Stay up to date on news from Google headquarters. Be the first to learn about plans for Android, Google Plus, Google Apps, and more!
Spotted by a Redditor in /r/AndroidWear, we’ve learned that a recent update that we reported on to Google Play Music brought with it a nice new feature for owners of Android Wear smartwatches…
When Google CEO Larry Page announced the formation of a new division, Sidewalk Labs, to “improve city life for residents, businesses and governments,” it was all a bit vague. The company has now got rather more specific, stating that its vision is to bring free, high-speed wifi to every city street worldwide – and that New York is first in line.
[We will] make cities connected places where you can walk down any street and access free ultra high-speed Wi-Fi, find transit and wayfinding information, access information about city services
To kick things off, Sidewalk Labs has acquired the two companies behind LinkNYC, and is partnering with Qualcomm and Comark to turn up to 10,000 phone booths into communications hubs offering free gigabit WiFi across New York City …
Expand
Expanding
Close
Following similar actions by Amazon and eBay, Google today announced that it is removing all goods with Confederate flag symbols from its Shopping service and Ad network. The move comes following a tragic shooting in South Carolina last week that took the li
Motorola launched the Moto Hint alongside the 2014 Moto X and Moto G last year, and it quickly became known as one of the better — albeit also more expensive — offerings on the market for those on the lookout for a Bluetooth headset. That still holds true today, but now Motorola is offering the Moto Hint at its online store for a cool $50 off the original price, down to just $100. It’s the lowest price we’ve seen, and it looks like some third-party retailers on Amazon are matching that price (at least for the darker colored model, which is currently going for $100.89).
Expand
Expanding
Close
Keep up with the best gear and deals on the web by signing up for the 9to5Toys Newsletter. Also, be sure to check us out on: Twitter, RSS Feed, Facebook, Google+ and Safari push notifications.
Google Calendar is out with an improved version for the iPhone today with version 1.1. The list of changes is short but the improvements should be welcome.
The update includes integration with Google Drive so users can connect files with events on your calendar. Interactive notifications now include the ability to open directions from alerts or respond to guests via email. Finally, users can now see week numbers next to the calendar and more entries using the week view.
Google Calendar for iPhone is available for free on the App Store. Version 1.1 follows the initial launch in mid-March. Full release notes below:
Expand
Expanding
Close
Following last month’s launch in Turkey, Google has today announced that Android One is now expanding to its eighth country: Myanmar. Cnsumers will be able to buy the Cherry Mobile One in the country, and like all Android One phones, it runs the latest version of Android 5.1.1 Lollipop. The hardware is definitely in the budget range, however, and starting June 26, the device will be available for purchase at retail in Myanmar, starting at Ks 109,000.
Since they’re such an important part of our lives, the experience of a smartphone matters a lot. Last year, Googlelaunched the Android One program to help put high-quality, up-to-date devices into the hands of as many people as possible. Following the launch in India nine months ago, Android One has expanded to six additional countries: Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Turkey — and today, we’re excited to add Myanmar to that list, working in partnership with Cherry Mobile. That makes eight.
Google originally launched the Android One initiative in India followings its announcement at Google I/O 2014. Following that, Android One made its way to Bangladesh, Nepal, Sir Lanka, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Turkey. You can find the official announcement of Android One’s entrance in Myanmar over at the Google Asia Pacific blog. Google says it hopes to “put great smartphones into the hands of more people across Myanmar,” and that more devices will launch soon.
