Daily Archives: June 29, 2024

Google's latest Play Services is heavily focused on its digital Wallet app, adding a new card on Fitbit as its payment service prepares to conclude.

As detailed in its System patch notes, Google Play Services version 24.25 brings Wallet support for American Express cards on Fitbit devices (via 9to5Google). The update extends Wallet updates to Android devices, with the company stating new features have arrived for users adding an ID to their digital wallet.

Wallet on Android picks up Pix support as an alternative payment method for shoppers. Additionally, users receive support for adding an e-wallet as a payment method through Google Wallet.

Alternatively, users can use a paired e-wallet in Google Pay to complete a transaction.

These new features for Wallet on Android and the new card support in Fitbit Pay rolling out and should soon become more widely available.

Google's newfound American Express support for Fitbit users arrives as the company is preparing to conclude Fitbit Pay services in July. The company informed users via an email in May that Google Wallet will succeed all Fitbit Pay app functions on the wearable company's devices on July 29.

Google stated that the movie should "benefit" the user as it opens up a portfolio containing around 5,000 supported banks and cards to add. Fitbit Pay's impending shutdown will affect the following devices: Fitbit Charge 6, Charge 5, Charge 4, Charge 3, Sense 2, Sense, Versa 4, Versa 3, Versa 2, and the Versa.

Get the latest news from Android Central, your trusted companion in the world of Android

Fitbit encourages users to begin transferring their paired cards and banks to Wallet ahead of the July 29 cut-off date. Users have retained the ability to utilize the Fitbit Pay app on their trackers and watches since May. However, the option to add cards was removed.

Google's absorption of Fitbit into its ecosystem continues as the company recently shut down the wearable's standalone online store.

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Google Wallet supports American Express as the end of Fitbit Pay looms - Android Central

A top-secret US submarine prototype weapon called Manta Ray has been spotted by eagle-eyed Google Maps users and remains plainly visible to the internet public.

Satellite photos showing the Star Wars-looking vessel docked at Port Hueneme naval base in California went viral Sunday, its unmistakable profile standing out in stark contrast to its dockmates.

The smooth-looking autonomous vessel was named after the sea creature for its slick design and its ability to anchor itself deep underwater while operating in low-power mode.

Produced by Northrop Grumman as part of a US Navy project to develop long-range underwater weapons, Manta Ray is a sophisticated underwater drone capable of hibernating on the sea floor for very long periods without refueling.

It uses efficient, buoyancy-driven gliding to move through the water, Dr. Kyle Woerner, Manta Ray program manager at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency,said in an agency news release.

Our successful, full-scale Manta Ray testing validates the vehicles readiness to advance toward real-world operations, Woerner added.

The craft is designed with several payload bays of multiple sizes and types to enable a wide variety of naval mission sets.

Its modular design enables it to be disassembled and transported in ordinary shipping containers, eliminating the necessity for dedicated port facilities.

The Navy spent more than three months testing the craft off the coast of Southern California, the Telegraph reported.

Defense analysts suspect the Navys push to develop drone technology is intended as a strategic counter to Russian and Chinese submarine operations, the outlet said.

Russians have been developing underwater drones of their own, and last year announced plans to acquire nearly three dozen such vessels.

The US adversary claims its drone has a range of about 6,200 miles, can be armed with nukes and can reach speeds of up to 100 knots about 115 mph.

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Top-secret US aquatic drone weapon 'Manta Ray' spotted on Google Maps for all to see - New York Post

A product of Googles Area 120 incubator, Stack was one of those overlooked gems that was just, well, useful: it allowed you to create or import PDFs and store them in different categories that it called Stacks: tax, insurance, medical, etc. The app would pick up data from the PDF to suggest a title, add searchable details like the date of the document, the amount (if it was a receipt), or the organization that issued it, and there was also a field to add notes.

