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Googles Phone app now shows a warning about spam callers and makes it easy to block and report them APK Download

There are about a half-dozen countries that have enacted some form of official "do not call" registry and many others that have signed in laws to prevent various types of spammy behavior from running rampant over the telephone system. Unfortunately, little to nothing is done to enforce these laws and the penalties usually arent steep enough to discourage bad behavior. Google is taking matters into its own hands and giving users a way to fight back.

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Googles Phone app now shows a warning about spam callers and makes it easy to block and report them [APK Download] was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

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Googles Blue Tabs

Google lets you switch between its specialized search engines and check image results, video results, news articles, books, Google Maps results and more. The active tab was red, but now it switched to blue.

Heres a screenshot that shows the blue tab:


... and a screenshot that shows the old red tab:


Back in June, I posted about a Google Mobile Search experiment that tested an oversized header and the active tabs color was blue.

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Googles Visual Translation Supports 20 New Languages

Google bought Word Lens last year and brought a very useful feature to Google Translate: real-time visual translation. Use a phone or a tablet running Android or iOS, point the camera at a sign or text in a foreign language and Google will translate the text almost instantly, while preserving all the other details. Its like using a magic camera that translates text and lets you read street signs, restaurant menus, user manuals, newspaper articles even if theyre written in foreign languages.

Visual translation now supports 20 additional languages. "You can now translate to and from English and Bulgarian, Catalan, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Filipino, Finnish, Hungarian, Indonesian, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Slovak, Swedish, Turkish and Ukrainian. You can also do one-way translations from English to Hindi and Thai." Back in January, the feature was launched with only 7 supported languages: English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.



This feature requires to pick the right languages before tapping the camera button and one of the languages must be English. Youll probably be prompted to download a small language pack, since you can use Word Lens offline.

Google Research Blog has more information about Word Lens. After finding the text regions in the picture, Google recognizes the letters using a convolutional neural network. "Letters out in the real world are marred by reflections, dirt, smudges, and all kinds of weirdness. So we built our letter generator to create all kinds of fake dirt to convincingly mimic the noisiness of the real world—fake reflections, fake smudges, fake weirdness all around." After recognizing the letters, Google translates the text taking into account that text recognition might include mistakes, then it "renders the translation on top of the original words in the same style as the original". Google actually erases the original text using the colors surrounding the text and draws the translation using the initial foreground color. Its quite clever.

Heres a funny demo:

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Googles Updated Privacy Policy

Google has recently changed its privacy policy and theres a page that shows the differences. Its not clear if there are actual changes or the updated privacy policy only clarifies some existing features.


The new privacy policy states that information like your name, email address, phone number or credit card could be stored with your Google account, which is not something new. Another change is that the "cookies and anonymous identifiers" section is now called "cookies and similar technologies", which is a broader title.

The following text:

We and our partners use various technologies to collect and store information when you visit a Google service, and this may include sending one or more cookies or anonymous identifiers to your device.

... has been replaced with:

We and our partners use various technologies to collect and store information when you visit a Google service, and this may include using cookies or similar technologies to identify your browser or device.

Basically, Google removed all the references to "anonymous identifiers" from the privacy policy and replaced them with "similar technologies", which includes anonymous identifiers, but also HTML5 Local Storage, local shared objects (Flash cookies), Web beacons and more. The privacy policy clearly states that Google can use cookies and similar technologies to identify your browser or device. Google says that it uses "these technologies to collect and store information when you interact with services we offer to our partners, such as advertising services or Google features that may appear on other sites."

Theres also a new paragraph:

Information we collect when you are signed in to Google may be associated with your Google Account. When information is associated with your Google Account, we treat it as personal information. For more information about how you can access, manage or delete information that is associated with your Google Account, visit the Transparency and choice section of this policy.

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Googles Deals Alerts

Googles mobile search site shows some ads that promote a new notification service. Googles own ads feature a "subscribe" button that lets you "stay up to date on the latest deals, promotions, and updates from popular retailers". Basically, youll get deals via text messages, just in time for Black Friday.


Tap the "subscribe" button and then you can text "join" to Googles SMS number: +1-646-665-2745. There are multiple alerts for phones, computers, TVs and more.

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Googles diverse women emoji accepted by Unicode will add more than 100 new emoji

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Googles Package Tracking Card

Google Search has a new card for tracking packages. Google has always displayed a package tracking link when searching for a tracking code from UPS, USPS, FedEx and other carriers, but now you can search for [track package] and enter the tracking number. Click "Find carrier" and Google shows a link like "Track via UPS" or "Track via FedEx". If Google cant find a carrier, it will show this message: "Cant match this number to a carrier".



