Monthly Archives: July 2024

We've heard of Google developing a "Satellite OS" for Pixels for a while now, but a discovery shows it might cost you.

With enrolled testers getting their hands on Android 15's latest beta, Android Authority discovered something interesting about Pixel's SOS feature. Through an APK dive, it was seen that Google might charge users for its Satellite OS services after a brief free period.

A string in the code states, "Satellite SOS is included at no charge for two years." It seems that Google is eyeing an approach similar to Apple and its emergency services, which are also free for the initial two years.

Other information in the code details the Pixel Satellite SOS feature more by stating, "your name, email, phone number, location, device information, and emergency contact information" will be shared with 911. That data is given to satellite service providers, as well.

One final sentence within Android 15's code mentions updating your Pixel to receive support for the SOS function. This is an occurrence older Pixels, like the Pixel 8 and 8 Pro, will likely see as the emergency service is coming with Android 15. By extension, the Pixel 9 series should have it ready and waiting.

Concrete information regarding how much Google intends to charge (if it does) for its SOS service is unknown.

The past few Android 15 betas have held informative insights into what Google has planned for its SOS feature, such as its UI. Early walkthroughs were discovered, showing that users will be prompted to gain a "clear view of the sky" before activating their SOS services. Users will then need to locate the appropriate satellite through the on-display animation.

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

Users can retain text-based contact with their family and 911 services after enabling the emergency SOS feature within the settings.

In other news, Android 15 Beta 4 was released for enrolled testers yesterday (July 18) and pushes us ever closer to a full OS launch. One of its key changes was a switch from PNG-based emoji fonts to a vector format. Technically speaking, this ensures your emojis scale in size without sacrificing quality and becoming distorted or blurred.

Android 15's Private Spaces were in the spotlight once again alongside better app activity management. It seems the software can better allocate its resources to keep apps active only when prompted by the user.

Excerpt from:

Google's Pixel 'Satellite SOS' is useful and it might just cost you to keep it - Android Central

Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority

TL;DR

How important to you is how your phone sounds? No, we dont mean the audio quality from its speakers (although that can be pretty important), but who youre talking to when youre interacting with your phones virtual assistant. Google Assistant lets you choose from between a dozen different voice profiles, with two new ones introduced just last year. But so far, with Googles new Gemini AI, youve only had a single voice to talk to. Now that situation is finally changing.

We first caught wind of development heading in this direction about a month ago, when we discovered Google working on a new settings option for its Android app. While it wasnt functional at the time, it appeared that Google was planning to give users the ability to choose between two voices and notably, this was all distinct from Assistant voice settings. Although this new addition being related to Gemini wasnt a slam dunk, it certainly seemed like one of the best theories we had at the time.

Fast-forward to today, and 9to5Google noticed that Gemini is suddenly speaking with a new voice. While Gemini sounded male before, the new voice is distinctly female. Were not sure if Google has pushed this change out universally, or is testing it in a more limited fashion, but we can confirm that we can hear Gemini using its new voice on our Android phones.

The ability to choose between multiple voices isnt a huge-huge deal, but its the sort of quality of life improvement that might get more users enthusiastic about giving Gemini a shot in the first place; right now the apps on-boarding is very much dominated by heres the Assistant stuff youre giving up, and just having the familiarity of being able to choose your preferred response voice could smooth that over the smallest bit. We dont know if we need another dozen to feel satisfied, but a couple more options (and definitely the ability to actively choose between them) couldnt hurt.

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Google Gemini tries out a second voice - Android Authority

Google has confirmed in a teaser video that its upcoming line of smartphones includes a new foldable model. The company called the Pixel 9 Pro Fold a "foldable phone built for the Gemini era" in its promo tweet, and it even focused on its gen AI chatbot in the video. Similar to the non-foldable Pixel 9 Pro, this model also has a prominent camera bump. Its lenses are arranged vertically near one side of the phone, so the camera bump is mostly there and doesn't take up the whole width of the folded device.

While Google has yet to formally unveil the model, a previous leak, courtesy of Android Authority, has already revealed a lot of details about the upcoming Pixel 9 models. Taiwan's National Communications Commission (NCC) uploaded galleries of each phone Pixel 9, 9 Pro, 9 Pro XL and 9 Pro Fold to its archives. Some of those photos feature an unfolded 9 Pro Fold, showing how Google moved its selfie camera to the inside screen for a wider field of view. They also show that the model has a reduced fold crease on the display, which measures 250mm or just under 10 inches.

