Google didn’t mention its smart-fabric jacket platform, Jacquard, at its recent developer conference. But the Levi’s Commuter smart jacket is getting an update that could be pretty helpful, starting next week, if you happen to own one. Google With a button tap from its cuff, the jacket can now work with ride-sharing services Uber and …
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Your Galaxy S9 just unlocked a new kind of app: ARCore
The Samsung Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9 Plus, two of the hottest Android phones on the market, now support ARCore, Google’s augmented reality app platform. This means Galaxy S9 owners are now able to try out ARCore-based augmented reality apps, which use your phone’s camera to place virtual objects in the real world. You can use this to measure objects …
Read More »Why Google makes Android phone notches now
Still resisting the notch fever sweeping phone designs these days? Give it up. Google has. The Android P beta, a build meant for app developers that anyone is free to download and use, supports not one, but three different notch designs. There’s the central Cycloptic notch we find in phones like the iPhone X, Huawei P20, LG G7 and Essential …
Read More »The iPhone X, 6 months later
Apple promised a revolution with the iPhone X when it was first announced on September 12, 2017. At the time, I was skeptical. What I mainly wanted was a perfect size, nothing too big. I wanted less bezel. I was also excited by the possibilities of not having a home button. And I wanted it to advance AR in some way. …
Read More »YouTube TV’s Voice Remote feature is the silliest example of a big trend we’re seeing
This is going to sound pretty silly, but bear with me a sec. There’s a new “Voice Remote” feature for the YouTube TV app that — get this — lets you ask for exactly what you want to watch. But only on phones, according to 9to5Google. Not on Rokus or Android TVs or other YouTube TV-equipped bigscreen devices where you’d likely …
Read More »How to delete your Google history
Like Facebook and Apple before it, Google has introduced a new user privacy policy to comply with a new European data privacy law — General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) — that goes into effect on May 25. Google’s updated privacy policy makes it easier to understand what information it collects about you. More importantly, Google has improved its privacy controls …
Read More »Sen. Ron Wyden wants to know why police can track any phone in seconds
Those smartphones we’re always carrying with us? The police have a simple way to turn them into a tracking device without our knowledge. On Thursday, The New York Times revealed that Securus Technologies, a service that monitors calls to prison inmates, has been used by a former Missouri sheriff to monitor people’s phones and track their location. The sheriff, who was …
Read More »Hey Google, stop trying to make Assistant my friend
Google wants to trick you into thinking machines are human. That’s a theme the tech titan pushed as it rolled out new features for its Google Assistant voice software at Google I/O, Google’s annual conference for developers. Google Assistant is in nearly every Android phone, the Google Home smart speaker and drives future smart displays, which means that robo-voices that …
Read More »Apple seeks to ‘take disability out of the equation’
Austin Pruitt, a two-time US Paralympian, walked me over to a racing wheelchair that he set up for a stationary workout routine. Pruitt has cerebral palsy from the knees down, which forces him to walk slowly, but he’s able to compete on the world stage by racing in a wheelchair. He said he used to set up a bunch of …
Read More »Lenovo Z5 is an all
Update, June 5: The Lenovo Z5 has been officially announced — and it has a notch after all. Notches, it seems, are the new black. Originally seen — and often criticized — on the Essential PH-1 and iPhone X in 2017, the trend of adding notches to Android phones has only accelerated this year as phone makers look to maximize the screen …
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