Google’s latest Android Feature Drop for February 2024 is here, bringing you 9 new features to help you stay productive. These include:

1) You can now chat with Gemini right in the Google Messages app on Android! You can ask Gemini to do things like draft messages, come up with a joke, and more. This is available for beta users in English.

2) Android Auto can now use AI to summarize notifications. AI will also suggest relevant replies and actions, so you can just tap a button to send a message, share your ETA, or start a call. (This was announced at Galaxy Unpacked last month but should be rolling out now.)

3) Lookout’s Image Q&A feature is now rolling out globally in English! This feature left closed beta last September and was available in the US, UK, and Canada. Image Q&A uses AI to auto-generate denoscriptions of images.

4) Last October, Google launched Lens in Maps (formerly Search with Live View). This feature uses AI and augmented reality to help you find information about nearby stores. Now, this feature has been upgraded with screen reader support, so you can point your phone’s camera at your surroundings and have TalkBack read the place’s information out loud.

5) You can now add handwritten annotations to documents in Google Docs from your phone or tablet using your finger or stylus. You can choose from a selection of markup tools like different pen colors and highlighters.

6) Spotify Connect devices will finally appear in Android’s media output switcher! Google announced this way back at CES 2023, but it’s finally going to roll out starting this week.

7) The Fitbit app now pulls in your health and fitness data from other apps that support Android’s Health Connect platform. This means you can see your data from services like AllTrails, Oura Ring, and MyFitnessPal, all within the Fitbit app. In the “You” tab, you can see data from connected apps next to your Fitbit data. In the “Today” tab, you can see data like exercise, steps, calories burned, and more from Health Connect-compatible apps.

(1/2)

8) Passes from Google Wallet can now appear on your Wear OS smartwatch. This means you can access boarding passes, gym memberships, loyalty cards, and more from your watch. You can choose which passes to hide or display. (This has already started rolling out over the past month, as I first reported, but should now be available more widely.)

9) Finally, Google Maps for Wear OS now supports public transit directions, meaning you can use your smartwatch to look up departure times for buses, trains, or ferries and then get compass-guided navigation directions to your destination. You can also mirror directions from your phone to your watch if you prefer looking things up on your phone.

(2/2)

Samsung showcased its bendable Smartphone at MWC 2024

Samsung showcased what it's calling an "OLED Cling Band" at MWC 2024

It is a bar-style phone that can bend and be worn on the wrist, thus featuring a flexible OLED screen by SDC

There are NO bezels on the front.
On the rear side, there's a camera module on the rear alongside a heart rate monitor as smartwatches have

The heart rate sensor on the back panel can track heart rate & other health metrics when it’s bent.

Seems like the next tech revolution will be wearing your smartphones on your wrist, thus replacing the smartwatches.

This phone does NOT require magnetic strip to wear it on your wrist unlike with Motorola bendable phone

Note that this is in the concept stage at the moment & is only meant to showcase the flexibility of the OLED screen from the Samsung Display division

Follow @TechLeaksAndUpdates