YouTube rolls out new tools to help you stop you watching

Google’s YouTube is the first streaming app that will actually tell users to stop watching. The company at its Google I/O conference this week introduced a series of new controls for YouTube that will allow users to set limits on their viewing, and then receive reminders telling them to “take a break.” The feature is […]

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Google Pay’s app adds boarding passes, tickets, p2p payments and more

Google Pay got a big upgrade at Google I/O this week. At a breakout session, Google announced a series of changes to its payments platform, recently rebranded from Android Pay, including support for peer-to-peer payments in the main Google Pay app; online payments support in all browsers; the ability to see all payments in a […]

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Google used improv rules to deal with a farting Assistant

Listen, it’s late on day two of Google I/O and we’re all getting a bit punchy here. During a late-afternoon panel on design and Assistant, Google Principal Designer Ryan Germick explained that the company used improv skills to figure out how to build out the AI’s personality — and answer some of life’s more difficult […]

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Google’s new Tour Creator lets students make their own VR tours

Google today launched a new tool for teachers and their students called Tour Creator, which allows anyone to create their own VR tour using imagery from Google’s Street View or their own 360-degree photos. The new app is designed to work with Google Cardboard and Google’s existing VR “field trips” app Expeditions. The goal with […]

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8 big announcements from Google I/O 2018

Google kicked off its annual I/O developer conference at Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, California. Here are some of the biggest announcements from the Day 1 keynote. There will be more to come over the next couple of days, so follow along on everything Google I/O on TechCrunch.  Google goes all in on artificial intelligence, […]

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Maps walking navigation is Google’s most compelling use for AR yet

Google managed to elicit an audible gasp from the crowd at I/O today when it showed off a new augmented feature for Maps. It was a clear standout during a keynote that contained plenty of iterative updates to existing software, and proved a key glimpse into what it will take to move AR from interesting […]

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Google Assistant is getting support for custom and scheduled routines

Routines are probably one of the best features the Google Assistant team has rolled out in recent months. Just say “Hey Google, good night” and the Assistant will shut down your lights and start playing some nature sounds to soothe you into deep sleep (or whatever else you want it to do). One limitation so […]

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Google Assistant adds digital subscriptions and more ways to engage with Actions

Google Assistant is catching up with – and in some cases, passing – Alexa on a variety of fronts, with a wealth of new features announced today at Google’s I/O developer conference. The company is launching support for digital subscriptions in Actions (Google Assistant’s voice apps), as well as a variety of tools to help […]

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Google announces an update to its website optimization tool Lighthouse

Google today said it is rolling out Lighthouse 3.0, an update to its tools that help developers optimize their websites and audit their performance. The new update is centered around more precise and actionable metrics, such as page load time and the components of the site that might be slowing it down. Google has been […]

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