Google

When Apple Music first launched in 2015, playing it on anything other than an Apple device was impossible. Thankfully though, over the years Apple has made its streaming service available to access through third-party devices and speakers, including Amazon Echo and Google-owned speakers. This article focuses on Google devices. If you have a Google Home mini or a newer Nest-branded smart...

Google includes a Live Captions transcription feature in version 89 of its Chrome browser for desktop. Live Captions uses machine learning to create a real-time transcription for videos or audio played through the browser, which can make online media more accessible for members of the Deaf community and other people with hearing loss. Once enabled, Live Captions appear in a box in the bottom ...

If you buy a new iPhone to replace your existing one and you use the Google Authenticator app to access online accounts protected by two-factor authentication (2FA), you should transfer those accounts to your new phone as soon as possible, because without the 2FA codes close at hand, you could find yourself locked out of your online accounts. 2FA adds an extra layer of security to your...

Google Lens can now recognize over a billion items in the world around us, the search engine giant announced this week. That's four times as many things that the AI-powered feature could identify when it was first launched last year, thanks partly to a huge number of Google Shopping products which have been added to its knowledge base. While its optical character recognition engine has...

In Chrome 66, rolling out now for Mac and iOS, Google has added a password export option to the web browser so that you can easily migrate your login details to another browser via a third-party password manager app. In this article, we'll show you how to export your passwords from Chrome on Mac and iOS. At the end of the process, you'll be left with a CSV file containing all your login...

For the last several years, Google has been pushing a new communications protocol called Rich Communication Services, or RCS. ‌RCS‌ is designed to replace SMS, the current text message standard, and it offers support for higher resolution photos and videos, audio messages, bigger file sizes, better encryption, improved group chat, and more. Verizon today announced that it is planning to...

Attorneys general representing 36 U.S. states and Washington, D.C. today levied an antitrust lawsuit [PDF] against Google to challenge Google Play Store fees, reports Politico. The lawsuit was filed in California federal court and is led by Utah, North Carolina, Tennessee, New York, Arizona, Colorado, Iowa, and Nebraska. The states are fighting against Google's plan to require all app...

Apple has dramatically increased the amount of iCloud user data it stores on Google Cloud, according to The Information. The report claims Apple now has over eight million terabytes of data stored on Google's servers. As of mid-May, Apple was reportedly on track to spend around $300 million on Google cloud storage services this year, which would represent an increase of roughly 50% from all...

Google today announced the launch of a new "4K Plus" plan for YouTube TV subscribers, which will allow for streaming in 4K on a compatible TV and set-top box. Along with 4K streaming, the 4K Plus option includes an option to download shows for watching offline and unlimited streaming when connected to home WiFi. 4K Plus is priced at an additional $19.99 per month on top of the standard...

Google has announced its is rolling out Google Fi's built-in VPN service to iPhone subscribers, giving iOS users another way to ensure that their connection is secure and private on a cellular or Wi-Fi network. Starting today, we're expanding our built-in VPN to iPhone®. 🔐With the Fi VPN, you get a private online connection and more protection from hackers included on all plans. Learn more → ht ...

Google has updated its 2FA Authenticator app for iOS with a new privacy feature that lets users require Face ID or Touch ID before displaying two-factor account authentication codes. Previously, fingerprint or facial authentication was only required when exporting accounts. Now though, upon activating Google's Privacy Screen feature in v3.2.0 of the app, ‌Face ID‌ or ‌Touch ID‌ is needed in...

The UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has today announced an investigation into the "duopoly" of Apple and Google on mobile ecosystems, just one day after a similar investigation was initiated in Japan. The CMA will be taking a closer look at Apple and Google's "effective duopoly" on the supply of operating systems, including iOS and Android, the App Store and Google Play Store, ...

