Articles about Google

The rollout of the successor to SMS is now underway in the US. Having brought RCS (Rich Communication Service) to the UK, Mexico and France, Google has started to deploy it in America.

The move comes as Google's frustration at carriers' apparent unwillingness to commit to RCS boiled over, leading the company to take the bull by the horns and start to push its own implementation of the standard.

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Traveling internationally can be a very fun experience, but also, it can be quite scary. When you don't speak the local language, you can have anxiety regarding communicating with people when you need help -- such as getting directions. Thankfully, smartphones have made foreign travel much easier thanks to both translation and navigation apps.

Google makes two of the best such solutions -- Google Maps and Google Translate. Today, the search giant is increasing their interoperability. Now, when you tap on a location in Google Maps, the translation software can audibly say what that location is -- in the local language. As an example, you can hop into a taxi and tap on where you want to go (a restaurant, hotel, etc.) and your smartphone will say it audibly in the driver's language so he/she knows where to go. Very cool.

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Google next big venture appears to be banking. According to reports -- including from the Wall Street Journal -- the company is partnering with Citigroup bank and will start to offer checking accounts from next year.

The project is codenamed Cache and it will also see Google teaming up with credit unions to provide banking facilities to people in the US. But with widespread concern about Google's attitude to privacy, is there a market for banking services from the company?

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The Nintendo 64 is one of the greatest game consoles of all time. I remember getting one at launch as a kid after trying (and being blown away by) Super Mario 64 at Toys R Us. Believe it or not, despite ultimately becoming a successful game system, it launched with just two games in the USA. No, that is not a typo -- it literally had a pair of games at launch. There was the aforementioned Mario game, plus Pilotwings 64. Over time, there were many classic games released for the N64, but the sparse launch library was rather shocking.

That's why today's announcement by Google that its Stadia streaming game service will "only" have a dozen games at launch (less than previously promised) doesn't disappoint me. Quite frankly, 12 launch titles is actually quite respectable. Not to mention, these are high-quality games too -- there is seemingly no filler to pad the list. With that said, three of the titles are from the Tomb Raider franchise.

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Google has updated YouTube with a new-look interface on tablets and the desktop. Thumbnails are bigger and easier to see, some superfluous links have been removed, and there are changes to the way the video queue works.

But, of course, not everyone likes change. If you're not a fan of the new interface, there are steps you can take to stick with the old look.

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Google has been tinkering around with Chrome quite a lot recently. For the most part this has meant adding new features and options, but there have also been removals.

One element of the browser that has fallen victim to some slashings is the context menu that appears when right-clicking a tab. Several options have disappeared from this menu -- much to the chagrin of some users -- but Google now appears to be considering opening it up to entries from third parties, potentially making it more useful than ever.

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The stable build of Chrome OS 78 is now rolling out to Chromebook and other compatible devices. A notable addition with this update is the arrival of virtual desktops, something Google has been testing in preview builds for a little while now.

Just as with Windows and macOS, the virtual desktop feature of ChromeOS gives users access to a number of workspaces that can be used to keep different apps and windows separate from each other. But while this is probably the highlight of ChromeOS 78, it is certainly not the only change.

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After launching in Japan a little over a year ago, Google Play Points expanded to Korea earlier this year -- and now Google is bring it to the US. But just what is Google Play Points?

In short, it's a loyalty reward program that lets Android users earn points pretty much for simply using Google Play. Buy an app, and you'll earn points. Buy a book or movie, and you'll earn points. Take out a subscription, and you'll earn points. You get the idea. These points can then be used to pay for other things in part or in full, or they can be donated to charity. Here's the lowdown.

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Well, folks, the rumors were true -- Google will be buying Fitbit. The search giant will be spending more than $2 billion on the acquisition -- a substantial amount of money even for a company as big as Google. The deal should be finalized next year. The question, of course, is why does Google want to buy Fitbit? I mean, look, Fitbit wearables are cool, but they are very basic. For some, the simplicity is a benefit, as more full-featured smartwatches can be too complicated to use. With that said, Google can easily create a basic wearable on its own -- it does not need Fitbit designers for that.

This is purely speculation, but I am guessing Google wanted to keep Fitbit from being acquired by one of its own competitors, such as Microsoft or Apple. There is value in Fitbit's name too, so I can foresee Wear OS devices being touted as "powered by Fitbit" when it comes to the fitness aspect of Google's watch-based OS. There are likely patents owned by Fitbit that Google is happy to add to its portfolio too.

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Users of Chrome are being urged to update their browsers as Google is rolling out a patch for two serious zero-day vulnerabilities, one of which is already being actively exploited.

The Chrome security team says that both vulnerabilities are use-after-free security issues which can be used to exploit arbitrary code. One vulnerability exists in an audio component of the browser, while the other can be found in the PDFium library. The Windows, macOS and Linux versions of Chrome are all affected.

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Google's latest smartphone, the Pixel 4, is an excellent device. As per my review (found here), I absolutely recommend it to Android users.

While the $799 starting price for the Pixel 4 series of smartphones isn’t as high as some other flagships, let’s be honest -- it is still a lot of money. It is for this reason that you should definitely put it in a protective case. Urban Armor Gear has two such rugged options for you -- the Monarch and Plasma. Not only will they keep your Pixel 4 or 4XL safe, but they look very attractive too.

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I recently converted my home from Amazon Alexa to Google Assistant. Why did I do this? Well, after comparing them both, I found Google's results were better. Not to mention, there are many nuances that make me prefer the search giant's offering. For instance, if I ask for a baseball score, it also shares the sound of a crowd cheering and the crack of the bat hitting a ball. I even prefer the confirmation sounds it makes. When I ask Google to turn off my lamp, for instance, it responds with a more pleasant tone than Alexa does. And so, my Echo devices were replaced with Nest speakers.

Sadly, there was a huge hole left in my life by ditching Amazon for Google -- SiriusXM. You see, with Alexa, you can ask her to play a SiriusXM channel and she does (as long as your account is linked, of course). This convenient feature simply wasn't possible on Google Assistant. Today, however, this changes -- Howard Stern and the rest of SiriusXM are finally coming to Google's Nest speakers! There are even plans to eventually bring video to some Nest devices.

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It's not something that everyone knows about, but Google owns the top-level domain .new, and the company has gone beyond using them as simple web addresses. Instead, addresses such as cal.new, doc.new and keep.new can be used as shortcuts to create new calendar events, Google Docs files, and Keep Notes.

Until now, .new shortcuts have only worked with Google's own products and services, but this is about to change. There are already shortcuts that can be used in conjunction with the likes of Spotify, Canva, Word and GitHub, and Google has announced that other sites will be able to register domains -- and therefore shortcuts -- very soon.

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Google has already revealed plans for Chrome which it says will increase privacy and security. DNS-over-HTTPS (DoH) was announced back in September, and the company is already worried that people are confused about the implementation.

The company has published a defensive blog post in which it says that "there has been some misinformation and confusion about the goals of our approach and whether DoH will impact existing content controls offered by ISPs". It goes on to try to dispel the incorrect beliefs it says have built up.

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Google's parent company Alphabet has made an offer to buy health and fitness wearable maker Fitbit, according to reports.

Although unconfirmed by either party, such a bid would not be entirely surprising. Although Google has produced its Wear OS operating system for wearables, it is yet to produce any devices of its own -- despite users clamoring for a Google-made smartwatch for some time.

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