Google search ‘place an order’ to get lunch delivered
You know the delivery drill. When you’re feeling peckish, the first thing you do is search for open restaurants in your area, but then you have to close search, open a separate food delivery app, find the restaurant again there, and finally place your order. That’s a lot of work just to order a pizza (but clearly still not enough to make you pick up the phone). Google, however, has announced an easier, more integrated means of ordering your next meal. According to the official Google Blog, the search engine now recognizes when you’re looking for something to eat and will offer a “Place an order” option within the search results. Click on that and Google Search will prompt you to select one of six applicable delivery apps — Seamless, Grubhub, Eat24, Delivery.com, BeyondMenu and MyPizza.com — which immediately launches and loads the restaurant’s menu for your perusal. Sure, you’ll still have to wait 45 minutes for your food to actually get there, but at least this new system saves a couple of clicks.
Filed under: Transportation, Wireless, Internet, Google
Source: Google Blog
Google may be planning to let users have more control over app permissions
Google I/O 2015 is right around the corner, and we’ve already heard a few rumors as to what Google will announce at the conference. We might get a first look at Android M, and there’s a possibility we’ll even get a new feature that will allow us to control any application using voice actions. Perhaps one of the most sought after features Android users have been asking for over the years might make an appearance, as well.
According to a report from Bloomberg, Google is planning to give Android users more control over application permissions. Basically, if what’s said in the report is true, Android users will be able to pick and choose which app permissions are given to each app before downloading it from the Google Play Store.
Over the past year or so, Google has done a good job at making app permissions clearer, so people can more easily tell whether or not they’d like to download a certain application. But according to this report, Android users will soon be able to choose whether an application has access to things like photos, contacts or the phone’s location, for example.
Many Android users have been asking for this feature for quite some time, so we’re sure most folks will welcome this change if the report’s claims come into fruition. Google I/O 2015 takes place on the 28th and 29th of this month, so we’ll have to wait until then to hear anything official from the company.
What are your thoughts? Are you happy Google may be giving users more granular control over app permissions? Why or why not?
Android, Samsung slip in latest U.S. market share report
comScore has released their latest 3-month market share numbers for the U.S. smartphone market and the results are a bit disappointing for Google Android and Samsung. Although Android continued to retain its position as the #1 smartphone platform in the U.S., the share of Android subscribers dipped 0.7% compared to December 2014, largely due to a slide by Samsung.
According to comScore, Apple picked up a full percentage point in market share, from 41.6% to 42.6% during the period December 2014 to March 2015. That kept them in the top spot as the largest manufacturer. Meanwhile, Samsung saw their share fall from 29.7% to 28.3%. LG continued to gain ground during the three-month period, increasing their share from 8.0% to 8.4% continuing an upward trend for the company. Rounding out the top five were Motorola with a small drop to claim 5.0% of the market and HTC with the thinnest of increases at 0.1% to claim 3.8% of the market.
As far as platforms, Apple’s iOS was the only operating system to gain market share, picking up a full 1.0%. Android, Microsoft, and Blackberry all lost ground by 0.7%, 0.1% and 0.2% respectively. Symbian was unchanged in clinging to 0.1% of the market.
comScore also reported on the top 15 smartphone apps as of March 2015. These were largely unchanged compared to the February 2015 numbers, although a few apps swapped positions. Apple Maps did experience a strong upward move from 13th to 10th. The only change in apps involved Snapchat, which fell off the list of the top 15 apps to be replaced by Pinterest.
source: comScore
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Sources say Google will give Android users more privacy controls
Sources from Bloomberg are saying that Google is ready to give Android users more control over what data applications are allowed to access.
The Android operating system with give users more accessibility in that they have choices over what applications are allowed to access, people familiar with the matter said. A move to giving users more privacy controls would be excellent. After all, what game really needs access to your phone calls? And what texting app really needs access to your photos? It’s a big privacy concern for many Android users.
I’m sure we’ll hear more about this during Google’s keynote at their developer conference in San Francisco later this month.
