Tag: Google

If you have been wanting to pick up a Google Home, tomorrow is the day to do it.  Tomorrow, November 23rd, you will be able to pick the Google Assistant powered smart speaker for just $99 at Google’s Store as well as Best Buy.  The sale is going to be limited to tomorrow and Google is indicating there will be limited quantities.  If you are wanting to get one, you need to jump on it quickly as at that price, they will sell pretty fast.

Home has been doing well by all indicates and while it certainly has some limitation on what it can do currently, you can see where Google wants to go with it as a centerpiece of the “AI first” movement.  Having had a Home in my office for a few weeks now (review coming later this week), I’ve found it be very handy and helpful with things but equally, I’ve bumped into some limitations that I hope are addressed soon.

With the Chromecast Ultra starting to ship out, Google is starting to ramp up support for Ultra HD (4K) videos in the Google Play Movies & TV app.  A check of the store this morning shows that several movies are now available in UHD as well as the already offered HD and SD versions.  The number of movies will only increase as Google licenses out the UHD versions from the production studios and makes them available to end users.

But, if you have the Chromecast Ultra and a 4K television, be prepared to pay for these UHD versions.  In my research this morning, nearly every movie in UHD was twice the price of the HD version.  For example, one of my all time favorite movies, The Fifth Element, is $12.99 in HD but it is $24.99 in UHD.  Also, if you already own the HD version of the movie, there is no option for now to upgrade to UHD – at least for now.

Google Maps has long had the ability for users to attach photos to locations like hotels and restaurants.  The idea is to give your fellow Maps user an idea of what that particular place looks like before they book it.  Now there is an improvement to this around hotels that users will find quite handy.  The latest update brings a dedicated photos gallery of rooms at a particular hotel.  Now you don’t have to go through all of the photos for a particular property.  You can just select the Rooms tab and it will show you pictures of the rooms.

The updated build is version 9.41.1 for those keeping score at home and the OTA update is rolling out now.  You should see it hit your device over the course of the next few days.

There is a nice behind-the-scenes update coming to Google Allo that brings a smart emoji feature and stickers for the new movie Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them stickers that you can share with friends.  The updates are rolling out now and it could take a day or two before everyone sees them.  The first update, smart emoji, is pretty slick.  As you start typing, you can tap the Smart Smiley in the keyboard and it will give you suggested emoji for your message.  Even if you haven’t started typing, it will suggest emoji based on the context of your conversation (thank you Google Assistant and Machine Learning!).  The idea, of course, is to save time by using emoji but also to get you the right emoji for the conversation.

Google has begun taking orders for Google Wi-Fi, the company’s new mess-enabled wireless solution for homes.  Starting at $129 for a single unit and $299 for a 3-pack, the new wireless solution is aimed at making getting network coverage throughout a home quick and easy.  If you have a home of up to 1500 square-feet, a single unit will do the job for you while a 3-pack will cover a home up to 4500 square feet.  While orders are being taken, it will still be another 2-3 weeks before they ship out.

As readers will know, this is not Google’s first venture into home wireless.  The Google OnHub holds that honor and it works seamlessly with the new Google Wi-Fi solution.

Google has made a big change behind the scenes with Google Translate that is going to dramatically increase the accuracy of translations within the app.  In September, Google announced they had developed their Neural Machine Translation and discussed it in a bit more detail at the October event.  Now they have begun rolling it out to Translate with support 8 of the 130 languages that can be translated with the app and service.  This is a first step but the implications are huge simply because of now Neural Machine Translation works.

Today, Google Translate chops up whatever you are trying to translate and converts that into the foreign language.  It is good – really good – but it could be better as it doesn’t necessarily know local idioms and other speech traits.  Neural Machine Translation essentially looks at the entire sentence, looking at context and then coming up with a translation that more closely matches human speech instead of a machine.  It means that when you use the app it will give you far more natural results.  Equally as important, the app will learn as it goes to provide more accurate and better translations as time goes on and more people use it.