Now wake up to your Favorite Tunes with the Google Clock App

Getting up for work or for school can really be hard sometimes. Who am I kidding? It’s always tough. That sleepiness just does not go away that easily and we take that one more minute before finally it becomes too late. Google is now trying to help with that through its Google clock app. Later this week the tech giant plans on releasing Spotify along with Google clock, so that waking up in the mornings is not all that horrible.

Google clock will now come with support for Spotify, so you can now choose your favorite song to go with your morning regimen. From the alarm sounds on Google clock you will be able to now select a Spotify option which allows you to browse through your library and select the wake up song of your choice. There’s even an option to play the song even after the alarm has stopped too.

New Spotify support on the Google Clock app:

Google’s new update is coming out later this week worldwide. This update gives users the choice of their favorite song as an alarm sound.

Spotify is reportedly not the only feature that seems to be coming with the Google clock app. Google plans on bringing other music streaming services to Google App, perhaps later on. What’s strange about this new feature is that YouTube Music does not feature as a default on the Google app. Although Google has promised that it is working on that and we will see it on Google clock soon.

So what to do you have to do to get your favorite song from Spotify on your Google clock app?

Besides figuring out on your own, you could always read this post and get to it instead of worrying about how to do it later on.

The steps are simple enough but will help you save valuable time.

This new feature on the Google clock app will run on Android 5.0 lollipop or later versions. So if you’ve got the latest phone there’s no need to worry. Besides this you would also have to ensure that you are running the latest version of the clock app.

Once in the clock app, select the ringer button to choose your wake up tune then go to the Spotify tab and select your song. If you don’t see the Spotify tab it means that the feature has not yet reached you and will come in a few day’s time.

To choose a song from your Spotify library you may have to log in again on the  clock app but after that the whole process will be smooth sailing.

To change the song, follow the same process.

Do you have to pay for this service on the Google clock app?

Fortunately, this feature is available for both free and Premium Spotify users. So you won’t have to pay to hear your favorite tunes as your alarm on the Google clock app.

 Will Google’s Fuchsia make Android defunct?

 Is it possible that the Fuchsia OS will replace Android? The mystery surrounding Fuchsia OS only grew deeper after Google posted a code to its GitHub location. Google has acknowledged that this OS is in existence and the rough versions are present on mobile devices and PCs. It is however not conclusive if this is just an experiment or could it be a reality.

As of now, Android is leading as far as mobile operating systems go. It has been a huge success. Apple comes in second place.

Since Android can run on most phones and it is very adaptable, it is considered the best mobile operating system and has been a huge success. The iPhones have generally been out of reach of most people and hence the Android operating system has been dominating even in developing countries.

It is likely that Google may replace Android eventually and it could be this new OS. After Google posted a code to its GitHub location, there has not been any reports regarding the Fuchsia OS project.

Will Fuchsia OS be the replacement for Android and Chrome OS?  

If we consider a report that Bloomberg put out, Google is keen on making Fuchsia OS as a unified operating system which can run on any Google hardware. If the reports are to be believed, then this OS will be replacing Android as well as Chrome OS. Considering that Google wants to achieve this in three years, the project seems quite ambitious. Google may release a Fuchsia powered device in 2021 before it can actually run on hardware like laptops and smartphones.

In the Android, the main problem is fragmentation where the gap between the users who use different versions of the same software is fairly huge. Hence Google can sort out this problem by introducing a unified OS like the Fuchsia. We see that Apple has got a greater advantage when it comes to security. With Fuchsia, Google can also increase security and will be able to compete with iOS.

Is Fuchsia the ideal replacement for Android?  

Most of the hardware has been running on Android. With Android improving, getting more secure and adapting to all kinds of hardware, it does not seem that Fuchsia is likely to replace it. Google has just begun integrating Android apps into Chrome OS. With this in mind, it is not possible that Android will be replaced by it within the next three years. The users too will be left stranded if all this is done away with.

The CEO of Google, Sundar Pichai, nor Android, nor Hiroshi Lockheimer, the boss of Chrome has come out with anything regarding this project. It is only a statement put out by Verge that says Fuchsia is only an experimental project by Google.

