Hangouts may lose capabilities with a future update, rumor says

According to recent rumors, a future Hangouts update will remove one of the features people take for granted. We’re talking about the ability to send and receive SMS and MMS messages.

For those of you who use Hangouts as your proprietary messaging app, you might have to consider a new app moving forward. Based on a new rumor from those at Phandroid, Google will be moving in a new direction with the next update to its Hangouts application. Google might be suggesting its Messenger application, which launched back in 2014. Google employees have already begun the testing process for the updated version of Hangouts, meaning the public release isn’t that far off.

On the good side, the newest version of Hangouts will bring some new and improved enhancements by popular demand. First off is a quick reply feature that allows users to reply to messages directly from the notification pop-up without the need to open the full-scaled app. This feature is already present on Google’s Messenger application. Additionally, a new shortcut to recently used contacts can now be accessed on your homescreen. However, we’ll have to wait until the public release before we confirm anything.

Source: Phandroid (1) (2)

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Google publishes its annual ‘Year in Search’ interactive timeline

Earlier today, Google published its annual ‘Year in Search’ interactive timeline to highlight some of the most-searched for topics of 2015. At the top of the list, pulling in over 900-million searches, are the recent terrorist attacks in Paris, followed by the Oscars, The Cricket World Cup, Rugby Union and Star Wars.

Check out the video below to take a peek at a selection of the more frequently asked questions Google generated results for.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Source: Google

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Google reportedly plans to spin off its self-driving car business

Google’s self-driving car technology might not remain Google-branded for much longer. Bloomberg sources claim that Google plans to turn its autonomous car business into a separate outfit under its parent company Alphabet’s wing. Reportedly, Google hopes that the division will become a ride-for-hire business, a bit like Uber minus the driver. Since self-driving cars aren’t street legal outside of testing, the vehicles might initially be limited to driving around colleges, large office campuses and other “confined” places where walking can sometimes be a hassle.

Google isn’t commenting on the apparent leak. However, it previously suggested that the self-driving division would make a “good candidate” for one of Alphabet’s growing number of stand-alone businesses. Whatever’s true, a spinoff would be a big deal — it’d indicate that Google sees its driverless technology becoming a viable product in the near future, not just a nice-to-have experiment that might pan out in a few years.

[Image credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images]

Source: Bloomberg

Google’s self-driving car project to become its own company under Alphabet, report says

A new report coming by way of Bloomberg says that Google’s self-driving vehicle project could soon turn into its own company under Alphabet, citing a person familiar with the matter. The report is unconfirmed, but the publication says these plans will come to fruition sometime in 2016.

This rumor also sheds some light on how Google plans to make its driverless car project profitable. As a stand-alone business, the self-driving cars would act as rides for hire, similar to how Uber operates. However, it seems that Google’s self-driving cars would be limited to college campuses, military bases, and corporate office parks initially:

“Google’s autonomous vehicles have logged more than 1 million miles (1.6 million kilometers) on public roads, mostly around San Francisco and Austin, Texas, making these cities logical places for launching a service, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the plans are private. The fleets ­– which would include a range of large and small vehicles — could be deployed first in confined areas like college campuses, military bases or corporate office parks, the person said.”

The report lines up with news we have heard in the past, such as Google deploying its driverless car project to Austin, Texas as well as news that it would be a good candidate for a spin-off company in the future. However, if the self-driving car project were to become a standalone company under Alphabet, it might be under much more scrutiny than it has been before.

Alphabet is cracking down on the spending habits of subsidiaries, requiring companies under its umbrella to pay full price for resources. With that in mind, it’s not particularly clear how this would affect the self-driving car project. There’s a definite indication that it would need to figure out ways to become profitable, and offering rides for hire could be a good possibility.

source: Bloomberg

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Google: Android Pay coming to Australia in 2016

Android Pay has been exclusive to the US market, but that will be changing in 2016. Google today announced plans to bring its mobile payment service to Australia in 2016 in partnership with financial institutions like Westpac, Bank of Melbourne, Bank of South Australia, and many more.

Google’s mobile payment service will support Mastercard and Visa credit and debit cards issued by its launch partners in Australia, but the search giant will offer support for more further down the line.

The company’s Australian blog noted that Android Pay will be available to use at many locations in the country, including big chains like McDonald’s, 7-Eleven, Domino’s Pizza, Crust Gourmet Pizza and other well-known companies. It’ll also work with some other local companies, but that’ll take a bit longer for businesses to get on board. Additionally, users will be able to use Android Pay to checkout on mobile applications, such as Catch of the Day.com.au, EatNow.com.au, and more.

We’ll no doubt hear more news as well as more supported financial institutions and retailers as we get closer to an official launch date.

source: Google

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Our Google searches are defined by tragedy and entertainment

Nothing signals Christmas like Google’s year in search lists, and this year it’s gotten a lot more visual thanks to the search giant’s fledgling News Lab and Trends. Sadly, the most-searched topic globally in 2015 was terrorism in Paris, thanks to the January Charlie Hebdo and November 13th attacks in the French capital. Together, the two incidents resulted in 900 million Google searches, over twice as many as the next most-sought event, the Oscars. Rounding out the top five topics were the cricket and rugby world cups and Star Wars.

https://www.google.com/trends/2015/viz?embed=true

Google Trends created a global timeline of major events (above), with a circle representing the number of searches and a graph showing when they happened. Clicking a circle takes you to an interactive trend chart — with the Paris attacks, for instance, you can see when different countries started searching topics and the questions they asked. French users searched immediately with questions like “what is a state of emergency?” and “who are the terrorists?” Queries then spread to Berlin, London, New York and Tokyo, with Google highlighting universally asked, common and unique questions posed in each nation.

For the Oscars, Google showed the level of search interest in different films, with Birdman seeing a large spike after it won the Best Picture Oscar. It also highlighted Oscar search interest by country, with Ireland, Norway and Columbia (oddly) topping the lists. Similar information is also displayed for the Women’s World Cup, Star Wars and Queen Elizabeth’s longest reign. For the Nepal earthquake, Google features a before and after Maps splitscreen image showing the devastation.

Many users no doubt discovered these stories from social networks like Twitter, but then turned to Google to unearth more details. The extra data revealed this year by the search giant should help journalists, researchers and marketers to study trends across the globe. We hope that next year will be less tragic, but we’d imagine that US elections will dominate search in 2016. A wrap-up of 2015, featuring Caitlyn Jenner’s touching Arthur Ashe awards speech is above.

Source: Google