Every so often, Google officially comes out and tells the world about a project they’ve been working on inside Google X. In recent years we’ve heard about the glucose contact lens for diabetes patients, Google Glass, the self-driving car, and more. Now, Google has debuted (via Bloomberg), a new health-tracking wristband capable of monitoring heart rate, heart rhythm, skin temperature, and other useful information such as light exposure and noise levels…
Expand
Expanding
Close
Google has lately been shuffling around its notification menu, most recently adding separate Google Photos notifications that tell you when the newly-launched “Assistant” has made a collage, video, or GIF from your library. But there might be some people who don’t want to see their Google Photos notifications (or perhaps more likely, those who don’t want to see their Google+ notifications), and Google has today launched an accommodation for those circumstances. There’s now a familiar gear icon in the notification drop-down that lets you access a new “Settings” page for toggling which notifications you want to receive…
Expand
Expanding
Close
Google has announced today that it is expanding the types of images it supports when converting Microsoft Office files to Google Docs. Previously, supported image file types included JPEG, PNG, EMF, and WMF. Now, a greater number of less common image types are also supported. Google Docs can now convert larger images, more file formats (specifically including TIFF), and images with color profiles other than RGB.
Starting today, larger images, images in less common formats (like TIFF), and images with non-RGB color profiles (like CMYK), can also be imported to and exported from the Google Docs editors on the web successfully. Check out the Help Center for more information on converting files in Docs, Sheets, and Slides.
This is a useful update if you commonly find that your Microsoft Office documents aren’t being properly converted when moving them to Google Docs — or, likewise, when you’re exporting them to use in Word, Excel, or PowerPoint. You can head over to the Google Apps blog to read the original post, and Google sends you to the Help Center if you need more information about importing and exporting documents.
Dropbox fans, you’re in luck – version 3.0.0 is completely redesigned to follow Google’s Material Design guidelines.
Keep up with the best gear and deals on the web by signing up for the 9to5Toys Newsletter. Also, be sure to check us out on: Twitter, RSS Feed, Facebook, Google+ and Safari push notifications.
Take 20% off GoPro’s HERO4 Black 4K Action Camera: $399 (Reg. $500) http://t.co/b0zCGYoPs5 pic.twitter.com/nkJA1OXOAx
— 9to5Toys (@9to5toys) June 22, 2015
Free Redbox video game rental http://t.co/b0zCGYoPs5 pic.twitter.com/FhSnrY4XSQ
— 9to5Toys (@9to5toys) June 22, 2015
Avid Foursquare junkies (myself included), rejoice – mayorships are back, just now in the Swarm app. You can become the mayor of a place by checking into it more than anyone else in the last 30 days, and only one check-in per day counts towards your rank.
Update: What’s that? Oh, just the smell of change. After initially standing firm on its implementation of the hotwording module and proprietary Google extension being automatically downloaded in new installations of the Chromium open source browser, a wave of criticism has led to the team pulling it out of Chromium 45 and onwards. The module that manages whether the hotword listening extension is enabled will be “disabled by default” and the proprietary technology that actually listens for “Ok Google” will not download. A member of the team says simply:
In light of this issue, we have decided to remove the hotwording component entirely from Chromium. As it is not open source, it does not belong in the open source browser.
The original story continues below.
It all started with a blinking LED light. Ofer Zelig wrote on his blog today about an odd case where the LED light on his computer, that turns on whenever the microphone or camera is activated, seemed to blink every few seconds or so while he was working on his PC. He investigated in the Windows Task Manager to look for any process that might be to blame – no dice. He shut down some suspicious processes that might have been causing it and says he didn’t have any malware installed, but still to no avail. Turns out, the culprit was none other than Google’s Chrome browser…
As reported by users on Twitter, Google has updated its cached link toolbar with new ways to view website snapshots. Cached webpages can now be viewed in their full glory with all styling intact, in a text-only version that strips all styling, or viewed by their source, meaning you can view the code behind the cached webpage.
Here’s what visiting the text-only cached version of Google.com looks like:
The company every so often will take a snapshot of a website and save it to its cache, so the page can still be viewable in the event that the website its hosted on becomes inaccessible. You can access the cached version of a webpage, like the one above, by searching for it on Google, clicking on the green down arrow directly to the right of a result URL, and clicking “Cached.” Click here to see the cached page for Google.com.