The same card is also displayed when you search for the tracking number.

Another option to track your parcels is to search for [my packages], [my purchases] or [my orders] and Google will show a summary of your orders, including the tracking links, but only if theyre available in the confirmation emails. When you search for [track my packages], [track my purchases] or [track my orders], Google also expands the most recent order.

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Googles Play

Android started as an open platform that brought together many competing companies. iPhones launch changed Androids development and was an important reason for Androids success. Phone manufacturers and carriers wanted an "iPhone killer" and Android was a good bet, but it still had a lot of rough edges and there were many missing features. This was a great opportunity for manufactures to fill in the gaps, create their own user interfaces and develop their own apps and widgets that brought value and differentiation.

Heres an image from Androids original SDK emulator:



Why did Google acquire Andy Rubins company and invested in Android? One of the reasons was to make a better platform for developing mobile apps. Google already had a few mobile apps for feature phones, Symbian, Blackberry and it was very difficult to add new features and to test the applications because of the inconsistent APIs and their implementations. Android seemed like an interesting opportunity, but Google never anticipated that it will take over the world. Its obvious that Android became the dominant mobile OS because so many companies invested in Android, hoping to come up with better phones than Apples iPhone.

While Android was open source, Google created a few proprietary apps that werent part of the Android Open Source Project (AOSP). The most important proprietary Google app was Android Market, which is now called Google Play Store, but Google developed other apps as well: Gmail, Google Search, Google Maps etc. Over time, many open source apps were replaced by proprietary Google apps: the music player became Google Play Music, the calendar app became Google Calendar, the browser became Chrome etc.



Android Market/Google Play is Googles own service and it was licensed to phone manufactures subject to confidential terms and conditions. According to the distribution agreements (MADA) revealed by companies like HTC and Motorola, Android Market was bundled with other Google apps and services, including Google Search and Network Location Provider, which had to be the default search and location services. "Devices may only be distributed if all Google Applications [listed elsewhere in the agreement] ... are pre-installed on the Device," mentions one of the distribution agreements.

The list of bundled Google apps increased over the years, as Google released more and more apps. Phone manufacturers were allowed to bundle competing apps from third-party companies and youll find many phones that include Whatsapp and Hangouts, Microsoft OneDrive/Dropbox and Google Drive, Facebook and Google+. Heres a screenshot from Samsung Note 4, courtesy of Gsmarena, which shows that Samsung preinstalled Facebook and Google+, Hangouts, WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, Instagram and Google Photos.


While many Android users complain that their phones have too much bloatware, some companies arent happy that Google ties the Google Play Store with other Google apps and some default settings (Google = default search engine, Google Network Location Provider = default location provider).

Deutsche Telekom will file an anti-trust charge against Google, complaining that "Google uses its Android mobile operating system to unfairly promote its own products like Google Maps and online search over those of rivals". According to New York Times, "a number of large tech companies, including Oracle and Nokia, as well as small start-ups like Aptoide, a Portuguese online marketplace for smartphone applications, already have filed complaints to European officials connected to the Android investigation." The European Commission has opened a formal investigation into Googles mobile operating system and the Federal Trade Commission started a similar investigation last month.

Is it fair for Google to bundle the Play Store with other apps and to dictate its own terms and conditions? Its obvious that the Play Store is the most important Android app and few people outside of China would buy an Android device that cant access the Play Store. By now, Google Play Store and the associated Google Play Services are hard to separate from Android, even if theyre not technically part of Android. This is Googles play: its holding the keys to more than 1 million apps and dictates its own terms to phone manufacturers. Many of Googles apps are actually useful and they are hard to beat by competitors (Google Maps, Google Search, Gmail, YouTube), but some of the apps arent the best in their category and Google uses distribution agreements to promote them (Hangouts, Keep, Play Books).

Back in 2008, Android Market was just another Android app store, but now its the most important by far and it also comes with APIs that tie Android apps to the Google Play Store. I think its not fair to tie Play Store licensing with bundling other Google apps and Google should use separate distribution agreements for them, just like Facebook and Microsoft.

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Allo and Duo Googles New Messaging Apps

Hangouts was supposed to be Googles unified messaging solution, but things didnt go as planned: Hangouts was buggy, lacked features and many people hated it. After releasing a separate app for SMS (Messenger), Google will soon launch 2 other apps: Allo for group chat and Duo for video calling.