According to Googles support page, Stacks functionality has been incorporated into the Google Drive app. As someone who used Stack to save and then easily locate a number of PDFs that I needed quick access to, I could argue with that, but hey it isnt as if Google isnt known for its graveyard of abandoned apps.

If youve been using Stack to create and track your PDFs, youre going to want to move some or all of your documents. Google suggests that you move them to Google Drive and has incorporated a feature into Stack to make that an easy two-step process:

When you go to Drive, youll find a folder labeled Stack Export; all your PDFs will be within that folder. Unfortunately, if youre a Stack user and youve been carefully categorizing and labeling your PDFs, youll find it was wasted effort the folder will simply contain all the PDFs with none of the categorization or additional text included.

If you dont want to keep your documents in Drive, the easiest thing to do is to send them all to Drive and move them out from there. However, you can also export them from Stack wherever youd like; its just a more arduous method:

Once youve moved your PDFs out of Stack, you can go to the apps Settings > Delete page to get rid of all those carefully organized documents.

Finally, from someone who really liked this particular app: thanks a lot, Google.

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PDF organizer Stack is the latest app to hit the Google graveyard - The Verge

In a statement provided to Mishaal Rahman, a senior contributor to sites like Android Authority and Android Police, which they shared on X, Google acknowledged the concerns over its Find My Device network. We are actively working to roll out enhancements to how the Find My Device network operates that will improve the speed and ability of locating lost items over the coming weeks. Devices are continuing to join the new Find My Device network, and we expect the network to grow, which will also help improve lost device findability.

The performance of crowdsourced tracking networks like Androids Find My Device is dependent on the number of users actively using the service out in the wild. Initially only available in the US and Canada, the upgraded Find My Device network rollout has been slow and only recently expanded to the United Kingdom last month.

As Google states, the networks performance will improve as it continues to grow, but in its statement to Rahman, it also suggested that users could improve it ahead of the planned enhancements by changing their Find My Device network setting to With network in all areas.

The Find My Device network setting defaults to With network in high-traffic areas only, which will wait until multiple Android devices have detected a lost item before sharing its location as calculated from several different location reports. As the name implies, that approach works best in busy locations like shopping malls or airports where multiple devices detect a lost item, with an extra layer of privacy for the Android devices sharing location info.

Changing that setting to With network in all areas can potentially help locate lost items faster in lower-traffic areas because instead of aggregating its location from several Android devices that have detected it, the location from just a single device is used. The reason With network in all areas isnt the default setting is because it requires users to opt in to sharing location info through the network, according to Google, which some may be hesitant to do over privacy concerns.

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Google will address Android's Find My Device network issues over the coming weeks - The Verge

The Google Pixel Fold is one of the best foldable smartphones that money can buy right now, especially if youre in the US, where the selection of foldables is fairly limited comnpared to regions like the EU. That said, there are still a few noteworthy devices available, most of which are available at similar prices, and with similar benefits.

However, the Pixel Fold stands out with its wider design, which can unfold to reveal a large landscape main display that measures 7.6-inches. Its excellent for browsing, multitasking, and even gaming. However, given its been over a year since the Pixel Fold's debut, its time to ask whether its still worth buying it today, or if you should wait for the Pixel Fold 2, rumored to release as early as, potentially, Google's August 13th Pixel event.

Google's first foldable fails to live up to its full potential

As a Samsung Galaxy Z Fold user who also tried the Pixel Fold for a short time, I can attest that Google has nailed the essentials with this device. The Android system features a dock and the ability to run two apps side-by-side, among other useful functions. It's a smooth experience, and while power users like myself may occasionally use three or four apps when the phone is unfolded, its not necessary for most tasks.

Thats why its only fine for the most part, though. While Google has done a great job optimizing the software experience for most users, its not great for power users who want to have their notes, a specific app, and a calculator open, for example. Or any other combination of apps.

These are niche use cases, but the Fold is for a niche audience. Its more expensive than conventional devices, and its best suited for those who can take advantage of the massive display. Therefore, Google shouldve done a little more.

