Google Announces Five New Features for Android and Wear OS Devices

Google announced a slew of new features for Android users on Tuesday. A total of five new features will be 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 easily listen to articles and webpages. Google Maps offline is also being added to supported Wear OS devices. Finally, Android Earthquake Alerts will be expanded to a broader user base in the US.

New Android features announced

The Mountain View 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 receive them. Google has started rolling out these features, but it could take up to 14 days for all users to receive them.

TalkBack, the screen reader feature in Android, is getting a major update. The accessibility feature is aimed at people with low vision or blindness. The feature is now powered by Gemini, Google’s in-house artificial intelligence (AI) model. By integrating with Gemini, the feature will be able to provide detailed audio descriptions of digital images, photos in the gallery, photos in text messages, or social media posts, the company announced.

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 search feature will be able to identify songs and music that is playing on the device or nearby. Users can activate the feature and tap the music button to identify the song name and artist, as well as open a YouTube video.

Google Chrome is also getting a text-to-speech feature that will allow 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, voice type, and language.

Google previously released 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. The feature is currently rolling out to all users in the US. It is still not available to users in regions outside the US.

Finally, the company is also releasing a feature for Wear OS smartwatches. Users with a supported operating system will be able to download offline Google Maps to the device. This way, even without a smartphone, they can check the map on the smartwatch. Additionally, 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.