Latest Articles
Taking screenshots has officially become a little easier for those of us who have a device running Android 6.0. An update has begun to roll out to the Google App that adds a share button to Google Now on tap, which takes a screenshot and allows you to immediately share it. This is great news for some who have been having issues taking screenshots on their 6P while using certain cases, and for those who have trouble pressing multiple buttons at once. Let's take a quick look at how this works, and how it compares to the regular way of doing things.
Google Street View hit 2.0 back in September, and everyone who captures, uploads, and manages photo spheres cheered in unison. Performing any of these actions became easier after the app separated from Google Maps, but there is always room for improvement. Today, Google released a new version that adds a few features that will make life a little easier for doing certain things.
Google announced yesterday on their Lat Long Blog that the Local Guides program would be receiving one of the largest updates since its inception. Local Guides is a global community of people who love to contribute to Google Maps. These contributions come in the form of writing reviews, uploading photos, adding new places, answering questions, and fixing data about businesses. Millions of people around the world rely on information in Google Maps every day to navigate to their destination or choose where they want to eat dinner, so having more information at their disposal can only be a good thing. Becoming a Local Guide is as easy as visiting this sign-up page. Once enrolled, you are ready to start contributing.
Twitch has been the largest live streaming video platform for quite some time, and now they decided to push out an update that helps users protect their accounts. Two-Factor Authentication is now available on all Twitch accounts.
Every once in a while, we get a sneak peek into the new technology that companies are creating that will ultimately make something better, faster, or [adjective here]. Swiftkey recently launched the latest project from Swiftkey Greenhouse: Swiftkey Neural Alpha. This is the first keyboard on a smartphone that uses artificial neural networks to fix mistakes and predict words. Swiftkey currently utilizes n-gram technology to do this by looking for patterns and common phrases.
This past spring we heard that an upcoming partnership between Google, Intel, and TAG Heuer would result in a high-end Android Wear smartwatch. At that point, the rumors said it would be shipping in October or November and that it would come with a hefty price tag of $1400. Jean-Claude Biver, the CEO of TAG, told CNBC yesterday that the company would be unveiling its new smartwatch at an event on November 9th in New York.
Unless you have been living under a rock, you know that Google announced lots of new toys at the Nexus event today. Two of these devices are the Chromecast 2015 and the Chromecast Audio. After the event was over, they became available on the Google Store for $35. These Chromecasts will start shipping very soon, and some might be getting them tomorrow.
A couple of hours ago Google officially announced the Nexus 5X and the Nexus 6P, which are now both live on the Google Store. If you were able to pre-order one of these phones, you're probably wondering what accessories are going to be available. Well you don't have to wait at all to find out, because Google already has quite a few cases and cables on the Google Store for both devices. I'm going to cut right to the chase and dump all the information.
At Google IO this past June we saw the launch of many new products from Google, including Android M, Android Pay, and Project Brillo. The tech giant also launched Google Photos as its own service, which was previously tied down to Google+. Today we're going to dive into every corner of Google Photos and my experiences with it over the last few months.
This last spring, a couple of trolls took to Google Map Maker and created a park that looked like a bugdroid peeing on an Apple logo. Google's reaction to this was removing the ability to make edits using Map Maker altogether, and the community was told that the feature would be added in at a later time. A couple of weeks ago the service came back to life in six countries: Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, India, the Philippines, and Ukraine. Notably missing from this list is the United States. Well as of yesterday, the USA and 44 other countries were added to the countries open to edits.
Google Maps is arguably the best way to get from point A to point B, but it is also one of the best ways to explore places around you. From restaurants, to movie theaters, to state parks, Google Maps has all the information you could ever need. How does Google have information for all of these places? Surely there can't be a couple people sitting in Mountain View documenting every mom and pop shop in the world. In fact, most of the information that appears in Google Maps is there because of contributors. There are Googlers who help verify information, but the contributors are the people who add addresses, hours, reviews, etc. to locations that make up the guts of Google Maps.
A couple of months back, YouTube's intent to launch a gamer-focused video streaming service was revealed. And so we waited. Now that the appropriately named YouTube Gaming is finally here, it plans to go head to head with Twitch.tv - easily the most popular such service in the world. Google has a tremendous amount of experience in the video streaming space in the form of YouTube, but it has never offered anything that was geared toward gamers. YouTube Gaming is hailed as the brand-new service that aims to fill that gap.
