TechBooky

Google is making it easier for Maps users to communicate with businesses directly within the app. Google Maps for Android and iOS will be updated with new messaging features for businesses is aimed at consumers, while businesses will get a new Google My Business app. The update will add a Message icon and an inbox view for all conversations with businesses, Google explains in a blog post. Also, shops and restaurants that have a Business Profile with Google will see the new Message button appearing on their listing as well, together with call shortcut. “Now you’ll see your messages with the businesses you connect with via Business Profiles within the Google Maps app, where you’re already looking for things to do and places to go or shop,” Google explains in a company blog post . “You’ll find these messages in the side menu of both Google Maps for Android and iOS.”             All messages sent to or received fro...

A Nigerian internet service provider said Tuesday that a configuration error it made during a network upgrade caused a disruption of key Google services, routing traffic to China and Russia. Even with MainOne"s explanation, there was speculation that Monday"s 74-minute data hijacking might not have been an accident. Google"s search, cloud hosting and corporate-focused G-Suite collaborative tools were among services disrupted. "Everyone is pretty confident that nothing untoward took place," MainOne spokesman Tayo Ashiru said. But Jake Williams, president of Rendition InfoSec and a former U.S. government hacker, said a skeptic should not rule out meddling by a nation-state with something to gain. The level of corruption in a country like Nigeria is well known, he said. The type of traffic misdirection involved can knock essential services offline and facilitate espionage and financial theft. It can also be used to block access to information by sending data reque...

Get the smallest image file size without compromising quality or changing your workflow. You can upload Hi-Res photos faster, save tons of hard drive space, and experience a nicely high-quality images displaying without sacrificing load time can be a constant dilemma. Now, an experimental web app from Google called “Squoosh” offers a quick and easy way to get the best of both worlds. Showcased at the Chrome Dev Summit, Squoosh is a new online image conversion app. An open source tool which is  essentially a simple browser-based image editor, and the focus is very much on speed. Not limited to only working only in Chrome — other browsers are also supported. While the conversion options are useful to many people, Squoosh is really an opportunity for Google to show off new web technologies. How it works It’s reasonably easy to use: you can drag and drop a picture of your selecting into the software, at which level, you can decide from compression requirements t...

Despite numerous leaks in the weeks and months leading up to the announcement—At New York,  during its big hardware event, the tech giant Google still managed to pull out a few surprises. [xyz-ihs snippet="made-by-google-event"] In addition to the most anticipated Pixel 3 phones, ChromeOS-powered tablet, called the Pixel Slate, and a new Google Home with a screen called the Home Hub, among other things was announced. Here is the full breakdown: Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL Pixel 3 is all about the camera. It was introduced as “the world’s best camera [put into] the world’s most helpful phone.” No doubt about it, the camera on the Pixel 3 looks fantastic. Google partnered with Annie Leibowitz to work on a project using it. Conde Nast shot several magazine covers with it. [xyz-ihs snippet="pixel-3"] These are neat marketing stunts, but not new. Kira Pollack shot a bunch of Time covers, Georges Antoni shot a cover and photo spread for Elle Australia, and Miller...

RIP Google+ (June 2011 – August 2019) Google+, an a social network by Google that we can surely say existed and very little more, is slated for a long-past due outing down the memory lane. A ten-month sunsetting period was reported in a Google blog post today about expanded security endeavours, named Project Strobe, which found a bug in Google+ that could have released users personal information to be posted on their profiles, however as per Strobe"s investigation nobody else knew about or exploited the vulnerability. That may have something to do with Google+"s relative lack of definition as an online social media destination. In spite of combination with the organisation"s other, massively fruitful items like Gmail, Blogger, and YouTube, Google concedes utilisation is unimportant. In the organisation"s very own words, “90 percent of Google+ user sessions are less than five seconds.” Given the potential for misuse, and the way that nobody is actually using Google+...

Looks like giving Google Assistant a redesigned UI wasn’t enough for Google this week, as it’s giving its digital assistant another feature to add to the roster. Google Assistant can now help you book a ride-hailing service and get a car sent your way, but it’ll still need some help at the end. You can start things off with your voice easily enough, and Google Assistant will show you the information from within the app itself, rather than forcing you to switch to Google Maps to show off the pertinent details.           Just say something like, “Hey Google, book a ride to” and inform the digital personal assistant of your destination. Once that’s done it will show you ride-hailing prices so you can compare before you summon a car. Those price estimations will show what Uber, Lyft, GO-JEK, Ola, Grab, and “many more” services, and the feature will show wait times for each of those options as well....

Google has updated its Google Maps with new features designed for commuters, which provide a greater degree of information, —along with integrated in-app music controls, to make travel more enjoyable. “Today, we’re rolling out new features on Google Maps to help you take control of your daily commute— enabling you to plan ahead, prepare for the inevitable disruptions, and possibly avoid them altogether,” Google Maps group product manager Ramesh Nagarajan writes . “Oh, and we’ll also help you have a bit of fun along the way.” Here’s what’s new; Commute tab The new Commute tab provides personalised live traffic and transit information, warnings when your commute will be longer than usual, and reports about traffic and accidents. And as before, Maps will tell you about alternative routes proactively when there are problems. Support for mixed-mode commutes . Also, for those who have mixed-mode commutes such as a drive, walk and rid...

