I can’t say I saw this coming. After launching in 2019 and making everyone uncomfortable, Google’s mesmerizing yet terrifying Duplex AI is being shut down for the web. The technology began as a smart feature for booking haircut appointments, fixing up your passwords, and buying products among other fringe use cases. TechCrunch reports that it […]
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We talk about a ton of stuff here at Chrome Unboxed. From Chromebooks to Chromecast to Google Assistant, the world of Chrome OS is pretty far-reaching. We save our News section for the things that are breaking news to our readers.
Gmail suddenly has a relentless primary inbox spam problem, and users can’t seem to stop it
Over the past few years, I’ve noticed something quite annoying. Gmail, the one email service I can rely on not receiving to spam in my inbox (unless you count Google’s crappy ads I have to swipe away each morning!) has begun to get flooded with exactly that – spam. Now, this isn’t your garden variety […]
Continue ReadingGoogle lawsuit alleges the company had radio personalities pretend to use the Pixel 4
When it comes to tech companies, I feel like we’re all living in a circus. No matter how honest corporations seem or how charitable you are with them given their mission statements, there’s always that aspect of them where they’re either intentionally or unintentionally dishonest for gain. In a recent lawsuit that was filed by […]
Continue ReadingGoogle allegedly paid game developers millions of dollars to block Play Store competition
Do you ever wonder why there aren’t more Google Play Store competitors sprouting up over the past few years? Well, wonder no more! Google has allegedly paid 24 big app developers to avoid doing exactly this, and they consist of some of the largest companies in the gaming space. As per Reuters, Activision Blizzard (World […]
Continue ReadingYouTube Music update hides the dislike button and redesigns the ‘Now playing’ screen
Google may have failed with Google Play Music, but it’s going above and beyond to make the YouTube Music brand better and better with age. Today, it looks nothing like it did when it launched, and there are updates seemingly every week. As reported by 9to5Google, the ‘Now playing’ screen has received a server-side update […]
Continue ReadingLuna may become the next Google Stadia thanks to Amazon’s 10,000-person job cut rampage
I don’t need to remind you of the travesty that befell Google’s Stadia cloud gaming platform this year. While it’s still available for the time being, we’re coming up on the literal “deadline” for its shutdown, and cloud gaming as a whole is taking a massive blow. Many people never took it seriously as a […]
Continue ReadingThis Mastodon web app mimics the look and feel of Google Plus
Regardless of how you feel about what’s happening on Twitter this week, one thing is for certain – our lives are split across many social networks and that’s likely never going to change. That’s why when over a million people took flight and spun up Mastodon accounts, I followed suit. I’m always down to try […]
Continue ReadingMediaTek unveils next-gen Kompanio SoCs for entry-level Chromebooks
MediaTek has made a name for itself as the leading chip maker for ARM-powered Chromebooks and this week, the company ascended on Sonoma, California to announce its latest offerings in the SoC space. The announcement included two new Kompanio processors that are designed specifically for entry-level Chromebooks. These new chipsets are meant to “take entry […]
Continue ReadingYouTube Music and Premium just passed 80 million paid subscribers
First reported by Variety and later tweet quoted by Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai himself, YouTube Music and Premium just hit a major milestone. Amidst so much controversy with paid services and what features are included (like blue checkmarks), Google has managed to rocket past 80 million paid users! For those who remember our previous report […]
Continue ReadingGoogle Messages swaps its odd horizontal photo picker for a standard vertical one
Do you want to know what I can’t stand? When app developers make poor use of my device’s available screen real estate. In some instances, these decisions are made out of a desire to explore new UX territory or to be clever and different from the competition. For the longest time, Google Messages has forced […]
Continue ReadingDisney+ is about to get a price hike and an ad-supported tier that won’t cost any less
You probably won’t be surprised to hear this, but Disney+ is following in everyone else’s footsteps and asking you to trade your dignity and pay for ads. According to a Disney+ help article that was just updated, the company plans to make two massive changes to its offerings. First, it will bump the price of […]
Continue ReadingGoogle Play wants to better highlight high-quality apps, reduce review bombing, more
Over on its Android Developers blog, Google detailed how it wants to draw more attention to apps and games that put in the work to make the user experience top-notch. Over the next few months, the Google Play Store intends to roll out improvements to how it does this by giving developers more tools to […]
Continue ReadingYou can now share Google Drive files temporarily thanks to a new expiration date feature
Until now, sharing access to a Google Drive file meant it was permanent unless you manually removed a collaborator from it. Doing so requires you to first remember to do so and then to actually do it, obviously. The issue with this is that human error is the weakest link in technology. In some cases, […]
Continue ReadingGoogle Street View’s dedicated Android app is being shut down next year
All of my favorite Google apps are shutting down this year, and to be honest, that’s kind of a bummer. I know that the company is moving rapidly towards web applications, but they don’t always have feature parity with the Android version that disappears off of the face of the Earth. The latest service on […]
Continue ReadingYou could one day have a Bitmoji-style character avatar to represent your Google Account
In its latest round of acquisitions, Google has snatched up an interesting company. Formerly known as ‘Facemoji’, Alter is an AI-driven avatar provider. About two months ago, the tech giant apparently finished the purchase as several of Alter’s top executives updated their LinkedIn profiles to reflect their new job positions at Google, according to TechCrunch. […]
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