Category: Google

To help you keep track of your exercise goals, Google has announced a new integration between Google Calendar and Google Fit.  The change is behind the scenes and once it rolls out to everyone, you can track your exercising in Google Fit and it will automatically mark your time slot for exercising in Google Calendar as “done”.  It is a nice and easy way to keep track of your exercise routine while making sure it is built into your daily schedule.

Goal tracking in Google Calendar is not new.  It has been there since April of last year and allows you to track anything from exercise to reading time to learning a new language.  The goals are quite handy actually and the app is smart enough to look at what is on your calendar and schedule that goal in a time period where you don’t have other activities.  You can also tell it to set a time for the goal in the morning, afternoon or evening for even more refinement.  Now, on your exercise goals, you can tie them in with Google Fit so when you complete an exercise there, it update Calendar automatically as the goal being complete.

Google is expanding the reach of Google Assistant and it is coming to a television near you.  At CES 2017 yesterday, the company announced that the AI-driven personal assistant would be coming to Android TV and a wide range of other Smart TVs on the market.

In the coming months, the Google Assistant on Android TV will come to the NVIDIA SHIELD, along with all Android TVs in the US running Android 6.0 Marshmallow or Android 7.0 Nougat, such as the AirTV Player, Sharp Aquos, Sony Bravia, Xiaomi Mi Box, and more. And once available, the NVIDIA SHIELD will be the first TV device to offer a hands-free Assistant experience — so “Dim the lights” will only be an “Ok Google” away!

The news means that Google Assistant will start moving beyond Google Home or the Google Pixel phone line up, expanding further into the home as they try to compete with Amazon’s Echo and Alexa technology.

Snapseed has an update rolling out for both Android and iOS that brings several tweaks and improvements to the popular photo editing app.  The update, version 2.14 for those keeping score at home, refines the Face filter which was introduced a couple of releases ago, making it smoother and giving users a bit more control over how it is applied.  The Face filter is a powerful feature of the app and the new tweaks to it are excellent based on my testing this morning.

For Android users, the Perspective tool brings back the horizontal and vertical adjustment modes.  These went away a few revs ago and many users (Clinton raises his hand) asked for it back as it was a super handy tool.  Google, who owns Snapseed, listened and it has returned.

Google has pushed a small but important update out to Google PhotoScan, the app that allows you to quickly and easily scan your photographs and upload them to your Google Photos account.  The update, version 1.1 for those keeping score at home, is rolling out now to the Play Store.  On the surface, you won’t really notice any changes to the user experience or any new features to the app.  However, you will notice once you start scanning your photos.  In the original release of the app, scans were limited to 3MP.  That may seem small in in this day of 12MP or more cameras but for scanning old 35mm photos, it worked out just fine.  Google found a way to improve this however and with this new 1.1 version, photos are scanned at 5MP.

With the ever increasing number of Internet of Things (IoT) devices, the need for a proper programming platform is becoming ever important.  Google today announced Android Things, a platform that should provide a solid foundation for those who are developing IoT solutions as well as improvements to Google Weave.  Android Things, as the name implies, is based on Android so those who are already developing on the platform can quickly and easily pick up the coding skills for IoT.

Now any Android developer can quickly build a smart device using Android APIs and Google services, while staying highly secure with updates direct from Google. We incorporated the feedback from Project Brillo to include familiar tools such as Android Studio, the Android Software Development Kit (SDK), Google Play Services, and Google Cloud Platform. And in the coming months, we will provide Developer Preview updates to bring you the infrastructure for securely pushing regular OS patches, security fixes, and your own updates, as well as built-in Weave connectivity and more.

This should lower the bar for many developers to get into the IoT development game as they don’t have to learn a new code structure.  If you know Android, you inherently know Android Things.

For over a year now I have been a Project Fi subscriber and frankly, I’ve never looked back.  After being on AT&T for well over a decade, I looked at Fi with a bit of skepticism when I joined in October 2015, so much so that I didn’t shut down my AT&T account until December.  But the double paying, I felt, would allow me to jump ship quickly, taking my then Nexus 6 with me.  It never happened and, in fact, never crossed my mind.  Google’s MVNO is solid, even in the upper elevations of Colorado where I live.  I’ve traveled all over the United States in the last year and not once have I had an issue with Fi completing calls or giving me good data throughput.  I’ve recommended it countless times here and in person and now there is a chance for you to try Project Fi and save on your first bill.

Today Fi rolled out a referral program for those of us who are subscribers.  For everyone who subscribes, we both get $20 off our first bill (in your case) and next bill (in my case).  Sure it is a win-win for both of us but if you have been thinking about making the switch, now is a good time to try.  All you have to do is go to this link to sign up and try.