In conclusion, it is not likely for it to replace Android or Chrome OS, at least for the moment. Fuchsia has got a long way to go before it can actually replace Android and Chrome OS. It is possible that the engineers at Google are heading towards such a scenario and this could be quite promising.

Is it going to be Apple Maps or Google Maps?

We all use the maps app in our phones or whatever other devices, a lot, but which one is our default- go- to map app? Will it be Apple maps or Google maps? For a long time Google maps was the go- to map app but only till 2012 after that Apple came out with its own version of the app which truth be told wasn’t that great. It became a PR nightmare to be exact.

The nightmare had to do with complaints in the form of wrong directions, bugs, glitches and lack of public transport support. Of Course this has all been a while back and since then Apple has worked out these various problems but has Apple maps replaced Google maps on iOS devices or does Google maps remain the de facto app?

What you see on both apps?

Both apps are similar when it comes to cost and other stuff but other than a few key features they are mostly the same.

On first opening up the Apple maps app you will notice that the interface is much simpler and cleaner to use. You would also notice that the map looks much flatter than the Google maps app. Searching for places is easy too, all you have to do is use the search bar at the bottom of the screen you could also change the mode of the map like satellite or transit.

With Apple maps you also get to see landmarks for places like the empire state building and you even get the weather at the location you are checking out.

Coming to Google maps now, you get a lot more options, like change the type of map from satellite to transit or for driving mode or biking or…. you get the picture.

Google maps also gives you more 3D models for landmarks and although Apple maps has this too you don’t get to see them as often.

Navigation with both map apps:

Again Apple maps gets the simplicity award when it comes to navigation. When choosing the driving option, Apple maps has less icons and consequently less distractions. On the other hand if you were to select the walking option you would get to see a bit more in terms of locations.

Driving with Google maps has a lot more options but mostly in terms of parking lots or gas stations keeping in mind that you might need these places often while driving. With walking mode, you again, like Apple maps, will see a lot more locations.

Google Pay has come out with additional features

At the start when Google Pay was launched, it was basically for making payments with your smart phones. You could make the payments online with the help of the payment methods that was saved in your Google Account. Eventually, this mode of quick and easy payment was made available on more devices, services and browsers.

Google Pay interface has come out with a new design that is available to the users. Google’s Pay was initially Android Pay. You can go to pay.google.com and log in with your existing Google account.

Google has come out with updates and more features which will allow you to do even more with your Google’s Pay. The new updates include peer-to-peer payments, mobile ticketing and also request or send money to your family and friends. Earlier, you could send or receive money through the Google’s Pay Send app, but now it will be featured in the Google Pay app.

Google Pay allows you to make payments and fund transfers in some countries where the users can upload their debit or credit card information and use NFC in their phones to make the payments. Google’s Pay can be used to transfer funds to other users by using an email address or mobile number. These options are available in U.S. and not in India as of now. In India, the new interface of Google Pay helps you to keep a track of all your payments on Google services.

Mobile ticketing on Google Pay

Google is now coming in par with Apple Pay, which featured mobile ticketing. You can save your tickets on Google Pay. It now becomes a lot easier and convenient for those who travel a lot. You may be going to attend some business meets, a concert or for a conference. There is absolutely no need to have your tickets printed. Ticketmaster or Southwest enables you to save your ticket on your phone. Though there are few companies that are supporting Google’s Pay, the number is expected to go up. It also becomes useful in the eventuality of misplacing your ticket or forgetting to bring it along. It will be readily available on your phone.

Peer-to-peer payment on the Google Pay app

Earlier making or receiving payments from family and friends was done through the Google’s Pay Send app. This feature is now included in the Google’s Pay app. In case you have gone out with friends, then with the help of the Google Pay app you can request payment from up to five friends by tapping on the recent bill.

Managing all info on your Google Pay app

Now that Google Pay is available on the desktop, on iOS, on your phone or in stores, all your payment information can be easily managed either in the Google’s Pay app or on the pay.google.com website. All these are synced with your Google account and the information becomes available to you on your phone by updating it on the web.

