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.

RCS to Enhance Standard Messaging

RCS (Rich Communication Services) will come with enhanced features that will take the standard messaging to the next level. Google in partnership with 43 carriers and device manufacturers is trying to better the usual messaging experience with RCS for every Android user.

What is RCS?

RCS which stands for Rich Communication Services is being launched by Google to give Android users a better SMS texting than what one has experienced. The current default SMS app on Android phones is sending Messages. Google will be implementing Rich Communication Services to this SMS app to give its users a better experience.

It will give a rich content with images, emoji inside the standard SMS app on the phone. In addition to text messages, one can do much more. Rich Communication Services provides file sharing, group messaging, images, stickers and gaming, voice and video calls inside the standard SMS app. Google’s RCS aims to provide a better and more interactive new standard SMS app.

At the Mobile World Congress, Google plans to work with their partners to bring Rich Communication Services to businesses in various regions. They will showcase how the business industry can be more interactive using RCS and change the way they interact with mobile customers. This will help the businesses to not only send text messages but also images of their products which can help the customers to buy something without leaving the messaging app. All the customers who get SMS messages from a business will automatically get this upgraded version of using RCS in Android Messages.

In order to provide the RCS experience to Android users all around the world, Google has been working in collaboration with most of the carriers and device makers.

In the previous year, carriers across Europe, North America and Latin America committed to launch RCS messaging, powered by Jibe RCS cloud from Google. Google had created an Early Access Program to enable businesses to take part in the Rich Communication Services business messaging. Companies dealing with food, travel, retail and delivery services in the U.S. and Mexico are having an interactive experience with their customers using Rich Communication Services.

On the flip side, if your interaction with Rich Communication Services is mostly business messages, then you can get many messages that are annoying, ads or even spam.

There is also a problem that if your phone and carrier support Rich Communication Services and the recipient of the message does not have Rich Communication Services, then you will not be able to use the RCS messaging app.

There are also a number of other messaging apps like Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger, WeChat being used to send messages.

According to a Google update, Google makes it clear that it will not allow businesses to spam users with RCS. In the Early Access Program, they will review every campaign and make sure the messages do not contain any spam. The businesses that send the

Rich Communication Services messages are basically the ones that people choose to receive and they can opt out at any point in time.

Google plans to adopt policies that will prevent spams and have automated and manual mechanisms to provide security to their users.

In a new series of experiments, where Google combines its ‘Google” technology to create apps, Google has come out with 3 photo apps. Google’s new “Appsperiments” take into account today’s selfie generation, where anyone and everyone wants to rake a pic. Forget just selfie, everyone these days is taking a pic often with them in it for social media or some other reason.

Bottom line is these photo apps Appsperiments allow an individual to configure or play around with their images to get a whole new portfolio of sorts. From comics to a- at-home-photoshoot, Google is giving users a chance to experiment with their photo apps.

Google’s inspiration for their Photo Apps- “Motion Stills”:

Google has used Motion Stills as an inspiration for their new Appsperiments. Motion stills uses google technology to capture many photos and then make it into cinematograph or a time lapse.

Motion Stills was created by google researchers and was the first app to use Google’s experimental technology. Taking cue from motion stills, google researchers have created the first installment of experimental photo apps using google technology.

Google’s photo Apps- “Storyboard”:

Google’s first in its Appsperiments photo app line up is- Storyboard. In storyboard a user can take a video of whatever mundane activity and transform it into a cool comic book layout.

There are over 1.6 trillion possible ways in which google technology converts the video stills into a comic book layout. Not happy with the layout? Simply pull down to refresh and get a new layout. This app is only available to android users.

Google’s photo apps-“selfissimo”

This Appsperiment sounds like a magic act. In this photo app available to both android and IOS users, users get a custom photo shoot at home itself.

This photo apps allows you to pose and pout just the way you want and then clicks the picture without you having to lift a finger. All you have to do is strike a pose and the app takes pictures as soon as you stop moving. You tap the screen to start a photo shoot and tap it again to end it. Users can then select images they want and delete the rest.

 

Google’s photo apps- “Scrubbies”

This photo app works much like a DJ’s remixing.  All you have to do is take a video with your phone and create video loops by speeding up the playback or focusing on funny faces all while “scratching” the phone like a DJ.

Scrubbing with one finger plays the actual video and you can capture the playback by scrubbing with two fingers and then save or share it.

This photo apps is available to only IOS users.

These apps are first in a series of Appsperiments that google plans on launching so there might be more in the future. There are many photo apps out there that allow you to edit your pics in various ways but none offer the same thing as Google.

These photo apps are focused on ways to bring Google’s trademark software to mobile phones in the form of apps.

Google is simply aiming at making the Google Assistant the most intelligent and smart smartphone AI for the millions of users. It has enhanced the capability of the AI when it comes to sorting out the local stuff and offering the best of results to the users. Now users will be able to make use of AI to look for different nearby service such as house cleaner, plumber, electrician and other with simple commands.

Search things local easily with  Google Assistant

Users are only required to say “Ok Google, find me a plumber’ and the Assistant will work on finding it through the search engine. This feature will work not just on the Android devices but also on iPhone and other voice activated speaker like the Google Home. This Assistant can even come up with follow up questions in order to offers you a more precise and local nearby options within few seconds. This feature helps in doing away with the need of typing out the query on the search box and actively looking into the search results to find the best possible match. Now users can simply ask the Google Assistant to do the apart of looking up the local services within few seconds without much effort. Ask the assistant for the recent sports score and it will surprise you with accurate live scores and yesterday’s score with ease.

Some other cool features of  Google Assistant

You can ask the Google Assistant to search for images by simply asking for it. When it comes to local searches Assistant can advise you on where to eat, drink, shop and dance. It makes use of the ‘Nearby’ feature to locate the requite places near you and bring the best possible options in a moment’s notice. You can ask Assistant casually to shows you the nearby restaurants and it will be do so by bringing forward a list of popular restaurants in the vicinity with reviews, rating, address, direction as well as a link for calling the restaurant.  If you are planning for getaway trip for the weekend but could get the ideas then simply ask Google Assistant about some cool vacation spots or ideas and it will showcase requisite search results which you can easily tap to get more information about some great vacation spots or ideas.

 Google Assistant new features is coming soon enough

Google is all set to lunch this new feature in US in the upcoming week while it will be rolled out in the rest of the weeks at the earliest. This feature will specifically showcase the pre-screened service providers in order to provide secure and safe service delivery. These service provider are either been screened by Google and partner companies like HomeAdvisor and Porch. If there are no pre-screened service providers then also Google Assistant will offer the nearby results but it has to be ascertained by the user whether they are up for job or not. Now users will be able to plan fixing, painting or cleaning projects with Assistant awesome help.