Google rebranded its IoT operating system in late 2016 with a focus on making it easier for existing Android developers to build smart devices. The company today launched the final developer preview ahead of the upcoming stable release.
Launched last year, Google’s AIY Projects are simple hardware kits for building AI-powered devices like an Assistant speaker and a camera with image recognition capabilities. With a clear use case in schools and STEM, Google is releasing updated 2018 kits that are easier to assemble and more widely available.
Last year, Google launched do-it-yourself artificial intelligence hardware kits for both voice and later image recognition. A new Android companion app released today makes it even easier to set up and get the kits online after assembly.
In recent months, Google has targeted “intrusive ads” that result in bad user experiences and lead to aggressive blocking of all advertising. Chrome’s ad blocker launched in February to help mitigate this problem, but another Google initiative called “Funding Choices” is seeing a wider launch and more features in the coming weeks.
One particular advancement driven by machine learning is the ability for computers to understand natural language, with Google showcasing these improvements with Smart Reply. Its Research division has been exploring other applications and today releasing two fun and interesting demos.
Due to the deluge of Assistant news at CES 2018, you might have missed that Google was demoing Android Auto between phones and car head units without a cable. Android Auto Wireless went live earlier this week for Pixel and Nexus devices, with non-Google phones coming soon.
This morning, a report came out explaining that a research firm discovered some Android OEMs were lying to customers about their device’s current security patch. Thankfully, there’s an app called ‘SnoopSnitch’ that allows you to check if your phone is running the security patches that the phone claims to be running…
For Pixel and Pixel 2 owners, the stellar camera is further complimented by whimsical features like AR Stickers. Launched in December and hitting 1.1 earler this year, version 1.2 is now rolling out with live previews for animated stickers, while more packs are getting unbundled into separate listings.
Google began alerting G Suite admins today that a “new Gmail experience” would be previewed in the coming weeks. This afternoon, the web redesign, with features like Smart Reply, snoozing, and widget-like plugins, has leaked.
At Mobile World Congress 2018, Google announced a wider rollout for Lens in both Assistant and Photos, and new features like improved support for recognizing animals. This ability to recognize different cat and dog breeds is now going live for users.
At Cloud Next ’17, Google quietly announced a revamp to Gmail that focuses on intelligent features like smart reply and groupings. Now, over a year later, an Early Access Program for a “new Gmail experience” is launching in “the coming weeks.”
Last Wednesday, Google finally announced that VoIP would be coming to Google Voice for Android and the web. A beta program allows users to test out the feature before a wider release, with the first sign-ups getting the feature enabled on their accounts.
Google announced a beta for its Phone app this afternoon, with spam filtering as one of the first features. Today’s first beta also contains some other changes like the bottom bar redesign that we enabled several versions ago and tweaks to voicemail transcription.
The Google Phone app received a major update in February that added a convenient chat head for quick in-call controls. In the coming weeks, the default dialer for Pixel, Nexus, and Android One devices is adding spam filtering, with a new beta program to try the feature out now.
Last October, YouTube began testing automatically playing video in the Home feed of the mobile app. This evening, “Autoplay on Home” is widely rolling out to the Android client.
If you’re like most Galaxy S9 and S9+ owners, you probably never use the physical Bixby button found on the side of your device. Thankfully, instead of just disabling the button altogether, an app called bxActions works surprising well at remapping the button to launch different apps or actions.
Google recently added inline answers from Stack Overflow in the Search results of certain queries. The search engine now appears to be testing a similar carousel for results from Quora.
Following last month’s Cloud Text-to-Speech update that added more natural voices through DeepMind WaveNet models, Google is now revamping the inverse of that API. Cloud Speech-to-Text is today gaining its “largest overhaul” for business clients since it launched in 2016.
Coachella and YouTube have long been partners with the latter livestreaming the concert series. This year, the rest of Google is joining with an Assistant Action for Home and phones, while the Made by Google team is continuing its advertising blitz with Pixel photo booths.
Since its launch in 2016, Google Assistant has undergone several redesigns to the primary interface, settings, and Explore. The latest introduces a new UI for the initial onboarding experience that welcomes users to Google’s smart assistant.
With version 8.0 of the Play Store last June, Google began testing very convenient inline changelogs for app updates. Ten months later, this useful feature is finally widely rolling out to all users.
Whether you’re going on vacation overseas or just want to be able to navigate around town without draining your data plan, you can download different areas within Google Maps to use while offline. Here’s how.
Third-party Twitter clients are often handicapped by the platform by a limit of 100,000 users for new developers and are not able to implement features found in the official client. The latest restriction threatens to impact fundamental features like push notifications and automatic timeline refresh.
Back in 2016, Weather Timeline developer Sam Ruston created a highly customizable Twitter client for Android. It’s been updated to stay current with the Material Design guidelines and is often quick to add support for new Android features. Unfortunately, earlier this week, the app was unpublished from the Play Store as it nears its Twitter token limit.