Google has announced that big changes are coming to Google Drive, its cloud-based file storage platform. This latest series of tweaks to the popular cloud storage service come mainly in the form of a shiny new landing page, but there’s an extra treat in sort for iOS users.
The new homepage (aptly named the ‘Home’ view) will become the default landing page for every Drive user when it rolls out over the next couple of months – though you’ll be able to swap back to the old view if you prefer. In a blog post explaining the changes, Google says that Home will be “streamlined” compared to the standard My Drive landing page, designed to make it “easier and faster for you to find files that matter most”.
To that end, the Home screen will include personalized suggestions that use AI to learn which files and folders you access regularly (or documents that are tied to upcoming events in your Google calendar). It’ll also include new ‘search chips’ that make filtering your files easier, and will employ Google’s Material Design 3 guidelines for a (hopefully) more modern and user-friendly look.
That’s not all, folks
Google isn’t stopping there, either. A long-awaited Drive feature is finally coming to iPhone and iPad: the document scanner, which uses your device camera to take high-quality scans of physical documents which are then converted to PDFs, with the ability to scan multiple pictures in succession for producing multi-page documents.
The feature has been available for Drive users on Android for a while now, so it’s good to see that Google isn’t planning on leaving iPhone owners out in the cold. The document scanner (which was recently upgraded for Android Users) will also use machine learning to suggest names for your scanned documents, such as recognizing a receipt from a store and giving it an appropriate filename.
The scanner feature is rolling out to iOS and iPadOS users now, so if you’ve got an Apple device you can expect to have it soon if you don’t already. The updated Google Drive homepage will be arriving at a slower pace, with early access starting now and a wide release for personal users from January 15 next year.
I’m personally a little dubious about an AI-powered homepage for Drive – ‘suggested content’ in the software I use has rarely been useful in my experience, AI-assisted or not. But thankfully Google has already confirmed that users will get an instant pop-up asking if they’d like to swap their default view back to the old My Drive page, so it’s not like this change is being forced on us.
If you've bought a Meta Quest 3 and are thinking of buying the Elite Strap with Battery, you can't – at least for the time being. Meta has paused sales of the accessory while it investigates issues with device charging.
The Elite Strap add-on offers a more ergonomic fit that's easier to adjust, and it's also available with a battery pack for longer gaming sessions between charges. It's that latter version that's been pulled, as Road to VR reports.
This hasn't come out of nowhere, either. Complaints of reliability issues have been rumbling for weeks, with users reporting that after an initial period during which everything is fine, the strap suddenly stops charging the Meta Quest 3 completely.
Meta has confirmed to Road to VR that it's manufacturing a new version of the Elite Strap with Battery that won't have this fault. Sadly, this has happened before – there were issues with the accessory straps for the Meta Quest 2 as well.
What you can do
As for what you can do as a Meta Quest 3 owner, clearly not buying an Elite Strap with Battery is a good start. Meta won't sell you one right now, but these straps still seem to be available from third-party retailers at the time of writing.
If you've already got one that's faulty, you can try returning it to Meta for a replacement, though Meta admits that this “may not necessarily resolve the problem”. It seems to be a bit hit and miss as to whether you're going to end up with a working unit.
It's not a great look for an accessory that costs $ 130 / £130 / AU$ 220, although Meta does at least now seem to be working on the problem. In our Meta Quest 3 review, we were hugely impressed with the headset itself, so it's a shame that accessories are letting it down.
Apparently there's an issue with the firmware on certain units, so hopefully new and improved versions of the strap should be out soon. Meta hasn't put a timescale on it, but it told Road to VR that these would be available “as soon as possible”.
Windows 11 is close to getting some smart additions for those who use a stylus, and other improvements besides, as seen in a new preview build.
This is preview build 22635.2776 (also known as KB5032292) which has been pushed out to the Beta channel, the last avenue of testing before Release Preview (the final step before new features come to the finished version of Windows 11).
The big step forward here is for Windows Ink, with the ability to write directly in some text boxes in Windows 11 coming to a lot more people. In other words, rather than typing in text for a search, for example, you can directly scribble your search terms into the box.
