News and notes on the latest from Google.
Today, during Samsung’s Developer Conference, Samsung is clearly still fighting to increase the popularity of Bixby in the voice assistant market. So far, Bixby hasn’t been a favorite for a lot of people (and all for the right reasons). From its slow response time to often returning the wrong results and not to mention the existence of the “Bixby button” in new phones, people often complained a lot on social media.
Continue reading “Samsung is opening up Bixby to developers”
Google announced Duo, its consumer-oriented video calling app, way back at I/O 2016. Now, Google’s doing more to invite other users to the platform. If you’re in India, you can invite others to Duo and earn cash rewards in Google Pay.
Continue reading “Google will now reward you for inviting people to Duo in India”
Waze has been a competitor to Google Maps for quite a while. In addition to simply routing you somewhere, Waze provides information about traffic, construction, police, crashes, and more in real-time. Google had bought Waze, but none of its features have been assimilated into Google Maps ever since. However, according to a report from Android Police, Google is testing crash and speed reporting in Maps, a subset of the features Waze offers.
Continue reading “Google is testing crash and speed trap reporting in Maps”
Android, the operating system that runs on 88% of all smartphones today has turned eleven years old. Today marks the 11th anniversary of the first Android beta to the public. A week later, the SDK and a ton of information about the OS came out.
Advertising in general on the internet has degraded in the last few years, with malware and scam-ridden popups on websites becoming a major issue. With many browsers adding AdBlock, Google Chrome is one of the late entrants in the ad-blocking enabled browsers. Starting with Chrome 71, which is expected to roll out to stable in December, Google will block all ads it deems “abusive” in nature.
Continue reading “Google Chrome v71 will block abusive ads entirely”
With Google’s recent Play Store policy mandating that all new apps published to the Play Store and all app updates target at least Android 8.0, I’m curious as to how many of the apps installed on your primary device target an older Android version (or API). To find out, there’s a nifty app on the Play Store that lets you do so.
Continue reading “Weekend Poll: What percentage of your apps target an older version of Android?”
The rumor mill surrounding us getting “foldable smartphones” has never been more prominent than today. Smartphones in 2018 are fast, powerful and have an almost edge to edge displays that make us think that we are living in the future. So naturally, we think to ourselves, after we are able to get pure, edge to edge notch-less displays, what comes next? You are right. Foldable smartphones.
Continue reading “The first foldable smartphone is here — and it’s exactly what we expected”
Google’s Project Fi, an MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator), is all set to lose its “Project” status and be rebranded as simply “Google Fi.” Fi is currently tied up with carrier companies Sprint, T-Mobile, Three, and US Cellular with whom they offer plans which many users would find lucrative, depending on their usage.
Continue reading “Google’s Project Fi set to be rebranded as Google Fi”
Love it, hate it, ignore it… the notch is here and the Pixel 3 XL’s notch is an absolute unit. Unfortunately, some Pixel 3 XL users are occasionally greeted by another notch on the side, often when auto-rotation is enabled. In other words, a bug seems to be causing notches to appear on the sides of some Pixel 3 XL devices.
Continue reading “Some Pixel 3 XL users are experiencing an extra notch on the side of their screen”
The OnePlus 6T, after lots of leaks, rumors, and teasers, is now available. It does come with a price increase as usual, but starting at $549, it’s still a great choice. It’s been updated with an in-display fingerprint scanner, teardrop notch, and a battery bump to 3700 mAh. Quite an upgrade from the OnePlus 6.
