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Google tells Android users to update as parts of Canada adopt permanent daylight saving time

A closed Pixel Fold held up in a hand.

As the US gets closer to permanently adopting daylight saving time following the House advancing the Sunshine Protection Act in July, there could be some unforeseen consequences to getting an extra hour of sun in the evening all year long. Following the Canadian provinces of British Columbia and Manitoba permanently switching to daylight saving this year, Google has shared some suggested fixes if Android devices are showing the incorrect time when clocks aren't turned back an hour there on November 1st.

In an announcement shared to the Android community help forums, Google suggests a simple fix for Canadians experiencing issues as a result …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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Coolpad’s new $150 Android phone has a wider screen like the iPhone Duo, but doesn’t fold

The design of widescreen folding phones like the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8, Huawei Pura X View, and now the iPhone Duo, is starting to influence traditional slab phones. Similar to the Huawei Pura X View that launched in China in August, the new Coolpad Cool X Wide has a much wider screen than what's typically seen in non-folding phones. The screen real estate is more on par with what you get from a tiny tablet, or what the iPhone Duo and Galaxy Z Fold 8 offer when closed, minus huge price tags, budget-stressing repair costs, and inevitable screen creases.

The Coolpad Cool X Wide is now available for preorder through JD.com in China for 999 C …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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Conversational Gemini navigation comes to Apple CarPlay

Illustration of the Google Gemini logo.

After introducing its Gemini AI assistant to Android Auto last year, Google is now bringing it to Apple CarPlay users. The conversational Gemini in navigation is available today for US drivers, with "rollout happening globally too," according to Google (we've asked for specific regional availability details).

It's taken almost 12 months for Google to bring this to CarPlay users, but now they can talk to the voice assistant in Google Maps to get some hands-free help while driving. That includes asking it multi-step questions, such as recommendations on places to visit and then prompting it to direct you there while avoiding toll roads. Users …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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Spotify is busting free of CarPlay with the launch of its first native car app

Spotify native car app in Audi vehicle

Spotify announced Wednesday the launch of its next-generation, fully native in-car app, built directly on Google's Android Automotive operating system. The standalone app, which is launching today in select Audi models, runs directly on the vehicle's infotainment hardware - eliminating the need for phone tethering, Bluetooth connections, or aux cables.

It's the clearest sign yet that Spotify is ready to move beyond Apple CarPlay and Android, popular phone projection systems that currently dominate the way most people consume media in their cars. And with 34 percent of Spotify's monthly active users and 77 percent of Premium subscribers stre …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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Google’s more personalized Gemini AI is heading to your car

An image showing Gemini’s Personal Intelligence feature on a car’s display

Google is bringing Personal Intelligence to Gemini AI in your car. With this update, Gemini in Android Auto and cars with Google built-in can tap into your information across Google apps, including Gmail, Calendar, Maps, Photos, YouTube, and Search.

As an example, Google says you can ask Gemini about your flight status if you're driving to the airport. The AI assistant can pull your flight details from a confirmation message in Gmail and then use that information to look up the status. You can also ask Gemini to "take me to my doctor's appointment" instead of pulling up directions manually, or ask it to "find the car wash from the photo I t …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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Chrome will now show a warning before you visit β€˜suspicious’ sites

Google Chrome’s new warning message for suspicious websites.
If you know for sure that a website flagged as suspicious is actually safe, you can mark it as such. | Image: Google

Google is launching a new browser safety feature for Chrome that aims to keep you better informed about how malicious a website might be before you open it. The new suspicious site warnings, available when Chrome's Enhanced Protection is on, build on a similar two-stage system introduced for Chrome file downloads in 2024, which provides visually different notifications for blocked files based on whether they're determined to be "suspicious" or "dangerous."

For the Chrome site warnings, the feature will flag a website as suspicious if it detects that it has similar qualities to other sites associated with phishing, malware, and scams. Google …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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Some Google Home Speakers caught downloading hundreds of gigs of data

A Google Home Speaker.
Google says a fix is rolling out that should solve the issue. | Photo: Jennifer Patison Tuohy / The Verge

Some Google Home Speaker owners are currently experiencing an issue in which hundreds of gigabytes of data are being continuously downloaded to their device in the background. The bug, reported by 9to5Google and several Reddit users over the last week, may be caused by the speakers failing to correctly download and install a firmware update, with one Redditor finding that his device was consuming more than 200GB per day.