Google only ever makes its Android developer preview versions available on its own Nexus devices – these devices are designed partly with developer modification and testing in mind, after all. But Sony has gone ahead and done the necessary legwork to make the preview version of Android M work on those of its devices in its Open Device program, and even has a handy guide on how to install it.
Ensuring a device can run the M Developer preview without too many issues, device manufacturers have to include in the software support (drivers) for all the hardware – the chipset, connectivity radios, etc. Over on Sony’s Open Device page is a list of devices in the program along with two downloads to get M running, the AOSP (Android Open Source Project) – Android M itself – as well as software to get the hardware working properly on M. Only a couple of its smartphones and tablets are currently supported right now.
Google has this morning announced a new effort called News Lab, which is the company’s attempt at using its many resources and technologies to help usher in a new age of innovation in journalism. There are three basic tentpoles to what the company is doing here to empower journalists: tools, data, and programs.
Expand
Expanding
Close
Google’s Nexus Player may not be a substitute for a full-on games console, but if you want something which combines the casting capabilities of the cheaper Chromecast stick with some casual gaming capabilities, you can now pick one up for 35% off.
The official Asus store on Amazon is currently offering the device for $64.78, a saving of a little over $35.
The Nexus Player was the first device to get Android 5.1.1 back in April.
The 3rd generation Moto G (2015) is likely to be just around the corner, along with the much-rumored 3rd generation Moto X (2015). And while we got what is probably a nice peek at the upcoming Moto X thanks to Upleaks last weekend, this weekend a couple of other sources are sharing some information about the lower-end budget phone from the Lenovo-owned company. Sadly, at least based on this information, the Moto G (2015) seems to be a bit of a snooze fest…
Expand
Expanding
Close
Keep up with the best gear and deals on the web by signing up for the 9to5Toys Newsletter. Also, be sure to check us out on: Twitter, RSS Feed, Facebook, Google+ and Safari push notifications.
California’s Department of Motor Vehicles has released brief factual details of six accidents involving Google and Delphi self-driving cars, after the Associated Press successfully argued that legitimate public interest in the safety of the cars outweighed normal confidentiality rules. Self-driving cars were not found to be at fault in any of the accidents, and there were no injuries.
According to the reports, most of the cars were in self-driving mode when the accidents happened, and the other driver caused the accident. None of the crashes were serious enough to injure the person the state requires to sit behind the wheel, and the reports say none of the people in the other cars were treated for injuries either.
Five of the six accidents involved Google cars, and four of those were with the car in self-driving mode. The DMV was unaware of eight other accidents involving Google autonomous cars until the company shared the information during a conference call in April …
Expand
Expanding
Close
Google controls most of the search engine market in Europe, and as a result receives most ‘right to be forgotten’ requests, those things where individuals can request the de-listing of links to sensitive information about themselves that are deemed out-dated or irrelevant. But more than half of requests are denied, and of those that are appealed, most of those are too denied – which the European Union says is just fine.
Keep up with the best gear and deals on the web by signing up for the 9to5Toys Newsletter. Also, be sure to check us out on: Twitter, RSS Feed, Facebook, Google+ and Safari push notifications.
Burner, the popular app for creating throwaway phone numbers that can be used for making calls and sending text messages, has received a large update to its Android app today. The new app has three key additions, so let’s go through them.
The first major change you’ll notice upon updating the app is that it’s been completely redesigned. FABs (floating action buttons), new colors, transitions – the app now adheres to Google’s Material Design guidelines. You can see what the new app looks like above, but here’s a taste of what the app looked like before today’s update:
The next big change is the addition of unified inboxes. These will come in handy for Burner users who have more than one number in the app, placing all messages and missed calls into one inbox with color-coding so as you scroll through all your calls and messages or start replying to one, you’ll know which Burner number the message came through.
Finally, there’s now also an Android Wear app. But don’t worry, there’s no keyboard access – the app allows you to view notifications and messages, and reply using voice commands.
The company behind the app says that this update was built upon the feedback they’ve received from users, and that this is just the beginning of “a ton of new features that will be coming to Android.”