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Files by Google adds handy filters to find the best apps to delete
A little feature for finding the big apps
The Files by Google app keeps improving in small but important ways. Just last year it gained a trash folder to prevent accidental deletions, added a favorites folder for faster access, and tighter integration with Google Photos makes it easier to remove pictures that have already been backed up. The new year is kicking things off with a new way to filter for apps that are ripe for removal.
Google Chat picks up extra filters for search
Live in Android now, coming to iOS and the web in July
The transition from Hangouts to Google Chat was a lot less bumpy than I expected, though it took ages. Now that many of us have moved over, we have a steady influx of new features to look forward to, including today's development. Google is rolling out filters for search in Google Chat to make it easier to find what you need, starting with the Android app.
Google Drive is making it easier to search for shared documents
Find your files faster with Gmail-like search operators
Being able to locate specific information in Google's products can help improve your day-to-day workflow. Most power users are probably familiar with Gmail's search operators — keywords that add filters to help you achieve better results. Google Drive also supports operators designed to seek out specific documents, and with today's update, those are becoming more useful than ever. An all-new operator for finding shared files is available to Drive users beginning today, as well as updated versions of some essential search terms.
FaceApp's new video selfie filters are exactly as goofy and embarrassing as you'd expect
We tried them — you have been warned
Google Play Games has a new filter tool we wish the Play Store had
Filter. By. Ads... ADS, folks, ADS.
The Google Play Games app is debuting a new all-in-one filtered section to let users sort out what they want to play based on purchasing factors, critical ratings, genres, and even play-based factors such as accessibility and device orientation. Now, if only we got this level of granularity on the Play Store proper...
Google Duo has new rainbow-filled AR filters to celebrate LGBTQ pride
When a rainbow's on a filter, you can celebrate pride anytime!
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.
Google is currently testing an expansion of its existing Play Store filters to help find better-rated apps. First spotted by 9to5Google, the change brings a handful of new filtering options that will appear when searching, including a pair of star rating limits and an Editors' Choice-only flag that can help separate the app wheat from the chaff.
Google offers desktop search users the options to filter their results down to within a certain range of time or webpages that list their query verbatim. Now, these search tools are available on mobile search.
Adobe announces Photoshop Camera with 'AI-powered' filters (Update: Up for pre-registration)
Helping you up your Instagram game
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Adobe has announced a new app in Photoshop Camera. As its name implies, Camera leverages Adobe's image processing chops to apply effects to photos in real time, ostensibly circumventing the need to use the company's other software to add them after the fact.
Google 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.
When you're watching a YouTube video, the app often taunts you with other recommendations you should watch next, and if you have Autoplay turned on, it even goes through that list automatically. However, you rarely have any control over what shows up in this list. A server-side test tells us that this might be changing soon.
Photo filters aren't as big a business as they used to be — the early 2010s were dark times — but photo editor VSCO still takes them very seriously. The company has filed suit against the makers of fellow photo editor PicsArt, alleging that several of its filters were reverse engineered from VSCO's.
As an explorer, traveller, or just curious person, one of the greatest tools in your arsenal is Google Maps. Whether you want to check out a restaurant before visiting it, a hotel before booking it, a touristic place before taking time out of your crowded trip schedule to visit it, or you just like browsing various places to see what they look like, Maps is there to help. But there's often one question I ask myself when viewing a place listing: ok, that looks good, but what if the photo was taken three years ago? What if it's under renovation, or has deteriorated? That's why I'm happy about Maps' latest addition — get it?
If you've recently noticed some issues while trying to use the filters when searching for a video on YouTube, don't worry — you're not alone. Multiple users have been complaining that filter functionality has been completely borked for them (since March 19), and Google has admitted that this was an intentional move.
Instagram nowadays is synonymous with three words: Stories, filters, and ads; and the first two are at the crux of the latest addition we spotted in the app. After allowing you to apply filters à la Snapchat while taking photos and videos for your Stories, Instagram has added the option to use those filters after the fact.
The beta Android app is now available on Android One devices as well as Pixels, and it seems that Digital Wellbeing features are also coming to Google's smart speakers. As you can see from the image above, the Digital Wellbeing webpage has said it was "coming soon" for a while, and now people are reporting seeing it in their app.
Technology always trickles down to less and less important uses over time. Case in point: speech recognition. It was, at one time, futuristic and incredible that computers could understand us, but now it's just kind of a given. In keeping with its trajectory of increasing mundanity, speech recognition has made its way to perhaps the most frivolous use case of all: Snapchat lenses. (They're actually pretty neat, though.)
Instagram's received a considerable update. Weeks after the announcement of Direct video calling integration and testing of a redesigned Explore, the features are now officially available. Instagram has also introduced a number of new camera effects, designed by Ariana Grande, the NBA, and Buzzfeed, among others.
Gboard 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.