This ability was available for the US, but is now coming with support for a bunch of new regions – that includes English (Australia), English and French (Canada), English (India), and English (United Kingdom), plus many more (check out the blog post for the full list).
(Image credit: Microsoft)
Windows Ink is being further bolstered by a greater level of accuracy for its recognition technology, as well as some new gesture controls. There are now gestures to select, join, or split words, to delete a word, and to insert a new line.
The Task Manager has also been tinkered with in this beta release, with Microsoft noting that it has improved process grouping in the panel that lists your running processes.
Also rolling out in this preview are notifications for Microsoft accounts on the home page of the Settings app. We’ve seen these in the past, and they’re prompts to remind you about the status of your account, and tasks you might want to finish off (though we should note we’ve not been keen on the way this has been handled in the Start menu).
Analysis: Supercharging that stylus
This is an important update for those who use a stylus, then, outside of the US, as a lot more territories across the globe are now being covered with support for writing directly in menus. This is an excellent time-saving feature for those using their convertible laptop as a tablet, for example, and it’s something Microsoft is set to develop more going forward.
Indeed, we’ve been told in the past that the eventual aim is that you’ll be able to use your stylus to write anywhere in Windows 11, which is a very cool concept.
Improved process grouping in Task Manager should be a useful little change, too, if you’re one of the Windows users who takes an interest in diving into this area of the interface. Task Manager can be a useful tool for troubleshooting what’s slowing down your PC, for example, if it seems to have hit a sticky patch.
We don’t know how the change will work yet, but more intelligent grouping of related processes should enable better visibility into what’s happening under the hood at any given time with your Windows 11 system.
Meta is rolling out a View Once feature to WhatsApp on desktop and web allowing users to send out time-sensitive content.
The update was initially discovered by WABetaInfo as the tech giant has yet to formally announce it. Looking at WABetaInfo's report, it’s basically the exact same feature on the mobile. WhatsApp added View Once to its smartphone app back in 2022 as a new privacy tool. Pictures or videos sent to contacts in this manner cannot be saved. Once the recipient looks at the file, it’s gone forever. This ensures sensitive material is never seen by outside parties, shared with others, or risks being taken by a bad actor. Apparently, this was highly requested as WABetaInfo claims people complained about “the inability to send view once messages” on desktop. It seems Meta heard the outcry, although it did take the company over a year to respond.
Vital details
There are some minor details you should know about.
Recipients have 14 days to open the media or it’ll be automatically deleted, according to WhatsApp’s Help Center. The other person cannot take screenshots of the temporary content, but only if they have the latest version of WhatsApp installed. It is possible for others to screenshot a View Once file if they're running outdated software. As a result, the company recommends strictly sending content to trusted individuals. There are plans to rectify the privacy gap, however no word on when Meta will address this issue.
Do note you cannot send multiple temporary images at once. You have to send each file one by one. Plus, as pointed out by Windows Central, you can rewatch temporary videos “as often as you’d like”, but you have to stay in the interface. Clicking play prematurely or leaving the window will lose you access.
The update will be available to both Windows and macOS users. WABetaInfo states the update is being released in waves so only a select group has access to it at the moment. We recommend keeping an eye out for the patch when it arrives.
How to send View Once content
Sending a View Once photo is easy. After launching WhatsApp on desktop and selecting a chat, click the attachment icon next to the text box then choose an image. Above the send button is a number one inside of a disappearing circle. Clicking that icon activates the View Once function. Send the picture to someone and it'll delete the moment they close it.
WhatsApp on web has a different layout, but luckily the process is exactly the same.
YouTube is offering Premium subscribers the opportunity to try out a pair of new AI features on the mobile app.
The most impressive of the two, in our opinion, has to be the conversational AI which will answer questions about a video you’re watching as well as recommend other content. On “eligible videos”, you will see an Ask button below the channel name. Tapping it opens up a chat interface where you can begin talking with it. You can ask any question you want pertaining to the video or you can choose one of the preset prompts if you can't think of any. The feature can summarize the clip for you or recommend other content.