Both Allo and Duo use your phone number, much like WhatsApp, so you can chat or talk with anyone from your phonebook. Allo includes a special version of the Smart Reply feature from Google Inbox and it suggests replies for both text messages and photos. Smart Reply learns over time and adapts to your style, suggesting replies you are likely to send.


Theres also a Google Assistant you can add to a conversation to answer quick questions, show search results and even perform actions like reserving a table at a restaurant. "The Google assistant in Allo understands your world, so you can ask for things like your agenda for the day, details of your flight and hotel, or photos from your last trip. And since it understands natural language patterns, you can just chat like yourself and itll understand what youre saying," informs Google.

Allo lets you share photos, add text to photos, add emojis and stickers. Theres also a Whisper Shout feature that lets you resize the text before sending it.


Allo has an incognito mode for private conversations. The incognito mode features end-to-end encryption and discreet notifications. Much like in Chrome, youll need to manually start an incognito conversation and some features arent available in incognito mode.

Duo is a simplified one-to-one video calling app that uses your phone number, works well on slow Internet connections (it uses WebRTC) and has a Knock Knock feature that shows a live preview of the caller before you answer. Hopefully, users will be able to block those who abuse this feature.


"Duo calls are in crisp HD video (up to 720p) and audio. Weve optimized Duo to work well even on spotty networks, so if bandwidth is limited it gracefully adjusts quality so youre still able to connect. We also seamlessly transition calls between cellular and Wi-Fi, so you dont need to worry about what network youre on. Finally, we built Duo with privacy and security in mind and all calls on Duo are end-to-end encrypted," explains Google.


Allo and Duo will launch this summer and will be available for Android and iOS. For now, Hangouts will continue to exist, since Allo and Duo lack many of the features from Hangouts.

Google doesnt have a good track record when it comes to messaging services, so its hard to tell whether the new apps will be successful. It looks like Allo and Duo will be simple, fast and more focused.

{ via Google Blog }

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Googles New Colorful Favicon

Google has a new logo, but it also has a new favicon. Its now a capital G that uses the four Google colors: blue, red, yellow and green.

Heres a screenshot that shows the old favicon launched in 2012 and the new one:

This is the new favicon, which is also used as an icon for Google Search:

You can find it in Googles app launcher and soon in Chromes app launcher and in Android, as an icon for the Google Search app.

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Googles Timer and Stopwatch Card

Googles timer card added a new feature: stopwatch. You can search for [stopwatch] or search for [timer] and switch to the stopwatch tab. Click start/stop, reset or use the full screen option for an immersive experience. You cant add laps and the "stop" button should probably be renamed "pause".


To start the timer, search Google for [timer 10 minutes], [countdown 5 minutes], [set timer for 30 seconds], [start a timer for 1 hour and 45 minutes], [set a timer for half an hour], [start a timer until 13:00], [start a timer until midnight] and more.


Its worth pointing out that you can use both features simultaneously.

{ Thanks, Jonah Langlieb. }

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More About Googles New Visual Identity

Google Designs site has an interesting article about Googles new identity. Googles designers started by "distilling the essence of the brand down to its core" and built 3 elements that work on any platform: a sans serif logotype, the dynamic dots that respond to users and a compact version of the Google logo.



Some people said that Googles new logo is childish and it really is. "The Google logo has always had a simple, friendly, and approachable style. We wanted to retain these qualities by combining the mathematical purity of geometric forms with the childlike simplicity of schoolbook letter printing. Our new logotype is set in a custom, geometric sans-serif typeface and maintains the multi-colored playfulness and rotated ‘e’ of our previous mark—a reminder that we’ll always be a bit unconventional," mention Googles designers.

The dots are a brilliant way to convey the full Google logo in a Material Design approach. "The Google dots are a dynamic and perpetually moving state of the logo. They represent Googles intelligence at work and indicate when Google is working for you. We consider these unique, magic moments. A full range of expressions were developed including listening, thinking, replying, incomprehension, and confirmation."


Google now uses pixel-perfect SVGs for base assets and generates thousands of vector-based variants. For example, theres a version of the logo thats optimized for low-bandwidth connections and is only 305 bytes. Googles old approach was to serve a text-based approximation of the logo.

All in all, the new logo is more flexible, works better for devices with small screens and theres an animated abstract version. For the first time, Googles logo becomes a user interface control that communicates information and connects users to Google.

{ Thanks, Brendan Early. }

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