Browsing: Google

The September Android Drop lets you tell Gemini where you put your passport and ask for it back later. It is a genuinely useful feature built on a much smaller idea than the headline suggests, and the version requirements mean most people will only get two of the five things Google announced.

Google Messages now lets you give every conversation its own color and wallpaper. Unlike Apple’s version, the theme you pick stays on your phone and never changes what the other person sees. Here is how to set one up and why the option may be missing.

Google Maps renamed Lake Ontario to Lake America for US users three days after Trump signed the order. Apple Maps has not moved, so the President called Apple directly. The mechanism behind all of it is one row in a federal database.

Google Assistant starts being removed from Android on September 4, and there is no way back once your device switches. Here is which of your devices are affected, the two features Gemini still cannot replace, and the ten minute check worth doing before Friday.

A blank grey icon called Android Pulse appeared in Play Store updates last weekend, and it turned out to have been running on phones since March. Here is what Google’s hidden system service actually does, what the data safety listing declares, and why the reaction was harsher than the app deserved.

Cherokee Nation banned hyperscale data centers on tribally owned and trust land after a task force found 64% of citizens opposed them. The same survey found 73% of those citizens use generative AI, and the report says so out loud.

Google put a notification light back on the Pixel 11 Pro after eight years, then limited it to favorite contacts and Gemini. Here is what HiLight does, why the restrictions exist, and whether it should matter to you.

Android 17 went stable on June 16, and two months later most people still cannot download it. Here is exactly who has it, when Samsung, Motorola, OnePlus and Xiaomi owners get their turn, and why the wait is so long.

An internal Google DeepMind memo tells applicants there is a “non-trivial probability” their CV will be screened out incorrectly, and points them to a separate form that a human will actually read. Google says the system works fine.

Google’s first Bluetooth tracker costs $29, ships November 11, and packs both ultra wideband and Bluetooth Channel Sounding. The hardware is fine. The Find Hub network behind it is the part that still needs work, starting with a default setting almost nobody changes.