Google Announces YouTube Gaming, A Twitch Like Streaming Service

Google today announced YouTube Gaming, a service that will go live later this year allowing gamers to watch and stream content both on mobile and the Web. More details on Big G’s new service can be found right here.
The world of watching people live streaming as they play games is apparently a pretty big one as proven when Amazon bought Twitch, but today the world grew a little larger with the announcement that Google is set to join the fray with a new service of its own.

Dubbed YouTube Gaming, Google’s new gaming oriented flavor of YouTube isn’t live yet, but will be at some point in 2015. Right now all you can do is register your interest for the new venture, with Google emailing you when it goes live.

According to tweets sent out by a new account set up as part of the YouTube Gaming unveiling, it will be available online and on mobile, with iOS and Android apps on the way. YouTube Gaming will feature improved personalization options for content creators, while those watching will be able to tell Google what their favorite games are in order to get recommendations on streams and other games that they might want to watch.
Content in Google Gaming will be split into three catagories: Games, Feed and Channels with improved commenting and chat features set to arrive alongside the service.
According to an official blog post by Google:

YouTube Gaming is built to be all about your favorite games and gamers, with more videos than anywhere else. From “Asteroids” to “Zelda,” more than 25,000 games will each have their own page, a single place for all the best videos and live streams about that title. You’ll also find channels from a wide array of game publishers and YouTube creators.

Right now little is known about what YouTube Gaming will look and work like when it does go live, and we only have a handful of screenshots to go along with, but with Twitch already well established in the arena and built into gaming consoles for both the streaming and consuming of content, Google’s YouTube Gaming may have a fight on its hands. All that said though, we’re keen to see what Google’s recommendation engine is capable of, and any competition is a good thing as far as we are concerned.

For its part, Twitch is taking Google’s announcement in its stride, tweeting earlier to ‘Welcome Player 2′ to the market.
If you’re interested in YouTube Gaming, then you can sign-up for the service by heading over to the following URL: gaming.youtube.com
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Siri Proactive Assistant Vs Google Now On Tap [Features Comparison]

One feature of Apple’s new iOS 9 mobile operating system that got a lot of airtime during this year’s WWDC keynote speech was the new and improved Siri. Apple undoubtedly believes in the future of Siri as an important part of the iOS platform but has also conceded that improvements have needed to be made on previous iterations of its voice assistant. Google had already laid its cards on the table with an upgraded Google Now within Android M, but which one is better? Obviously, the sensible thing to do would be to pitch the two against one another.
The folks over at CNET, took the initiative and decided to take a closer look at Apple’s more “skillful” Proactive Assistant in Siri when compared against the latest and greatest Google Now on Tap, which is part of Google Now. Apple’s introduction of the new, more powerful Siri focused on the assistant’s ability to serve up more “proactive suggestions” in its array of results, which the company believes results in a “smarter way to do just about everything.” The focus on improved accuracy of understanding allows results to be delivered faster with a wider ranger of rich answers. But has all of the effort worked?

The test immediately throws up a number of comparisons and overlapping features between the two assistants. As you might expect from two pieces of software that are essentially built to do the same thing but in their own unique way, the test showed that Apple’s Siri has a fantastic ability to excel at what they are calling “original features,” which includes tasks such as recalling specific photos or videos that have been captured on a very specific time of the day as specified by the search request. This feature was demonstrated extensively during the WWDC keynote and is clearly something that Apple is proud to show off.

Google Now also comes with its own set of fairly impressive and intuitive features. As an example, the more powerful suggestions feature will take the initiative by presenting actions that appear to be relevant to the search results. The actions presented by Google Now on Tap are derived from the presented information and can include things like creating a reservation for a specific restaurant if one is mentioned in an email. Google Now on Tap is also context-aware, so actions and results can change depending on what is actually being done by the user.

Checking out the advertised and marketed features of both assistants is one thing, but the final test will come when the software is bundled onto a real-world device and used across a variety of network conditions.
If you want to check out what are the cosmetic changes in iOS 9 compared to Android M, then you may like to check out:

• iOS 9 vs Android M: Visual Comparison [Screenshots]

(Source: CNET)
You may also like to check out:

• Download iOS 9 Beta 1 And Install On iPhone 6, 6 Plus, 5s, 5c, 5, 4S, iPad, iPod touch [Tutorial]
• How To Download And Install Android M [Tutorial]

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Android Wear 5.1.1 Download For Moto 360 Released

