Cyclists may be the only beings on the planet who still ask others for directions. That’s because there’s a lot of necessary bike-specific knowledge that you can only get from other cyclists. How steep is that hill? How are the bike paths on this route? An app usually can’t tell you those things.
utilities, google adds something new features for Maps That shall tell you those things. The Enhanced Cyclist View includes more bike route data (if available) showing where the bike lanes are, how busy the car traffic is, and whether your chosen route has a steep hill. It can also warn you of steps along the route, or tell you that you have some gravel sections to look out for. Maps also provide turn-by-turn directions made especially for bicycles.
Cyclists will now have to find another excuse to talk to each other. Maybe they can complain about the lack of investments in transport infrastructure.
Google is also adding 3D photo-realistic views of landmarks and more nuanced tools to share your location with others. Earlier this year, the company teased a Maps feature it calls Immersive View, a souped-up Street View setting that lets you zoom and pan around the world with unprecedented freedom. Google’s new landmarks aren’t exactly that, and the company hasn’t said when the feature will actually come out, but it appears to be a step in that direction.
Along with the Maps update, some changes come to the Google Play Store, the official repository of apps on Android devices. The updates aim to clean up some of the more unsavory app practices in the store. That includes banning similar apps that try to trick people into downloading them, removing vaccine misinformation, and restricting full-screen ads in apps. While the company’s changes may make ads a little less annoying, Google is not ready to abolish tracking cookies whole. Almost all Play Store updates will be live on August 31.
TikTok’s Got Game
Obviously no social platform is interested in stay in his job not anymore. While every other app is busy TikTokthe Chinese platform was eager to shake things up on it’s own. The app started its search for games last November, when it was a partnership with game developer Zynga. (You know, from Farm village shame.) Now, if spotted by TechCrunch, TikTok seems to have quietly rolled out a few games on its platform. They’re made by a few different developers, none of them Zynga – at least for now. The games are a small part of the TikTok platform and are available when a user taps through the videos posted by someone who has added a game to their upload. You play the game there “in” the person’s video.
TikTok has not officially announced the feature or commented on whether it would be rolled out more widely. But expansion is certainly possible, even if TikTok has a history of suspending somewhat promising experiments like its Store tab.
Yes, YouTube wants to be TikTok too
September 2020, YouTube launched its Shorts feature, which allows users to create quick video clips that can be played in an endless scroll. It was a successful enough effort by the video juggernaut, although it hasn’t adopted the zeitgeist as much as TikTok has. Now YouTube is trying to make it even easier to post Shorts. On Thursday, YouTube posted an update on the support page that users could convert parts of longer YouTube videos into 60-second clips instead of just creating a short. Creators can embed links that direct viewers to the longer version of the video, keeping even more eyeballs on the platform.
In other “everything is now TokTok” news…
Instagram gets a role
Even if you’re not much on Instagram, you’ve probably heard of the controversial Reels feature. It’s a tab full of streaming videos, often from accounts you don’t follow. It’s a blatant rip-off of TikTok, even featuring some of the same songs and sound effects that you’ll find on the mega-popular social platform. And now Instagram has announced that it plans to go all-in on the full-screen looping videos.
Last week, Instagram parent company Meta said it would change its sites’ algorithms to be more like TikTok. Now that has spilled over to Instagram and Reels. User response was quick. Reels has proved hugely unpopular and has even managed to annoy a Kardashian or two. Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg have both defended their apps’ TikTokification, telling users that the company’s usage data shows that this experience is what they really want after all. (In a profit call, Zuckerberg said: he expects AI-powered recommendations to make up half of your Instagram feed next year.)
Mosseri walked back a part his statements just a day later. In an interview with journalist Casey Newton at platform gameMosseri said Instagram will “take a big step back, regroup and figure out how we want to move forward.” That doesn’t seem to translate into a major change of plan, though, and will most likely result in the rollout slowing down a bit – just enough to give the tumult time to settle down.