A few hours after the update that brought the September security patches and some bug fixes on the Pixels still covered by support (except Pixel 6a, which will receive them late) Google intervenes again to communicate the news affecting the Android ecosystem in a broad sense, from smartphones through tablets, Google TV and wearOS. Small note of color. Pixel customers get a double ration of news: first those related to Android 13, now these. Not bad.
NEWS FOR THE ECOSYSTEM ANNOUNCED BY GOOGLE
- Nearby Share, sharing nearby – from the next few weeks, sharing files with Android smartphones and tablets and Chromebooks, whether photos, videos or even entire folders, will be easier: just select the target device from those with the same Google account and that’s it. And once the share is accepted on the target device, the “yes” remains in memory and future shares are accepted automatically, even when the screen is off. The latter is technically nothing new: Google had announced it a few hours ago, but being fresh it deemed it appropriate to reiterate it.
- widget for tablets – those for Google Drive and Google Keep have been restructured: the first now offers three buttons that allow you to access Documents, Slides and Sheets with a single touch, the second is larger and the characters themselves are larger
- news for Gboard and Google Meet:
- the keyboard gets new Emoji Kitchen and a button (EmojifyGoogle calls it) with a stylized magic wand that allows you to emojize what has been written up to that moment: the system analyzes the text and the intelligence replaces words or phrases with emojis; there are different levels of emojization: the more you press the magic wand, the greater the incidence of smilies in the text. In this way you do not have to interrupt the writing to select the emoticon to insert, everything is done at the end. However, it seems like a long-term novelty: already available for Gboard beta in English, “in the coming weeks” it also arrives on stable Gboard, but always in English
- on Google Meet comes the possibility of fixing more than one participant and the opportunities for sharing in real time grow: from videos on YouTube to games like Uno! or Heads Up! you can interact in real time with up to 100 contacts. Already available on Android smartphones and tablets
- news for accessibility studied in collaboration with the community of deaf:
- Instant Transcription, a function that has existed since 2019 and consists of a real-time speech-to-text app designed for those with hearing problems, now it can “transcribe” even the critical sounds of the house, from the siren of a fire alarm passing through someone knocking on the door. The alerts for these “noticeable” sounds are entrusted to notifications for smartphones or smartwatches, vibrations or the LED flashlight that flashes on the phone.
In addition, Google introduces the ability to add custom sounds to the alert library: “Just register it and your phone or watch will notify you the next time it rings” - on Google TV, audio descriptions can now transcribe visual information as well. There is already a collection of films on Google TV that offer the possibility to put the novelty to the test.
- Instant Transcription, a function that has existed since 2019 and consists of a real-time speech-to-text app designed for those with hearing problems, now it can “transcribe” even the critical sounds of the house, from the siren of a fire alarm passing through someone knocking on the door. The alerts for these “noticeable” sounds are entrusted to notifications for smartphones or smartwatches, vibrations or the LED flashlight that flashes on the phone.
- new tiles for WearOS: come the one for Google Keep which allows you to take note of something on the fly and the Bitmoji, which allows you to always have your personal face with an expression that varies depending on the time of day, the weather or the level of physical activity.
