Tag: Google

Google is in the process of dropping a new app into the Play Store, Google PhotoScan.  As the name suggest, PhotoScan is aimed at making capturing old photos and them storing them electronically (like in Google Photos) painless but in great quality.  The app detects edges, straightens the image, rotates it to the correct orientation, and removes glare.  Then you can save it to your Google Photos account with a single tap.  And remember – if you are using Google Photos and storing photos in High Quality (photos under 16MP really benefit from this) then they don’t count against your Google Drive storage quota.

Using Google PhotoScan is easy.  With the app on your Android phone, point your camera at the photo you want to scan.  In the PhotoScan app, after you line up the photo and tap the shutter button, there will be four dots on the screen.  Line up the camera with those four dots and PhotoScan stitches things together to create a high quality digital image of your photograph.

We all know how powerful Google search is on our devices.  Whether it is by voice or by typing in a search request in the Search bar or in Chrome, getting to information is quick and easy and makes finding out things on the go simple.  But did you know that you can also do a search via the camera built into your Android phone?  It is a feature that has been there since Marshmallow and for a while was limited to the Google Now launcher.  That has gone away and whether you are on a device using the Google camera app or not, it works.  In fact, I tested it out on three different launchers (Google Now, Nextbit Launcher, Action Launcher) and all three allow you to do this type of searching.  I’m assuming it works with any combination but if you find a launcher or camera app which it doesn’t work, let me know so I can update this post.

Harry Potter fans, there is a great deal for you this week in the Google Play Store.  Right now you can pick up the entire 8-movie collection of Potter movies for $49.99.  That is a huge savings of 48% off the regular price of $103.92.  All of the movies are in HD and because you are getting them through Google Play, you can Cast them to your TV via Chromecast or Roku and can download them to devices to watch offline.  It is a great deal for sure.

Harry Potter Collection

The collection comes with all of the movies in the series:

• Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
• Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
• Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix
• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2

That’s a lot of watching but if you love the series like me & my family do, it is a great deal.  To put how good this deal is in perspective, each of the individual movies in HD are $12.99 each.  In this deal, they are $6.25 each.  Head over to the Play Store to buy the bundle

For those of you who use Mint for managing your household budgets and finances, there is a nice update out for you this morning.  The update, version 4.14 for those keeping score at home, brings support for fingerprint authentication.  Mint joins an ever increasing number of apps that support fingerprint authentication as it for the most part will be safer than PINs or passwords.  The new feature is not enabled by default and, as expected, you won’t see it as an option if you have the app installed on a phone that doesn’t have a fingerprint scanner.  To enable it, go to Settings>Security and there is a new checkbox to enable it.  The next time you start up Mint, you will be prompted to scan your fingerprint to get into your financial information.

The Google Daydream VR headset has started to ship to those who have ordered it and Google, as expected, as released the Daydream app into the Play Store.  The app allows users with the new Google Pixel to have a full VR experience with the headset.  The VR UI for when you have your phone in the headset is very easy to navigate and if you have played with Google Cardboard in the past, it will look pretty similar to you.  Using the controller, you can look to an app you want to start and click the button to launch it.  Obviously content is still pretty limited at this point but more is on the way.  Google, in fact, launched YouTube VR today too.

Read more after the break

If you are a Google Chrome user on your Windows PC or Mac, there is a small but important update that has been released.  The updated builds are 54.0.2840.99 for Windows and 54.0.2840.98 for Mac.  Note that there is no update for Linux yet.  According to the release notes from the Chrome team, there are additional changes to the browser for that platform and it will be updated tomorrow.  The update will come via an OTA update but if you want to force the issue, go to chrome://help in the browser and it will force the update to happen.  I’ve already done this for my Macbook so the update is readily available.

Read on for details on what has changed.