Google Search now makes it easier to find live TV shows and sports

Performing a Google search can provide you with answers to almost any question, from “who was the first man on the moon?” to “when is Tenet coming out in theaters?”. Now, Google Search results for users in the U.S. can also show you what TV channel is playing NBA and MLB games, as well as where to find live TV shows or movies.

When you search for something like, “Where to watch the Lakers game,” Google Search will display live TV options. The GIF embedded below sums up the new feature pretty well.

If your search is simpler — “Lakers game,” for example — Google Search will show the usual game day features, including live scores, top stories, and standings. You’ll also see a new “Live on” button, which will show you which TV station is playing the game. As of now, Google Search will only display live TV options for NBA and MLB games, but Google said it plans to integrate more leagues in the future. Similarly, only some cable and network channels will be featured in search, but Google said it plans to expand to more digital streaming options soon.

In addition to displaying where to watch live sports, Google is also expanding TV shows and movie recommendations in Search. This week, search results will add carousels of live content from cable and broadcast providers. When you search for something like “what to watch” or “good shows to watch” on your mobile device, you’ll be able to see shows that are streaming and live on certain networks. Google’s “On TV now” carousel shows programs from multiple channels while the “On TV later” carousel shows recommendations for future programs to watch.

The new Search features are available now for users in the U.S., according to a blog post published by the company.

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These are the best Galaxy Note 20 and Note 20 Ultra screen protectors

Phone screens are fragile, and no matter what, one hard and unlucky fall will smash the screen easily, no matter how drop proof a company claims their glass is. Glass is glass, and glass breaks when impacted. Even if you’re incredibly careful with your smartphone screens, glass can also scratch really easily. Even micro scratches will easily catch your eye if the sun hits them right.

The Samsung Galaxy Note 20 series has just launched, and you wouldn’t want your fancy new phone’s screen to break or be scratched, would you? These are some of our picks of screen protectors for the Samsung Galaxy Note 20 series that you can get at the moment. There’s a nice mix of tempered glass and plastic so that you can get exactly what you want.

Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra screen protectors

Venoro Tempered Glass

Reputable but cheap

Venoro are a reputable brand, and this tempered glass screen protector should protect your Galaxy Note 20 Ultra nicely. It has an oleophobic coating too, so it won't feel different to your normal screen.

$11.99 on Amazon

Whitestone Dome Protectors

Premium-grade protection

It may seem pricey, but Whitestone Dome is a premium brand. It's built with the fingerprint sensor in mind, and it comes with a special applicator to prevent bubbles too, as we all know how difficult they can be to apply.

$69.99 on Amazon

Spigen NeoFlex Protector

One of the biggest names in protection

Spigen are one of the biggest names in smartphone protection. The Spigen NeoFlex Protector comes with two protectors so that you can swap them if one breaks. $9.99 is a steal!

$9.99 on Amazon

ESR Tempered Glass 2 Pack

2 tempered glass screen protectors!

Tempered glass screen protectors are the best protection that you'll get. They're an extra sheet of glass for your phone screen. You even get two of them, just in case one breaks.

$13.99 on Amazon

ZAGG InvisibleShield

Anti-microbial goodness

The ZAGG InvisibleShield GlassFusion+ may be a little pricey, but it offers an anti-microbial coating to kill the majority of phone-related germs that you get on your screen. Zagg is known for great protection too!

$39.99 at Best Buy

Olixar Glass Protector

Reputable without breaking the bank

Olixar is another reputable brand in screen protectors, and you can pick up one of their tempered glass protectors for the Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra now!

$19.99 on Amazon

Samsung Galaxy Note 20 screen protectors

ESR Tempered Glass 2 Pack

2 for the price of 1!

Tempered glass screen protectors are the best protection that you'll get. They're an extra sheet of glass for your phone screen. You even get two of them, just in case one breaks.

$13.99 on Amazon

Whitestone Dome Protectors

Premium-grade protection

It may seem pricey, but Whitestone Dome is a premium brand. It's built with the fingerprint sensor in mind, and it comes with a special applicator to prevent bubbles too.

$69.99 on Amazon

Olixar Glass Protector

Reputable without breaking the bank

Olixar is another reputable brand in screen protectors, and you can pick up one of their tempered glass protectors for the Samsung Galaxy Note 20 now!

$19.99 on Amazon

Both the Samsung Galaxy Note 20 and the Note 20 Ultra are powerful phones, though they’re also expensive. You’ll want to protect their screens with a tempered glass screen protector for sure.

While $70 may seem costly at first in the case of the Whitestone Dome screen protectors, it’s not a lot when you consider that a screen replacement may cost so much more. Spend $70 to protect your screen now, or potentially spend hundreds of dollars down the line to replace the screen itself.