The NCC's leak revealed that the upcoming devices need bigger chargers, as well. Their charging rates are generally faster than previous models based on the agency's tests, though the Pixel 9 Pro Fold was the slowest of them all. We'll be able to confirm those details when Google launches its new smartphones at the next Made by Google event that's happening on August 13.

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Google confirms the Pixel 9 Pro Fold with a teaser video - Engadget

Google appears to be showing its AI-generated search results less often in recent weeks, according to a recent study from an SEO company.

The data, collected by BrightEdge and reported on by Search Engine Land, suggests that AI Overviews dropped from appearing in 11 percent of queries on June 1st to 7 percent of queries on June 30th. BrightEdges data also indicates that AI Overviews cite Reddit and Quora dramatically less than they did before.

Since the launch of AI Overviews in May, Google has had to make changes to address bizarre results like recommending that you put glue on pizza (which appears to have been pulled from a Reddit thread) and suggesting that you eat rocks (seemingly pulled from an article in The Onion). In response, Google defended AI Overviews but said it had implemented adjustments, such as limiting the use of user-generated content in AI Overviews and adding better tools to detect nonsensical queries that shouldnt get AI Overviews.

Google spokesperson Ashley Thompson tells The Verge that the findings do not reflect what weve seen and criticized the studys methodology. Thompson also says BrightEdges study appears to mix users who have opted in to AI Overviews & More as part of Googles experimental Search Labs features and those who havent. (People who have opted in to AI Overviews in Search Labs will see them on more search results, according to Thompson.) BrightEdge only tracks users who have opted in to AI Overviews, BrightEdge founder and executive Jim Yu says in a statement provided to The Verge after we first published this article.

AI Overviews are an important initiative for Google. If people dont like or trust them, they might turn to products from competitors like Microsoft, OpenAI, and Perplexity instead, which could be a big loss for the search engine. Google is bullish on AI Overviews CEO Sundar Pichai said that people are responding very positively to AI Overviews in a May interview with editor-in-chief Nilay Patel but the company is still doing some fine-tuning.

We designed AI Overviews to appear for queries where theyre helpful and provide value beyond existing features on the results page, and they continue to show for a large number of searches, Thompson says. As weve shared, were continuing to refine when and how we show AI Overviews so theyre as useful as possible, including a number of recent technical updates to improve response quality.

Update, July 17th: Added new information from BrightEdge.

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Googles AI results are showing up less frequently, a study found - The Verge

Google is slated to hold a surprisingly early Pixel smartphone event on August 13. The company has released a teaser video for the occasion, showing what appears to be a big new camera bump on the Pixel 9 Pro.

Google’s 30-second teaser video for the Pixel 9 Pro shows some interesting details. Some of it is entirely unsurprising, like that the device will heavily utilize Google’s Gemini AI technology. That makes perfect sense.

What’s more surprising is that the Pixel 9 Pro will feature a different design sporting a big camera bump on the back. While Google hasn’t shared any information about what kind of cameras will be in its upcoming flagship smartphone, given that the camera module is larger, it stands to reason that there will be something new about the Pixel 9 Pro’s camera technology.

Google has also shared a teaser video for its new flagship folding smartphone, the Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold. This latest teaser opens with the same Gemini AI graphics as the other teaser before the Pixel 9 Pro Fold opens up.

Beyond the naming change from Pixel Fold to Pixel 9 Pro Fold, bringing the upcoming handheld more in line with Google’s conventional Pixel naming conventions, the device also gets a new camera module with a revised stacked design.

The screens are simulated in the teaser video, but Google seems to have focused on making the hinge less noticeable when in use. The entire design just looks more polished and sleek.

Hopefully, the new camera system is a step up, too, as it is one of the weaker aspects of last year’s Pixel Fold device. The big struggle so far for most folding phones has been offering feature and performance parity in terms of camera features, with most foldables falling short of their maker’s best traditional “slab” phones.

Mobile photographers need not wait long to learn more about Google’s camera changes in the Pixel 9 family of smartphones. The Google Pixel event will begin on August 13 at 1 PM ET (10 AM PT).

Image credits: Google unless otherwise noted

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The First Look at the Google Pixel 9 Pros Much Bigger Camera Bump - PetaPixel

Google today provided a very good look at the Pixel 9 Pro and is continuing to tease this upcoming device as magical thanks to Gemini.

The 30-second video humorously has Gemini write a breakup letter to your Dear old phone. Google is again focusing on how the Pixel 9 series actually feels magical and how its not just the same old thing.

We reported this week that the Pixel 9 Pro might come with 1-year of Gemini Advanced. Meanwhile, it should be the first phone to feature Gemini Nano with Multimodality.

