News & Reviews:   Google

Waze has recently introduced the Waze Beacon which is a battery-operated electronic that transmits real-time traffic data to devices in locations where GPS signals could not be received such as a tunnel. The aforementioned beacons are not exclusive to Waze as they can be used by any application that requires location data.

New features are added to Google Chrome all the time but the one that's revealed recently seems more interesting than most. According to folks at Android Police, Google is testing out a new picture-in-picture mode for Chrome that is connected to the new media controls.

The COVID-19 virus is sure doing a "good job", but not so much for the tech industry as it has forced another big company to cancel out an event. This time, the Google I/O won't be happening followed by their Cloud Next event in San Francisco. The Google I/O was supposed to be held in mid-May 2020.

Just in time for the Pokemon franchise birthday 24 years ago, Google has released the official Pokemon of the Year results a few hours ago. Started from 14 February, users around the globe were able to vote for their favourite Pokemon and to our relief, Pikachu didn't take the top spot as it belongs to Greninja, a water-type started from Kalos. Apart from that, the company also released the Top 30 Pokemon of each region!

Since Huawei was placed on the US Entity list last year, Google was banned from working with the company. Recently, Google has reportedly applied for a license with the US government to be able to work with Huawei again.

By now, you would have noticed that the Google Maps app has a new app look and if you've been living under the rock, that signifies the company's 15th anniversary since the app's debut. Besides Waze, Google Maps is one of Malaysian's most-used apps especially in Kuala Lumpur (even for locals) to get around the city and apparently, the company quietly rolled out some new features. 

Available on Android and Apple smartphones (yes, even iOS users use this over Apple Maps which works terribly in Malaysia), there are five new features to check out - Explore, Commute, Saved, Contribute and Updates. These are already available on the menu so let's check out what can you do with these.

There are a lot of other ways we can interact with our smartphones other than touching the screens or pressing the buttons. With Motion Sense from the latest Google Pixel 4 series, we are able to hover our hands above the screen to control the device by doing some gestures. This time, it is said that Google will be bringing a new way to control your Pixel, which is to double-tap at the back of the device to trigger certain functions.

Turns out Android 11 was on the horizon after all, at least for developers. A preview page appeared a few days ago before being removed, but now Google has confirmed that the first Android 11 preview is available. With the new Android version comes a few features that we want to look at.

Gaming on a smartphone has always been fun and easy. The compact size of a smartphone allows us to launch our favourite games anytime and anywhere. However, the size of some games might not be that ‘compact’ especially those that come with large download files. In the future, Android users might be getting a new feature that lets you play games without downloading the whole app, let’s find out how!

It was just a few days ago when news of a leaked render for a prototype of the Google Pixel 5 XL emerged. At the time, many were doubtful that a new Pixel would appear so soon. But now there's another piece of news that points to the possibility of the Pixel 5 appearing sooner than later.