2019 today, YouTube introduced new ways for creators to monetize content and videos on the Google site. YouTube Super Stickers build off Super Chats, while Channel Memberships are gaining tier levels.
Following Voice for Android adopting a Material Theme account switcher, the Google Voice web app is gaining three usability updates. These changes are particularly catered towards enterprise G Suite customers.
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Google’s fitness tracking service is now the latest app to adopt a dark theme. Google Fit 2.16 today introduces the new look, and reveals work on manually adding sleep.
In addition to new Dining and Translate filters, a big part of this year’s Google Lens revamp is overlaying the virtual world on top of the real one. Google today is showcasing those augmented reality capabilities in a big way with Stranger Things 3.
The latest iteration of Google Lens announced at I/O 2019 features a convenient Translate filter. Google is now bringing that updated functionality to the full Google Translate app with a revamped UI, auto-detect, and more languages.
Over the past month, the new “Google Nest” replaced Nest.com with the Google Store and gained a new Help Center. The unified brand has now killed its Wear OS and Apple Watch apps for home control right from your wrist.
As of late, YouTube creators have noticed an uptick in manual Content ID claims from copyright owners. The Google video service today announced fixes with a new time stamp requirement, while introducing new tools for YouTubers on the other side.
One longstanding complaint among Google users on the web is how being logged in with both personal and G Suite accounts results in a confusing file launch process. Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides will now display a prominent prompt about what account you’re signed in with.
It’s the Monday after a long weekend and you might not want to get back to work just yet. Thanks to a new Chrome extension you can procrastinate a while longer and finish up Stranger Things 3 or any other Netflix show while on your important, do not disturb “Hangouts Meet” call.
Besides revealing a key change to gestural navigation in an upcoming Android Q release, we detailed new features in Google Camera 6.3, which you can download now. Night Sight is a central part of the app, while white balance modes have been removed. Our APK Insight also revealed a “McFly mode” and Pixel 4 support.