While this news isn’t a confirmed fact, it isn’t a far-fetched idea either. After all, Google had revamped and simplified how users are informed about what permissions applications are using at last year’s conference.
Do you like the prospect of having more control over what applications are able to access? Let us know in the comments.
source: Bloomberg
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Google’s Moledina talks about Google Play’s future trends
At the GamesBeat Summit in California this week, Google’s Jamil Moledina spent some time talking about how the content available in Google’s Play Store may change by the year 2020. The changes will come about as Google examines historical data from the Play Store as part of their neverending quest for the next “blue ocean” for market expansion.
One of the big drivers of change that Moledina sees is what he calls “simplified play” where games and gameplay is more and more oriented toward mobile functionality. Although games will become more oriented toward use on smartphones and tablets, a big component will be the ability to play on smart TVs as well. Moledina sees smart TVs as a major contributor to shaping game ecosystems as they are used either for playing directly or as a second screen for gameplay.
As far as titles, Moledina says Google is also finding there is a surprising level of interest in translating older titles over to new platforms. He gives a couple examples like Goat Simulator and Limbo that have demonstrated the success developers can have with this strategy. He also pointed to classic games like Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and NBA Jam that will be coming out soon. Strategy Analytics has projected there will be 2 billion devices capable of running games available through the Play Store by 2018, so attracting even a small portion of users can payoff financially for developers.
Another area where Moledina expects to see more growth and expansion over the next five years will be with curated collections and brand support for multiple titles instead of individual games. On the store-front, users can expect to see more collections like the recent May the 4th Star Wars selections.
Moledina briefly touched on virtual reality and how that might impact the market of the future. Google has seen over 500,000 Google Cardboard deployments since December, so interest is definitely present for the more immersive experience virtual reality can offer.
source: VentureBeat
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Android 5.1 Lollipop is finally rolling out to the Nexus 9
Nexus 9 owners have had a rough time of it, besides being seemingly ignored when it came to the Android 5.1 update, they were also trolled when Google pushed out a measly 23MB update the other day. Now it seems, at long last, that Nexus 9 owners can bask in the goodness that is Android 5.1 Lollipop.
Starting today, #AndroidLollipop update 5.1 will be rolling out to a #Nexus9 near you. pic.twitter.com/oxOvrujzmB
— Nexus (@googlenexus) May 7, 2015
That’s right, as you can see from the embedded tweet, Google has announced that Android 5.1 will be rolled out to Nexus 9 tablets from today onwards. So if you haven’t received a notification yet, go into Settings/ About Tablet and select Software update to see if there is an update waiting for you to install. If not, I’m sure that the OTA links will soon appear, keep an eye for our article with the relevant links as soon as they become available.
Source: Google
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Google runs into LinkedIn snag in effort to build new headquarters
Earlier this year Google revealed some conceptual drawings and a video for a new headquarters it hoped to build in Mountain View. The concepts came out when Google filed documents with the Mountain View City Council. The tech behemoth has run into a snag though as a council vote awarded the bulk of the development space to LinkedIn instead of Google. The portion of the 2.2 million square foot space that is left for Google to use would leave space for just one of the four buildings the company had planned to eventually construct.
A couple factors appeared to be in play in the council’s decision. First was the fact that LinkedIn’s proposal was more mainstream and traditional. Google had admitted previously that some of the ideas included in their concept were not quite technologically feasible. This contrasted with LinkedIn’s plans which use current construction techniques. Although Google hoped to mix in a lot of green concepts and space that would be open to the public, LinkedIn relied on a promise to help diversify the city’s businesses so they were not so reliant on Google.
The future for Google’s plans are unclear as the company considers a future headquarters campus. Google recently took ownership of Moffett field and could build there, although the space was originally planned for their robotics projects. That space is also too small for the concept that Google was looking at.
source: The Verge
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Google’s ATAP will showcase wearables that might “blow your socks off,” literally
Another gem found hiding in plain sight in the I/O conference schedule that Google received yesterday is a tantalizing clue of what ATAP is preparing.
