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Apple, Amazon, Google, PayPal and Intuit form coalition to promote financial technology

Silicon Valley giants Apple, Amazon, Google, PayPal and Intuit have formed a coalition to promote the benefits of financial technologies in order to help the U.S. government better understand these technologies and ensure greater innovation in financial services, Re/code reported Tuesday.

The initiative is called the Financial Innovation Now and aimed at accelerating the pace of change in financial services, according to the official website.

New Google app finds people to hang out with

A brand new Google app for your iPhone, currently available on an invite-only basis in the App Store, wants to take the pain out of finding people who are free to hang out.

Aptly named Who’s Down, the 16.2-megabyte download comes with an easy to use user interface featuring a slider that, when toggled, tells the app to let others know you're down to meet up, allowing you to see which of your friends are free to hang out.

Google launches YouTube Red, charges iOS users Apple tax

Following its official announcement less than two weeks ago, Google today formally launched a new music and video subscription service—YouTube Red.

In exchange for a monthly fee of $9.99, Red provides ad-free access to videos across all of YouTube, the ability to save clips and playlists for offline use and support for background playback. All these perks are available to Red members users across desktop, mobile and the web.

Due to Apple's 30 percent cut on In-App Purchases, Google has decided to raise Red's subscriptions on iOS devices to $12.99 per month in order to compensate for the Apple tax. A free 30-day trial of YouTube Red (US only) is available to those who want to try out the service and see if it's worth the asking price to them.

Chrome picks up iPad split-screen multitasking support in latest update

Google today pushed a small update to its Chrome mobile browser in the App Store. The new edition, officially bumped to version number 46.0.2490.73, brings support for iOS 9's new Split View multitasking mode on the iPad Air 2, iPad mini 4 and iPad Pro.

Moreover, Slide Over multitasking view and Picture-in-Picture video mode are supported in this Chrome edition as well. These are certainly welcomed additions for those of you who do a lot of research online as you can now browse the web with Chrome and run another app like Notes side-by-side.

Waze 4.0 is out with fresh look, revamped map, reduced battery consumption and more

Waze, the popular social-mapping location data startup, today pushed a major update to its GPS, maps and social traffic application in the App Store.

Featuring a refreshed design and cleaner maps with emphasis on safer driving, the new Waze 4.0 for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad also brings reduced battery consumption allowing the app to run longer in the background, and much more.

Google Translate gains Split View multitasking

Google's native translator app in the App Store has received a productivity-focused update earlier this morning. The free of charge software was bumped to version 4.2 and the big news in this edition is support for iOS 9's side-by-side Split View multitasking mode on supported devices like the iPad Air 2, iPad mini 4 and the upcoming iPad Pro.

In addition to Split View multitasking, Google Translate 4.2 for iOS has picked up camera translation from German and English to Arabic, joining other language packs.

Google launching deep integration between search and iOS 9 apps by month’s end

Google announced today that Apple fans who are running iOS 9 on their iPhone, iPod touch and iPad devices will soon start seeing app content in their search results in the Safari browser.

The company's so-called App Indexing feature is now compatible with HTTP deep link standards for iOS 9. Owners of iOS 9 devices should expect app content to begin surfacing in search results by month's end.

Google accelerates mobile pages

Google has been working with a small group of publishers for weeks on news articles that load almost instantaneously on smartphones, doing away with long loading times that eat up your battery and consume resources.

The Accelerated Mobile Pages Project went live today with mobile-optimized content from more than two-dozen participating publishers. These stories are searchable via mobile Google Search like regular searches.

Upon tapping on a link in Google search results, these article appears on your iPhone's screen almost immediately, like magic. It's a really cool glimpse of what mobile web should have been from the onset and we have a few examples you can check out yourself right now.

Google Maps finds its way to your Apple Watch

The Google Maps app received an update today that includes a handful of new features, the most noteworthy of them being support for Apple Watch.

Upon launching the app on your Apple Watch, you will be presented two buttons: one for directions to your home, another for directions to your work, two locations that can easily be set up from within Google Maps on iPhone. A list of recent routes is also displayed on the screen to quickly browse and access your latest requested directions.

Chromecast support, people labeling and shared albums coming to Google Photos

In addition to a pair of new Nexus smartphones and an upcoming $14.99 Google Play Music family tier, the search giant dedicated a few minutes of stage time at its media even this morning to the mobile Photos app, which launched on iOS and Android in May 2015.

An upcoming update to Google Photos, the company said, will add a few missing features to the software, like people labelling, Chromecasting, album collaboration and more.

Google Play Music to offer new $14.99 family plan later this year

Ahead of Apple Music launch tomorrow following its three-month trial period, Google at today's event announced that its own subscription-music service, called Google Play Music, will offer a new family plan later this year.

Like Apple Music, Google's service costs $9.99 per month. As you know, Apple Music also offers a $14.99 per month subscription for families up to six. While Google has yet to reveal a precise timeframe for upcoming family tiers, it did confirm the pricing.