Owners of the Moto 360 smartwatch have exercised extreme patience in regards to future updates of Android, but now it looks like the wait could be over. Proud wearers of the gorgeous Moto 360 timepiece will be delighted to hear that Android 5.1.1 has now begun rolling out to the device as an over-the-air (OTA) update. Like most updates of this nature, it may ultimately end up taking a few days before all Moto 360 device owners start seeing the update filter through to their devices.
The latest update in the world of Android Wear, version 5.1.1, originally announced back in April, has already started to filter down to a number of other popular wearables, which is partially why Moto 360 owners have been left feeling a little disgruntled and forgotten about. There hasn’t been a great amount of official communication coming out of the Motorola camp regarding the issue other than to say that a number of “performance issues” and concerns had delayed the Android Wear 5.1.1 update from hitting the device, but it seems that they have now been resolved, hopefully, giving the green light for the update to be pushed out to all owners.

One of Google’s senior developers, Wayne Piekarksi, confirmed the immediate rollout of Android Wear 5.1.1 to the Moto 360 Android Wear device via his own Google+ account, taking care to manage expectations regarding the delivery time of the update:

Just to let you all know, the latest version of Android Wear is going to start rolling out via an over-the-air (OTA) update to the Moto 360 today! OTA rollouts are always done over a period of many days, so it will take some time to receive your update.

Users of the Moto 360 will be able to enjoy additional features within Android Wear such as connecting the watch directly to a WiFi network to receive notifications without a connected smartphone, as well as the addition of new emoji input, new app launcher and more.
Let’s hope those performance issues have been finally put to bed though

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Google Play Music Launches Free Ad-Supported Radio Streaming Service

Apple took on the big names in the music streaming space when it announced Apple Music at WWDC this year. However, that doesn’t mean that Apple’s competitors in this space will just sit and not do anything. Today, the Mountain View company announced its free music streaming tier to the already-rich Google Play Music, which will basically serve as a curated, ad-supported radio station selection for non-subscribers (read: free users) of the search giant’s music offering. The new free tier of Google Play Music is all set to take on Apple’s iTunes Radio service, and the upcoming Beats 1 radio station, which is going to be a part of Apple Music.
The new service, which is essentially Google’s Pandora/iTunes Music, will become available for users in the U.S. using the Web platform starting today, while support for Android and iOS will follow suit shortly, and will roll out as part of the Play Music app on the aforementioned mobile platforms. So expect an update within a week or two.

Google Play Music will have curated radio stations that will be crafted carefully by music experts. Google says that this initiative is building on its purchase of Songza about a year back, and will be in direct competition with the likes of Pandora, Apple’s iTunes Radio and the freshly announced Beats 1 radio station, as we mentioned before.

“Our team of music experts, including the folks who created Songza, crafts each station song by song so you don’t have to. If you’re looking for something specific, you can browse our curated stations by genre, mood, decade or activity, or you can search for your favorite artist, album or song to instantly create a station of similar music.”

This is an interesting move on Google’s part particularly because the Play Music brand already features over 30 million audio tracks that can either be streamed or stored on device for offline playback, all for a meagre value of $9.99 a month, and that, too, after a 60-day free trial. On the other hand, Apple’s Music service comes in at a similar $9.99/month value, or $14.99/month for the whole family, and offers a three-month free trial period – something that sparked quite a controversy with Taylor Swift recently. The Apple Music service is set to go live at the end of this month and will be a part of the iOS 8.4 update for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch devices.
Google has gradually made a name for itself through its Play Music service already, and this move furthers the search giant’s position in this arena. When it comes to the sheer volume of music available, both Google and Apple are head-to-head, and it’s going to be small distinguishers that will decide the ultimate winner.

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How To Undo Send A Sent Email In Gmail

Here’s how you can ‘Undo Send’ a sent email message in Gmail using this native feature. More details and step-by-step guide on how to use it can be found right here.
The ‘Undo Send’ feature in Gmail has been around for a good few years now, but was part of Google Labs. In short: it was experimental, and choppy at best in certain situations. But now, the feature has matured enough to be a permanent part of Gmail, and is no longer a lab experiment, all ready to be taken advantage of by millions of users around the globe.

Getting to grips with the feature is fairly easy, and we’ll show you how it’s done.
Setting Up ‘Undo Send’
Step 1: Click on the ‘gear’ icon on the top right of Gmail, and then click on ‘Settings.’

Step 2: Under the ‘General’ tab, scroll down and look for an option titled ‘Undo Send.’
Step 3: Enable the feature and select the ‘Send cancellation period’ according to your liking. We’d suggest ’30 seconds,’ so you get a hefty amount of time in your hands to undo an email.

