Google

Flesky, a popular third-party keyboard option for Android, is rolling out version 3.0 that brings a refreshed user-interface design, new premium features, and more languages. Fleksy makes typing on smartphones quicker using a combination of advanced text prediction and an iOS QuickType-like function for predicting the next complete word in a sentence.

Today’s refreshed design brings clearer letters and new color tones. Besides the included color variations, users of the paid version of Fleshy from Google Play will be able to purchase additional themes through the keyboard’s settings. There will be six paid themes, and paid Fleksy users will receive one premium download at no cost. Fleksy is also bringing 17 new languages out of beta and enhancing the 40 previously available languages.

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[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15uIFmysZV4]

Let’s face it, when companies are interviewed at tech conferences, they talk about all kinds of crazy stuff that will never be launched – like the idea of wearing a digital tattoo to unlock your phone. Except this time, more than a year after first discussing the idea at the D11 conference last May, Motorola has actually done it and is showing it off in a new video …
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Last week, screenshots of an upcoming Play Store redesign leaked, showing off a much cleaner, Material Design inspired design, and today, the update finally started rolling out to users. The update bumps the Play Store to version 4.9.13 and packs a variety of enhancements and changes.

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In April of this year, it was announced that JW Player would soon be adding support for the Chromecast, and today the feature finally went live for everyone. For those unfamiliar, the JW Player platform powers a variety of popular websites including ESPN and millions of others. With today’s release of JW Player 6.9, it just got a whole lot easier to view web video on your TV.

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A report out today thanks to the Wall Street Journal says that Google tried to buy Spotify late last year. The person familiar with the matter says that talks fell through for a variety of reasons, but a big one was that the company was asking a very high price in order to be bought out. Also, the person says that Larry Page isn’t quite fond of subscription services in general, and it doesn’t seem that helped negotiations much.

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Google has expanded its catalog of online training courses offered in partnership with educational website Udacity with a new course called “Developing Scalable Apps,” teaching Java developers how to build apps using the Google App Engine. The course costs $150 per month to enroll, providing projects with ongoing feedback, guidance from coaches and verified certificates.
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Uber, the app-based car service that Google recently sunk $250M into via its Google Ventures investment arm, today announced that its cars in Philadelphia this summer will have free WiFi courtesy of Google. Google also made an announcement on its own blog noting that the initiative is sponsored by Google Apps for Businesses, the online suite of productivity tools that Google hopes users in the back of the new WiFi-equipped Uber vehicles will take advantage of. 
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Google is once again facing backlash from the Italian government. Earlier this year, an Italian antitrust regulator spoke out in disapproval of the company’s freemium app sales model and now, the country’s data protection regulator has given Google an ultimatum to change its data collection practices. The regulator today gave Google 18 months to change the way it treats and stores user data. This is a continuation of the investigation that Google has been undergoing in Europe for some time now.

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Google today updated its Chromecast website with a few notable and worthwhile enhancements. Previously on the site, you could only view a selection of the apps with Chromecast support, but with today’s refresh, you can now view all of the apps with support for the streaming stick. That number has been growing rapidly recently, but there is a search option on the new site, as well. Though, the search functionality is still rather limited and not as robust as the Play Store.

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Setting Google Now reminders by voice is all very well when you’re walking down the street, but you can feel just a little self-conscious doing it in an open-plan office or coffee-shop. Google now allows you to add reminders by typing them directly into the searchbar on your laptop, reveals the Google Blog.

You don’t have to use the mobile Google Search app to add reminders. Just search Google for add reminder or create reminder, enter a name, a date or a place. You can also enter specific queries like: add reminder to buy milk tomorrow or create reminder to buy sandwich when I am in Chicago. Just click “remind me on Google Now” …

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Following pressure from the European Commission, Google has announced that it is making changes to how it brands and advertises apps with in-app purchases on the Play Store. This comes after the EU accusing Apple of taking too long to change its in-app purchase policy.

Google says that it will no longer use the word “free” when advertising games that support in-app purchases. It will also work to come up with guidelines for games and developers to prevent them from encouraging children to buy items using in-app purchases. Finally,  Google will also implement measures to monitor for breaches of European Union Law. Google plans to implement all of these changes starting at the end of September.

Meanwhile, the EU criticized Apple and said that it has “regrettably” not provided any changes or a timetable for changes to change their “misleading” in-app purchase measures.

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Google Alerts quietly received a redesign overnight, gaining a brand new user interface that closer aligns with the appearance of other Google web services. In addition to a streamlined user interface, the service is also more automated now and offers alert suggestions for your name and email address, popular tech companies, athletes, celebrities, countries, places, industries and more. 
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Google has published its annual Economic Impact Report (PDF) that reveals some interesting statistics about how the web and its tools are helping American businesses. Last year, the report claims that Google tools helped generate $111 billion of economic activity for 1.5 million businesses, web-based publishers and non-profit organizations across the United States. 
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Google this afternoon updated its Maps app on Android to version 8.2 with a plethora of new features, enhancements, and changes. The biggest changes come to the biking routes that Maps offers. With this update, biking routes now show elevation, including the ability to compare the elevations for various routes. This, of course, means that you can now easily tell which bike routes will be the easiest on your legs. This feature is listed as beta for now, though.

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According to a new report out of The Information, the already tense relationship between Samsung and Google has begun to worsen thanks to both of their own lines of wearables. The report claims that Google CEO Larry Page and Samsung Vice Chairman Jay Y. Lee took part in an a “tense” private meeting at the Allen & Co. conference last week in Sun Valley. The meeting reportedly centered around Page being frustrated that Samsung was investing more in its smartwatches running Tizen than the ones running Android Wear.

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Google has began rolling out an experimental feature on its search engine that makes it easier to find live events on YouTube or Hangouts on Air. A live event will begin showing up in search results up to 3 hours before it starts, providing users with a link that takes them to the event page to watch. A card-like box appears at the top of Google when searching for the name or author of live events. 
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When Android Wear first launched, it was unclear whether Google was going to be offering official support for third-party watch faces. This uncertainty definitely didn’t stop developers from just going ahead and making some, but Google has today come out to say that they’re “hard at work” on an official watch face API.

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