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5 Google Assistant features you should disable today - CNET

Posted: 16 Aug 2020 05:15 AM PDT

Having Google around to help with quick questions, set timers or report on the day's weather is great. You can use its voice assistant to manage your smart home, call friends or restaurants for takeout and so much more.

Still, there are some things you might want to disable on your Google smart speaker or smart display. Every feature of Google Assistant won't be a good fit for everyone.

Whether you're worried about privacy or just want a more streamlined experience, here are five things to toggle off to get a simpler and safer Google Assistant experience.

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Voice recording settings

Google recently announced changes to its voice recording privacy settings. Unless you opt in, Google won't save your audio recordings or share them with its human analyzers to improve Google's algorithms. However, if you opted in or have previously saved audio recordings, you can choose how long Google keeps them or manually delete them.

To adjust these settings, visit this link or in your Home app, tap on your profile picture in the top right, followed by Assistant Settings. There, you'll land on the You tab. Select Your Data in the Assistant and scroll down to Audio Recordings. Tap to see options for saving, reviewing and deleting recordings.

Continued conversation

Continued Conversation helps Google listen for followup questions without you having to say "Hey, Google" a second time. While this is handy, the extra listening can sometimes be less than seamless, especially when you don't have a followup question or you're just asking a question of someone else in the room. Luckily, you can turn off this feature.

To turn off Continued Conversation in the Home app, tap on your profile picture in the top right, followed by Assistant Settings. In the next screen, navigate to the Assistant tab. There you'll see several options including Continued Conversation. You'll be able to toggle off Continued Conversation and see which speakers it will affect.

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"Hey Google" sensitivity

If you feel like you're always waking up your smart speakers accidentally, the "Hey Google" sensitivity may be too high. You can adjust how well your Google Assistant responds to its wake word if it isn't hearing you well enough or if it mistakes other words for its wake word.

To adjust the sensitivity in the Home app, tap on your profile picture in the top right, followed by Assistant Settings. In the next screen, navigate to the Assistant tab and you'll see several options including "Hey Google" sensitivity. There you'll be able to adjust the sensitivity for each individual speaker in your home. Select the speaker you'd like to adjust and choose from five settings from "least sensitive" to "most sensitive."

google-nest-hub-max — You'll see a solid green light beside the camera whenever the Nest Hub Max is uploading images or video to Google's servers.
Juan Garzon / CNET

Camera settings

If you use a Google-enabled smart display like the Nest Hub Max, Lenovo Smart Display or JBL Link View, you may want to keep your camera disabled when you're not making video calls. Each display does this a little differently. While JBL and Lenovo offer physical shutter options, you don't get a built-in shutter with Google's in-house display, the Nest Hub Max.

Instead, there's a toggle button on the back of the display to disable the camera and microphone. An indicator light beside the camera lens shows the current status. This is a tough one, because you'll need to remember to switch it on and off each time you use a camera feature. Still, having the option to make sure your camera is off when it needs to be is important.

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Activity controls

Like voice recordings, Google saves information on the sites and apps you use with your Google account. If you're concerned about privacy, adjusting these settings offers some peace of mind.

In the Home app, tap on your profile picture in the top right, followed by Assistant Settings. Tap the three dots on the top right of your screen and select Google activity controls. There, you'll see a page with options for controlling which information Google gathers from your online and mobile app activity. You also can turn on auto-delete and choose how often your data is removed.

Whether you adjust one or all of these settings, personalizing your voice assistant can make the entire experience much more pleasant. If you live in a large household, features like Voice Match and Household Contacts can help everyone live in harmony with the same devices.

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Telegram Just Launched A Major New Feature To Beat Zoom - Forbes

Posted: 16 Aug 2020 03:47 AM PDT

Secure communications app Telegram just added video calling to its feature set, and it's end-to-end encrypted, beating Zoom.

Secure communications app Telegram just added video calling to its feature set, and it's end-to-end ... [+] encrypted, beating Zoom.

LightRocket via Getty Images

Since coronavirus lockdowns started to take place across the world, secure video calling is in high demand. As an alternative to Zoom, many people are using end-to-end encrypted apps such as WhatsApp, FaceTime or Signal to speak to friends and family face-to-face.

Now, there's another option—secure communications app Telegram just added video calling to its feature set, available on both iOS and Android. The new feature is also super secure—like Signal and WhatsApp and unlike Zoom (yet), video calls will be end-to-end encrypted.

It's just one-to-one for now, but group calling is due to launch "in the coming months," Telegram said in a blog.

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Using the Telegram video calling feature

Telegram will allow you to start a video call from your contact's profile page, and switch video on or off at any time during voice calls. Video calls support picture-in-picture mode, allowing you to scroll through chats and multitask while "maintaining eye contact," Telegram said.

A recent report by Android Police demoed a beta version of the video calling feature on an Android device.

Describing the voice calling functionality, Android Police says the beta version offers "options to flip between front and rear cams, turn off video, mute, and hang up. Tapping the window in the bottom right switches between the two participants."

Telegram: A decent WhatsApp/Zoom alternative?

Telegram is growing in popularity, now boasting around 400 million users. But until now, as Forbes' Zak Doffman points out in his excellent WhatsApp alternatives article, Telegram's big downside has so far been that it's not end-to-end encrypted by default—although it also has a "secret" person-to-person chat option which is end-to-end encrypted but limited to a single device on each side.

As a secure option, the new Telegram feature beats Zoom, which is not yet end-to-end encrypted, and it is on a par with Signal which only offers one-to-one video calls. Sure, it's not as feature-rich as WhatsApp—which allows you to have eight people on a video call, expanding to 50 if you are happy to transfer to Facebook's Messenger Rooms—but it's certainly an alternative if the Facebook brand isn't for you. Even more so when Telegram adds the group chat option.

For ultimate security and end-to-end encryption by default, my personal favorite is Signal. But Telegram's new video feature is worth a try, especially when that group chat option drops.

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