The Pixel Fold received a lot of mixed press initially, due to the display breaking for some users, and the phone's inability to fully open. It wasnt a good start, despite the phone working well for most people. Months later, the issues have seemingly disappeared, but the damage was already done, and most power users still joke about the Pixel Fold not being able to fully open, or requiring too much force to do so.

At this point, its probably fair to say the hardware wasnt as solid as most people thought, but it still worked as intended. While, yes, it required some force to open completely, the rest of the hardware worked well, and it still holds up today. It's why we still recommend it as one of the best foldable devices around.

The Pixel Fold boasts a 5.8-inch cover and a 7.6-inch main display. Its plenty bright, colorful, and large enough to handle most tasks. But one of the main reasons why it wasn't the best device is due to Googles decision to make it open in a horizontal state. While this goes against my first point, it wasnt entirely on Google for the Fold's lack of success.

Developers didnt optimize their apps to work in that mode, and many applications didnt play well in that orientation. Apps would often have empty spaces on the sides, and apps sometimes opened in a traditional aspect ratio, as if it were a normal smartphone without the folding element.

It wasnt a great experience, especially compared to the likes of Samsung or OnePlus' foldables, which used vertical orientations when their devices were unfolded.

But not all hope is lost. The original Pixel Fold showed us that Google wants a slice of the pie, and it did a lot of things right. It showed us the company can design its own foldable that can mostly track the quality of other competing devices, even though it was technically the first generation of its kind.

It has likely provided Google with valuable experience, enabling them to do better for the next iteration. And we might just be in for a treat. Assuming the rumors are true, the next Pixel Fold could feature major upgrades.

This year's Pixel Fold successor might be all new, right down to its very name

For one, the design will move from a horizontal experience to a vertical one, more closely resembling a traditional foldable phone. It wont be as wide as the first-generation Fold, either, so the phone should play nicer with apps when unfolded. Leaked photos and renders mostly show it taking inspiration from devices like the OnePlus Open, which is good, as OnePlus first foldable remains one of our favorite devices.

Theres still a lot to learn about the Google Pixel Fold 2, with some rumors even claiming it could be called the Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold. However, as things stand, it looks like the Fold 2 could be a massive upgrade, coming with hardware improvements that could appeal to even more people, and have better software that presents apps in a way thats more user-friendly. Unless you find an amazing deal on the Google Pixel Fold, its almost certainly best to wait for other foldables.

The original Pixel Fold might not have the reputation as the best foldable device, but its the best phone Google has to offer. Its powerful and full, comes with two large and bright displays, a decent camera setup, and a day-long battery life. It provides benefits to both power users and those who prefer a more minimalist approach to software.

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Should you buy the Google Pixel Fold, or wait for the Pixel Fold 2? - Android Police

Google said in a press briefing Wednesday that its latest AI model, Gemini 1.5 Flash, is 20% faster than OpenAIs newest bot, ChatGPT-4o.

Apple has fixed multiple security issues with its devices this year

Google announced Thursday that Gemini 1.5 Flash is now available to the general public. The AI chatbot was first announced at Google I/O in May and has been available in public preview meaning customers have been able to test the product and provide feedback for the last month. Gemini 1.5 Flash can analyze one hour of video, 11 hours of audio, or more than 700,000 words in one query, rather than users having to break their questions up into chunks. In a presentation to journalists, Google showed how the bot could analyze a 14-minute video in one minute.

Google said the latest AI bot is also 40% faster than ChatGPT-3.5-turbo and has a higher capacity for information. In other words, users can include a lot more context whether its audio, video, code, or text in their questions for Gemini 1.5 Flash and, in return, apparently get more accurate answers.

Its the fastest model at the best price to performance option in the market, said Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian. Gemini 1.5 Flash is available for developers in a limited capacity for free and, beyond that, at variable prices depending on how much data users want to input.

