Articles about Google

We have already seen Apple launch its new range of iPhones, and OnePlus bring new additions to its range of handsets -- now it is Google's turn.

Tomorrow in New York, the company is holding its Made By Google '19 event, and at it we can expect to see not only the launch of the Pixel 4 and Pixel XL, but also -- in all likelihood -- the Pixelbook Go. There may be a few other surprises, and you can tune into the live stream to get the news as soon as it happens -- and find out how many of the rumors are true.

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It can sometimes feel like technology is focused on the superficial, but there are constant technological advances that are improving lives too -- especially those with handicaps. For instance, a person unable to speak can be given a voice thanks to text to speech software, and a paralyzed person unable to walk can gain mobility by using an exoskeleton. Microsoft once helped a woman with Parkinson's Disease write again.

Today, Google is potentially improving the lives of people that are blind or have other visual impairments. You see, the Google Maps smartphone app for iOS and Android can now provide enhanced voice guidance for those with diminished or nonexistent sight. The search giant included one of its own employees -- a visually impaired business analyst named Wakana Sugiyama -- in the testing of the new feature.

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Google is bringing the vocal talent of actress and comedian Issa Rae to Google Assistant.

As with the John Legend voicing, Rae is only making a cameo as an Assistant Voice, and will only speak up in response to certain commands and queries. She can be found piping up on iOS and Android handsets, as well other devices that support Google Assistant such as Next Hub and Google Home smartspeakers.

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With more than one Nest device or Google Home speaker in the house, it can be a pain to manually switch music streaming from one speaker to another as you move from room to room.

But now Google has introduced a new feature that makes the process much, much easier. The "stream transfer" option can be accessed with your voice via Google Assistant, or using apps.

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Halloween used to be a day for children to collect candy and dress up in costumes, but lately, it seems like adults have hijacked the holiday. More and more grownups are dressing up in costumes -- a trend that is probably due in part to the popularization of nerd culture and events like Comic-Con. Hell, people are even dressing up their pets these days -- something I am guilty of. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with wearing a costume and having fun, it is just an interesting change culturally.

This year Google is sharing the top Halloween costumes based on search. Personally, I like when Google provides information like this, because the true value in collecting data is being able to tell stories with it. With the search giant slurping up so much data, it would be tragic if it didn't conduct analysis.

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Chromebooks used to be glorified web browsers running atop the Linux kernel, but these days, they are far more useful. If you need more than just web apps, you can now run Android apps and traditional desktop Linux programs on Chrome OS. Best of all, you can run them all side by side, making it all feel like a cohesive experience -- it doesn't feel like you are using a mixture of software intended for different platforms.

Today, Samsung launches its latest Chrome OS laptops -- the 11.6-inch Chromebook 4 and 15.6-inch Chromebook 4+. The former weighs just 2.6 pounds, while the latter is a heftier 3.75 pounds. Both laptops are powered by the same Intel Celeron N4000 CPU, and you can choose between 4GB and 6GB of RAM. Strangely, there is no option for 8GB of memory. Storage options are 32GB or 64GB, and sadly, regardless of capacity, you will get a sluggish eMMC drive. Both machines have USB-C and micro SD readers, which is cool, but the Wi-Fi is only 802.11ac (Wi-Fi 5) -- not the newer 802.11ax (Wi-Fi 6).

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Google has today announced a raft of a new privacy features across a swathe of its products and services.

Google Maps is going to benefit from a new Incognito Mode just like Chrome and YouTube. YouTube itself is gaining a new option for automated history deletion, and Google Assistant -- recently dragged through the privacy mud along with other digital assistants -- is also getting new deletion options.

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According to a Harris Poll carried out for Google, 75 percent of Americans get frustrated trying to manage all their passwords.

This results in unsafe practices as 24 percent have used the following common passwords, or some variation: like 'abc123', 'Password', or '123456'. 59 percent of US adults have incorporated a name (their own, a family member's, a partner's, or a pet’s) into their password to an online account, 22 percent have used their own name and a third have used their pet's name or a variation as their password.

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Back in July, the YouTube app finally returned to the Amazon Fire TV platform. This was great news for both Google and Amazon, but more importantly, consumers were the big winners. Owners of Fire TV devices finally had an official app for watching YouTube.

Google and Amazon had promised that YouTube TV -- the search giant's live television service -- would come to Fire TV too, but for whatever reason, it did not debut with the return of the regular YouTube app. Thankfully, starting today, Fire TV owners can finally access YouTube TV on their devices -- as long as they have a compatible model.

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I am a big fan of YouTube. Not only do I watch videos on the site daily, I am also a paid subscriber to YouTube TV -- I love the service and happily part with my $50 each month. YouTube Music, however, is an entirely different story -- I kind of hate it. When testing it against Spotify and Apple Music, YouTube Music failed miserably. The user interface is just unnecessarily confusing. Quite frankly, I am not sure how Google got it so wrong. Sigh.

That's why I was rather bummed out by the news that Google will be pre-loading the YouTube Music app on all Android 10 devices, plus some new ones that will ship with Android 9. Yep, it will be foisted upon many unsuspecting customers. This includes buyers of Google's own devices, such as the upcoming Pixel 4.

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Google is everywhere. It's behind the world's most popular mobile operating system and map, one of the most successful email services ever, and has even expanded into the finance, wearables and transport sectors. What's more, it probably still serves as your browser home page (or just a means of finding out whether you're connected to the Internet or not).

The still-relatively-young company, which turns 21 today, has come a hell of a long way since its inception in the late 90s, and looks well capable of dominating each and every avenue it decides to enter. However, the company had very humble, and indeed slightly odd, beginnings.

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Earlier in the week, Variety reported about a mysterious problem with Macs in Hollywood. As the issues -- which prevented systems from rebooting -- affected television and film editors in LA, it was initially thought that the Avid Media Composer software was at fault.

But in fact, it was Google that was to blame. A buggy update for the company's Chrome browser caused issues for a number of Mac users whose systems met certain conditions. Google has published details of a workaround for those hit by the problem which saw the Chrome update damaging the macOS file system.

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Google has won a case in the European Court of Justice meaning the company does not need to apply the controversial "right to be forgotten" on a global basis.

In a case between Google and Commission Nationale de l'Informatique et des Libertés (CNIL ) -- a French privacy regulator -- the court ruled that Google need only remove links from search results within Europe.

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Apple recently launched its Arcade service -- a monthly games subscription for iOS. For just $4.99 a month, you get access to a bunch of titles without advertisements or in-app purchases. The first month is free, so I have been testing it on my iPhone 8 Plus. You know what? It is just OK -- not great. Many of the games are garbage that I wouldn't have bought in the first place. In other words, while $5 a month seems like a good deal, you have to actually find value in the games for it to be worthwhile.

Today, Google launches its version of Apple Arcade, and it seems like a much better deal. While it carries the same $4.99 monthly cost, and it too includes games, it also provides access to something Arcade doesn't -- applications. Quite frankly, as an adult, a buffet of productivity apps is more interesting to me than a collection of mobile games. Having both, however, is really cool, though -- I hope Apple follows Google's lead.

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Digital assistants have been in the spotlight recently after various stories about contractors listening to recordings. Following a backlash from users and privacy advocates, Google has announced a number of changes to how it stores and processes audio data.

The company also takes the time to explain a little bit more about how it processes audio recordings and to reveal the new privacy protections it will use in the recording transcription process.

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