Google

Google Pixel Buds review (2020): Time to plug Google into your brain

By Nancy L. Germann 3 days ago

You’ve got your Nest Mini and your Google Home. You’ve got your Nest Hub Max. You’ve got your Chromecast and your Stadia. Actually, you probably don’t have the Stadia. You’ve got your Pixel phone. Your every waking hour is spent interacting with Google’s products and services. So you might as well go all-in and plug Google into your skull. Such is the promise of the second-generation Pixel Buds, Google’s competitor for Apple’s AirPods. It’s almost pointless to review these headphones as headphones. In summary, the first Pixel Buds were bad. The new Pixel Buds are pretty good. But these aren’t

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Google got rich from your data. DuckDuckGo is fighting back

By Nancy L. Germann 1 month ago

From this summer, when you set up a new Android phone or tablet in Europe, you will be presented with an extra step: a choice screen to select your default search engine.

The screen is simple. Under a search icon and a short blurb are four options. One is always Google; the others vary depending on which country you’re in. Pick one of Google’s rivals, and its results – not Google’s – will appear in a home screen search widget and in the Chrome web browser. Its app will also be downloaded to the device.

The change is so

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Google Meet is free. Here’s how to master its most useful features

By Nancy L. Germann 2 months ago

As the world continues to hunker down inside their homes, people are having to get used to socialising and hosting work meetings in an entirely different way. Remote video calls have become a part of everyday life, while ‘Zooming’ has become the phrase most commonly used to refer to video calls under lockdown. As Zoom has risen meteorically in popularity, legacy platforms like Skype and Google Hangouts Meet (now Google Meet) have fallen behind or become obsolete altogether.

But Google, clearly trying to reverse this shift in power within video conferencing, has struck back. Google Meet is now free

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How to pimp Google Meet to give it Zoom’s best features

By Nancy L. Germann 3 months ago

Zoom may have emerged as the poster child for video conference apps during the coronavirus pandemic, but being thrust aggressively into the spotlight has not come without its issues for the company, most recently nagging questions regarding privacy.

But as well as showing which video app is most popular, our current situation has highlighted where others have been resting on their laurels having squandered years that could have been spent finessing their own online conferencing solutions, adding sticky extras and even fripperies designed to edge their offering ahead of the competition. It is telling that not until it became clear

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