Google

Lofelt’s new haptics framework is ready to bring good vibrations to Android

Haptic feedback on Android phones is usually terrible, at least compared to devices that have Apple’s Taptic Engine. You know it, I know it, and a haptics company called Lofelt apparently knows it, too. Today, though, Lofelt, in partnership with Qualcomm, announced that it’s making its VTX haptic framework available to OEMs, with the hope… Read more

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Zoom Events will try to re-create the in-person conference experience

Zoom is announcing an expanded live events product today that’s launching this summer. Zoom Events builds on Zoom’s previous paid event marketplace, OnZoom, by layering in features that can support larger multiday events and non-video activities like chat. Zoom says it’s still building out Zoom Events in the lead up to its launch, but as… Read more

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How to download your Google Photos

As of June 1st, 2021, all of the new images and videos that you save to Google Photos will count toward your free 15GB of storage. If you don’t take a lot of photos, that may not be much of a problem. And if you own a Pixel phone, your photos still won’t count against… Read more

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Deezer beats Spotify to Apple Watch offline listening

Music streaming service Deezer has revamped its Apple Watch app to let you listen to music without an internet connection, the company has announced. Previously Deezer’s Apple Watch app has only been able to control music playback on a paired iPhone, but now paid subscribers can download songs for offline listening when they’re away from… Read more

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Google wants to build a useful quantum computer by 2029

Google is aiming to build a “useful, error-corrected quantum computer” by the end of the decade, the company explained in a blog post. The search giant hopes the technology will help solve a range of big problems like feeding the world and climate change to developing better medicines. To develop the technology, Google has unveiled… Read more

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Spotify and YouTube Music will bring much needed offline tunes to Google’s Wear watches

Spotify’s product lead for cars and wearables teased an exciting new feature coming to Wear devices during Google’s Developer Keynote on Tuesday: the ability for the streaming services’ 356 million users to download music directly to their watch, and listen to it at times when they don’t want to carry their phone (via XDA Developers)…. Read more

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Google employees call for company to support Palestinians and protect anti-Zionist speech

A group of Jewish Google employees is calling on the company to increase its support of Palestinians amid Israel’s deadly bombing campaign in Gaza. The conflict started with Israel’s attempt to evict Palestinians from their homes in East Jerusalem, and escalated when militants fired rockets toward Jerusalem and Israel responded with airstrikes. In an internal… Read more

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Amazon extends ban on police use of its facial recognition software ‘until further notice’

Amazon has extended its moratorium on law enforcement use of its facial recognition software “until further notice,” according to Reuters. The ban was set to expire in June. As early as 2018, Amazon employees had pushed Amazon to scale back the project, arguing that documented racial bias in facial recognition could exacerbate police violence against… Read more

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Google I/O 2021: the biggest announcements

Google just finished its live Google I/O 2021 keynote, where the company unveiled a huge number of announcements, including a new look coming to Android, a bunch of features coming to its Google Workspace productivity suite, and even a new AI that talked as if it were Pluto. Nilay Patel and Dieter Bohn followed the… Read more

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Google is trying to make its image processing more inclusive

It’s a long-standing problem that dates back to the days of film: image processing tends to be tuned for lighter skintones and not that of black and brown subjects. Google announced an effort to address that today in its own camera and imaging products, with a focus on making images of people of color “more… Read more

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The Android 12 public beta is available now

Google unveiled Android 12 at its opening I/O 2021 keynote, and now you can try the new update yourself as part of the first public beta. The Android 12 public beta is currently available for Google’s Pixel phones (Pixel 3 and up) and will also come to devices from OnePlus, Lenovo, Asus, Oppo, Realme, Sharp,… Read more

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Google previews Project Starline, a next-gen 3D video chat booth

Google is working on a next-gen video chat booth that makes the person you’re chatting with appear in front of you in 3D. You can see them from different angles by moving around and even make eye contact, Google said during a preview of the project at its I/O conference today. The system is called… Read more

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Google Photos will soon make animated photos from your still shots

Google Photos will soon have a cool new trick: if you take two similar images with your phone’s camera, the app will be able to create an animated, moving shot that combines them. It does this by using machine learning to synthesize movement between the two shots. Google creates new frames between them, resulting in… Read more

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Google Maps’ Live View feature now offers more useful information about restaurants and businesses

Google announced a bunch of new features for Google Maps at its 2021 I/O developer conference today, including upgrades to its handy Live View tool, which helps you navigate the world through augmented reality. Live View launched in beta in 2019, projecting walking directions through your camera’s viewfinder, and was rolled out to airports, transit… Read more

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Google and Samsung are merging Wear OS and Tizen

In yet another sign of the growing alliance between Google and Samsung, today both companies announced that they are essentially combining Wear OS — Google’s operating system — and the Tizen-based software platform that has been foundational to Samsung’s wearables for many years. The resulting platform is currently being referred to simply as “Wear,” though… Read more

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