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Google+ rolling out better community moderation, improved notifications, photo comments, and more

Google+ is the odd one out in the social space. Despite millions of users who love the service, it always seems to be the forgotten platform. For those who are using Google+, today Google has announced several major updates coming to the platform just ahead of a switch to the new UI which was announced last year.


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Google is offering $20 Play Store credits to Canadian Chromecast/Chromecast Audio owners

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There are already a lot of good reasons to own a Chromecast, and from time to time Google gives us yet another. Free offers seem to be constantly coming with the Chromecast, including everything from free Spotify and Google Play Music trials to free rentals over on Google Play. Sadly though, most of these offers are limited to US owners. To show a little love for our friends up north, Google now has an offer exclusive for users in Canada.


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Google is working on using neural networks to make image files sizes smaller

Storage space is something that both consumers and tech giants have issues with at some point or another, and a big reason for that is photos. Some users host thousands of photos on their device at any given time, and with services like Google Photos, Google is hosting millions of photos with more coming everyday. Now the company is working on a new JPEG compression method that allows smaller files sizes compared to current standards, and it’s all done using neural networks


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Pages with intrusive ads will soon be getting a ranking penalty in Google Search

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If you’re a user of the internet (which you are, because you’re reading this site), then Google’s latest post to its Webmaster Central Blog is great news. If you’re a publisher or webmaster that likes to bombard users with intrusive ads, however, then you might want to look away.

In an effort to “improve the mobile search experience,” Google has announced today that it will soon begin penalizing sites in Google Search when it finds that the ads (or, more broadly, the interstitials) they serve users are too intrusive…


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Google’s VR platform, Daydream, to launch ‘in the coming weeks’ with exclusive content

With the release of Android 7.0 Nougat, Google is moving past the Summer break and springing right into the dense, final months of the year with a series of exciting announcements, which more or less span across all of its properties. With software comes hardware, too, but while we may have to wait just a tad longer for the upcoming Nexus devices to be unveiled officially, VR may be really close…


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Apparently you can find nearby businesses by searching ‘**’ on Google

Google is seemingly testing a new feature in search: the ability to quickly find locations nearby with a search query. It doesn’t appear to be working for everyone, but apparently when some search for “**” (don’t forget to drop the quotation marks), users get a list business that are physically near to you…


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Hands-on with 5 Android apps you should download in August 2016 [Video]

There are nearly 1.5 million applications currently on Google Play and with so many to choose from, finding interesting new experiences can be a hassle. As we have the last couple of months now, today we’ll be showing you another 5 Android apps that you should definitely give a shot…


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Google is working on ‘Fuchsia,’ a new operating system that isn’t based on Linux

As per a new Google project over on Github, the company is working on a brand new operating system. The new OS, currently dubbed Fuchsia, would add to Google’s current operating system offerings, namely Android and Chrome OS. This wouldn’t be an upgrade or replacement for either, but rather something completely standalone. Where it differs is in the fact that Fuchsia is not based on Linux — as both Android and Chrome OS are…


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Chris Urmson and two other early members of Google’s self-driving car project are leaving

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The long-time CTO and director of Alphabet’s self-driving car project is leaving the Mountain View company, according to a report this afternoon from Recode. Urmson has been on the project for seven years, and two other early — and crucial — members of the project, including Jiajun Zhu and Dave Ferguson are also leaving the project reports say…


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Google & Dashlane introduce a new open source password manager API called ‘Open YOLO’

We all have a million passwords to keep track of, so tools that can help us keep them secure and also make them easier to use are always great. To make keeping track of passwords easier, Google has worked with Dashlane to create a new password management API called “Open YOLO” — which stands for “You Only Login Once.”


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Here’s how to pre-order the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 on AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile

Samsung finally took the wraps off its new Galaxy Note 7 earlier today, but as usual, pre-ordering the phone isn’t exactly the easiest thing to do. As mentioned by Samsung earlier today, the Note 7 going to be available on all four of the major US carriers, but each one is going about pre-orders and special offers in a different way. Keep reading for the full rundown…


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APK teardown hints at future support for image comments on Google+

Google+ has never been the “popular” social network, but 5 years after its creation the social network is still here and still has a strong user base. Over the coming months there are several big changes coming to the platform, including a new UI for the web, but one feature we’ve lacked is the ability to add an image in the comments section. That feature, however, is apparently on its way.


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PSA: Project Fi, Google Hangouts offering free calls to France in wake of recent attack

After a tragic attack in Nice, France, Google has announced tonight that it will be offering free voice calls to the country. These free calls will be available through Google Hangouts (Google Voice) as well as Project Fi. For those in the area, Google will also be pushing Google Now cards with critical updates on the situation.


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Google’s new emoji will improve gender equality by representing both male & female

Following a proposal by Google earlier this year, the Unicode Technical Committee today approved a new set of emoji that aims to improve gender equality.

More than 90 percent of the world’s online population use emoji. But while there’s a huge range of emoji, there aren’t a lot that highlight the diversity of women’s careers, or empower young girls…. the emoji representing women aren’t exactly, well, representative. So we’ve been working to make things better.


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Hangouts for Android v11 finally adds video messaging [Update: And removes merged conversations]

Update: Google has confirmed that Hangouts v11 removes the ability to merged SMS and Hangouts conversations into a single thread. Google says they have done this “because it caused user confusion and had low usage”.


After what seems like an eternity, Google has finally updated Hangouts for Android with video messaging capabilities with version 11 of the app. Hangouts for iOS gained this same functionality early this year and after months of waiting, Android users finally have access…


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PSA: Pokémon Go is getting full access to Google Accounts for iPhone players

Update: Niantic has issued the following statement:

We recently discovered that the Pokémon Go account creation process on iOS erroneously requests full access permission for the user’s Google account. However, Pokémon Go only accesses basic Google profile information (specifically, your User ID and email address) and no other Google account information is or has been accessed or collected.

Once we became aware of this error, we began working on a client-side fix to request permission for only basic Google profile information, in line with the data that we actually access. Google has verified that no other information has been received or accessed by Pokémon Go or Niantic. Google will soon reduce Pokémon Go’s permission to only the basic profile data that Pokémon Go needs, and users do not need to take any actions themselves.


Google lets you see the apps connected to your account at the My Account section of its website, and today we noticed something interesting: Pokémon Go, the new hit smartphone game that’s pretty much taking over the world, is getting full access to many users’ Google accounts. That’s the same privilege that Google Chrome and Chromecast get. Currently, this appears to affect those that have used the Google sign in feature in the iOS app…


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