No longer shrouded in shadows, we then see the Pixel 9 Pro in Porcelain with Oh hi, AI as the tagline. Note the matte/grainy texture off the camera bar, while we see a glimpse of the shiny side rails.

Google also shared a handful of other shots of the device. The Google Store teases a whole new era of phones with a prominent button to Chat with Gemini on the Pixel 9 Pro page that just opens gemini.google.com.

The Pixel 9 Pro will be announced at Made by Google 2024 on August 13.

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Google teases Pixel 9 Pro as a phone built for the Gemini era [Video] - 9to5Google

Donald Trump's vice-presidential pick, Senator J.D. Vance, adds a former venture capitalist to the GOP ticket for the 2024 presidential election.

It also comes as business leaders in the tech space donate to the former president.

But Vance has favored breaking up large tech companies, namely Googles parent company, Alphabet Inc GOOGGOOGL.

What Happened: Earlier this year, Vance tweeted: "It's time to break Google up. This matters far more than any other election integrity issue. The monopolistic control of information in our society resides with an explicitly progressive technology company.

The post came ahead of Vances attending an event for antitrust reform. The event included Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan and Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass), who have been viewed as two figures looking to break up tech companies, as reported by The Verge.

"The fundamental question to me is, how do we build a competitive marketplace that is pro-innovation, pro-competition, that allows consumer to have the right choices and isn't just so obsessed on pricing power within the market that it sort of ignores all the other things that really matter?" Vance asked the audience.

At the event, Vance praised Khan, a President Joe Biden appointee. Republicans, in contrast, criticize Khan's blocking of tech deals.

"I look at Lina Khan as one of the few people in the Biden administration that I actually think is doing a pretty good job," Vance said.

One of the reasons Vance is against big tech centers on the perceived control big-name companies have over what people can say and post online. Vance alleged that voters will see results on Google that could be "explicitly biased towards Democrats" and called this "a threat to democracy."

At the event, Vance targeted Google and Facebook, a unit of Meta Platforms META.

"I think that Google and Facebook have really distorted our political process. And I think a lot of my friends on the left would agree with me, but they might disagree with me directionally about how to fix that problem, he said. "We have to stop the craziness, and I think one way to do it is to stop the way that these companies control the flow of information in our country."

Read Also: Trump Picks Senator J.D. Vance As Running Mate: Musk Says Great Choice For VP

Why It's Important: While Vance has vocally called for Google to be broken up, his appointment as the running mate of Trump doesn't mean it will happen. Vice presidents don't specifically set policy and oftentimes don't have a ton of power.

Having Vance in the White House could lead to more discussion from Trump and Congress on how to break up big technology companies and improve antitrust legislation.

The public callouts against Google come as Vance is an investor in video-sharing platform Rumble Inc RUM, a company that has filed multiple lawsuits against the search engine company.

Lawsuits from Rumble have centered on favoring YouTube in search results and digital advertising practices.

Vance also counts the Invesco QQQ Trust QQQ as one of his largest investments.

The U.S. Justice Department also filed a lawsuit against Google and has circled on the big technology company over antitrust concerns.

For Alphabet investors, the big question is if a breakup of the company could unlock shareholder value and be favored by some.

Needham analyst Laura Martin called Alphabet a top large-cap stock pick for 2024 and has a Buy rating.

Martin said Google is worth more in a sum of the parts than as one company and she welcomes attempts to break up the company.

"We believe the EU will ultimately require GOOGL to spin off its 3rd-party network ad business," Martin said.

Martin said breaking up Google could add 10% to 15% of upside for shareholders with YouTube potentially worth $455 billion to $634 billion on its own.

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Image: Shutterstock

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Trump's New Running Mate J.D. Vance Wants To Break Up Google: Could 2024 Election Be Bad For Big Tech? - Benzinga

AI is impacting every aspect of Google, including SEO and Google Ads.

In a recent article in Search Engine Land, Anna Crowe masterfully discussed the impact of generative AI on SEO. Its a great article, and I encourage you to read it if you havent already.

I want to expand on what Crowe wrote, focusing on AIs impact on Google advertising, both now and in the future.

One of the most startling findings in Crowes article is that AI is increasing Google search volume, but organic listings arent benefiting from that increase.

Crowe estimates that search volume is up 6 times searches per day (thanks to AI), yet AI is leading to a 60% decrease in average CTR.

This, in turn, could lead to a 30% reduction in organic traffic.

In Crowes words, Every single website is going to feel the pain.

Why arent organic listings benefiting from the increased search volume? Because organic listings are being moved further down the SERPs than ever before.

Googles introduction of AI Overviews on SERPs is one of the main contributors to this phenomenon.