YouTube’s conversational AI (Image credit: Future)
It works fine for the most part, however, keep in mind that this is an experimental state. In our time trying the conversational model out, it was able to summarize videos accurately and succinctly. Recommendations were solid, for the most part. If you look at the image below, you will see that the tool suggested a video by Vox on subtitles even though we watched content pertaining to Steve Jobs. For mistakes like this, people can tap either the thumbs up or thumbs down icon to provide feedback to YouTube's software.
(Image credit: Future)
The conversational AI is currently only available on the YouTube app on Android to American users aged 18 years or older. Those interested will need to act fast as it will only be available until December 15.
Comment summarizer
The second AI feature is a comment summarizer that will break down “large comment sections” on mobile into individual topics. It won’t be a widespread function as it’ll be restricted to videos in English.
To find this tool, head over to the comments of a video. You will see a Topics tab with a star icon at the top. Opening it displays a menu highlighting all of the discussions currently being held.
We looked through videos from big channels and small-time creators to see if certain types of content are more likely to get the summarizer. As it turns out, there doesn’t seem to be a pattern of any kind. It doesn’t matter how popular the channel is or if the clip has a lot of views. YouTube appears to be rolling out the tool at random. Premium subscribers on Android and iOS have until December 5 to try out the summarizer before YouTube takes it down.
(Image credit: Future)
Playable games
There is a third experimental feature that we’ve yet to mention: Playables. This is a collection of 30 games on YouTube’s homepage that you can play at any time; no download is necessary.
You will find these on either the Home page or Explore menu on the left-hand side as its own entry. To be blunt, there aren’t any must-play titles in the collection. The library mostly consists of puzzles or easy-to-pick-up games. You have the classic solitaire, a Wordle knockoff called Hurdle, and Angry Birds just to name a few. Nothing major, but they can be a fun way to waste some time.
(Image credit: Future)
In addition to being on mobile, Playables are on the desktop. The games will also be available for a limited time although they will last longer than the AI tools. You have until March 28, 2024, to try out the collection before the plug is pulled.
No word on when any of this will see an official launch although we did ask YouTube for more details. This story will be updated at a later time. If you're thinking of becoming a creator, check out TechRadar's list of the best YouTube camera for 2023.
The promise of Apple’s Vision Pro headset – or any of the best virtual reality headsets, for that matter – is that it can transport you to another world, at least for a while. Now, we’ve just gained a preview of how Apple’s device will do this in a whole new way.
That’s because the M1Astra account on X (formerly known as Twitter) has begun posting videos showing the Vision Pro’s Yosemite Environment in action, complete with sparkling snow drifts, imposing mountains and beautiful clear blue skies.
It looks like a gorgeous way to relax and shut out the world around you. You’ll be able to focus on the calm and tranquillity of one of the world’s most famous national parks, taking in the majestic surroundings as you move and tilt your head.
This is far from the only location that comes as part of the Vision Pro’s Environments feature – users will be able to experience environs from a sun-dappled beach and a crisp autumnal scene to the dusty plains of the Moon in outer space.
Immersive environments
This is the Yosemite Environment on Apple Vision Pro A deep winter’s embrace stills you in the valley of Yosemite, guarded by massive, granite cliffs and held by the pristine grip of fresh snow. pic.twitter.com/Xtx9zDnTkyNovember 28, 2023
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The Environments feature is designed to be a way for you to not only tune out the real world, but to add a level of calmness and focus to your workstation. That’s because the scenes they depict can be used as backgrounds for a large virtual movie screen, or as a backdrop to your apps, video calls and more.
But as shown in one video posted by M1Astra, you'll also be able to walk around in the environment. As the poster strolled through the area, sun glistened off the snow and clouds trailed across the sky, adding life and movement to the virtual world.
To activate an environment, you’ll just need to turn the Vision Pro’s Digital Crown. This toggles what you see between passthrough augmented reality and immersive virtual reality. That sounds like it should be quick and easy, but we’ll know more when we get to test out the device after it launches.