If the Google Pay app is downloaded on your phone, then your debit or credit cards could be saved to your Google account and payments can be made with your phone itself while you are on the go.

Google Maps now allows you to Measure a shortest distance between two or more places

Google maps has been and still is a handy toll for a lot of us. You just input the location and the starting point of your travels and you get route by route instructions as you drive or travel on whatever your mode of transport and not only this you also get alternate routes if certain roads seem to have traffic or some construction work going on on them. Besides this you get the fastest route to your destination. You just can’t go wrong with Google maps.

Now, Google maps has got a lot more interesting, to use. You can now calculate the shortest point between two or more locations on a map. This distance does not factor in roads, trails or any other obstruction, you just get the shortest and I mean the bare minimum between two or more points. This could be useful when it comes to traveling on your own two legs and don’t necessarily need to drive around to that location you have to visit.

More about Google Map new Feature:

This feature is available on both desktop as well as mobile devices.

In a desktop situation all you have to do to use the Google maps feature, is right click on the destination you’d like to visit or starting point and then choose “measure distance” from the options given.

Next choose the destination on the map and you’ll get the shortest distance between the two points in kilometers or miles according to your choice.

You can even click elsewhere on the map to add more places to your growing travels or even remove an added place on the map. The places you choose will be highlighted with a black circle.

Once you’re done, all you have to do is click the x at the bottom of the screen to close the page.

Google maps feature on mobile phones:

This feature is also present on both android and iOS devices. In a mobile device all you have to do is long press on the starting point or place you’d like to visit and then when the name of the place is shown below you click on it to choose the “shortest distance” option.

You then slide your fingers to your destination to get the shortest distance between the two points. To add more places to the list just press the add button and use your fingers to select the next location on the map. Again the distance in kilometers or miles is shown at the bottom of the screen.

To remove an added location just click on the undo button and presto you’re done! You can even view the total distance between all the points in Google maps.

You can even get creative with it and draw shapes on the maps just like Google had done to demonstrate the new feature on Google maps.

Google maps rolled out this feature on Tuesday.

Today’s day and age requires information to be transferred not only fast but also that the data should be the most current or the most freshest that is out there and often this does not happen. In order to avoid overloading wireless networks every bit of data does not get transferred on time and that means what you end up viewing may not be the most- freshest or most updated data that is out there.

It is not the question of how fast data can be transmitted in the wireless networks but that the data being transmitted over wireless networks do not get transmitted as often meaning that you are not seeing the most current version of data that is there. Take for example a car and it’s sensors, now it does not take much time for the sensors within the car to transmit data to a central processor but the age of that data will not only depend on the speed at which that data is being transmitted across channels but also on the frequency with which that data is being sent by the sensors.

How to keep information fresh on a wireless networks?

The question then arises as to how to increase the frequency of data being transferred to a central processing unit without completely overwhelming the network?

Engineers at MIT seem to have come up with an answer to this question. At present researchers at MIT say that they can apply their system to a simple wireless networks but hope that in the future they will be able to apply their findings to a much complex wireless network.

The process of keeping data fresh in a wireless networks:

In the course of their research, engineers at MIT made a simple network consisting of a central control station that would receive information from multiple nodes or in their case drones.

Using the assumption that only one node or drone could transmit data at any given time, researchers then began to decide which drone should send data at which time.

This question was answered by the team coming up with an algorithm, which calculated an index for each node, which in turn took into account factors such as the age of data, the reliability of the channel relaying information and the overall importance of that node in the wireless networks.

Nodes that are more reliable and faster are given a higher index as compared to nodes of lesser reliability and which are slower. But the index assigned to each node is not a fixed factor, this index keeps on changing and at any given time the node with the highest index relays data first.

The research team calculated a bound rate- the average age of information in a wireless network, which is the least time that has ever been achieved by any of the wireless networks elsewhere.

The researchers found that their data came very close to this bound rate and gave the freshest data possible as compared to any wireless networks that is out there.