If you havent seen them yet, heres what these AI Overviews look like on SERPs:

As of this writing, AI Overviews have been rolled out only to U.S.-based searchers.

As you can see, AI Overviews push organic results further down the page. Consequently, organic listings even those with top search rankings can fall below the fold.

Given this placement, its not surprising that traffic to these sites is dropping.

The situation on the advertising side of the equation looks quite different.

Crowe reports that we will start seeing ad placements above AI Overviews and put them at the top of SERPs.

This prime placement of ads on SERPs isnt too surprising, given that advertising is an important revenue source for Google. Why wouldnt they reserve that prime real estate for advertisers?

Its also possible (although Im just speculating) that the cards that contain organic links at the bottom of AI Overviews might someday be replaced with ads.

With these changes, two questions are top of mind for Google advertising professionals:

Crowe also speculates that we may see a drop in CPCs with these additional ad placements (a.k.a. ad inventory).

While I agree its possible, its not something Im counting on or even all that excited about, to be honest.

I feel this way for two reasons:

Advertisers have witnessed a steady decline in the power of standalone keyword targeting over the past few years, and many advertising pros (myself included) predict that this trend will continue.

With AI-driven campaign types on offer, such as Performance Max and Demand Gen, standalone keyword-based traditional search advertising seemed to be on its way out.

But now, Im starting to think that keywords are rising from the dead for two reasons:

Ginny Marvin, Ads Product Liaison at Google, outlined these changes in a recent LinkedIn post.

These updates include automatically including misspellings in negative keyword lists and allowing brand inclusions and exclusions across additional campaign types theyre updates weve wanted for years!

What does all of this mean for Google advertisers?

This means that to be successful, you need to master all aspects of your Google Ads program, from Search to Performance Max to Display ads and more.

Even more importantly, you need to know how to integrate all of the targeting options, ad formats and campaign types to achieve peak performance.

To be more specific, here are six recommendations to stay ahead of the AI curve.

Broad match isnt what it was a few years ago.

The new broad match is dramatically different. Its so different that its too bad Google didnt give it a new name.

Todays broad match uses contextual signals and other signals, such as keywords in the ad group, landing page, user search behavior and user location, to understand intent.

Dig deeper: What to know about PPC keyword research tools and match types

With Googles commitment to AI, you can be sure that AI-driven campaigns like Performance Max arent going anywhere.

If you havent already, add a Performance Max to the mix and see how it affects account performance.

Get familiar with the pros and cons of this format and how it will interact with your current search keyword-targeted campaigns, as it will only become more important.

Your best-performing combination might include Performance Max, or it might not. The only way to know for sure is to test.

Dont let biases or preconceived ideas get in the way of bringing in more targeted traffic. Its not a question of whether Search is better than Performance Max or vice versa. Its a question of what works best for every Google Ads program.

Abandon the idea that you can copy and paste a successful strategy from one campaign to another. Its not so simple.

Weve repeatedly found that strategies that work well in one account may differ dramatically from those that work well in another even when the accounts provide similar services or products in the same industry.

Crowe points out in her article that Google is facing an indexing crisis. The amount of content that Google has to crawl and index is growing exponentially thanks, in part, to AI-generated content.

As a result, Google might not even try to index all content, starting with content thats generic.

To quote Crowe again, Today, the best way to get your content seen by Google is through content written with experience and opinion. AI cannot write based on experience.

Dig deeper: PPC landing pages: How to craft a winning post-click experience

All of this may sound overwhelming, but its not really.

Ever since I started in Google advertising, oh so many years ago, Ive always approached it with a marketing-first mindset. My primary focus is always on how we can use a clients Google Ads account to achieve the goals of the marketing teams we support.

Its a focus that my team and I continue to maintain today.

Whenever we encounter accounts that are overworked, over-targeted and over-tinkered, we start with the fundamentals.

We start by asking, How is this ad program supporting the companys goals? or even, Does this ad program support the companys goals at all? Often, it does not.

Its a straightforward approach, but youd be amazed at how well it works. We strip things down and laser-focus on aligning the advertising of the clients product/service with the clients business and marketing goals.

How we achieve that alignment may be a little different than before with the introduction of AI, but the basics still apply.

AI may have created new challenges. But the solution remains the same.

Ill leave you with one final note of optimism.

Even though Google is eager to keep people on its pages as long as possible, that doesnt mean your website will become obsolete anytime soon.

No matter how well information is presented on the SERPs, users still need to go to your site to talk to you about your service or product (for now, at least). You still have plenty of opportunities to engage with them and win them over on your own home turf.

However, as mentioned above, it is more important than ever to ensure that your website is well-designed and has the content you need to engage and convert leads.