Step 4: Now scroll down and click on ‘Save’ to confirm your settings.

How To Use ‘Undo Send’
Step 1: Compose a new email message in Gmail.
Step 2: Type in an email address you want to send off the email message to, add a subject, and type anything in the body and click on ‘Send.’
Step 3: At first it seems as though the email message has been sent off, but it hasn’t. If you look at the notification being presented to you at the top of Gmail, you’ll see a ‘Your message has been sent’ banner, and right next to it an ‘Undo’ button. Simply click it, and your email will be unsent.

We’re pretty certain that this feature will come in handy to a lot of people. We’ve all been in that situation where we wished that we hadn’t sent that one email that could’ve been something else, but it was already too late. With ‘Undo Send’ around in Gmail, those days are long gone.
Set it up on Gmail, and do let us know what you think about it in the comments section below.
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How Google Checks For Lag On Android And Chrome OS Devices [Video]

Google is a little bit obsessed with trying to make sure that the experience of using its Android and Chrome OS devices is as enjoyable as possible. To that end, the company has been carrying out tests that it hopes will show the latency endured when a user touches a screen, with the time taken between press and something being drawn on screen being measured. Google may not have been making too much noise about this testing process and you can be assured that other companies are doing the same thing with their platforms, but Google is the first to give us a look behind the curtain.
Posting on Google+, Google’s François Beaufort, a ‘happiness evangelist’ has lifted the lid on some of the testing work that Google has been carrying out. The whole thing involves a rather scary looking piece of equipment that it calls Touchbot. The Touchbot is actually built by the Finnish company OptoFidelity and it “measures end-to-end latency of Android and Chrome OS devices.” The Touchbot’s job is to point and prod at the screen it is being told to test, with a camera then measuring how quickly or how slowly the resulting image is drawn on-screen.

Lag can be the biggest reason that a device, be it smartphone, tablet or notebook computer feels slow. Users expect to receive instant feedback when interacting with a device, and if on-screen actions happen too long after a touch or press, the resulting lag can be just enough to ruin the experience. Just compare a low-end Android phone with a high-end one and you will see what we mean.
Android has historically suffered with lag when compared to Windows Phone and iOS, possibly due to the proliferation of low-end hardware in the market. Google is clearly working to improve responsiveness and lag across its platforms, and it’s using a pretty impressive bit of kit to do it.
Long may it continue till lag is turned into a bad and distant memory.

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Android M Developer Preview 2 Download For Nexus 5, 6, 9, Player Released [Direct Links]

Android M Developer Preview 2 is now available to download. The newly released system images support Nexus 5, 6, 9, and of course the Nexus Player, which should give developers the chance to keep their apps up to date with the changes that will be introduced to Google’s mobile operating system down the road.
Google announced Android M at its I/O keynote back in May, and the announcement was followed by the release of the first developer preview for the Nexus lineup of devices. With the release of Developer Preview 2 of Android M, Google says that the second release has in fact been tweaked under the hood with some much needed bug fixes and performance improvements. “The update includes a variety of enhancements and bug fixes made across the system, including those related to issues reported by developers through the external issue tracker.”

A good chunk of the focus has been put on fixing and improving ‘permissions,’ including the fingerprint scanner API, remote Bluetooth/WiFi MAC, WiFi, and Bluetooth. Being a preview – albeit the second version – the release will hiccup here and there including a possible system-wide Messenger app crash on a 64-bit emulator, while YouTube users may have to skip on the share function. The complete changelog of this release is embedded below:

The build – as should be obvious by now – is meant primarily for developers, giving them a chance to test out existing app compatibilities, or add something entirely new from scratch using the new Android M’s API set. However, there’s more than a fair chance that slightly advanced Android users would wish to give this new release a one-off spin, especially considering that any prospective consumer update is months away. Which brings us back to the usual warning associated with such beta releases of operating systems; Google is still far off from making this release a daily-runner, given the new set of APIs and internal changes being introduced to the Android world with the ‘M’ release, so if you care about general stability in day to day use, you are better off staying away from this release at this time.
If you already have Android M Developer Preview 1 installed then you can grab the OTA update by heading over to Settings > About phone > System updates then tap on ‘Check For Update.’ If you’re starting fresh then you can grab the update from the links provided below.
Here are the direct download links of Android M, listed according to the device.

• Nexus 5
• Nexus 6
• Nexus 9
• Nexus Player

For instructions on how to download and install/flash Android M on your device from scratch, follow the guide here:

• How To Download And Install Android M [Tutorial]

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