- Reminder: If you have a G Suite for Education account with a suspended Brand Account and you are NOT a student, your admin has until November 1st to request an extension. Suspended Brand Accounts will be deleted November 15th.
- “OK Google, get spooky.” Your Google Home, Nest and Assistant are ready for Halloween.
- Google has reported on how they are using machine learning to improve how they understand search queries, with a new advancement they describe as “one of the biggest leaps forward in the history of Search”. Their natural language processing technique “BERT” (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers), tries to understand words in the context of a sentence. That means Google can give better search results, especially for longer, more conversational queries.
- If you just want to get down to basics, Google has posted a brief video about how Google Search works. It explains and links to the Quality Rater Guidelines. And Google Webmasters has posted a video to answer the question whether you business needs a website.
- Google will no longer show images or snippets from European news sites in French search results. Websites can use new meta tags to customize the size of the snippet Google shows in search results.
- Facebook is testing a new dedicated Facebook News page in the US. It will show both algorithmically-selected personalized news and human-curated stories. There is also local original news reporting, but that is currently limited to publications from a few major cities. I personally don’t see the appeal to getting news from Facebook, but this certainly sounds better than the usual stream of click-baity content that makes it to my news feed.
- Joy Hawkins has a cool tutorial on using the Google Vision AI to analyze images for local search. It looks like an interesting way to analyze any image. It can be informative to see what Google associates your usual profile photo or web banner with. Try it out.
- If you are in Los Angeles, Chicago or New York, Google Maps will help you find a restaurant with “Local Favorites”, “Hidden Gems” and “Rising Stars” lists in the apps Explore tab.
- Google Maps Platform has a new YouTube channel.If you are interested in integrating Google Maps with your app, game or website, check it out.
- If you are still trying to find your way around the YouTube Studio Beta, check out this live walkthrough with Tom from Creator Insider. He also talks about why YouTube is pushing people to using the new Studio when it doesn’t seem quite ready yet.
- If you have the SnapTube video downloader app on your phone, uninstall it now. Reports say that it not only is invisibly loading and clicking ads but also signs up users for subscriptions and premium digital services when the phone is not in use.
- Flickr is helping users get more social. It has a new Events page, where you can find photo walks, meetups, workshops, exhibitions and other happenings. Events are tied to a Flickr Group. You can learn more and provide feedback in the official Flickr forum.
- Flickr also tripled the maximum display size of images up to 6144 pixels on the longest side for Pro users. That would look great on a big screen.Hangouts Meet, Google’s next-generation video calling platform for business, got several updates this week. More people can now join a Meet call, with a maximum 100 participants for Basic accounts, 150 participants for Business Accounts, and 250 participants for Enterprise accounts. G Suite Business and Basic domains can now add international dial-in numbers to video meetings. And Meet is getting a material design makeover on desktop (rolling out over the next couple of weeks). Currently only G Suite users can host a Meet call, but if you are a consumer user, you can join a meeting from the meet.google.com site. Meet should be available to all users some time in late 2020.
- G Suite account users will no longer be able to set a separate profile photo for Gmail. The Google Account profile photo will be used for Gmail and all Google services, just as it is used in consumer Google accounts.
- You can now create a new Google Calendar event on desktop by simply entering meeting.new or cal.new in your browser’s address bar.
- If you are a Google Fi user with a “Designed for Fi” phone (like a Pixel), it will automatically switch between T-Mobile, Sprint and US Cellular networks as you move around. This switching is getting noticeably faster with new “duel connect” technology using Dual Sim Dual Standby (DSDS) hardware that lets your phone connect to two mobile networks at once. Currently this is only available on the Pixel 4, but will eventually be available on more “Designed for Fi” devices.
- This week was the Android Developers Summit. If you are a developer, check out the links below to the announcements and updates. Google has also improved their free Google Play Academy for app success, and for the ambitious, there a new Android Developer Challenge where Google may help you realize your app concept that uses on-device machine learning.
- Google has introduced Digital Wellbeing experiments, a platform that lets developers and designers create tools to help folks build a “better balance” with technology. There are six experiments you can try on your Android device: Unlock Clock (see how often you unlock your phone), Post Box (scheduled notifications), We Flip (turn off technology as a group), Paper Phone (print out a booklet of the important info you need for the day), Desert Island (go a day with only your essential apps), Morph (your phone gives you “just the right apps at just the right time”).
- Finally, Google claims to have demonstrated “quantum supremacy”, meaning they have “used a quantum computer to solve a problem that would take a classical computer an impractically long amount of time”. Their text computation using the quantum computer took only 200 seconds, while it would have taken “the best known algorithms in the most powerful supercomputers thousands of years to accomplish” the same task. Watch the video explainer. I’ll note that, in response, IBM claims the calculation would have only taken 2.5 days on a classical system, not thousands of years, and so they argue this was not a demonstration of actual quantum supremacy. In any case this seems to be a significant accomplishment.
- Be sure to take a look at my playlist of the videos I suggest in my weekly roundup link list and follow it in your YouTube account.
Read on for more news, updates and tips for webmasters, advertisers, and more.
Subscribe to get the Weekly Update in your email inbox or favorite feed reader. Miss last week’s update? Get it here.
Subscribe to get the Weekly Update in your email inbox or favorite feed reader. Miss last week’s update? Get it here.