Theres no question that AI is changing Google Ads in many important ways and will continue to do so.

Thats why all of the predictions and recommendations Ive written about above are just for this moment.

A month from now, a year from now, well need to reconsider keyword management and how it relates to account strategies once again.

Because generative AI will continue to evolve and how people use it will evolve along with it.

Contributing authors are invited to create content for Search Engine Land and are chosen for their expertise and contribution to the search community. Our contributors work under the oversight of the editorial staff and contributions are checked for quality and relevance to our readers. The opinions they express are their own.

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AI and Google advertising: Whats next? - Search Engine Land

Starting on August 23 this year, when someone clicks on a goo.gl link, it could first take them to a page with a warning that says the link "will no longer work in the near future" before taking them to the website they want to visit. Google shut down its goo.gl URL shortening service way back in 2018 and stopped users from being able to create new links. Now, the company has announced that it will stop supporting all existing goo.gl links altogether: The URLs will return a "404 page not found" result by August 25, 2025.

Google is giving developers ample time to move to other shorteners by displaying the aforementioned warning page to visitors over the next year. It will only show up for a percentage of existing links at first, but that percentage will keep growing until it appears for most, if not all, goo.gl links by their shutdown date. The company warns that the interstitial warning pages could cause disruptions and prevent users from getting to the URL they actually want to go to, so it's advising developers to change their shortened links as soon as possible.

The goo.gl link shortener service joins quite a large number of old features and services in Google's ever-growing product graveyard. They include the Hangouts chat app, the Stadia cloud gaming service and Google+, which once tried to take on Facebook.

Original post:

Google is turning off its goo.gl shortener links next year - Engadget

As we edge our way closer to the launch of the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro, the rest of the smartphone market isn't sitting on its hands and waiting. We already expected that Google would announce new Pixel phones soon enough and the company has now confirmed it August 13 is the big day.

That unveiling will see the arrival of a slew of new handsets including the Pixel 9 and Pixel 9 Pro, but there's one phone that is sure to capture the attention more than the others and it's one that I'm particularly keen to take a look at. That phone is the Pixel 9 Pro Fold, a device that as the name suggests, will be foldable.

I've long had an interest in foldable phones of all shapes and sizes, although I admit that I'm more interested in phones that fold open into tablets than a reimagining of the flip phone years. Because of that, the Pixel 9 Pro Fold is right up my alley despite having a terrible name. But with the iPhone Fold (or whatever it winds up being called) still seemingly years away, Google's new foldable is just another reminder of just how far behind it's fallen in a key aspect of the smartphone world excitement.

We don't know all that much about the Pixel 9 Pro Fold right now and we might have to wait until next month to get the full details. That being said, Google's Pixel phones tend to leak more than a leaky thing in leaktown so perhaps not. But Google has given us a glimpse of what we can expect in terms of the image at the top of this piece and the video below this text.

That video focuses heavily on Gemini, the chatbot technology that is sure to be a focus of the phone's unveiling a month or so before Apple Intelligence launches on the iPhone with iOS 18.

I have to say the Pixel 9 Pro Fold (have I mentioned how terrible that name is yet?) is a looker, and I do find it a more aesthetically pleasing device than its contemporaries like the Samsung Galaxy Fold family. But I'll likely never buy one because I want my foldable phone to be an iPhone. I want it to run iOS and tie into iCloud and have all my photos, currently safe and sound in iCloud Photos.

So what gives, Apple? Sure, the iPhone 16 models look cool and I'll no doubt own an iPhone 16 Pro Max in some shade of gray by the end of September. But am I excited about that? Not really. I'm more excited about having a new screen that isn't scratched if I'm being absolutely honest. There's talk that the iPhone 17 will hold up better than its predecessors, thankfully. But it still won't fold.

iMore offers spot-on advice and guidance from our team of experts, with decades of Apple device experience to lean on. Learn more with iMore!

Apple will never join a market until it thinks it can do it right, and it's hard to argue with successes like the Apple Watch and the iPhone. But it was relatively early to the game with the hugely expensive Apple Vision Pro, a device that isn't expected to sell well and instead seems designed to get people used to the idea of spatial computing. A foldable iPhone isn't too much to ask, is it?

I'm worried that I won't be excited about another iPhone until I can fold it in half. An iPhone Pro Max that turns into an iPad mini at will sounds like a productivity and gaming powerhouse.

But Apple won't make one. And I now find myself looking at a Pixel and wishing that it ran iOS instead.

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Google has pre-announced the Pixel 9 Pro Fold, a phone with a terrible name but 100% more hinges than the next iPhone over to you, Apple - iMore