Gemini 1.5 Pro is about 10 times as expensive but described by Google as its overall best model. It can take in even more context: 22 hours of audio and 1.5 million words. You can reason across an entire companys history, which could be 10 years worth of financial statements in one query, said Kurian.

Google stated that its recent updates to Gemini 1.5 Flash, its flagship model Gemini 1.5 Pro, and its image-generator Imagen 3 make its AI software bundle the most enterprise-ready generative AI platform on the market. It named several enterprise customers using its products, including UberEats, Moodys, and Shutterstock.

Those customers are turning to Google in part due to one particular new update to its AI: accelerated grounding abilities, announced Thursday. Gemini models now show answers grounded (e.g. attached) to a source with a link. Those answers are also given a grounding (e.g. trustworthiness) score.

...these elements are designed to improve factuality, substantially reduce hallucination. Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian on the companys new fact-checking, or grounding features.

Moodys Analytics Chief Product Officer Nick Reed told reporters, Grounding is a pretty fundamental process in being able to use generative AI for decision making processes, particularly in financial services. The financial services company is a customer of Google Gemini 1.5 Flash.

Google said it will also launch a new industry-specific grounding tool in the third quarter, which will allow financial analysts, for example, to ground their AI queries against Moodys data or legal experts to ground questions against Thomson Reuters sources.

60%: About how much Google profits rose in the first quarter, partly thanks to AI.

22: Hours of audio Gemini 1.5 Pro can analyze.

1: Minutes it takes Gemini 1.5 Flash to analyze a 14-minute video.

20%: How much faster Gemini 1.5 Flash is compared to ChatGPT-4o, according to Google.

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Google says its latest Gemini AI is 20% faster than the newest ChatGPT - Quartz

Enlarge / The logo for PaLM 2, a Google large language model.

Google

Google announced today that it has added support for 110 new languages to Google Translate, nearly doubling the number of languages that can be translated.

The company used the PaLM 2 large language model to facilitate these additions.

He noted that about a quarter of the languages originate in Africa, "representing our largest expansion of African languages to date."

The blog post also went into some light detail about Google's philosophy for choosing languages and deciding which dialects to support:

Languages have an immense amount of variation: regional varieties, dialects, different spelling standards. In fact, many languages have no one standard form, so its impossible to pick a right variety. Our approach has been to prioritize the most commonly used varieties of each language. For example, Romani is a language that has many dialects all throughout Europe. Our models produce text that is closest to Southern Vlax Romani, a commonly used variety online. But it also mixes in elements from others, like Northern Vlax and Balkan Romani.

This update brings the total number of languages supported by Google Translate to 243, which is just the beginning of the company's publicized initiative to ultimately support 1,000 languages through the use of AI. You can see the full list of languages added in a help page published by Google.

By contrast, Apple Translate supports 21 languages, though that number includes both US and UK English as distinct options. Apple recently announced plans to add Hindi to its Translate app. Of course, Apple and Google take very different approaches toand have different levels of investment inthese tools.

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Google Translate just nearly doubled its number of supported languages - Ars Technica

Google Keep logo | Image credit Google

This means you can have two Keep windows open side-by-side, each logged into a different Google account. This is particularly handy for users who manage both personal and work accounts, or for those who simply have multiple Google accounts.

Now, with multi-account support, each of these split-screen instances can be logged into a different Google account. This opens up a whole new level of productivity and flexibility for Google Keep users on large-screen Android devices.

Having side by side Google Keep instance with different accounts will now be possible | Images credit Google

This feature is available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as Workspace Individual Subscribers and users with personal Google accounts. So, no matter what type of Google account you have, if you're using Google Keep on a large-screen Android device, you'll be able to take advantage of this new multi-account support.

This update is just the latest in a series of improvements that Google has been making to its Workspace apps. It's clear that Googlewants to make its productivity tools as useful as possible for users of large screen devices.

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Google Keep now supports using two accounts side by side on Android tablets and foldables - PhoneArena