Google today introduced its latest wire-free earbuds, the Pixel Buds A-Series, which at $99, are $60 cheaper than the standard AirPods and $100 cheaper than the AirPods with Wireless Charging Case. The Pixel Buds A-Series are the most affordable Pixel Buds Google has released to date, and they offer the same sound quality as prior versions of the Pixel Buds. Reviews have corroborated...

Google today introduced Chrome 90 for iPhones, iPads, and the iPod touch, adding support for new Search and Dino widgets on devices running a version of iOS 14. There are three separate Chrome widgets available. There's a two tile search interface that lets you conduct a quick search with quick access to voice search and incognito mode, a single tile search widget, and a shortcut to play the ...

A new leak from XDA Developer shows that with Android 12 slated for release later in the year, Google plans to introduce a new notification that's displayed to users when an app accesses their clipboard. With iOS 14, Apple introduced a small banner at the top of iPhones and iPads that notifies users when an app accesses content from their clipboard. Clipboard access notification was one of...

Renders of Google's first smartwatch, codenamed "Rohan," have been shared by Jon Prosser, showing that Google plans to adopt a circular design for its flagship wearable watch. Prosser shared the renders in an episode of his YouTube show "Front Page Tech," in which he claims they were made based on marketing material he had seen from a source within Google. The renders show that the Pixel...

Four months after Apple first began requiring apps to add App Privacy labels to their App Store listings, Google has finally updated all of its most popular apps with the information, letting people know exactly what data Google is collecting. Google began adding App Privacy labels to its apps in February after months of delaying. Gmail, for example, got App Privacy labels on February 22,...

Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty today raised her services-related revenue forecast for Apple through the 2022 fiscal year. In a research note shared with MacRumors, Huberty said stronger licensing revenue is the primary driver of the raised estimates, including an acceleration in the search traffic-related payments Apple receives from Google. The New York Times last year reported that...

Google will soon make it harder for third-party apps to see what other apps are installed on a user's Android device, a policy change that evokes similar privacy protections Apple introduced in iOS 9, way back in 2015. According to XDA-Developers, upcoming amendments to Google's Developer Program Policy will limit which apps can access an Android user's full list of installed apps. As noted...

Google has postponed the introduction of a 60-minute call limit on free Google Meet users for a few more months, the company today announced in a tweet. The limit was originally intended to come into effect at the end of March, but it will now begin on June 30. The extension means that non-paying users of the teleconferencing service will continue to be able to host calls up to 24 hours ...

Google today rolled out its live caption transcription feature to version 89 of Chrome browser for desktop, as first spotted by XDA Developers. Previously only available on some Pixel and Samsung phones, Live Captions uses machine learning to create a real-time transcription for videos or audio played through the browser, making online media more accessible for members of the Deaf community ...

Google today announced that, starting July 1, it will be lowering its Play Store commission from 30% to 15% for the first $1 million of revenue developers earn using the Play Store billing system each year, as reported by TechCrunch. Google estimated that 99% of developers that sell goods and services with the Play Store billing system will see a 50% reduction in fees. This moves comes...

Over the course of the last several weeks, Google has been adding App Privacy labels to its iOS apps in accordance with Apple's App Store rules, but it took Google multiple months to begin sharing the information. There was speculation that Google's delay meant that it had something to hide, which DuckDuckGo is leaning into with a new tweet that highlights Google's data collection and calls...

A judge in California has ruled that Google must face a class action lawsuit alleging that it secretly tracks the online activity of Chrome users even when they're using the browser in its privacy-oriented Incognito mode (via Bloomberg). The lawsuit was filed in June by three plaintiffs alleging that Google hoovers up user data through Google Analytics, Google Ad Manager and other applications ...

Google's Chrome browser has been criticized for years for being a system resource hog, but Chromium developers are making some loud claims about how much smarter the latest version is at using and freeing up memory on macOS. According to a new post on Google's Chromium blog, Chrome developers recently managed to shrink the memory footprint of background tabs on Mac by up to 8%, or just over...