If you want to go really cheap, the Spigen NeoFlex for the Note 20 Ultra is a steal. The ESR package of 2 is also great for the regular Note 20, as you get 2 for the price of 1. If it breaks, just swap it out for another one!

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Signal adds message requests so you learn more about who’s contacting you

For a lot of messaging platforms, it can be difficult to screen messages from people not in your contacts list. Signal is making that process safer by allowing users to have more control over who can message you and how a conversation starts.

Signal is a popular messaging app for those who value security and privacy. It’s cross-platform, supports end-to-end encryption for messaging, and retains little information about its users. While it may not be as feature-filled as other messaging platforms like Telegram or WhatsApp, its emphasis on security and privacy has attracted a dedicated base of users who spread the word about the platform to friends and colleagues. Its adherence to maintaining user privacy has also led to backlash when the platform adds new features like Signal PIN, which backs up certain data to the company’s servers and protects it behind a user’s PIN.

Signal’s new message request feature builds off of the private profiles feature they added over 2 and a half years ago. The team says that profiles are end-to-end encrypted and shared “via the same secure Signal Protocol messaging channel that already protects your conversations and calls.” The feature is designed to allow users to see more information about a person before they engage in the conversation.

Here’s how Signal explains the new feature in their blog post:

Incoming message requests are displayed using the sender’s Signal profile. Support for private profiles was added to Signal over two and a half years ago, but now we’ve cleaned up and simplified how they appear. Signal profiles are end-to-end encrypted and shared via the same secure Signal Protocol messaging channel that already protects your conversations and calls. This means that none of your profile information is ever accessible to the service.

If you’re included in a group conversation, rather than seeing a list of phone numbers, you’ll see the profiles of participants. If you’re chatting with someone already in your system contacts, a new icon in the header of conversations will be displayed. For voice and video chat, users will be required to approve message requests before their phone rings.

To support message requests, users will need to create a new Signal profile. The new features are available in Signal beginning today.

Signal Private Messenger (Free, Google Play) →

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Google rolls out Google Meet, Chat, and Rooms tabs in Gmail for G Suite customers

Google has a lot of different tools for staying productive while working from home, including Meet, Chat, and Rooms. Now, the search giant is adding tabs for each service inside the Gmail app, but only for G Suite customers at this time.

Google announced the rollout for the new Meet, Chat, and Rooms tabs in a G Suite blog post on Thursday. The company first announced these changes for G Suite customers back in July during Cloud Next ’20.

The company said Gmail will now feature four distinct components for G Suite customers:

• Mail, which has not changed as is the same Gmail experience users know and love.
• Chat, which allows users to message individuals and small groups directly.
• Rooms, which are spaces that include shared chat, files, and tasks to help groups more easily work on projects.
• Meet, which features upcoming meetings that you can view and join.

Google is also making several quality-of-life changes so that users can more easily get work done. Users can now assign group tasks, get notified about task updates in rooms, pin important rooms, set your availability to “Do not disturb,” and much more.

By consolidating Google’s different services into Gmail, Google is making it easier than ever to stay in touch and on task. If you’re a G Suite user, the integrated experience is getting a gradual rollout and should be available in the next few weeks. Google hasn’t announced plans to enable Chat and Rooms tabs in the Gmail app for regular users, but the company has added a dedicated Meet tab for all users. Regular users can toggle the Meet tab by going to their Google account settings in the Gmail app and then scrolling down until they find the “show the Meet tab for video calling” option.

Gmail (Free, Google Play) →

Google Meet - Secure Video Meetings (Free, Google Play) →

Google Chat (Free, Google Play) →

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Fortnite circumvents Google Play fees with direct payment option

Epic Games on Thursday announced the Fortnite Mega Drop, a permanent discount on V-bucks and other purchases of up to 20% off. The developer said these changes are permanent and available on every platform where you can download Fortnite.

The bigger news, however, is the fact that Epic Games has introduced direct payments on mobile. The change means that Fortnite is circumventing the app store fees associated with Google’s Play Store and Apple’s App Store. If you don’t go with the direct payment option, the newly implemented discounts won’t apply. “Currently, when using Apple and Google payment options, Apple and Google collect a 30% fee, and the up to 20% price drop does not apply,” Epic Games said in a blog post. “If Apple and Google lower their fees on payments in the future, Epic will pass along the savings to you.”

If you choose the direct payment option, you’ll be brought to a screen where you can enter your credit card or PayPal information. With the discount, 1,000 V-bucks cost $7.99 — otherwise, the price is $9.99 due to the fees associated with Google and Apple payment options. If you recently purchased V-bucks in the last 30 days, players will be granted a V-bucks bonus by August 17. Epic also said that all active players will get the Shooting Starstaff Pickaxe for free.

