Category: Google Search

The Google Search team has added two fun games to Search that you can start playing immediately without any downloads.  On your Android phone, type in Solitaire or tic tac toe and you can immediately start playing the classic games right from within the Search results.  The new additions are just the latest in a series of app-like functionality within the Search app.  Previously information on the US election was added and more recently, detailed information about the Olympics in Rio were just a search away.  Games are nothing new either. You have been able to search flip a coin and get a coin toss from within search results too.  Now you have two more to play.

With the Rio 2016 Olympic games starting on August 5th, this coming Friday, the need for information and results always goes up and Google Search could be your answer.  Google has announced that Google Search on your Android phone has been updated behind-the-scenes to provide a wealth of information about the games as they happen in Rio.  The good news is this is all done on Google’s end – you don’t have to update your app on your phone.

On Google, searching for information about your favorite athletes and sports, the medal race, or your country’s schedule has never been easier. Pro tip: if you search on the Google app on Android and iOS, you’ll also see an option to get automatic updates on top event and medal wins, so you’ll never miss a beat.

With these changes, Google Search could well be your one-stop to get news and information about what is going on in Rio 2016 and your country’s athletes at the games this year.

A small but potentially life saving update has been made to Google Search around earthquakes.  Now you can type in “earthquake” or “earthquake near me” in Search and get instant information about the magnitude of the temblor, its epicenter and survival information all at the top of the search page.

The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that approximately 500,000 earthquakes occur around the globe each year, 100,000 of which can be felt. Now people who feel the effects of an earthquake can ask Google directly about the disaster and get timely information to help them stay safe.

In the event of an earthquake, searches for “earthquake,” “earthquakes near me” or similar queries will give you an at-a-glance summary about the quake, right at the top of the search page.

With many of us living in earthquake active areas, this type of information can be not just handy but potentially life saving.

A behind-the-scenes update and a new partnership with LyricFind has brought inline lyric viewing right within Google Search and Google Play Music on your Android phone.  The partnership with LyricFind brings lyrics to songs from over 4,000 publishers to the apps, making it much easier and smoother to find the words to your favorite song (and to figure out if you have been singing them wrong all these years!).

“We’re happy to expand the depth and quality of lyrics available on Google’s services,” says LyricFind CEO Darryl Ballantyne. “We’re working together to make lyrics available to a larger audience in a faster and more efficient way.”

LyricFind has been the main driver behind creating a legal and global lyric infrastructure for all platforms, and its partnership with Google further strengthens this mission. LyricFind collects new royalties for songwriters and rightsholders, and benefits music fans who engage more easily than ever with lyrics that inspire them.

Ultimate the good news for us Google users is that there is nothing we have to do to make the magic happen other than do a search.

Google Search is getting a much needed and impressive voice makeover on your Android devices.  Gone is the somewhat broken English and in is a much smoother voice read back experience on your search results.  The update appears to be a combination of a back-end upgrade on Google’s side along with an update to the Google Text-to-Speech app and a new version of that app is in the Google Play Store that should be pushing out to everyone over the course of the next few days.

Google has launched a new destinations search results feature in Google Search that will make finding your next holiday destination a bit easier.  The new feature brings a wealth of information to your fingertips just by adding the word “destination” to your search.  For example, you can search Destination Thailand and you will get a listing of all of the popular travel destinations in that country along with average flight costs and hotel costs in a tile-style results page.