Speaking of which, Apple’s Vision Pro is still months away from hitting store shelves (the latest estimates are for a March 2024 release date), which means there’s plenty of time for more information about the Environments feature to leak out. What’s clear already, though, is that it could be a great thing to try once the headset is out in the wild.
Windows 11 users are getting the Paint app bolstered with a really smart addition on the AI front.
This is the introduction of Dall-E 3 support to Paint, or as it’s known in the app, Cocreator.
If you’ve seen the feature in Bing AI, it’s a top-notch image creation feature. Basically, you can tell Cocreator what you want and it’ll make an image based on your description (and specified art style).
As we’ve already seen with Bing AI, it’s easy to use and provides powerful results, so much so that when first rolled out with Bing Chat (now renamed as Copilot), there was a massive rush to use the image generation capability – and a whole lot of buzz around how good it is. (With a few wobbles along the way, mind, but that’s par for the course for AI in many respects).
There’s a short tutorial to introduce the feature to help beginners understand what it’s all about, too.
Analysis: Not got Cocreator yet? You will have it soon
Not everyone will see the Cocreator feature right now, as the rollout will take a little time. Also, you need to ensure that you’re running the latest version of Paint (so update the app), and if Microsoft asks you to sign up to the waiting list for the feature (in the app), make sure that you do this.
Paint has been fleshed out considerably this year, not just with the addition of this AI-based feature, but also with a transparency effect, and moreover, layers, a much-requested piece of functionality that was added recently. Not to mention background removal which does what it says on the tin, quickly and with no fuss (the Photos app also got this recently, as well as a background blur option to boot).
Google finally joined the AI race and launched a ChatGPT rival called Bard – an “experimental conversational AI service” earlier this year. Google Bard is an AI-powered chatbot that acts as a poet, a crude mathematician and a even decent conversationalist.
The chatbot is similar to ChatGPT in many ways. It's able to answer complex questions about the universe and give you a deep dive into a range of topics in a conversational, easygoing way. The bot, however, differs from its rival in one crucial respect: it's connected to the web for free, so – according to Google – it gives “fresh, high-quality responses”.
Google Bard is powered by PaLM 2. Like ChatGPT, it's a type of machine learning called a 'large language model' that's been trained on a vast dataset and is capable of understanding human language as it's written.
Who can access Google Bard?
Bard was announced in February 2023 and rolled out for early access the following month. Initially, a limited number of users in the UK and US were granted access from a waitlist. However, at Google I/O – an event where the tech giant dives into updates across its product lines – Bard was made open to the public.
It’s now available in more than 180 countries around the world, including the US and all member states of the European Union. As of July 2023, Bard works with more than 40 languages. You need a Google account to use it, but access to all of Bard’s features is entirely free. Unlike OpenAI’s ChatGPT, there is no paid tier.
(Image credit: Google)
Opening up chatbots for public testing brings great benefits that Google says it's “excited” about, but also risks that explain why the search giant has been so cautious to release Bard into the wild. The meteoric rise of ChatGPT has, though, seemingly forced its hand and expedited the public launch of Bard.
So what exactly will Google's Bard do for you and how will it compare with ChatGPT, which Microsoft appears to be building into its own search engine, Bing? Here's everything you need to know about it.
What is Google Bard?
Like ChatGPT, Bard is an experimental AI chatbot that's built on deep learning algorithms called 'large language models', in this case one called LaMDA.
To begin with, Bard was released on a “lightweight model version” of LaMDA. Google says this allowed it to scale the chatbot to more people, as this “much smaller model requires significantly less computing power”.
(Image credit: Google)
At I/O 2023, Google launched PaLM 2, its next-gen language model trained on a wider dataset spanning multiple languages. The model is faster and more efficient than LamDA, and comes in four sizes to suit the needs of different devices and functions.
Google is already training its next language model, Gemini, which we think is one of its most exciting projects of the next 25 years. Built to be multi-modal, Gemini is touted to deliver yet more advancements in the arena of generative chatbots, including features such as memory.
What can Google Bard do?
