Happy Mother’s day to all you moms! I hope your loving children get you something nice, like a bouquet of flowers or a new Pixel 3a. This week was Google I/O, Google’s annual developer conference. Google announced new hardware, app features, upcoming changes to Android, and updates related to the Google ecosystem, including Search and Google Assistant. This year’s theme was “getting things done”, “for everyone” with an emphasis on accessibility, privacy and security. And there were updates webmasters, podcasters and other creative folks.
Read on for an overview of my top announcements this week. Be sure to also see all the links below for detailed information. And, of course, there are more updates outside of Google I/O for video creators, webmasters and more.
- It’s now easier to access your Google Account settings from all major Google products on mobile devices, including Drive, Gmail, Contacts, Pay and coming to Search, Maps, YouTube, Chrome, Assistant and News. Just click your profile photo at top right and follow the link to your Google account.
- You will also be able to easily review and delete your data and history from inside Search, Assistant, Maps and YouTube.
- Chrome will be improving cookie controls. Users will be able to clear cross-site cookies, while leaving single-domain cookies unaffected, so you won’t be signed out or lose your settings. Chrome will also more aggressively restrict “fingerprinting” which tracks users based on browser version and configuration.
- Incognito mode is coming to Google Maps. And Google reminds that Incognito is already available in YouTube.
- Augmented Reality (AR) will be available in the Google Search results, letting you view 3D objects in Knowledge panel results in your own space. They demoed this with a shark on the I/O stage.
- You will also be able to listen to podcasts and save episodes for later, right from search.
- News in the Google Search results will be better organized and have more context as Google will be using the tech that powers Full Coverage in Google News.
- Google Lens lets you view items on a restaurant’s menu. This relies on user-submitted photos of menu items to Google Maps. Thank your Local Guides for that! And if you are a restaurant owner, it would probably worth submitting quality photos of your most popular menu items.
- Google Lens is also being updated to pull more information from the “real world” including bringing a recipe in a magazine “to life”, getting stories behind artwork in a museum, or reading and translating text aloud.
- The next generation of Google Assistant is smaller, faster and has an AI will run on your device, rather than on Google’s servers. This will be coming to Pixel phones later this year.
- “Duplex” technology, which can book an appointment or make a restaurant reservation for you over the phone, is coming to the web. It can navigate websites and use your stored payment information. It will be available later this year in English in the U.S. and U.K. on Android phones with the Assistant for rental car bookings and movie tickets.
- Assistant is getting more personal, learning your preferences and who “mom” is, and using contextual clues, like the time of day, when providing information. Smart Displays will have a new feature, “Picks for You”, with personalized suggestions for recipes, events and podcasts. That’s coming later this summer.
- Google Assistant is also getting a driving mode, with a “voice-forward dashboard” that brings navigation, messaging and media to the forefront. Coming later this summer to Android phones, it will launch automatically when connecting to your car via bluetooth, or if you say “Hey Google, let’s drive”.
- Sometimes it’s the little changes that make a difference. You can turn off a Google Assistant timer or alarm on your Google Home speakers or smart displays by just saying “stop.” You don’t have to say “OK, Google” first.
- On-device machine learning drives Live Caption, an Android Q feature that automatically captions any media that’s playing audio on your phone. It works with videos, podcasts and audio messages, in any app. And it doesn’t require an internet connection.
- Google is working on Live Relay, that helps folks who are deaf, hard of hearing or speech impaired make phone calls. It uses text-to-speech and voice recognition to quickly transcribe what the person is saying, and and Smart Compose and Smart Reply to create real-time responses. This works on your device, maintaining the privacy of your phone conversation. Google is also exploring integrating real time translation. This is not ready for consumers to try yet, but if you are interested, follow Google Accessibility on Twitter for updates.
- Project Euphoria is working to improve speech recognition for people with speech impairments.If you have slurred or hard to understand speech, fill out this short form to volunteer and record a set of phrases to assist this project.
- Android Q also has on-device Smart Reply built in to notifications, to “intelligently predict your next action”.
- There are some apps that collect your location data even when the app is running in the background. Android Q will have a dedicated “Privacy” section in Settings, that lets you more easily set which apps can have access to your location data.
- Android Q will have a new “Focus” mode in the Digital Wellbeing settings, that will let you easily silence just the apps you find distracting.
- Family Link will be integrated on every Android device, starting with Android Q. That lets parents manage kids Google accounts, limit the content they can see, and set app-specific time limits.
- Android Q Beta 3 has 230 new emoji: yawning face, flamingo, white heart, blood drop, accessibility-orientated emojis, updated gender neutral designs, people of different colors holding hands and more.
- And, finally, Android Q will have a built in dark theme!