We use email for a lot of things and quite often too. Whether it be for work or to stay connected with family, email has always been a part of our lives. Now finally it has got an update to make an already highly useful app even more useful. What’s more cool about this update you say? Some of the features integrate AI tech into them, which in my opinion is pretty cool. The new Gmail has got some major improvements that all of us will find useful in some way or the other.

With this new Gmail, you can be more productive at work. The new mail also saves a lot of time by Google adding a lot of Gsuite features to the new Gmail itself.

With this new Gmail you can do a lot in a very short time:

With this new Google mail you can get to attachments like photos without having to click on the thread and then press on open attachments. In this new Google mail you will be able to see the attachments at the end of the email thread itself and be able to click on it.

Let those unimportant emails snooze in the new Gmail:

You can snooze emails on the new Gmail. Those emails that seem so tiresome to go through or those that aren’t that important and that you can afford to put them off for later can be snoozed in the  Gmail.

Perform different tasks on the new Gmail itself:

In the  Gmail you can get to perform other tasks on the new Google mail itself without having to switch tabs and open new pages.

You can now access new tasks, that you would use often, on the Gmail itself, like Google Calendar, Tasks and Keep.

A Little nudge to remind you about emails on the all new Gmail:

A little nudge, perhaps? To remind you of those emails that you need to get through. Google has put this feature on board the new Google mail so that nothing slips through the cracks and you are reminded to get to those darn old messages that you have been putting off for so long.

Smart Reply on the new Gmail:

Google has also added the smart reply feature, which we normally see on phones to the desktop version of the new Google mail.

What would we do without you and by that I mean smart reply?

A little AI action in the new Gmail?

Google has added features like notifications to alert you to high priority emails and the tech giant has also added in a feature whereby they alert you to unsubscribe from newsletters or the emails that you do not view on a regular basis.

The AI in the unsubscribe feature looks at how often a particular sender sends an email to you and how often you open the emails to read them.

You will also get alerts regarding any risky emails before you go in and open them.

Confidentiality on the new Gmail:

This feature on the new Gmail prevents you from forwarding, downloading or printing certain messages. To be even more control of certain sensitive data you can also get the email to expire after a certain time period.

Almost every other mobile manufacturers packs in their distinct version of the file manager with the Smartphone. Some are great but rest of them is just too miserable to use therefore Smartphone users tend to download third party file manager app from the app stores. Google brings it very own Files Go app which will soon become the must have and standard Android file manager in future.

It will become a simple and smart way for the Android users to find files instantly, share with others and free up space at the same time. Google is making the file search, share and management simpler and more aggressive on the Android platform with the Files Go. Some of the notable features of this app include:

1. Files Go do the Files search

Being a file manager it has to establish itself as the best in the file search functionality over the others. With Files Go users will get the ability to search the files just like they do on the internet. The inability to use microSD card at the time or living with the contacts of the internal storage has become quite common for the Android users.

Therefore they need to a good file search functionality which can help in finding and modifying files whenever needed.  Users are simply required to open the Files tab then give a tab on the search icon in order to find the files present on the smartphone within a matter of seconds.

2. Files Go Find the exact location of the duplicate files

Apart from the usual file search users also have a tough time finding the duplicates of the same file. Files Go will make it easy to free up space by getting rid of the duplicate files.

Files Go comes with a unique features which allows user to detect the duplicate files instantly by simply giving a long press on the “i” icon and get to see the location of the file. It has been found that most of the Smartphone users suffer from the low storage arising from the presence of the duplicate files.

3. Files Go remove the backed-up files

Now almost every Smartphone user is making use of the cloud services either by their own knowledge or without even knowing it. Most of the Smartphone manufacturer has started bundling their own cloud app which helps in backing up files like photos and videos online.

The best thing about Files Go is that it works like a charm with the Google Photos. With having the Files Go users will be able to detect and get prompt to remove the files which have been already backed up on the cloud in order to free up more space.

Files search and management has become an important and critical things for the smartphone users as app need more space while they are stuck limited storage on their devices. Some users even have to sacrifice second sim in order to get more space by adding the memory card. But Google Files Go will be a must have app for millions of Android users by offering great file search functionality and ability to free up space in split of a second.

