News and notes on the latest from Google.
Wear OS, Google’s smartwatch platform based on Android, isn’t as popular as the big names like the Apple Watch or Samsung Galaxy Watch. But thankfully, Google hasn’t abandoned it just yet and seems to be investing a lot more in the platform. Today, Fossil announced that Google is buying a portion of its ‘smartwatch technology’ and R&D team for $40 million.
Continue reading “Google bought $40 million of smartwatch tech from Fossil including some personnel”
Back in November of last year, we got our first look at the ‘Pixel 3 Lite,’ and just last month, it was rumored that Google would launch this potential budget phone on Verizon in spring of this year. Today, a video of a pre-production version of the Pixel 3 Lite has surfaced.
Continue reading “Pixel 3 Lite leaks yet again in new review video”
Android Q isn’t even out in beta form yet, but XDA-Developers has managed to get their hands on an early build of it. Found inside was a dark mode, an app permissions revamp, a possible Samsung DeX equivalent, and many other smaller features.
Continue reading “Early Android Q leak has a system-wide dark mode, permissions revamp, and more”
Earlier this week, the G Suite team published a blog post informing users that the Google Docs suite of web apps would be getting a new look. In the coming weeks, Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Sites will be updated with Material Theme visual improvements while functionality will remain unchanged.
Continue reading “Material Theme is coming to Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Sites”
The At A Glance widget on Pixel phones and as a widget through the Google app is a nifty and minimal tool that displays the date, your current location’s weather, and (sometimes) notifies you of traffic updates. However, since about last Friday, I and many other users on the beta for the Google app noticed that the weather part went missing.
Continue reading “It’s not just you—the latest Google app beta broke the At A Glance weather widget”
Linux support in beta on Chrome OS reached the stable channel just last year, and it’s made the operating system so much more productive. Today, a commit on the Chromium Gerrit was discovered that will add an even easier way to install Linux apps on Chrome OS.
Continue reading “Chrome OS will soon let you install Linux applications right from the launcher”
After more than two years since Google announced RCS support in its native messaging app for Android, support for the SMS/MMS replacement has finally come to its MVNO carrier, Google Fi.
Continue reading “Google Fi picks up RCS support with faster international coverage on the way”
Google Assistant is going big (I didn’t say useful) at CES this year. The Assistant is getting new features and is being built into almost everything, lock, stock, and barrel. Here’s a brief overview of every new device, device-integration, and feature Google has announced so far.
Continue reading “Here’s what all Google announced for the Assistant at CES”
It’s a new year and Google’s monthly security updates are here. This time, Google claims the video sound quality bug on the Pixel 3 is fixed but the Nexus phones are finally left behind.
Continue reading “January patches for Pixel devices now available”
If you have an exposed network router, chances are, that you might be the next target of an ongoing attack. Security researchers TheHackerGiraffe and j3ws3r are currently running an attack/information awareness campaign, hacking networks where UPnP port forwarding is enabled.