In short, Bard is a next-gen development of Google Search that could change the way we use search engines and look for information on the web.
Google says that Bard can be “an outlet for creativity” or “a launchpad for curiosity, helping you to explain new discoveries from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to a 9-year-old, or learn more about the best strikers in football right now, and then get drills to build your skills”.
Unlike traditional Google Search, Bard draws on information from the web to help it answer more open-ended questions in impressive depth. For example, rather than standard questions like “how many keys does a piano have?”, Bard will be able to give lengthy answers to a more general query like “is the piano or guitar easier to learn”?
An example of the kind or prompt that Google’s Bard will give you an in-depth answer to. (Image credit: Google)
We initially found Bard to fall short in terms of features and performance compared to its competitors. But since its public deployment earlier this year, Google Bard’s toolkit has come on leaps and bounds.
It can generate code in more than 20 programming languages, help you solve text-based math equations and visualize information by generating charts, either from information you provide or tables it includes in its responses. It’s not foolproof, but it’s certainly a lot more versatile than it was at launch.
Further updates have introduced the ability to listen to Bard’s responses, change their tone using five options (simple, long, short, professional or casual), pin and rename conversations, and even share conversations via a public link. Like ChatGPT, Bard’s responses now appear in real-time, too, so you don’t have to wait for the complete answer to start reading it.
(Image credit: Google)
Improved citations are meant to address the issue of misinformation and plagiarism. Bard will annotate a line of code or text that needs a citation, then underline the cited part and link to the source material. You can also easily double-check its answers by hitting the ‘Google It’ shortcut.
It works with images as well: you can upload pictures with Google Lens and see Google Search image results in Bard’s responses.
Bard has also been integrated into a range of Google apps and services, allowing you deploy its abilities without leaving what you’re working on. It can work directly with English text in Gmail, Docs and Drive, for example, allowing you to summarize your writing in situ.
Similarly, it can interact with info from the likes of Maps and even YouTube. As of November, Bard now has the limited ability to understand the contents of certain YouTube videos, making it quicker and easier for you to extract the information you need.
What will Google Bard do in future?
A huge new feature coming soon is the ability for Google Bard to create generative images from text. This feature, a collaborative effort between Google and Adobe, will be brought forward by the Content Authenticity Initiative, an open-source Content Credentials technology that will bring transparency to images that are generated through this integration.
The whole project is made possible by Adobe Firefly, a family of creative generative AI models that will make use of Bard's conversational AI service to power text-to-image capabilities. Users can then take these AI-generated images and further edit them in Adobe Express.
Otherwise, expect to see Bard support more languages and integrations with greater accuracy and efficiency, as Google continues to train its ability to generate responses.
Google Bard vs ChatGPT: what’s the difference?
Fundamentally the chatbot is based on similar technology to ChatGPT, with even more tools and features coming that will close the gap between Google Bard and ChatGPT.
Both Bard and ChatGPT are chatbots that are built on 'large language models', which are machine learning algorithms that have a wide range of talents including text generation, translation, and answering prompts based on the vast datasets that they've been trained on.
(Image credit: OpenAI)
The two chatbots, or “experimental conversational AI service” as Google calls Bard, are also fine-tuned using human interactions to guide them towards desirable responses.
One difference between the two, though, is that the free version of ChatGPT isn't connected to the internet – unless you use a third-party plugin. That means it has a very limited knowledge of facts or events after January 2022.
If you want ChatGPT to search the web for answers in real time, you currently need to join the waitlist for ChatGPT Plus, a paid tier which costs $ 20 a month. Besides the more advanced GPT-4 model, subscribers can use Browse with Bing. OpenAI has said that all users will get access “soon”, but hasn't indicated a specific date.
Bard, on the other hand, is free to use and features web connectivity as standard. As well as the product integrations mentioned above, Google is also working on Search Generative Experience, which builds Bard directly into Google Search.
Does Google Bard only do text answers?
Until recently Google's Bard initially only answered text prompts with its own written replies, similar to ChatGPT. But one of the biggest changes to Bard is its multimodal functionality. This allows the chatbot to answer user prompts and questions with both text and images.
