Technology - Google News

Google Meet, Google’s Zoom competitor, is now free for everyone - Ars Technica
Assassin's Creed Valhalla Revealed, Cinematic Trailer Coming Tomorrow - Push Square
Apple is making it easier to unlock your iPhone without Face ID, since everyone's wearing masks now - CNBC

Google Meet, Google’s Zoom competitor, is now free for everyone - Ars Technica

Posted: 29 Apr 2020 11:34 AM PDT

Google Meet, Google's newest video chat service, will soon be free for everyone. The service, which was previously locked behind G Suite, is opening up to anyone with a Google account.

Users will be able to access the service at meet.google.com or through the iOS and Android apps. While the service is free now, it won't be free forever. Google says that, after September 30, meetings will be limited to 60 minutes.

If you've never heard of "Google Meet" before, don't feel bad. The branding only popped up earlier this month, when Google quietly renamed "Google Hangouts Meet" to "Google Meet." Hangouts Meet is something we've written about before, and it launched in 2017 as a reboot to Google's enterprise messaging suite, which consisted of Hangouts Meet and Hangouts Chat. Both of these 2017 enterprise "Hangouts" products have no relation to the widely used, consumer-focused "Google Hangouts" chat app from 2013, which is still part of Gmail and was a default Android app for a long time. Google claims it wants to merge all the "Hangouts" products together, but you can never be sure what the future of Google's disorganized messaging strategy will hold.

Just like with its instant messaging strategy over the years, Google has really dropped the ball when it comes to video conferencing apps. Google's first efforts in video chat started with a Gmail video chat in 2008 and peaked with Google Hangouts video chat in 2013. Google has been in video chat for longer than most of its contemporary competition (other than Skype), but a lack of focus and a continual need to shut down one product and then launch a similar product under a different name left the company spinning its wheels for years. If Google could focus and put the company's massive resources behind a single communication suite that is continually updated and maintained, it could have been an industry leader by now. Instead, Google Meet will be Google's third video chat service in the market, after Google Hangouts and Google Duo.

Employees inside the company are apparently frustrated with Google's market position, too. A recent article from The New York Times details how tech giants like Google and Facebook are chasing Zoom, and it ends with a great anecdote:

Late last month, Philipp Schindler, Google's chief business officer, held a videoconference with thousands of the search giant's employees using Google Meet, three people who attended the call said. During the session, one employee asked why Zoom was reaping the biggest benefits even though Google had long offered Meet.

Mr. Schindler tried placating the engineer's concerns, the people said. Then his young son stumbled into view of the camera and asked if his father was talking to his co-workers on Zoom. Mr. Schindler tried correcting him, but the boy went on to say how much he and his friends loved using Zoom.

COVID-19's shelter-in-place requirements made millions of people turn to working from home. That led to a huge spike in video chat users, but this general availability of Google Meet already seems like it was too late to ride this wave of users. The work-from-home trend started two months ago when Google Meet was still locked behind the GSuite paywall. Zoom was ready and burst into the public consciousness as a result. By now, it seems like most of the people who were going to transition to a video chat app have already done so, and they picked Zoom.

Google doesn't have a strong argument for why someone would switch from Zoom, either. Google alludes to better security in its blog post, but neither Zoom nor Google Meet is end-to-end encrypted. Both are only "encrypted in transit," which anyone who uses an HTTPS connection can claim. Your conversation might be private from the wider Internet, but it's possible that the service provider can view your meeting data. Participating in a meeting also requires a Google account, while Zoom makes it possible to join a meeting without any account at all. Zoom can secure a meeting with only a password, giving it a much lower barrier to entry.

Like most Google launches, not everyone will get access to Google Meet immediately. Google says that availability for Google Meet will slowly roll out to users "over the following weeks."

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Assassin's Creed Valhalla Revealed, Cinematic Trailer Coming Tomorrow - Push Square

Posted: 29 Apr 2020 01:15 PM PDT

Following an eight hour livestream recording of digital artist BossLogic creating the game's key art, Assassin's Creed Valhalla has been officially announced. As was heavily rumoured, the title looks to be taking the franchise to the time of vikings, and going by the above artwork, we'll be playing as one.

The main character carries an axe with an assassin symbol engraved into it, while a raven appears to be his scouting bird of choice. Fitting, seeing as ravens are important creatures in Norse mythology, and vikings used them for navigation purposes when journeying to distant lands by sea.

Ubisoft has also posted a much, much shorter version of the aforementioned livestream. You can watch it below.

It's fair to assume that naval combat will be returning, and that the game will be set in Northern Europe. If we're dealing with vikings, the map could potentially cover a bunch of different countries. We may be exploring the Baltic Sea, or we could be setting sail on the North Sea. Or both. We'll hopefully find out soon enough.

Anyway, we're getting a cinematic trailer tomorrow (that's the 30th April) at 4PM UK time, 8AM Pacific time. We'll be sure to host it here on Push Square.

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Apple is making it easier to unlock your iPhone without Face ID, since everyone's wearing masks now - CNBC

Posted: 29 Apr 2020 11:16 AM PDT

A pedestrian wearing a protective mask uses her mobile phone while walking past an Apple iPhone advertisement at Orchard Road in Singapore.

Wei Leng Tay | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Apple released beta iPhone software on Wednesday that makes it easier to unlock your iPhone without using Face ID and while wearing a mask.

Right now, if you're wearing a mask, you need to lift your mask to unlock an iPhone with Face ID. Otherwise, there's a small but annoying delay between when the phone realizes it can't see your face and when it presents the screen to enter in a passcode. You can just turn off Face ID, but then you don't get the convenience when you're at home and not wearing a mask.

In the new iOS 13.5 beta 3 code, which was released to developers for testing on Wednesday, Apple simplifies the unlock process for folks wearing masks by bringing the passcode field to the main screen. All you need to do is swipe up if you're wearing a mask, and you'll skip the Face ID display and enter in a code instead.

Here's a look:

That means you'll be able to get to unlock phone easier while doing things like mobile payments at a checkout counter instead of fumbling with your mask or waiting for a passcode screen to pop up. Since this is still a beta, it may be a few more weeks until a final version launches with the feature enabled.

The new beta also includes the first release of new software from Apple that will make it easier to build apps to notify people if they've been near somebody with Covid-19.

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