- The new Pixel 3a and Pixel 3a XL were announced. These are less expensive versions of Google’s Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL phones. They have a plastic body and less expensive screen, but they have the same camera hardware and software as the Pixel 3 for awesome photos. Plus they have a long-lasting battery and get the same features and updates as other Pixel phones. Looks good to me!
- All Pixel phones will be getting a preview of AR walking navigation in Google Maps. As long as you are in an area covered by Street View with a good data connection and good lighting, Google will point to where you need to go in AR mode.
- And the Pixel 3a and other Pixel phones are getting Time Lapse mode in the Camera app, letting you compress minutes of video into seconds. I have it on my Pixel 2 already!
- Google’s “Home” products are being brought under the Nest brand. If you have a Next account, you will have the option to migrate to a Google account. And Google has promised to provide more information about how you can control your privacy and how your data is used when using Nest devices. The bad news is that “Works with Nest” 3rd party hardware will stop working with Nest on August 31st.
- Google also introduced the Nest Hub Max, a smart speaker with a digital photo frame and camera. You can use it to watch videos or TV (if you subscribe to YouTube TV), video call using Google Duo, control your smart devices, or talk to the Google Assistant. It can be controlled using your voice or even hand gestures. Face Match lets the Hub Max show you personalized content when it recognizes your face. It will be available later this summer in the US, UK and Australia.
- Chromebook updates: All new Chrome OS devices will be Linux-ready right out of the box. Also the file manager has also been improved to make it easier to move files between Chrome OS, Linux and Android.
- The Googlebot - the crawler that visits web pages to include them within Google Search index - now runs the latest Chromium rendering engine. Going forward, it will get regular updates so that it can access the latest web features, like the latest in Javascript, IntersectionObserver for lazy-loading and Web Components v1 APIs.
- Google is making ads more transparent: “for the ads that Google shows on our own properties and those of our publishing partners, we will disclose new information through an open-source browser extension that will work across different browsers. The new information will include the names of other companies that we know were involved in the process that resulted in an ad—for example, ad tech companies that acted as intermediaries between the advertiser and publisher, and companies with ad trackers present in an ad. [...] The extension will display information for each ad we show a user, and will present an aggregated snapshot for all the ads Google has shown a user recently.“
- Not I/O: On May 22 Flickr will be down for maintenance while they "move a huge piece of infrastructure out of Yahoo’s data centers" On that date, you can print and cut out the panda photo on the home page, photograph or Photoshop it in an adventure, and submit to win a year of Flickr Pro
- Not I/O: Facebook is updating the way it ranks videos, with more weight on viewer loyalty, engagement and video viewing duration, and limiting distribution and monetization of unoriginal or repurposed content.
Read on for more updates and tips for YouTubers, webmasters, advertisers, Android device owners and more.
Image: Google I/O ‘19 updates for Android Q, Accessibility, Assistant, Chrome, Home/Nest, Flutter, Lens, Search, ARCore, Google Developers
Upcoming
Google I/O ‘19 Overviews
- 100 things Google announced at I/O ’19
- Google Keynote (Google I/O'19)
- Google Search: State of the Union (Google I/O'19)
- Developer Keynote (Google I/O '19)
- Google Cloud at I/O: The news you need to know
- Google I/O'19 - Wrap-up and highlights from I/O'19
- Google I/O'19 - I/O Live (Day 1 Composite)
- Google I/O'19 - I/O Live (Day 2 Composite)
- Google I/O'19 - I/O Live (Day 3 Composite)
- Google Developers YouTube Channel: Google I/O ‘19 Topics YouTube Playlists
- Android and Play at Google I/O '19 YouTube Playlist
Google Search and Assistant
- Helpful new visual features in Search and Lens
- Google brings playable podcasts to search results
- Bringing you the next generation Google Assistant
- Hit the road with Android Auto’s new look
- One year later, restaurants are still confused by Google Duplex (The Verge)
- Actions on Google at I/O 2019: New tools for web, mobile, and smart home developers
Android Q
- Sharing what’s new in Android Q
- What’s New in Android: Q Beta 3 & More
- First look: Google’s 2019 Emoji Update
- Android Q: Dark Theme is here
- Android Digital Wellbeing: Introducing Focus mode
- What’s new in Android Q security
- Safer and more secure Android devices with Project Mainline
- The Best New Features in Android Q (Lifehacker)
Updates for Android App Developers
- I/O 2019: New features to help you develop, release, and grow your business on Google Play
- New ARCore tools: Light Estimation and Scene Viewer
- What’s New with Android Jetpack
- Android Studio 3.5 Beta
- Google I/O 2019: Empowering developers to build the best experiences on Android + Play
- Smart strategies for growing your app business with ads
- All you need to know about Google Pay if you’re a developer
- Google will recalculate all Play Store review scores this summer (Android Police)
- Designing Sound and Silence
Privacy, Security, and Family Controls
- Privacy that works for everyone
- The evolution of Family Link parental controls.
