The launch of Google’s Pixel 8 series also came with the announcement that Google would start producing Pixel phones out of India directly. Now, that’s finally started as the first Pixel 8 phones made in India are coming off of the production lines.
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Following the European expansion at the start of June, Google is bringing the Gemini app and the latest Gemini Advanced features to India. There’s also some new Gemini in Google Messages developments.
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Google has today announced that, starting next year, it will begin manufacturing Pixel smartphones in India.
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Google announced today how Android and the Play Store will change to comply with recent regulatory rulings in India.
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Google has been under intense scrutiny for its practice of requiring certain apps to be installed on Android phones, and now India is the latest country to hit Google with a multimillion-dollar fine.
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As we spotted in development last year, Google Messages will now “automatically sort your messages into categories.” This feature, along with auto-deleting one-time passwords (OTPs), is rolling out starting in India.
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Last year, Google announced a $1 billion licensing program to support publishers and surface new card-based content across services. Google News Showcase is now coming to India.
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For the past several years, Google has not provided meaningful details about the progress of its smartphone division beyond occasionally touting the popularity of its cheaper devices. A new report today sheds some light on the Pixel line, including the 4a, in India.
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The Google Opinion Rewards app has long allowed users to answer questions and surveys in exchange for Play Store credits. Google is now trialing “Task Mate” in India to “earn money doing simple tasks on your smartphone.”
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On Android and iOS, you can point Google Lens at a street sign or document to have it translated and read aloud. Google is now bringing Lens to smart feature phones running KaiOS in India.
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On Monday, Google announced that it would invest $10 billion in India’s digital economy over the coming years. The first move by this Google For India Digitization Fund is a $4.5 billion Jio investment and Android partnership.
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Over the past 18 months, YouTube Premium and Music Premium has expanded around the world. Rolled out to India in March, the Google video site is particularly popular and competitive.
At Google for India 2019 today, the company announced an Assistant phone line for the country and the Google Pay Spot platform. Meanwhile, more Indian languages are coming to Google products, while an Assistant interpreter mode for Android was detailed.
Google’s efforts with payments for India were merged into the Google Pay app not long ago, and today the company is announcing a revamp. With the new “Spot” platform for Google Pay, businesses can craft an experience for their customers within the app.
Google Assistant is currently the most powerful voice assistant on the planet, but it’s useless without an internet connection. To help those who want to get answers from the Assistant, Google has partnered with Vodafone in India to give the service a dedicated phone line to access Google Assistant.
Amid a slew of Android TV developments over the weekend, Google is announcing one more. In India, Android-powered set-top devices are adding a Data Saver to reduce usage and extend watch time, as well as a handful of related features.
Today Google’s head of India and South-East Asia has left the company. Rajan Anandan announced that after 8 years, he would be departing his role at Google to be filled by the company’s president of Asia Pacific.
In addition to making in-house hardware, Google in recent years has doubled down on internal chip development to reduce its dependency on traditional vendors, and offer a more integrated experience. A new report today details how Google is hiring aggressively in India to aid with the development process.
Shopping is an important area for Google in light of major competition from Amazon. The company has worked to simplify voice shopping on Google Home, add style search to Lens, and expand its Express delivery service. Google Shopping today is getting a new home page, starting in India.
India and similar developing countries in Southeast Asia and Africa are where Google expects the “Next Billion Users” to come online. Given the different environments, the company is optimizing and creating new products to suit those needs. Today, Google announced and expanded a slew of India-specific features, including Station, Google Go, Assistant, and more.
Google this year published a series of internal AI training resources originally developed for its engineers. Since then, the Machine Learning Crash Course has been updated with an image classification practicum. This July, Google is bringing the program to India via in-person sessions.
Google often develops products and adds new features designed for developing countries that have different factors and environments. The latest is aimed at making sure users always have fresh content to read. Chrome for Android can now automatically download content for offline viewing when connected to free and unmetered Wi-Fi networks.
India is a very important market for tech companies, with Google referring to the entire region as where the “next billion users” will come from. To that extent, it has launched a number of specialized products, with the latest being Knowledge Graph cards in Search for exam results.
