Google

Greenpeace praises Apple and others for helping build a greener Internet

Cody Lee ∙ Updated December 2, 2016

Apple has quite the history with environmental organization Greenpeace. The outfit has panned the iPad maker several times over the years for using toxic chemicals in its products and other non-green practices—it even staged a protest outside of its Cupertino headquarters back in 2012.

A lot has changed over the years, however, and this week, instead of protesting Apple, Greenpeace took to the skies to praise it and other companies for helping build 'a greener Internet.' That image you see above is of a blimp that the environmental advocacy group flew over Silicon Valley...

Rdio update makes album headers prettier, brings out Chromecast support

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 26, 2018

Google's Chromecast is picking up some noteworthy support from third-party software makers. The latest example: the popular Internet radio service Rdio has just pushed a new update today bringing support for Google's inexpensive $35 HDMI dongle.

The new Rdio version 2.5.8 also includes various user interface improvements, minor bug fixes and prettified album headers.

The update is now live in the App Store...

Drag and drop iTunes tracks to Google Play Music using new Chrome lab feature

Christian Zibreg ∙ March 26, 2014

Google's official Play Music app lets you access both Google’s subscription-based All Access and standard music services on your iPhone and iPad, but Apple-imposed restrictions prevent your iOS device from actually uploading song files to Google's music locker in the cloud.

Desktop users can upload their music using Google's Music Manager application for Mac and Windows PCs, but now there's a ridiculously easy way of adding those iTunes tracks to Google Play, using only the Chrome browser.

Now available in the Labs section of the Google Play Music web interface, and only on the Chrome web browser, this nicely done web app lets you upload individual tracks to the cloud literally by dragging and dropping them from iTunes, Windows Media Player or folders...

Google Now cards now rolling out on desktop in Chrome for Mac

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated August 30, 2023

Rich desktop notifications have been available in Google’s Chrome browser for the Mac for some time now, provided you were on the Canary channel where Google hosts early and unstable alpha releases of its browser. The normals, however, had to wait until desktop notifications for the Now cards made their way into the stable Chrome channel.

According to Google itself, that day is today - people on stable Chrome releases should start seeing Google Now alerts being pushed to their Macs and PCs. The handy alerts are nested right inside the browser’s notification center that sits in your Mac’s status bar (bottom-right if you're using Windows)...

New Google app: Photowall for Chromecast

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 26, 2018

The Internet giant Google on Monday released a brand new iPhone and iPad application, Photowall for Chromecast.

Conceived as a collaborative photo sharing “Chrome experiment,” the software uses your iOS device and Google's inexpensive $35 Chromecast HDMI dongle to allow anyone to beam their photos to a Photowall on your Chromecast-equipped TV, creating an interactive collage of memories.

What's more, YouTube will automatically generate a video of your Photowall to show off to friends who don't own a Chromecast. The app is now live in the App Store...

Google Voice reportedly getting axed soon in favor of VoIP-to-phones Hangouts integration

Christian Zibreg ∙ March 18, 2014

Have you even wondered why it's been nearly six months since Google last refreshed the free Google Voice for iPhone application (it still lacks iOS 7 styling)? After all, isn't Google Voice supposed to be a priority for the Internet giant?

For those unfamiliar with it, Google Voice is a telephony service that offers a bunch of nice features such as voicemail, free text messaging, call history, conference calling, call screening, call routing, blocking of unwanted calls and voice transcription to text of voicemail messages, to name a few.

According to a new report, Google could be looking to retire the standalone Voice app for iOS and Android and instead fold its functionality into the native Hangouts app, which was released in the App Store in May of 2013...

Motorola shows off its Android Wear smartwatch, Moto 360, coming this summer

Christian Zibreg ∙ March 18, 2014

Google has just announced its brand new Android Wear platform for powering wearable devices like smartwatches and handset maker Motorola is already showing off its first Android Wear-driven device, a smartwatch dubbed Moto 360.

Billed as a "modern timepiece," the device indeed is designed much like classic timepieces and sports high-grade finish that oozes premium quality.