- Now generally available: Android phone’s built-in security key
- You May Have Forgotten Foursquare, but It Didn’t Forget You (Wired)
Made By Google and Google Home
- Pixel 3a the more helpful (and affordable) phone from Google
- Google Nest: welcome to the helpful home
- More help is on the way with Nest Hub Max
- Nest, the company, died at Google I/O 2019 (Ars Technica)
- Hit the road with Android Auto’s new look
Accessibility
- Building a more helpful Google for everyone
- Easier phone calls without voice or hearing
- Introducing Live Caption on Android
- Project DIVA makes Google Assistant more accessible
- How AI can improve products for people with impaired speech
- Lookout: An assistive app for users with vision impairments, now available on more devices
- Making creative tools more accessible for everyone
- Here are the grantees of the Google AI Impact Challenge
Chrome, Chrome OS, and the web
- Google I/O 2019: What's new with Chrome and the Web
- Chromium Blog: Improving privacy and security on the web
- What’s new in Chrome OS? A faster, simpler, and more secure environment for Web and Android developers
- Flutter and Chrome OS: Better Together
- Flutter: a Portable UI Framework for Mobile, Web, Embedded, and Desktop
- How Google and Microsoft ended up working together on the Chromium-based Edge browser (Android Police)
Bloggers and Webmasters
- Create and insert image carousels in new Google Sites
- The new evergreen Googlebot
- New in structured data: FAQ and How-to from Google Webmasters
- English Google Webmaster Central office-hours hangout (May 10) (Google Webmasters)
- Google I/O 2019 - What sessions should SEOs and webmasters watch?
- There’s a new Speed Report coming to Google Search Console (Search Engine Land)
- WordPress 5.2 “Jaco” (WordPress)
Ads and Advertising
- Raising the bar on transparency, choice and control in digital advertising
- An update on first price auctions for Google Ad Manager
- Smart strategies for growing your app business with ads
- Seven ways retailers can better connect with shoppers online
- Mobilizing for Summer: Google Marketing Live 2019
- Google Partners Academy on Air: Capture attention with best-in-class video ads
Google And Your Business
- How to start your small business online in three simple steps (Google Cloud)
- Report: Websites and GMB Profiles Both Essential for Local Businesses (Street Fight)
YouTube and Video Creation
- Stories Notification Experiment, Copyright Match Tool Rollout Complete, and more! (Creator Insider)
- YouTube Plays A Major Role In Google’s Plans To Revamp Ecommerce Arm (Report) (TubeFilter)
- YouTube Now Has 2 Billion Monthly Users, Who Watch 250 Million Hours on TV Screens Daily (Variety)
- YouTube Stories: How Aussies are learning through video
- Facebook updating video ranking: loyalty and intent, video and viewing durations and originality (Facebook Newsroom)
Google Photos and Photo Sharing
- Planned maintenance and Flickr downtime (Flickr)
- Enter the Flickr “Good Panda” photo contest for a chance to win a free year of Flickr Pro! (Flickr)
Social Media: Facebook and Instagram
- @shop Is Now Open on Instagram (Instagram)
- Instagram will begin blocking hashtags that return anti-vaccination misinformation (The Verge)
- Updates to Video Ranking (Facebook Newsroom)
- Facebook Stories Sweetens Birthdays with a New Feature (Facebook)
- Inside Facebook's war room: the battle to protect EU elections (The Guardian)
- Even Facebook’s co-founder thinks it should be broken up (Vox)
Hangouts, Meetings and Messaging
- Google Duo group calling is now rolling out in United States, Can ada, and India (9to5Google)
- Telegram Update: Archived Chats, a New Design and More (Telegram)
Productivity
- Three new features to format and work with data in Google Sheets
- New meeting creation flow for Calendar on Android
- What’s next for Google Maps Platform
- Bing Maps releases three new services: Mixed Reality Map Control, iOS & Android Controls preview & MIO API
- More science in more places with Science Journal and Google Drive
More around the web
- How an Augmented Reality Game (Ingress!) Escalated into Real-World Spy Warfare (Vice)
- PodCon won’t be happening again (Hank Green)
- A little help from Google to map Australian election day
- From puzzles to poster-making: 2019’s Google Play Award winners
- A look at how news at Google works
- Google’s scalable supercomputers for machine learning, Cloud TPU Pods, are now publicly available in beta
- Watch the Microsoft Build 2019 Keynote
- Windows now comes with an extra Linux sprinkle
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Spam and personal attacks are not allowed. Any comment may be removed at my own discretion ~ Peggy