Google has started the process of informing YouTube Premium subscribers about an impending price rise for its Family plan. The hike is a significant one, with subscribers in the US looking at a $5 jump from $17.99 per month to $22.99.

The new pricing takes immediate effect for new subscribers, but existing users have at least 30 days from the date of receiving the email from Google. For those who signed up for YouTube Red when it existed, there is a brief stay of execution.

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Emoji -- you either love 'em or you hate 'em, and at the moment it seems that Google dislikes them quite a lot.

Confused internet users are reporting that performing certain searches about emoji is causing Google to time out and display a server error. The bizarre problem is yet to be explained, but there are theories about what is happening.

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The economic downturn of 2022 hasn’t stopped the tech industry from engaging in merger and acquisition activity. Though deals have decreased by 40 percent in the first half of 2022, several firms and solution providers have negotiated pacts of up to billions of dollars.

Most of the acquisition activity is because of the overall decline in the stock market. When prices plunge and company valuations reduce, firms step in to bargain.

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Google has announced today that it's bringing passkey support to both Chrome and Android. Passkeys offer a significantly safer replacement for passwords and other phishable authentication factors and mark another step towards a passwordless future.

If you're unfamiliar with passkeys, they're a joint initiative from Apple, Google, and Microsoft. Unlike a password the key is stored exclusively on your devices and never gets shared with anyone else.

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YouTube has announced that creators can now make use of @ handles for their channels. The move is a long time coming and the aim is to help increase engagement on the platform.

With the introduction of handles, YouTube is making it easier for users to mention others in their comments and more. Handles are rolling out over the next month, and YouTube says that it will notify creators when they are able to choose one for their channel.

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Are smartwatches popular? Well, the Apple Watch certainly is. Other brands? Not so much. Quite frankly, Android users have had to deal with watches that are far inferior to the excellent Apple Watch. Being an Android user has not been very fun in recent years.

Earlier today, Google unveiled its newest flagship Android phones -- the Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro. Unfortunately, the Pixel line has been disastrous lately, and I am not expecting anything different with the new models. With all of the bugs and issues that have plagued the past several Pixel phones, I am surprised anyone would still buy one, but I digress.

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At its fall hardware event today, Google took the wraps off the next generation of its flagship smartphones -- the Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro.

Powered by a next-generation Google Tensor G2 processor, and running Android 13, the new devices sport an aluminum enclosure made entirely of recycled content. What’s somewhat unusual about the Pixel 7 is Google has opted to make in smaller than its predecessor, the Pixel 6.

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In the years since Google Maps arrived on the scene, millions of people have come to rely on it. Yes, there have been a few less-than-successful results, nothing is without fault, but for the most part, it has guided travelers to their destinations with few problems. 

The company has also continued to keep up with the times, adding new features and updating directions based on the many constant changes to roads and conditions. It doesn't always get it right -- for instance, at the time of writing this story, the route for driving from Sarisota, Florida to Sanibel Island, Florida still shows as open. 

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Social media technology is restlessly inventive, providing thousands of awesome ways for you to market your business inexpensively and on a large scale -- often directly into the pockets of consumers. But in the proliferating, ever-changing world of tweets, influencers, handles, and alerts, it can be hard to know where to begin and then to evaluate what’s actually working for you.

In the new edition of Social Media Marketing for Dummies, leading SMM voices Shiv Singh and Stephanie Diamond clear away the confusion and show you the smartest, most effective ways to plan, launch, manage, and assess your campaigns -- and then iterate and optimize for increased success.

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If you consider yourself a technology enthusiast, then you absolutely must have the latest and greatest in wireless networking. In other words, anybody who is anybody has a Wi-Fi 6E router. After all, the 6GHz band it adds makes regular Wi-Fi 6 far inferior.

Fans of the Google Wifi mesh system have been clamoring for a Wi-Fi 6E upgrade, and today, it finally happens! The unimaginatively named Nest Wifi Pro is here to blanket your home with that glorious 6GHz band. And yes, smart home fans, the Tri-band router (2.4GHz, 5GHz, and 6GHz) also serves as a Thread border router -- it will eventually be a Matter hub too.

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Today, Google finally flushed Stadia down the proverbial toilet. And yes, the company's streaming game service was, in fact, a massive turd. Consumers never really embraced Stadia, and after a few short years, Google is admitting defeat and shutting it down.

On paper, Stadia looked great -- you could play high-end games without spending money on a console. The games simply streamed over the internet, with Google's servers doing the heavy lifting. Unfortunately, the execution and overall game library was lacking. Stadia was not fun to use or play. And now it is dead, or at least it soon will be.

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Privacy and security are something that all browser manufacturers like to brag about in relation to their products, with Google and Microsoft being no different to others in this regard. But if you are making use of the Enhanced Spellcheck in Chrome or Microsoft Editor in Edge, some highly sensitive information can be sent to the two software giants.

In addition to passwords, we are talking about personal information entered into online forms such as your social security number, date of birth, username and so on. The worrying discovery was made by security researchers from JavaScript security firm otto-js who warn that this is something that will be of particular concern to enterprise users.

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Whether you are running Windows, macOS or a Linux distro, if you're a Chrome user there is an extremely important update to install right now.

Google has released Chrome 105.0.5195.102 for all three platforms to address the vulnerability which is tracked as CVE-2022-3075. The security flaw, which relates to data validation in the Mojo runtime libraries, is known to have been exploited in the wild, so users are advised to actively seek out the update rather than waiting for Google to roll it out to everyone.

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Google is not alone in offering so-called bug bounty programs which give financial incentives to contributors to track down vulnerabilities and security issues in its software. Now the company has launched a new initiative called the Open Source Software Vulnerability Rewards Program (OSS VRP).

As the name suggests, this new program focuses on Google's open source projects. The company is offering rewards of between $100 and $31,337, depending on the severity of the vulnerability.

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In the wake of the overturning of Roe v Wade earlier in the year which made it much more difficult for many people to access abortions in the US, numerous tech company leapt to offer help and support to their customers and employees. Having already introduced a feature that automatically deletes abortion clinic visits from location history, Google is now taking things a step further.

In both Google Search and Google Maps in the US, the company is adding labels that make it clear that particular medical facilities provide abortion services.

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