In case that acronym doesn’t ring any bells, how about DARPA? Regina Dugan, the current head of Google’s Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP) group, used to ran DARPA, the Pentagon branch in charge with developments of “high risk, high reward” projects that most often than not sound like the stuff of sci-fi.
Now Dugan is pursuing the same type of futuristic, borderline crazy projects at Google. Project Tango (the 3D sensing technology) and the Project Ara modular smartphone are two of ATAP’s best known projects.
For Google I/O, the ATAP team is promising some crazy new wearables. More precisely:
“wearables that we hope will blow your socks off. (We mean this more literally than you might think…)”
ATAP’s goal for its new projects?
“break the tension between the ever-shrinking screen sizes necessary to make electronics wearable and our ability to have rich interactions with them”
Intriguing! Oh, and there’s also a new Spotlight Story directed by Justin Lin, of Fast and Furious fame. That’s a far cry from the cute animations previously featured on the project, so we’re excited to see what this “full 360 with 3D soundsphere” film looks like.
ATAP’s session will be livestreamed on May 29 from 9AM Pacific and is titled “A little badass. Beautiful. Tech and human. Love and work. ATAP.” But then again, we wouldn’t expect anything else from a group whose tagline is “We like epic shit.”
Google brings you a Street View look of the world’s oldest island, Madagascar
Google Maps has been a step ahead of the competition when it comes to offering navigation and precise details about a particular location. A week ago we saw Google offering Street View imagery of the Loch Ness river marking the anniversary of the first alleged sighting of the monster.
Users have now been treated to Street View images of the world’s oldest island, Madagascar. You can walk through the island at your leisure using Street View and check out the abundance of wildlife and flora scattered across the island. You can even take a canoe across the Sambirano river and explore the island that way.
Of course, you can also opt to view the island from a distance, which gives you a proper look of the entire island. This is an excellent initiative by Google to bring images from remote parts of the world to the users on a global level.
Google has brought these images to Street View in accordance with the Department of Water and Forests: University of Antananarivo, the Madagascar Ministry of Culture, and Madagascar National Parks.
The Madagascar Island is located in Southeast Africa. You can find the Street View images of the entire island from the link here.
Source: Google
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At £199, Google’s Nexus 9 finally makes sense
Ever since Google launched the Nexus 10, I’ve craved a decent full-size Android tablet. Sony’s Xperia slates are nice enough, but I’ve always missed the purified software experience that comes with Nexus devices. When the Nexus 9 was announced, I thought a worthy upgrade had arrived, but it quickly became clear that the hardware wasn’t up to HTC’s usual standards. The plastic back creaked and the display suffered from light leaks, while the price, which originally started at $399/£319, felt a little on the high side.
It’s been roughly six months, and now we’re starting to see some price movement for the Nexus 9 in the UK. John Lewis and Currys/PC World, for instance, currently have the 16GB model listed for £199.99. Both deals are only temporary, but they’re still significant given how long the Nexus 9 has been on the market. There’s no word on whether the price drop will ever be made permanent, but I feel like it definitely should.
You see, I like many of the ideas underpinning the Nexus 9. The brand has never been a huge seller for Google (arguably by design) but there’s a substantial group of people that want a large, premium Android tablet at an affordable price point. With its One smartphone line-up, HTC has shown that it can design beautiful hardware, and the Nexus 9 was an opportunity to marry that expertise with the release of Android 5.0 Lollipop. (The device still hasn’t been updated to Android 5.1, incidentally.) The 9-inch display’s 4:3 aspect ratio, while not to everyone’s tastes, is great for reading digital comics, magazines and browsing the web, and the front-facing speakers are well-positioned for blasting out music.
However, the Nexus 9 does have its flaws. As we’ve said before, the device can be a little awkward to hold, and the display is good enough, but not spectacular. It’s a similar story with the speakers and performance. Both are solid, but nothing exceptional. All of this is a problem when you’re being asked to shell out £319. But £199? Personally, that makes the tablet’s drawbacks less of an issue — although of course, you could argue that a flawed product will always be flawed, whether it’s being sold for £319 or £199. Google should make this price drop official, only then does the Nexus 9 start to make sense.
Source: John Lewis, PC World
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