The Moto 360, of course, runs Android Wear and includes Google Now integration, Android notifications, apps like weather, sports scores and more. It does gestures, too. "With just a twist of the wrist," Motorola writes, you can see who’s emailing or calling, what time your next meeting is or a friend’s latest social post...

Google extends Android to wearables: introducing Android Wear

Christian Zibreg ∙ March 18, 2014

Wearable computing is set to take off in a big way as the Internet giant Google on Tuesday introduced Android Wear, as previously promised.

Android Wear, as the name suggests, is meant to put Android on wearable devices such as smartwatches.

The company will be releasing soon the official Android Wear APIs to device vendors who want to put the power of Android in their health and fitness bands, smartwatches and other wearable gizmos.

Wearable devices driven by Android Wear include 'OK, Google' functionality and Android's rich notification system. Moreover, they can show users timely information and suggestions akin to Google Now.

Health and fitness functions are supported as well: users can get their fitness summaries and set their goals with reminders. Fitness apps taking advantage of the Android Wear APIs can give users information such as real-time speed, distance and time for their run, cycle or walk.

Perhaps the most interesting bit is the ability of Android Wear devices to relay your voice commands to other devices such as smartphones, tablets or Chrome devices. Starting today, programmers can download a Developer Preview to tailor their existing app notifications for watches powered by Android Wear.

The company said that first Android-powered wearables are coming later this year. Jump past the fold for more information and a pair of pretty good promotional videos...

New commenting features, UI tweaks and more added to YouTube iOS app

Christian Zibreg ∙ March 17, 2014

Google's native YouTube application for the iPhone and iPad has just been updated with some much-needed enhancements to the commenting system and more. For starters, it is now finally possible to reply to other people's comments and delete your own comments right within the app.

Previously, you had to visit the YouTube interface on the web to remove unwanted comments so that's a nice little time saver right there. This edition of YouTube includes a few other timely enhancements and useful interface refinements, all listed and illustrated right after the break.

The update is now live in the App Store...

Google Play Games gets cross-platform multiplayer gaming between iOS and Android

Christian Zibreg ∙ March 17, 2014

First announced at the Internet giant's I/O developer conference last May, Google Play Games services provide Android, iOS and web developers with APIs for Apple Game Center-like features such as leaderboards, achievements, cloud saves, sign-in services and more. There was just one piece of the puzzle missing for the full cross-platform gaming nirvana: support for multiplayer sessions between iOS and Android devices.

As announced today on the official Android Developers blog and at Game Developers Conference, the newly-updated SDK now makes it easy to implement both Google Play Games turn-based and real-time multiplayer modes. When implemented by a game developer on both iOS and Android, player with an iPhone can challenge his or her Android-totting friend to multiplayer matches, and vice versa...

Geohot wins $150,000 for exposing ChromeOS exploits

Cody Lee ∙ March 15, 2014

Google held its Pwnium 4 security competition last week at CanSecWest in Vancouver, Canada. The day-long event ended with hundreds of thousands of dollars being awarded to hackers who demonstrated exploits in Google Chrome. And believe it or not, $150,000 of that went to Geohot.

For those not familiar with the name, Geohot has picked up a number of headlines over the past 7 years. After hacking the iPhone he took his talents to the PS3, where he caused enough chaos to get sued by Sony. And he's since been spotted at Facebook, iOSDevCamp and various other places...

Google cuts prices for Drive storage, putting pressure on Dropbox and others

Cody Lee ∙ March 13, 2014

Google announced some drastic price cuts for its Drive cloud storage today, dropping its 100GB plan down to just $1.99 per month. The service now significantly undercuts rivals like Dropbox, which charges $10 per month for 100GB, and iCloud, which doesn't even offer a 100GB option.

To be fair, Google's Drive pricing was already lower than Dropbox, with a 100GB plan costing $4.99 per month vs. $9.99. But that extra $3 per-month savings equates out to $36 per year, making it even more attractive. Don't mind paying $9.99 monthly? Drive now offers 1TB at that price...