- Live, at home: there is music, Broadway shows, movies, games and more you can access this weekend from the comfort of your living room, bedroom or yard.
- Google’s cloud gaming platform Stadia is free and available to everyone. Stadia Pro will be free for two months, and you can cancel before you are charged for the subscription. See the Stadia FAQ for details.
- YouTube has a #PrayWithMe article that highlights religious programming, including a special Saturday Night Seder, Holy Week services from the Vatican and more.
- Opera singer Andrea Bocelli will perform live at 7 PM CET (10 AM PDT) on Easter Sunday, April 12 from Milan’s Duomo Cathedral. Watch it here (and set a reminder today).
- A number of YouTube Originals are now free to watch for a limited time. You can see all the available free series are listed here. If you have young folks or kids at home, they may be excited by this.
- The YouTube channel The Shows Must Go On is showing full-length recordings of Andrew Lloyd Weber musicals every week. Performances begin Friday 7PM BST (11AM PDT), and run for 48 hours. Right now you can watch Jesus Christ Superstar.
- You can print out the new family-friendly version of Cards Against Humanity for free if you want a new game to play with your kids.
- Hangouts Meet and Hangouts Chat are now officially Google Meet and Google Chat. Only G Suite business or education users can set up Meet meetings or Chat “Rooms”. Meet is currently gaining 2 million new users every day, and has a number of privacy and security features. Consumer users can still use classic Hangouts for video calls or messaging.
- In early March, Google made premium Meet video call features available to all G Suite customers at no additional cost. These include meetings with up to 250 participants, recording and live streaming within your organization. Originally these were to only be available until July. That has now been extended through September 30.
- There are a number of new Meet features for educators, including integration with Google Classroom, and limiting the ability to mute or remove participants or approve ask to join requests to meeting creators and calendar owners. And if teachers create a nicknamed meeting or a meeting in Classroom, students are not able to rejoin the meeting, as long as the teacher is the last one to leave. You can learn more about Meet’s privacy and security features for education, And teachers should check out Google’s Teach From Home page for tutorials on teaching remotely using Meet video calls, Classroom, Google Slides, Docs and other tools. Plus look at Google’s tips for making sure your lessons are accessible.
- Zoom has made it easier to configure its security features, and has made several security updates, including hiding the Zoom meeting ID, and enabling the Waiting Room and password protection by default.
- YouTube has removed the Music Policy section of the Audio Library. This let creators see information about policy for using commercial music recordings. For example, some songs could be used with monetization by the copyright holder, while others could not be used at all. Now the Audio Library just has music and sound effects that you can use in your recordings.
- YouTube Studio now has a “Known Issues” card on the Dashboard, so you can immediately see if YouTube is currently experiencing problems.
- If you want to stay up to date with COVID-19-related changes for YouTube Creators, you can now subscribe by email for updates.
- If you are an AdSense Publisher, or YouTube Partner, you should be aware of some current AdSense issues related to the coronavirus pandemic. There may be delays receiving your address verification PIN, and you may have difficulty receiving a payment by Western Union, as many of their offices are closed. Also, if you are adding a website to your AdSense account, be aware that new site approvals may be temporarily unavailable.
- WeVideo now offers video templates for book reports, science studies and other student projects. The templates are available in WeVideo for Schools accounts. K-12 schools can currently sign up for free WeVideo for Schools accounts.
- If you want to try live streaming from home, you may want to check out Twitch Studio Beta streaming software, which makes it easy to go live from your desktop computer. Also, be mindful of Twitch’s updated nudity and attire policy, which is more specific than it used to be. Nudity and partial nudity is not allowed, but there are some exceptions for swimwear at the beach (or other appropriate context), body painting, and breastfeeding.
- Twitch has launched “Watch Parties” to all US Partners, and will be made available worldwide over the next few months. If you host a Watch Party, you can select from a number of movies, TV shows and Amazon Originals to watch together with your fans.
- Take a look back at last year's Google Webmaster Conference Product Summit, and watch the tals.
- You can now control how your website’s snippets appear in Bing search results using meta tags. Google also supports the same meta tags, so you can use them to control how your site appears in both Bing and Google Search.
- Instagram has launched “Thank You Hour”. Use the Thank You Hour sticker in a story to show gratitude for what’s getting you through the day, and it will be included in a special daily “Thank You Hour” story that your friends can see.
- You can also use the new #IStayHomeFor sticker in an Instagram Story and tag the person you love who you are staying home for.
- Snapchat has three new COVID-19 information Lenses, plus a new augmented reality donation experience.
- Facebook has launched a new Quiet Mode which mutes Facebook push notifications on your phone for the set time, and reminds you of that setting if you open the app during the quiet period.
- Google is adding features to health care listings in Map and Search to make it easier for patients to connect. Health provider COVID-19-related information is being automatically added to the listing. Virtual care platforms will be more visible in Search. And Google is highlighting tools provided to affected businesses, including Meet for telehealth visits, guides for providing website information so that it can easily be found in Search, and technology infrastructure.
- Google has tips for faith communities for making sure information about your place of worship appears correctly in Search. They also have information on how to host services, prayer and study groups online using Google tools, including YouTube live streaming, Hangouts and Docs.
- Chrome 81 is rolling out. For Chrome OS, the update makes it easier to navigate in tablet mode if you have a convertible Chromebook.There are also updates for desktop and Android.
- Finally, in a sign of how times have changed, Google and Apple are working together to launch operating system level technology to assist with contact tracing on Android and iOS devices. The goal is to make it easier for governments and public health organizations to develop apps to help contain the spread of COVID-19 while maintaining user privacy.
Image: Happy Easter. Easter egg candy photo by _Alicja_ on Pixabay.Free for commercial use
Comments
Post a Comment
Spam and personal attacks are not allowed. Any comment may be removed at my own discretion ~ Peggy