Image: Jack-o-lanterns by JillWellington on Pixabay. Free for commercial use.
Upcoming
- October 29: Google Webmasters English Office Hours
- November 1: Deadline for G Suite for Education admins to request an extension for Brand Account Primary Owners (with limitations)
- November 1: Google Webmasters English Office Hours
- November 2: Patreon Assembly (join a viewing party)
- November 4: Google Webmaster Conference
- November 5: National Veterans Small Business Week livestream: Connect with local customers on Google
Android Developers Summit
- Android Dev Summit 2019 - All Sessions (YouTube Playlist)
- Celebrating 1 year of Google Play's Academy for App Success
- All About Updates: More Treble
- Android Developer Challenge: helpful innovation, powered by On-Device Machine Learning + you!
- A modern approach to Android development, with Jetpack Compose and more!
- High engagement, larger screens: How Android developers can reach users on any device
YouTube and Video Creation
- YouTube app adds HDR video support for the iPhone 11 Pro and Pro Max (9to5Google)
- Google defends lack of 4K 60FPS on Pixel 4 as ‘majority of users stick with 1080p’ (9to5Google)
- Google Cameos comes to Android to give celebrities a new way to respond to fans (Android Police)
- Tom does Studio Beta Show and Tell (Creator Insider)
- Copyright Permissions - Copyright on YouTube (YouTube Creators)
Social Media: Facebook and Instagram
- Introducing Facebook News (Facebook Newsroom)
- Facebook's new web interface is rolling out for some, with dark mode in tow (A
- How We Respond to Inauthentic Behavior on Our Platforms: Policy Update (Facebook Newsroom)
- Helping to Protect the 2020 US Elections (Facebook Newsroom)
- Instagram Is Banning Face-Altering Filters That Have A Plastic Surgery Effect (Buzzfeed)
- Instagram Adds IGTV Series Option to Categorize Videos (Social Media Today)
- [Update: Rolling out] WhatsApp won't throw you into unwanted group chats anymore (Android Police)
Social Media: Twitter
Other Social Media
Google Photos and Photo Sharing
- Closer to the stars with Pixel 4 (Google)
- Google’s older Pixels won’t get the Pixel 4’s dual exposure and Live HDR+ features (The Verge)
- A new home for your Flickr events (Flickr)
- Flickr Triples Display Size of Pro Photos to 6K (PetaPixel)
Google for Businesses
- Optimizing Images for Local Search (Joy Hawkins)
- Meet the most loved restaurants on Google (Google)
Bloggers and Webmasters
- Understanding searches better than ever before (Google)
- How Google Search Works (in 5 minutes) (Google)
- Do I Need a Website? | Search for Beginners Ep 1 (Google Webmasters)
- European News Lose Google Snippets Per French Law (Search Engine Journal)
- Developers: Get Ready for New SameSite=None; Secure Cookie Settings (Chromium)
AdSense and Advertising
- Upgrade your banner ads with new adaptive anchor banners (AdMob)
- Digital-first advertising solutions for TV programmers (Google Ad Manager)
Hangouts, Meetings and Messaging
- Messages for web adds Google Duo calling integration (9to5Google)
- Host Hangouts Meet meetings with up to 250 participants (G Suite Updates)
- Dial into a Hangouts Meet video call with an international phone number for G Suite Business and Basic (G Suite Updates)
- Material Design for Hangouts Meet on the web (G Suite Updates)
- AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile have finally agreed to replace SMS with a new RCS standard (The Verge)
- AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon enter into new RCS messaging joint venture (Android Police)
Made by Google, Android, Google Fi
- Better coverage with Fi’s dual connect technology (Google)
- Nest Mini is here: listen to stories from Disney’s “Frozen 2” (Google)
- Record a lecture, name that song: Pixel 4 uses on-device AI (Google)
- Google details Project Treble’s impact on Android updates, highlights Pie adoption (9to5Google)
Productivity
- Google Podcasts receives larger Now Playing UI (Android Police)
- Contacts no longer appear in Google app or Search widget autocomplete results (Android Police)
- Touring Bird lands with Google to plan your perfect trip (Google)
- Stable Channel Update for Desktop (Chrome 78) (Chrome Releases)
- Chrome for Android Update (Chrome Releases)
- Chrome for iOS updated with dark mode and card-based UI (9to5Google)
- Find a balance with tech using Digital Wellbeing Experiments (Google)
- Todoist announces Foundations update: Project sections and better, faster task management (Android Police)
Privacy and Security
- Latest Firefox Brings Privacy Protections Front and Center Letting You Track the Trackers – The Mozilla Blog (Mozilla)
- [Update: Sprint, T-Mobile] US carriers launch system that could replace app passwords with your phone itself (Android Police)
- New Android Warning: 40M Users Installed Video App Hiding Devious Malware—Delete Now (Forbes)
More around the web
- Inside the Phone Company Secretly Run By Drug Traffickers (Vice)
- "Everybody Is Freaking Out": Freelance Writers Scramble to Make Sense of New California Law (Hollywood Reporter)
- Computing takes a quantum leap forward (Google)
- Game on! Our first Stadia studio is coming to Montréal (Google)
- Supporting 34 local news projects across North America (Google)
Google's AI was interesting (except I am wearing a dyed blonde wig ;~)
ReplyDelete