Users can also do the same, with Bard able to work with Google Lens to have images uploaded into Bard and Bard responding in text. Multimodal functionality is a feature that was hinted at for both GPT-4 and Bing Chat, and now Google Bard users can actually use it. And of course, we also have Google Bard's Adobe-powered AI image generator, which will be powered by Adobe Firefly.
Bing AI, which Microsoft recently renamed from Bing Chat to Copilot – yes, even the web-based version is now officially called Copilot, just to confuse everyone a bit more – should get GPT-4 Turbo soon enough, but there are still issues to resolve around the implementation.
Currently, Bing AI runs GPT-4, but GPT-4 Turbo will allow for various benefits including more accurate responses to queries and other important advancements.
We found out more about how progress was coming with the move to GPT-4 Turbo thanks to an exchange on X (formerly Twitter) between a Bing AI user and Mikhail Parakhin, Microsoft’s head of Advertising and Web Services.
As MS Power User spotted, Ricardo, a denizen of X, noted that they just got access to Bing’s redesigned layout and plug-ins, and asked: “Does Bing now use GPT-4 Turbo?”
As you can see in the below tweet, Parakhin responded to say that GPT-4 Turbo is not yet working in Copilot, as a few kinks still need to be ironed out.
Not GPT-4-turbo yet, still need to iron out a few kinks. On Precise, I assume you are talking about Mobile: it is there, click on three dots->Show All TonesNovember 26, 2023
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Of course, as well as Copilot on the web (formerly Bing Chat), this enhancement will also come to Copilot in Windows 11, too (which is essentially Bing AI – just with bells and whistles added in terms of controls for Windows and manipulating settings).
Analysis: Turbo mode
We’re taking the comment that a ‘few’ kinks are still to be resolved as a suggestion that much of the work around implementing GPT-4 Turbo has been carried out. Meaning that GPT-4 Turbo could soon arrive in Copilot, or we can certainly keep our fingers crossed that this is the case.
Expect it to bring in more accurate and relevant responses to queries as noted, and it’ll be faster too (as the name suggests). As Microsoft observes, it “has the latest training data with knowledge up to April 2023” – though it’s still in preview. OpenAI only announced GPT-4 Turbo earlier this month, and said that it’s also going to be cheaper to run (for developers paying for GPT-4, that is).
In theory, it should represent a sizeable step forward for Bing AI, and that’s something to look forward to hopefully in the near future.
If you're the sort of person who likes to keep their Android phone or tablet running for several years, you might want to take note that Google Calendar could be dropping support for devices that aren't running Android 8 or newer.
The team at TheSpAndroid (via Android Police) has spotted code and an image in the latest release of Google Calendar for Android, which tells the user that “your current Android version is no longer supported”.
There's a flag labeled “UnsupportedOperatingSystem__enabled”, and the app is now marked as only supporting Android 8 (Oreo) and newer. For now though, it doesn't seem as though the switch has been hit that will disqualify older devices.
When that happens, you'll see a message on screen if you try and run the Google Calendar app on something older than Android 8, telling you to upgrade. Presumably Google Calendar will still be available via a mobile web browser on these phones and tablets.
The end is nigh
To be fair to Google, Android 8 was launched all the way back in August 2017. There aren't going to be a huge number of devices still running Android 7 (or Nougat) that can't be updated to Android 8, with the final Android 7.1.2 update pushed out in April 2017.
According to StatCounter, 2.12% of Android devices worldwide are running Android 7 or Android 7.1, with another 3.42% of devices on anything older than that – so we're looking at about 1 in 20 phones and tablets overall. The newest version, Android 14, started to roll out in October 2023.
Some of those older devices will be eligible for upgrades to newer Android versions, but if you have one that doesn't, it might be time to think about investing in a new gadget – at least if you want to carry on using Google Calendar.
Besides offering an improved set of features, newer versions of Android also give you better security, which is probably Google's main motivation here. According to TheSpAndroid, Google Calendar on Android currently supports devices running Android 5 (Lollipop), launched in June 2014.
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