Google Now toying with ‘Explore Interests’ personalization

Google Now automatically caters results to your prior searches, but manual customization of what it serves up is a little clunky. You can either toggle fields of interest on and off in the service’s settings or click a box on cards or news sources to indicate your future disinterest. But now the tech titan is testing out a more active method to tell the predictive service what you’d like to see with “Explore Interests.” Just don’t expect it to come out any time soon, as Google has “nothing to announce” at this time, a spokesperson told TechCrunch.

Initial screenshots provided to Android Police show a standard array of topics in a grid, including Movies, TV, Sports, Stocks and so on. Presumably, the photos suggest, you can delve deep into subcategories to indicate which niches you’re particularly keen to be updated about. There’s also a nice localization feature that shows what topics are “Popular In Your Area.” Whether this is the feature’s final look and feel is unknown, but it’s clear that Google’s looking closer at giving users more control over what topics crop up in search results.

Via: TechCrunch

Source: Android Police

Google Inbox finally lets you attach files from Drive

It’s been almost two years since Google launched Inbox, its vision for a smarter way to keep your email under control. The company has added plenty of features since launch, but there are still a few things left that you can only do in traditional Gmail. Today, Google’s cutting down that list a bit by adding the ability to directly attach any files stored in your Google Drive to new emails in Inbox. It’s been years since that feature was added to Gmail, and it’s pretty handy if you’re deep in Google’s ecosystem, so we’re glad to finally see it show up in Inbox.

Inbox has always tried to collect the different pieces of your digital life that come in through email (things like shipping notifications, calendar updates, reminders and so forth), and today Google’s also adding a few new integrations. Now, notifications from Trello and GitHub that come into your Inbox will automatically show you a summary of their contents by default, so you can see exactly what changes have been made without even opening the email. It’s displayed in the same style as newsletters from places like Medium, which also are displayed with a preview of their contents.

The last bit of info Inbox can now pull are the various Google alerts you may have set up. Those emails you get with your updates can be displayed in that newsletter style that is spreading quickly throughout Inbox. You’ll see a preview of the contents from your inbox, and if you tap the email it’ll start with an auto-generated summary of the items inside. You can tap or click on those specific items to get the full story, or just scroll down to read the full email.

There’s one more small update rolling out today that should be a blessing for long-time Inbox users: It’s now way easier to put emails directly into the trash instead of the archive. If you hover over a message in your inbox on the web, a trash can icon is prominently displayed next to the “done” and “snooze” options. Previously you had to select a message first to get the trash icon to appear. It’s a little change, but if you’d rather send more messages to the trash than into your archive, it’s very nice to see. All of these updates should roll out today for Inbox users on the web, and they should be present in the Android and iOS apps as well.

Source: Google

Google will power Stanford’s genomics service

Stanford aims to make genetic testing a normal part of patient care, and it’s teaming up with Google to make that happen. The university’s School of Medicine will launch Clinical Genomics Service this fall, which is powered by Google Genomics that stores DNA data in the cloud. DNA sequencing is built into the system — doctors that request for it will get a large amount of data back. They can then use Google Cloud to analyze the data they get and compare it against other information in the system to find any anomaly that might be responsible for a patient’s condition. It could improve how doctors treat different cancers and help decipher illnesses that are especially hard to diagnose and treat correctly.

Lloyd Minor, Stanford’s School of Medicine dean, said:

“In the past few years, the amount of available data about health care has exploded. While researchers are learning to integrate this big data, putting it to work for individual patients, in real time, is a huge challenge. Our collaboration with Google will help us to meet this challenge.”

While Stanford is storing all the DNA data it gets on the Google Cloud Platform, only the university will have access to it. Further, the system will encrypt patient information and keep it within servers in the United States for extra security.

Via: Fast Company

One man is cycling the length of Britain in VR

Exercise bikes can be a little boring. Even with some music or mindless TV in the background, it’s a mind-numbing workout. Pedalling, pedalling, pedalling. Not for Aaron Puzey. The Brit has developed an app for Samsung’s Gear VR headset which shows a variety of Street View panoramas while he rides. Using a Bluetooth cadence sensor, which tracks how fast he’s cycling, the app is able to warp and switch out the photographs to give the feeling that he’s actually travelling. His goal? To ride the length of Britain, from Land’s End in Cornwall to John O’Groats in Scotland.

Puzey started his journey in May and is currently just North of Manchester. He films each ride, commenting on the scenery and explaining the next place on his pre-planned route. The frame is cut into three parts — a shot of his living room, the view inside the VR headset, and a basic map of Britain. Sure, the concept is a little silly — and the Street View transitions are jarring — but the project is a novel way of blending exercise, geography and exploration. It’s given Puzey a goal to strive for, and along the way he’s been able to soak up the UK’s natural splendour, albeit in a crude form.

Of course, it’s no substitute for riding outdoors. Battling up a steep hill, then descending through a brisk breeze — those sensations are hard to beat. Still, it’s an impressive achievement, and one that’s probably cheaper than the commercial VR cycling experiences we’ve seen so far.

Source: Upload VR