News and notes on the latest from Google.
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.
Recently, Privacy International analyzed 34 apps on Android, each with downloads from 10 to 500 million, and found that at least 61 percent of those apps automatically transfer data to Facebook the moment a user opens the app. This happens whether people have a Facebook account or not, or whether they are logged into Facebook or not.
Continue reading “Some popular Android apps send user data to Facebook without consent”
Back in March this year, Huawei shook the tech world with its then-flagship smartphone, the Huawei P20 Pro. Most notably was its camera capabilities especially in challengingly low light conditions. Indeed, Huawei was ahead of the curve in night photography, where the phone would tap into the dedicated NPU to take stellar hand-held low shutter speed photos no matter how shaky your hands are. Certainly, this left a lot of users in awe. But we all knew it was a matter of time before other manufacturers catch up with the trend.
Continue reading “OnePlus Nightscape vs. Gcam Night Sight: Which one is better?”
Any video calling app is incomplete without the support for group calls. Since the release of Duo, this was one of the most requested features, and according to the leaks uncovered by Android Police, it might be coming soon to Duo as well.
Continue reading “Google Duo is testing group video calls and low light mode”