Epic Games said that direct payments are perfectly safe and that many commonly used apps, including Grubhub, Fandango, McDonald’s, and many others, accept direct payments. “We think all developers should be free to support direct payments in all apps,” Epic Games said. “In operating Fortnite in open platforms and operating the Epic Games Store, Epic has processed over $1,600,000,000 of direct payments successfully, and uses industry trusted encryption and security measures to protect customer transactions.”

Epic Games has had a fraught relationship with Google Play from the beginning. When Fortnite originally launched on Android, you could only download it from Epic’s website or Samsung’s Galaxy Store. Eventually, however, Fortnite was put on Google Play, but not without Epic first blasting Google, saying the search giant puts software downloaded outside of Google Play at an unfair disadvantage.

Today’s announcement feels almost like a dare to Apple and Google to pull Fortnite from their respective app stores. With both Apple and Google under scrutiny from antitrust regulators and politicians, such a move would bring even more attention to both companies’ app store policies. We will be keeping an eye on this news to see how Apple and Google respond to Epic Games.

Fortnite (Free⁺, Google Play) →

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Samsung Galaxy Buds Live teardown showcases easy repairability and Bean references

Samsung’s new Galaxy Buds Live have scored an 8 out of 10 for repairability in iFixit’s recent teardown of the TWS earphones, higher than both the Galaxy Buds and Galaxy Buds+. Although the new earbuds are smaller and feature an atypical design, the Galaxy Buds Live aren’t difficult to pry open, and their wireless charging case is also easy to repair with the right set of tools.

The teardown reveals that the Galaxy Buds Live are powered by a rechargeable Varta CP1254 A3 battery, which is the same battery found within the original Galaxy Buds. iFixit notes that the button cell battery can be found online if you ever feel the need to replace the ones on your Galaxy Buds Live, however, they’re not as easy to find as they were previously.

The wireless charging case, on the other hand, features a 1.81Wh battery, which is substantially larger than the batteries found in the wireless charging cases for the older Galaxy Buds and Galaxy Buds+. Furthermore, the teardown reveals that most of the internal components are relatively modular and can be replaced independently.

iFixit also found that the ribbon cable connecting the two halves of each earbud states “bean left” and “bean right,” which suggests that Samsung internally referred to the earbuds as Beans before settling with the Galaxy Buds Live moniker. Check out the video linked above for a detailed look at the insides of the Galaxy Buds Live and its wireless charging case. As of now, iFixit hasn’t posted a repair guide for the Galaxy Buds Live, but it should go live on this page in the coming days.

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Google announces a new version of Wear OS based on Android 11 with Snapdragon Wear 4100 support

Wear OS by Google, or Android Wear as some of us still keep calling it despite the rebranding years ago, does not see as much attention in the daily news, but the wearable OS is still alive and kicking. New watches from Suunto, OPPO, and Xiaomi, as well as the launch of the Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 4100 SoC for wearables, have rekindled interest in Wear OS to a degree. Now, as part of its #11WeeksOfAndroid announcements, Google has announced a new version of Wear OS that is based on Android 11 and supports Snapdragon Wear 4100.

Wear OS based on Android 11

Google is not explicitly announcing “Wear OS on Android 11” on their blog post, but they do mention that several Android 11 features will be arriving on Wear OS. We asked Google for a confirmation on this, and a  Google spokesperson has informed us that the new Wear OS version is based on Android 11. For reference, the current version of the wearable OS by Google is still based on Android 9 Pie, so this jump was needed.

The new Wear OS OTA update that will arrive in the fall brings along a fair few changes, which are summarized below:

• Faster access to info
• Simplified pairing process to make onboarding easier
• Improvements to the SysUI for more intuitive controls for managing different watch modes and workouts
• CPU Core improvements promising up to 20% speed improvements in startup times for apps
• Improved support for LTE
• Support for Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 4100 and 4100+ platforms

In addition to these changes, a few more changes are coming, which we have already previewed in the past. For instance, Google has built a handwashing timer in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, encouraging users to practice good hygiene.

The new update will also come along with the new Weather Tile design that was spotted earlier this month. This new design makes it easier to read information while on the move, and still retains access to an hourly breakdown of the day’s weather to help users plan ahead and provide information about the important weather alerts in the area.

Further, Google is also promising to make it easier for developers to build wearable apps. You can expect to see wearable-focused improvements and changes on Android Studio, Kotlin, and Jetpack libraries. Androidx.wear 1.1.0 Release Candidate build has also been released, making it easier to build and test wearable apps.

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What are your thoughts on Wear OS based on Android 11? Let us know in the comments below!

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