At I/O 2018, Google announced a number of new features for Home smart speakers including six new voices, Continued Conversation, and Multiple Actions. Custom Routines were also introduced to replace Shortcuts and today the feature is gaining the ability to schedule the macros to trigger at set times.
The Next Billion Users will come online from developing countries around the world with Google making investments to build out features unique for those areas. Focusing on Nigeria today, Google announced a number of updates to its line of Go applications.
During a session at Cloud Next 2018, Google showed off Gmail for Android’s upcoming Google Material Theme update. To match the recent web revamp, the mobile version of Gmail will gain traditional desktop features like density options and quick attachments in the inbox view.
As Google moves to an AI First world, all of its products are being infused with machine learning smarts. Nowhere is that more apparent in G Suite as Google tries to differentiate its Cloud offerings. Google Drive is working on a new “Priority” view that features a Feed, as well as user-curated Workspaces.
Google yesterday unveiled Grammar Suggestions for Docs and Smart Reply in Hangouts Chat. At the second day of Cloud Next 2018, G Suite is adding Google Voice support, third-party integrations in Cloud Search, and a new Drive Enterprise app.
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Google’s video calling service Duo has seen tremendous growth since its launch, and in a recent update, it’s picking up integration with Google Assistant.
Following the Mac, Windows, and Linux release, Chrome 68 is now rolling out to Android. Users will benefit from a new HTTP “Not secure” warning, as well as Spectre and redirect protections. There is also a new “Add to Home screen” prompt and an Android P-like tab switcher.
The latest version of Google Chrome is rolling out today for Mac, Windows, and Linux. Chrome 68 continues the push to boost HTTPS adoption on the web and reduce redirects to unwanted sites. Behind flags, Google is preparing a big Material Design refresh for desktops.
Earlier this year, Google launched Cloud AutoML Vision in alpha after unveiling at I/O 2017 as a way for neural networks to design better neural nets. At Cloud Next 18, Google is launching AutoML Natural Language and AutoML Translation in beta, along with other updates to core services.
At Cloud Next 18, Google announced a number of machine learning-powered updates for G Suite. Smart Reply is now coming to Hangouts Chat and Smart Compose is now available for all G Suite customers, while Google Docs will now offer “grammar suggestions.”
Google’s transition to update all of its apps with the Material Theme is well underway. A new video now shows off elements of the company’s new design language, while featuring various concepts for refreshed Google apps and services.
Two-factor authentication is increasingly becoming a requirement to protect online accounts from phishing attacks. With methods ranging from SMS to prompts, one of the more secure forms involves Security Keys, with Google highlighting the success of rolling out these devices.
Over the weekend, we spotted that the “Save to Google” extension for Chrome was set to be discontinued next month. The reasoning behind that is still unclear, but the scheduled deprecation of another Google-made extension makes more sense.
Unbeknownst to most users, Google has long featured native “Save” functionality to bookmark links and images. First built into Image Search and later the Search app on Android, Google also maintained a Chrome extension to save pages. However, Google is set to kill that client next month, thus sending mixed signals on the future of the feature.
Back in 2016, Google Translate began leveraging Neural Machine Translation to drastically improve the quality of translations. Just last month, Google announced that NMT now works completely offline on mobile. The service is now seeing an odd occurrence where inputting gibberish outputs readable passages.
Last month, we opined how YouTube could save a lot of creator frustration by just being more transparent, especially in regards to A/B testing of new features. CEO Susan Wojcicki acknowledged that today in a post that also provides a “mid-year update” on what the video site is working on.
Hangouts Chat is Google’s Slack competitor for enterprise and businesses. Made available to G Suite accounts earlier this year, Google is now rolling out a Material Theme redesign for the service.
With “Download Your Data,” Google allows users to get a copy of their data if they ever want to switch to a different service. Google, along with Twitter, Facebook, and Microsoft, is now taking this a step further by directly transferring data between different products to make switching seamless.
In recent months, Google Images has picked up a number of interfaces tweaks and other functionality changes. The latest sees Image Search testing a new design on the web that features a card-like photo viewer and pill-shaped carousel.
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Instagram has today rolled out a new feature to let users see when their friends are on the platform and available to chat.
Google Voice came back into the spotlight earlier this year, and since then Google has been updating the app periodically. This week, the company has quietly rolled out a new bottom bar navigation interface for the app for some users.
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The visual redesign of Google Assistant first unveiled at I/O 2018 officially began rolling out yesterday. Touted by many as the successor to the original vision for Google Now, the new feature even replaces the Google app’s “Upcoming” tab.
Over the past year, Google has been slowly returning to China via partnerships, investments, and apps. The latest is not a standalone application, but rather a drawing mini game for WeChat where machine learning plays a major role.
Late last month, a company using the Google Cloud Platform had an incident where a critical application was immediately suspended by Google without warning. This was a cause for alarm given how many apps today run in the cloud. Google today announced a series of improvements to prevent any more sudden suspensions.