Google Announces Five New Features for Android and Wear OS Device

Android screen reader feature TalkBack will not be powered by Gemini models on supported devices.

Written by Akash Dutta, Edited by Siddharth Suvarna | Updated: 4 September 2024 19:36 IST

Google Announces Five New Features for Android and Wear OS Device

Photo Credit: Google

The company is also letting Wear OS use offline Google Maps

Highlights

Circle to Search will now be able to look up music
Google Chrome will get a text-to-speech feature
Android Earthquake Alerts System is expanding to all users in the US

Google announced multiple new features for Android users on Tuesday. There are a total of five new features being added to existing Android tools such as TalkBack and Circle to Search. Google Chrome is also getting a new text-to-speech feature that will allow users to listen to articles and web pages easily. Offline Google Maps are also being added to supported Wear OS devices. Finally, the Android Earthquake Alerts System will be expanded to a wider user base in the US.

New Android Features Announced

The Mountain View-based tech giant detailed the new Android features in a blog post. Interestingly, these features are not limited to Pixel users and all supported Android devices will be getting them. Google has started rolling out these features, however, it might take up to 14 days before all users receive them.

TalkBack, the screen reader feature in Android, is getting a significant upgrade. The accessibility feature is aimed at those who have poor vision or are blind. The feature is now being powered by Gemini, Google's in-house artificial intelligence (AI) model. With the Gemini integration, the feature will be able to provide detailed audio descriptions of digital images, photos in the gallery, pictures in text messages, or social media posts, the company said.

Last month, a report claimed that Google was testing a music search feature for Circle to Search. The tech giant has now confirmed the feature. Users with Android devices that support the visual lookup feature will be able to identify songs and music playing either on the device or nearby. Users can activate the feature and tap on the music button to identify the track name, and artist, as well as open a YouTube video.

Google Chrome is also getting a text-to-speech feature that will enable Android users to listen to web pages in the browser. This way, users can listen to news articles, blog posts, and more. There are options to choose the listening speed, type of voice and language.

Earlier, Google rolled out the Android Earthquake Alerts System in beta for a select number of users. The feature sends an earthquake alert to users based on crowd-sourced detection technology. This feature is now being rolled out to all users in the US. It is still not available to users in regions outside of the US.

Finally, the company is also releasing a feature for Wear OS smartwatches. Users with supported OS will be able to download offline Google Maps on the device. This way, even without the smartphone, they can check the map on the smartwatch. Further, when the device is online, users will also be able to search for their destination using voice commands and view their current location with a single tap on the watch face.

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Further reading: Android, Google, Google Maps, TalkBack, Gemini, Google Chrome, Android Features

Akash Dutta Email Akash Dutta

Akash Dutta is a Senior Sub Editor at Gadgets 360. He is particularly interested in the social impact of technological developments and loves reading about emerging fields such as AI, metaverse, and fediverse. In his free time, he can be seen supporting his favourite football club - Chelsea, watching movies and anime, and sharing passionate opinions on food. More