Would you like to play a game? That is the question that was found when a sleuthing visitor searched the phrase "text adventure" in Google while the browser"s developer tools were open. The text adventure game from Google can be found inside the Google Chrome browser. It also works on Firefox, and Microsoft Edge browser. It looks like Apple’s Safari browser does not support this. So how can you find the Google text adventure game? How to play Google"s hidden text adventure game. Playing the game is fairly easy. Simply use the commands "north, south, east, west, up, down, grab, why, inventory, use, help, exits, map, and friends" to navigate the map, pick up and use objects, and solve puzzles. During the game you will need to navigate a Google campus and find your missing friends by solving puzzles. Once you find all your letter friends, and complete the word Google, the game will be completed. To play the hidden adventure game in Google, simply follow these...

Google is trying to make planning your next trip a little less stressful. The search giant, which turned 20 this week , is adding suggestions directly to your searches and created a landing page for flight trends and hotel options as the winter holidays approach. In February 2018, Google aligned its vacation planning tools. The company realised that unless you pay a premium for a package holiday, there are so many elements involved that vacations can be a pain to plan. And now it’s improving its planning tools again. “There are so many travel booking resources out there it can feel like you spend hours researching flights, hotels and sites before you feel prepared to book your trip,” Berna Erol, product manager, Google Travel, and Emmanuel Marot, product manager, Google Hotels, wrote in a blog post . “In fact, 46 percent of leisure travelers globally think travel planning takes too long, according to our recent research with Phocuswright. To make trip planning fa...

Google’s 20th birthday  was earlier this month, now it"s celebrating its birthday. Google is marking its 20th anniversary with a special doodle which is sure to evoke nostalgia. The new doodle can be viewed by visiting Google from desktops, mobiles or on the company’s YouTube channel. It starts off by playing the reminiscent old tune of a dial-up internet connection being established and the old Google webpage from the time when the company was named “Google!” The short clip takes the users on a short journey of the most notable search terms of recent times like what will happen on Y2K?, is Pluto still a planet?, 2012 on the Mayan calendar, and more. In keeping with the “popular searches in history” theme, the company has also launched 20years.withgoogle.com , a website dedicated to notable facts from the last 20 years of search trends. Examples: Heath Ledger was the most-searched actor in 2008 (the year of his death), Neymar has been the most-s...

Google is set to end its prohibition on cryptocurrency advertising. The search engine giant has updated its policy to allow certain kinds of crypto-related advertising. This move follows a similar reversal from Facebook in June. The ban was originally issued in March but came into effect three months later . At the time, the prohibition was meant to offer protection for customers. The previous ban covered initial coin offerings (ICOs), binary options, trading advisory services, and cryptocurrency wallets. The ban came as part of a broader security crackdown which identified virtual currency schemes as a clear and present danger to uninformed investors on the internet. Critics have long identified the nascent cryptocurrency industry as a haven for criminal activity. The policy was originally enacted to protect consumers from the burgeoning number of crypto-scams that have afflicted the market for years and reached a fever pitch as the price of several digital currencies exploded in 2017...

Over the years, Apple CarPlay has been a must-have car tech feature for iPhone users. But for those without inbuilt sat nav in their car’s infotainment system, it’s also been somewhat frustrating, as it has only supported the proprietary Apple Maps nav. No longer. After confirming it will now allow third-party navigation apps within Apple CarPlay at its World Wide Developer Conference in June. As of September 17th at 6pm when the iOS 12 went live, now the firm has confirmed the software update that will provide iPhones with the functionality to do this has, gone live and is available for installation. Now publicly available in the iOS App Store , version 5.0 of Google Maps features the company’s own map data and material design language. It also enables users to get Google-optimised directions and locate points of interest not found on Apple’s maps, including locations synchronised from Google account data, such as home, work, and contact addresses. For the time...

This week, search engine giant Google announced a new search engine for the scientific community that will help them make search millions of datasets present online. The service which is called Dataset Search, it trawls the millions of open data repositories on the web for desired datasets. It looks on publisher sites, digital libraries, and on author’s personal web pages, among other places. But it relies on dataset publishers to correctly label their datasets with the appropriate information, or metadata tags, as their otherwise known. The information gotten will aid scientists, data journalists and geeks find the data required for their work and their stories — or simply to satisfy their intellectual curiosity. The new search engine will work like Google Scholar, the company’s popular search engine for academic studies and reports. Natasha Noy, Research Scientist, Google AI, said in a blog post . “Dataset Search lets you find datasets wherever they’re h...

