At CES 2019, Philips Hue announced Google Assistant integration for its sleep and wake up feature. In time for spring, ‘Gentle Sleep & Wake’ for Google Home and Hue smart lighting is launching today.
Since launching three years ago, Accelerated Mobile Pages adoption has flourished across the web and on mobile. Google announced at AMP Conf 2019 today that it is addressing AMP’s biggest complaint by displaying actual website URLs.
With the Pixel 3, the Google Camera app gained a number of AI-powered features like Night Sight, Top Shot, and Photobooth. The latter is essentially Google Clips running on a phone, with the mode adding automatic kiss detection.
Last week, we spotted references to “system updates” occurring via the Google Play Store. This feature — which specifically delivers a “Google System Update” — appears to be live as part of Android Q.
HTC’s hardware division has been in rough times lately. Worse yet, the company’s loyal customers were given reason to worry this month when several HTC apps vanished from the Play Store. Now, HTC is confirming that those apps are coming back, as well as explaining why they were removed.
Ahead of next week’s Avengers: Endgame premiere, Google is updating the Avengers Playground sticker pack with more superheroes. Five new characters join the existing set first introduced with the Pixel 3 in October.
Google Help features a wealth of support articles for every product the company offers, especially its G Suite services. Gmail, Calendar, and Drive on the web will soon gain a prominent ‘?’ button for “quick access to a range of help and support content.”
Microsoft’s brand new Chromium-based Edge browser might finally gain some ground in the battle to remain relevant in the web search space. The problem is that Microsoft seems to be cherry-picking features to remove, much to the disappointment of users.
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Android 9 Pie introduced support for indoor positioning by leveraging 802.11mc. Wi-Fi Round Trip Time (RTT) allows the system and apps to “measure the distance to nearby RTT-capable Wi-Fi access points.” Google this week published a “WifiRttScan App” for developers through the Play Store.
Science Journal is a digital notebook from Google for taking notes, saving pictures, and even recording sensor input. This education-focused app now features Google Drive sync so that data and experiments can be viewed on multiple devices.
Skype might not be the most used or the most popular video calling service any longer, but that doesn’t mean it has dwindled in support and features. The Microsoft-owned video chat application is planning on adding screen sharing to upcoming releases and has already added support for the feature in its latest beta for Android and iOS.
The Google Material Theme has slowly expanded to all of the company’s apps. Version 4.0 last September introduced the bulk of design changes to Google Photos, with the latest now updating the navigation drawer on Android.
Last year, Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides introduced an Activity dashboard to provide stats and easily see who has viewed a document. The three G Suite apps are now adding sharing history and comment analytics.
Google announced this morning that Hangouts Chat is coming to Gmail. That integration was teased earlier this year as one of the legacy features coming from classic Hangouts. At Cloud Next 2019, Google detailed public Guest access, Meet/Voice integration, and a Progress Web Apps to replace Electron clients.
Just last month, YouTube TV expanded to every U.S. television market. The two-year old cord-cutting service is now increasing its monthly subscription rate to $49.99 for all users, and adding more channels.
With Google killing its social network for consumers and brands last week, the service is now solely focussed on enterprise customers. To usher in that new era, Google+ was rebranded to Google Currents at Cloud Next 2019.
This October, Google is retiring Hangouts “classic” for G Suite enterprise users. Ahead of that, a number of legacy features will be added to the Hangouts Chat and Meet replacements. At Cloud Next 2019, Google announced Chat integration in Gmail, while public streaming and live captioning are coming to Hangouts Meet.
Google unveiled Assistant nearly three years ago and it is now accessible on every major platform from Android to Chrome OS to Google Home. Despite its wide availability, the smart assistant has been limited to personal Google Accounts. At Cloud Next 2019, Google announced G Suite integration for Google Assistant in beta.
Months after it first popped up in one of our APK Insights, Google Duo is finally rolling out its Data Saver feature. Available to some users now, this feature looks to limit data usage with just the flip of a switch.
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Google.com has long allowed users to filter search results by time from general increments to setting a “custom date range.” The search engine is now testing a new “before:” and “after:” command to filter right from the search box.
The Google Material Theme began rolling out to Drive for Android in mid-March. It should be widely available today as a Play Store update that also leverages the native camera UI when scanning documents. Google is also testing a dark theme for Drive that’s not yet widely rolled out.
Snapchat announced today that, after months of work, the popular social app will start rolling out a brand new version of its Android app. In an effort to squash bugs, improve compatibility, and just be faster in general.
Earlier this year, Google introduced a Material Theme redesign for Play Books on Android. Now widely rolled out, version 5.1.9 today adds a handful of new features for audiobooks, including audio quality and download size, as well as customizable backward/forward increments.
Every year, YouTube partners with Coachella to stream the desert concert series online. The arrangement is now in its ninth consecutive edition with Coachella 2019, and Google this year is pushing YouTube Music and broadcasting a performance in Times Square.