25 great uses for an old Android device

Less typing, more tanking. Faster logins mean more time in the gaming action — and this week provides GeForce NOW members with a smoother path straight into the battlefield. Cloud gaming is all about instant access to titles across devices, and the latest GeForce NOW update removes another layer for members jumping into their Gaijin […]

Holy moly, I am flying around my phone this week. It’s a wild feeling — especially since Google’s grand I/O gala, which is traditionally the time when shapeshifting new Android additions are supposed to command our attention, isn’t for another couple weeks yet. These days, though, we’ve reached a point where many of the most interesting and non-AI-gobblydegook Android innovations aren’t even coming from Google itself but rather from third-party apps, add-ons, and crafty configuring (a fancy way of saying “good old-fashioned geeky tinkering”). And that’s absolutely the case with this latest superpower I’ve just been granted. It’s an on-demand desktop-style taskbar that makes it delightfully swift ‘n’ simple to switch over to any other app on your favorite Android gadget without first having to head back to your home screen and then poke around to find it. Instead, you just summon that taskbar — or even set it to be always visible, if you’d rather — and, exactly like on a desktop compute

Sometimes, the hardest part about getting stuff done is simply remembering what you have to do — and when. And ironically, lots of the tools that exist to help us juggle our endless array of incoming tasks only seem to make it even more overwhelming. Truly, it doesn’t take much for the very act of managing your tasks — or maybe even just figuring out the best way to do it — to become a chore in and of itself. Like many perpetually perplexed plebeians, I’ve exerted far too much energy on the impossible-seeming task of finding a system for tracking tasks that (a) actually works — and (b) doesn’t feel like a burden of its own. I’ve gone through more tasks and reminders systems than any sane person should ever encounter in a lifetime. And lemme tell ya: At long last, I’ve encountered one that’s the perfect blend of simplicity and power. It’s a brand new, off-the-beaten-path Android app you probably haven’t heard of but that absolutely should be on your radar. It’s both easier and more effe

A new method could bring more accurate and efficient AI models to high-stakes applications like health care and finance, even in under-resourced settings.

The app allows developers to vibe code web apps and websites on the go.

Gemini gets preferential treatment on Android, but maybe not for long (in Europe).

Google's AI meeting notetaker is no longer limited to Google Meets - Gemini can also generate summaries and transcripts of in-person meetings now, as well as meetings on Zoom and Microsoft Teams, as first reported by 9to5Google. Support for in-person meetings was previously limited to alpha users and only available on Android. Google's support page for the feature notes that, "If a user who is not in person wants to join the meeting, you can transition the meeting to a normal video call." The feature also works for impromptu meetings - Google says you "don't need to be in a meeting room" or in a previously-scheduled meeting to use it. Us … Read the full story at The Verge.

For all the fancy-schmancy things our modern-day technology promises to do for us, one thing Google has yet to give us is a simple and reliable way to sync the clipboards on our Android phones and computers. It’s such a powerful feat to have at your fingertips, when it works well — ’cause you can just copy something in one place and then paste it immediately in the other, without any thought or effort. At its best, it’s like your two work surfaces share the same clipboard and work harmoniously to make your life easy. What’s most frustrating is that Google actually had a super-simple system for this years ago, within Chrome — a single switch you could flip that’d just make your clipboards sync seamlessly and automatically, across any two devices where the browser was installed — but then, in typical Google form, the company gave up on the concept and killed it off at some point along the way. (Sigh.) Since then, we’ve been left with a mishmash of overly complicated workarounds and compr