Pride Month is over, but the rainbow arcs over yonder. As such, Google is beginning to roll out some colorful new filters to its video calling app, Duo.
Read MorePride Month is over, but the rainbow arcs over yonder. As such, Google is beginning to roll out some colorful new filters to its video calling app, Duo.
Read MoreGoogle has been working on implementing live filters and effects for Duo video calls over the course of the past couple of years. We've seen a few of them pop up for special holidays like Holi and Valentine's Day, but today, we finally have a bank of 13 standard fare filters and effects to embarrass ourselves with when chatting with our colleagues, friends, and loved ones.
Read MoreGboard added the option to use your phone's camera to create custom GIFs in May. The tool came with a few fun effects to apply over the clips, too, like question marks to express confusion and mock "breaking news" chyrons. An update today brings a few new GIF effects and custom text overlays, as well as more practical improvements like support for additional languages.
Read MoreThe Gboard team has unleashed a fresh beta of version 7.3. There's nothing immediately popping up as a brand new change or feature, but there is a lot to look at in the teardown. There are some big practical features coming, like OCR and improved handling for Battery Saver mode; but there are also some fun features like a text tool and new special effects for your custom GIFs.
Read MoreThere's a new version of Duo rolling out today, but it doesn't bring any huge changes for users. However, a teardown shows that the developers are still plenty active as they work on some tools to experiment with camera effects, including new controls for adjusting brightness, contrast, and saturation. Also in this update are new details for a voicemail-like feature for sending voice and video messages outside of a call.
While the meat of this post is in the teardown, one visual change in this update also stands out. Missed calls have been redrawn to place the icon below a contact's name, and if the call was made in the last day, it will list the time instead of a nonspecific "today" label.
Read MoreYesterday's update to Allo came with announcements that it now supports reactions (basically "likes") and that the doomed blobmoji are to be kept on life support in the form of a sticker pack. As meager an update as it might seem at first glance, it turns out that there are several other new features in this release. On top of that, a teardown shows quite a bit is in the works.
Read MoreYouTube has always been one of Google's less conventional properties, but the sudden leap from version 6.0 to 10.0 gave everybody a surprise. Even stranger is that with such a substantial jump in versions, there are virtually zero meaningful changes to the user-facing features. While there's relatively little for us to enjoy right now, a full teardown reveals that there are at least a few additions that might be worthy of a major version bump.
It's no secret that YouTube is set to gain some basic editing features. Reports have been coming in that the trimming feature discovered back in November has finally started going live.
Read MoreI know, I know. You are tired of filter and effect apps, and so am I. But this Afterlight app looks good, really good. After starting out on iOS and gaining popularity due to its simplicity and quality, the app has just been released on the Play Store for Android devices running 4.0.3 and up.
Read MoreMegapixels, megashmixels. We could debate for near eternity over which smartphone has the best camera, but sometimes all that really matters is which is the most fun. Sony wants you to think its cameras are, so the company has updated its augmented reality camera app and tossed in an additional six new themes for good measure.
The AR Effect app lets certain Sony Xperia smartphone owners add objects and effects to their photos, fundamentally altering what is going on in the shot. Sony isn't the only smartphone maker to offer stickers and such out of the box, but this marks quite an effort to up its game.
Read MorePhotoshop Touch may not be completely comparable to Adobe's desktop counterpart, but when you compare it to other photo editors on the Android platform, it's still the most powerful piece of software out there. At $10, it better be, too. Today, the best just got a bit better, especially if you own a Nexus 7. The app has improved support for 7" tablets. Though, there's a catch: the resolution on said tabs have to be 1024x768 or higher. Sorry, Galaxy Tab 2 7.0.
In addition, there are a few other performance tweaks added to this version. For starters, brush strokes have been made smoother (great news for anyone using this with a stylus), and a couple new effects have been added, including Lens Flare (pictured above) and Stamp Pattern.
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