News & Reviews:   Google

As smartphone brands are incorporating more AI functions into their devices, Google is also making Gemini more convenient and efficient. From the giant tech's announcement today, Gemini has been extended to an Android phone's lockscreen.

The world’s most popular web mapping platform, Google Maps, has announced that it will be displaying the ‘Gulf of Mexico’ as the ‘Gulf of America’ in the US following President Donald Trump’s Executive Order to rename the geographical area. Google Maps elaborated that the name change on the platform would take place after the US Geographic Names System has been officially updated.

Google opened up Android 16 Beta testing on supported Pixel devices today. Testing for Android 16 began earlier this year in line with Google's plan to get the latest operating system into your hands sooner. So, what should you know about it?

Part of the HTC Vive engineering team has been acquired by Google for $250 million. According to TechCrunch, the team's expertise in the virtual reality (VR) and mixed reality (MR) space will be used by Google to drive the development of its Android XR operating system. This is the second time Google has acquired a team from HTC. Eight years ago, they acquired the design team to produce the Google Pixel for $1.1 billion.

Google updated Circle to Search this morning with new features that will be available to the Galaxy S25 series first. It can now automatically identify phone numbers, website URLs, and email addresses that are displayed on the screen when in use, without having to manually select them as it does now. This can also be done on static images on the device. So, what should you know about it?

Anyone can do very basic image editing these days. But why is that? The reason for that is: AI. Or specifically, AI features intended for the editing and manipulation of digital images. Best of all, some of these features are available in smartphones.

With that said, here are the most practical AI photo editing features for casual photographers.

When we started 2025, it was announced that both Tencent (WeChat) and ByteDance (TikTok) had acquired a social media license to operate in Malaysia. Meta and Telegram will also join the list soon but now, the Malaysian government is considering if LinkedIn is required to apply for it too.

As expected, Google Gemini, a new generative AI chatbot, will be the successor to Google Assistant. Slowly, most Android devices have already adopted Gemini as the default virtual assistant. It will also be coming to Wear OS watches in the future. So, what should you know about it?

It has been over two years since Google Wallet was introduced in Malaysia. As an alternative to the Apple Wallet, Google Wallet has been steadily adding and supporting more local bank cards into the system. Today, there are two new additions to Google Wallet - Boost Bank and Alliance Bank.

As we kick off the new year, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) announced both Tencent (WeChat) and ByteDance (TikTok) have been granted licenses to operate in Malaysia. Meanwhile, Meta has also begun the process of obtaining the license for Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.