News & Reviews:   Google

For many people, keeping one strong password for multiple websites isn't that unusual. But these days, it's actually considered bad practice, one that Google intends to change. To do so, the company wants to enforce 2-step-verification (2SV) for improved security.

As short-form videos became popular thanks to TikTok, other companies have been looking to copy the concept. In fact, Google launched the YouTube Shorts beta in India last year. But the initial beta tests are over and the company is officially launching the new feature.

Google I/O 2021 has been scheduled to take place starting from 18 to 20 May. At the event, the tech giant could be announcing Android 12, Pixel 5a smartphone, and more. However, a session titled "Create your first Tile in Wear" has caught attention by signaling that the Wear OS could be getting a big update.

Not long ago, Xiaomi has brought its first folding smartphone to the market and the move was aligned with the rumour that surfaced last year. Besides Xiaomi, smartphone makers like OPPO and Google were also said to be joining the party by launching folding devices in 2021. Now, we might get to take a 'first look' at how Google is going to make one through this leaked patent.

Google has brought some advanced video-editing features to the Google Photos app today for Android phones. The features which were only available to the iOS version of the app previously are now arriving for Android users as well with a server-side update.

Looks like Google recently confirmed that they will be shutting down the Google Play Movies & TV app on 15 June 2021 and instead be pushing existing customers to their YouTube apps in order to access their existing movie purchases. But that’s not all, 9to5Google also mentioned that the app will not be accessible on Roku, as well as other smart TV brands such as LG, Samsung, Vizio, and potentially more.

Based on a statement by gsmarena, it seems that Spotify has started rolling out the “Hey Spotify” voice recognition feature that lets you search and play songs without physically touching your phone. While not much is known in regards to when the feature will be available in Malaysia, it does give us a better idea of what to expect from Spotify in the coming months.

YouTube recently released a blog post regarding a new metric called the Violative View Rate, which hints that more than 83 million videos, as well as up to 7 billion comments, have been removed for violative content. Not only that, but the blog also hinted that YouTube’s machine learning algorithm has managed to automatically flag up to 94% of the violative content while the remaining was done manually.

It seems that Casio has recently uploaded a new video on their YouTube channel hinting that the Casio GSW-H1000 watch will be launching very soon, and it’s equipped with Google’s Wear OS pre-installed. With that being said, the watch will have access to the Google Play Store.

Digital maps have become an important tool for many of us today. Apps like Google Maps help make navigation easier, but it's only going to get better from now on. In fact, Google plans to introduce over 100 more features in 2021, including Live View.