Ten years of growth, moving from one good feature to better best of the next, it evolves it want we can see it as today—the most widely used internet browser in the world, Chrome. With the stack of features Available aren’t what make it so popular. There’s also a thriving community of developers that has been added to the browser with  extensions, and little pieces of software that add features that enhance our browsing experience. Google Chrome extensions are one of the most highly valued features of the browser and many people like these extensions including myself. After all, we all spend a borderline unhealthy amount of time on the internet, whether it be researching, writing, or fact-checking stories. Here are the ways our favourites have helped us. Clutter/tab maintenance . While surfing the net, and you have way too many tabs open. The tab maintenance can help: Firstly the suspender can help pause the tabs after a certain amount of time so they don’t...

Google Assistant just got even smarter. At the IFA tech show in Berlin, Google announced that the Google Assistant is now bilingual, making it the first voice assistant to be able to seamlessly switch between two different languages. Starting today, Google Assistant"s new bilingual support should make it more useful in homes where family members speak two languages—meaning you can now speak to the Google Assistant (on phones and smart speakers) in any two of the following languages: English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, or Japanese (more will be supported in the coming months). Users will have to select which two languages they want their Google Assistant to understand. For example, if your family speaks English and German, you can ask the Google Assistant questions in either of those two languages interchangeably. Also, For user who have Google Home and a Chromecast linked to your TV, you"ll now be able to see more visual results on the big screen. The Assistant now di...

Google a few months ago released its most significant Gmail update in years, refreshing the designing of its popular email app and adding a bunch of neat features meant to improve the overall email experience further and increase productivity—Fast forward, the tech giant has announced that one of the brand new design changes that hit Gmail earlier this year will also be available on other G Suite apps. Google is expanding the side panel in the revamped version of Gmail to other G Suite apps in an effort to make navigation and multi-tasking for users smoother and quicker—With the new sidebar, users would be able to access three G Suite products from Docs itself - Sheets, Slides, and Drawings. "We"re adding a quick-access side panel to the Docs editors and Google Calendar to help you quickly access other G Suite products without leaving what you"re working on," the G Suite team wrote in a blog post . The quick-access side panel which is available on the right side of...

There’s a whole lot of Google apps that people use on a daily basis, like Chrome, Gmail, Drive, and so on—But Google Fit hasn’t really caught on like that. In an effort to improve its Android health and fitness app, Google has basically redesigned Fit to better support people’s activity and wellness goals. Google, in partnership with American Heart Association and the World Health Organisation to help understand the science behind physical activity” and figure out how to spur people into getting more active—Which is why the new Google Fit is built around two pretty simple activity goals the update bases on recommendations it got from the AHA and WHO about how people can improve their health — those goals are called Move Minutes and Heart Points. MOVE MINUTES This feature will allow users track their progress based on how much activity they do during the week. This can track lots of different kinds of movements in a way that’s meant to be m...

[caption id="attachment_12396" align="alignright" width="850"]                               Google is planning to launch this Lenovo 10 inch styled smart speaker with a display [/caption]   According to a report today by Asian news site Nikkei , Google could be launching an Amazon style Echo Show not long from now with its own smart speaker features that can be controlled from a screen. What started as a rumour now seems to be in the works with the report adding that the internet giant could be shipping some 3 million of the devices by year’s end in what is described as the first batch just in time for the holidays. The Google device follows the LG pattern of smart speakers instead of the Lenovo two screen smart speaker gadget. Right now no one is sure of the names Google could choose for its device but as 9to5Google notes, names could include Pixel Slate and Screen. Pixel which represents is flagsh...

It is not surprising that Google can and does track Android and iOS users that use its apps such as Maps or Chrome. Likewise, it is probably not all that astonishing that it sells that location information to advertisers. However, it may be a shock to find out that even if you turn off Location History, those apps are still tracking and collecting your location information. If you’ve used a smartphone or an iOS phone for any length of time, you’re probably aware that there are options to turn off location tracking. If allowed, Google apps will track your movements and save them to your account under your Location History. So if you turn off this setting, Google stops tracking you, right? It’s a fair assumption, but it is also wrong. An investigation done by the Associated Press (published by NBC News ) in collaboration with researchers at Princeton University shows that the on/off switch for Google"s Location History isn"t the silver bullet needed for going completely...

Google’s Chrome OS is great at a lot of things, but it lacks functionality compared with heavier operating systems like Windows or MacOS. Google has been working behind the scenes for months to develop a so-called “Alt OS” mode to run Windows 10 on a Chromebook Spotted by XDA-Developers , “Campfire” is a new project for Chrome OS which, when active, may allow Chromebook owners to dual-boot Windows 10 on their devices. This isn’t something that would work exclusively on the Pixelbook either, as the code mentioned clearly lays out that multiple Chromebooks would be able to use this feature . How would this all work? Well for one, before anyone gets too excited, there are some big limits on this. Google isn’t just flipping a switch and letting every Chromebook owner do this. Rather, the machine would have to be verified by the OEM to support Windows 10, probably just like Google did recently for the Pixelbook. This feature also wouldn’t requi...