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Weekly Update - October 7, 2017: Made By Google, Google Assistant, Fake News

There was a lot happening in the Googleverse this week, with some cool new hardware and updates for Hangouts, Webmasters, and Google+.
  • On October 4th Google had it’s big hardware event, where they introduced “a few new things made by Google”, showcasing their focus on an “AI-first” world. Google Assistant is everywhere!
    New products include the new Pixel 2 phones with an excellent new camera and eSIM, earbuds with Google Assistant, Google Home Mini and Max, more integration of Google Assistant with Nest, new AR and VR experiences, the Google Clips AI-enabled camera and the shiny new Pixelbook Chromebook. 
  • Google+ got two excellent new features: the web image lightbox now emphasizes captions and comments  and Community moderators can now remove recent content from banned members.
  • You may have noticed a change to Google Hangouts Contact Search. There are no longer suggestions from across Google and Google+ - all you will see in the results are people from your contacts or organization. If you want to start a Hangout conversation with someone new, you’ll need their email address.
  • Communication did get a bit easier: you can now dial into a Hangouts Meet video call with an international phone number and Google Allo for Web now supports iOS, Firefox and Opera
  • Google is working to make it easier for publishers to sign up new subscribers. Towards that end, Google is ending their “First Click Free” policy, which required publishers to offer a free article to appear in News and Search results. Now publishers can set how much content visitors via Google can view for free.
  • In the wake this week’s horrific shooting in Las Vegas, Facebook, Google News and YouTube have come under fire for allowing their automated systems to promote fake news and conspiracy theories. Rapidly breaking news seems to have overwhelmed any filters that are in place. Hopefully they will figure out how to do better.
  • Finally, Yahoo says that the 2013 email breach actually included all 3 billion accounts that existed at that time. Yes, that includes your account.
Plus there are tips and news for YouTubers, Bloggers, Business Owners and more.

Upcoming:

  • 12 October: Google Partners Academy on Air: Universal App Campaigns: Deep dive and best practices
  • 19 October: Google Partners Academy on Air: User Acquisition: Maximizing apps via web
  • 26 October: Google Partners Academy on Air: Leveling Up Your UAC Campaigns: The right game events

Made by Google, Android, Project Fi

YouTube and Video Creation

Go Live

Google+

  • Google+ web update: image lightbox now emphasizes captions and comments (Leo Deegan)
  • Google+ Community update: remove recent content from banned members (Leo Deegan)

Other social media

Google Photos and Mobile Photography

Google for businesses

Bloggers and Webmasters

AdSense and advertising

  • Google Partners Academy on Air: Mobile App-Install: Getting started (Google Partners)

Hangouts and Messaging

Productivity

Privacy and Security

More around the web

Updated March 2019 to remove Google+ links
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