Friday
Sep162022

Bitmoji is coming to Wear OS

That Fitbit integration is slowly making its way to Wear OS. A cosmetic change coming to the smartwatch platform brings Bitmoji watch faces. This is a familiar feature for Fitbit users, but now you can send your Bitmoji avatar to supported apps. 

If you're interested in making one, you can do that on Snapchat, Bitmoji.com, or the Bitomoji mobile app. You need to install the Bitmoji watch face on your Wear OS device. It hasn't rolled out, but Google teases that it's coming soon.

Source

Wednesday
Sep142022

Google introduces Sound Notifications for deaf, hard of hearing

Google partnered with the deaf and hard-of-hearing community to design a new feature coming to its devices. Sound Notifications with Live Transcribe & Notifications can detect vital household sounds like fire alarms, door knocks, running water, and more and send an alert to your phone or watch when they go off. You'll get a notification, your device will vibrate, or the flashlight on your phone will go off, making sure you don't miss any of these critical sounds whether you suffer from hearing loss or have headphones in. 

It will also get custom sounds so you can add things like appliances going off to your alert library. Just record it and have your phone or watch alert you the next time it goes off. 

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Wednesday
Sep142022

Google TV adds audio descriptions to movies

Source: Google

The latest update to Google TV makes the service more accessible to those who are blind or have low vision. There are now audio descriptions that narrate live visual information as they happen. The app has curated a list of movies with audio descriptions on the app. Just press the Google Assistant button and say, "Search audio description movies" to start exploring.

Source

Tuesday
Sep132022

Waze wants to lighten your commute to work with Biz Jargon

Source: Waze

Waze is poking a bit of fun with your day job with its new Biz Jargon driving experience. While the name is a bit lacklustre, the theme strives to be anything but that. It's supposedly inspired by "offices everywhere (the virtual and the physical)," poking fun at what it deems relatable moments at work. The experience will be available in American and British English for the first time.

You can access the experience by heading to the voice & sound settings. Hear it say things like "Make a U-turn: Or what I call 'circling back'" or "Sorry, I was on mute, are we waiting for anyone else?" It also offers moods like Productive, Unproductive, All Business, and Business Casual. And you can change your car icon arrow into a paper airplane through the car icon option in the map display settings.