Thankfully, Google is aware of the issue. In a statement to 9to5Google, the company said that "a fix is already rolling out that should address this for users." Most of the reports are tied specifically to the new Google Ho …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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Trump says Google kisses his ass

President Donald Trump wearing a Make America Great Again hat

During a rally on Saturday, October 17th, in Highland Heights, Kentucky, Donald Trump bragged about how much more powerful and influential he was during his second term. While listing off his accomplishments, he mentioned his decision to rename the Gulf of Mexico and Lake Ontario.

"This is a much more powerful term. I can do stuff that's unbelievable … I called Google, Google Maps. See, Google wouldn't have taken my call in the first term. Now they kiss my ass."

Trump seems to be implying that he convinced Google to reflect the name change personally. That would seem to contradict Google's statement on the matter, in which it said that …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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A fake WhatsApp clone is showing up before the real version on the Play Store

After a Chrome clone was spotted on the Play Store earlier this week, a user on Reddit says they're seeing a fake version of WhatsApp in a "sponsored" slot above the real version. As reported earlier by Android Authority, the WhatsApp dupe has racked up over 500,000 downloads and, at the time of writing, its Play Store listing is still live.

Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The WhatsApp clone is from a developer going by "Agment Assets sallu" who doesn't currently have anything else listed on the Play Store. Their listing for the WhatsApp impostor has the same icon, screenshots, and text as the real version, but …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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ChatGPT can peek at your Chrome tabs now

A promotional screenshot of a ChatGPT sidebar running in Google Chrome

OpenAI's ChatGPT Atlas browser is gone, but now ChatGPT's Google Chrome extension is getting some upgrades that allow it to use the browser tabs you already have open. With the extension installed, OpenAI says ChatGPT can now view your browser tabs when you tag Chrome in ChatGPT's web or desktop app, posting a demo video showing someone asking ChatGPT to compare the three tabs they have open with sofas they're considering.

A few big upgrades for Chrome users today! We're bringing the power of computer use to anyone who uses Chrome.

First up: ChatGPT can now use your tabs in Chrome to make answers more useful and get things done for you.

If …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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Google is making inline links more prominent in AI responses

Google is updating its AI search results to make inline links appear "higher up in responses more frequently," according to a blog post. The company's search results from AI Overviews and AI Mode give you answers in a customized view instead of the traditional list of links, but there are concerns that the format reduces traffic to publishers. Google says it's been making "continued and substantial increases to the presence of inline links in our AI experiences," and this new change will help ensure "ensure key sources are easily clickable right when you need them."

The company is announcing several other changes to highlight links an …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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Nvidia, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta gave Trump a combined $92 million for his ballroom

A photo of Donald Trump with an illustrated background.

We knew that a number of big tech firms were helping to fund the construction of Trump's ballroom, but we didn't know just how much they were giving to the cause. Now the Washington Post published a list of all the major donors to the White House ballroom project, along with how much each contributed. In total, Silicon Valley and the crypto industry have reportedly delivered over $150 million for the effort.

Some of that money has come from individuals, some from charitable organizations tied to major firms or industry players, and some directly from the companies themselves. In Google's case, the $22 million was part of a controversial se …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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Ledger’s new hardware wallet is an Android phone without the phone

The Atom couldn’t have launched at a worse time for Ledger. | Image: Ledger

Ledger has announced its latest crypto-centric hardware effort, the Android-based Atom, a device that resembles a phone but is instead designed to be used alongside one. It arrives at a tricky time for Ledger, which has been forced to cease sales of some of its hardware across southeast Asia following hardware tampering in its supply chain, which has reportedly seen over $86 million worth of crypto stolen from across some users' accounts.

While Ledger's previous hardware wallet signers have been compact devices, running custom software and often with E Ink displays, the Atom is the spitting image of a regular Android smartphone. In fact it …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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Google finally releases Gemini 4 Argon

After months sitting on the sidelines of the frontier AI race, Google has finally launched its long-awaited Gemini 4 Argon model, claiming it can compete with the best the industry has to offer.

Google says Argon delivers "frontier reasoning and improved performance across complex workflows," while cutting down on hedging, repetition, and the cliches that continue to plague AI chatbots. The company claims Argon outperforms rival models like GPT-6 Astra, Claude Fable 5.1, and Claude Opus 5.5 across a range of benchmarks, including coding, cybersecurity, science, finance, and law.

Google says it's already putting Argon to use internally, s …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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