Google Android platform had grown by leaps and bounds in the last decade where it happens most widely used OS with no challenger for its numero-uno position. In the recent Android OS updates Google has focused on the interface and functionality of the Android to keep it consistent with the ever-growing demand of the users. Google will turn its focus back to the Android games to boost the performance of the Google Play store.

Google Play is simply the most widely used mobile application store to download and install variety of apps ranging from the communication, utility, entertainment to games.

It is worth noting that in last year the number of users who installed games on their Android devices had doubled by itself. This boost was powered by the new smartphone users in the emerging market namely India, Brazil, Mexico and Indonesia.

Debut of Google Play Instant for Android Games

Google is looking forward to make it easier for the users to discover new games easily and also get rid of the install process in the beginning which result in many users opting to skip the game altogether. It has been found that opening and installing gamesis quite time consuming which often results in people never ever experiencing the game. Therefore Google is bringing instant apps feature for the Android games.

With this feature users are simply required to give a tap on the game of their choice in the Play Store and they can try the game instantly without the need of downloading it at first.

Some of the popular Android games which supports this new features includes Worlds with Friends 2, Clash Royale, Bubble Witch 3 Saga as well as a number of games from popular developers namely Hothead Games, Jam City and others.

This new experience of playing Android games without downloading them has been termed as Google Play Instant.

Google Play Console tools for Android Games to unveil soon

Google wants to bring the best of the aggressive and demanding gaming on the Android as they are capable enough to deal with it due to presence of high end processor, better display and adequate RAM.

Therefore it will be launching the Play Console tools for building great and demanding Android games for the future generations. One such tool will be a new internal testing track which will allow Android games developer to run tests quickly and come with new games and features with quick turnaround time.

This track will remain present for the Android games developers apart from alpha and beta tracks already available at their disposal. This tool will also allow games developers to make their game available to as many as 100 tester within seconds.

Another tool worth mentioning is the demo loops which will help in generating the prelaunch report for the Android games developers. This feature will allow developers to predefine a wide se of series of actions within a game and make this loop run effortlessly on a number of devices present in the Test Labs.

Google’s launching Song Maker, where you can make your own songs and share it with the world. This project is coming out as a National Association for Music Education initiative. Google’s adding Song Maker as another tool to its Chrome Music Lab. Basically Song Maker is an easy to use sequencer that allows you draw out your own tunes in the browser itself.

It combines fun with education and allows you make songs in your very own basic music studio. There is even a feature that allows you to convert your drawing into music.

What is Song Maker?

Song Maker is a tool that makes making your own music fun and interesting. You can choose from a few instruments also to make out your tunes like the piano, synth, marimba and woodwinds. You can even get that beat down by adding drums to your musical composition.

Song Maker also comes with a section that converts your singing into notes and you can also attach a midi keyboard to your computer and play the instruments.

Song Maker also gives you the opportunity to allow the whole world to listen to your musical creations by giving you a permalink. You can also share your tunes on Twitter and Facebook and see what your friends think of your musical inclinations.

Song Maker is a simple sequencer that gives you a choice between five instruments and drums to get your groove on.

You can make your own tunes and loop it with two instruments and then share it with your friends or go in for a collaboration.

Started of as a tool to Google Chrome lab, the song maker is a fun place to kill the time and show something productive while doing so. Google launched Chrome Music Lab in 2016. As a series of web installments, Chrome music lab helps you get your jam on while playing around with music and making your own tunes as well.

Some of the installments to Chrome music Lab is Oscillators that allows you to squish a cute character, this squshing gives you an idea about frequencies and then there is Sound Waves, that shows how sound vibrations travel through air through a visual representation.

Song Maker on the other hand is a sequencer that allows you draw out your own melodies. It is divided into two portions with the top SongMaker portion being for melody and the bottom half being for rhythm. There are several musical options in each setting and you can start making your own tunes by using your finger, mouse, or any other thing depending on your device. It is as simple as that. In Google SongMaker the notes do not have to be pressed individually too you can press down on a number of them or swipe your finger across all to create whatever tune you want.

Song Maker does not require you to be a musical professional or know how to play any instruments either.