Android New Things

A few weeks ago, new features were introduced at Google I/O to make Android mobiles more secure. Android devices will continue to get regular updates throughout the year to ensure that the devices improve in between the OS releases. These new features & updates help in learning new skills, securing information, and staying productive on the go. Let's go through this blog to know about these updates.

Seven New Android Updates:

1. Build new reading skills:

As Reading practice is available, you will be able to improve your vocabulary as a new reader. Now, you will get the chance to improve the comprehension skills of users using tablets or Android mobiles. You may try this on your kid's ebook with a "Practice" badge mark on Google Play Books. Moreover, you will get to hear the pronunciation of words they didn't hear previously. Besides, you will be able to practise mispronounced words & receive feedback in real-time.

2. Get your info at a glance:

Customize the home screen of your mobile or tablet with more helpful shortcuts using the recently arrived three new Android widgets. Moreover, you will be able to find any television show and movie suggestions quickly with Google TV. In addition, you can monitor chosen stocks with Google Finance & enjoy headlines that are curated regularly from Google News.

3. Listen to favorites from Watch:

Your first job is to hit play right from your wrist. After that, you should allow Spotify's DJ to deliver personalized songs in a list, listen to songs available in your heavy rotation & stream episodes from podcasts you like. Moreover, you can watch face shortcuts for Wear OS from Spotify.

4. Tap your Watch & skip the line:

Wear OS smartwatches in is now available for Commuters in Washington, D.C., as well as in the San Francisco Bay Area. They can now use these Wear OS smartwatches to tap as well as to ride with SmarTrip & Clipper cards through Google Wallet.

5. Stay on track from your wrist:

Adding a tile is possible on Google Keep for Wear OS for accessing a selected note quickly. Just swipe through the tiles & look for the pinned note so that you can stay on top of things.

6. Add some fun to your messages:

With the help of Emoji Kitchen, users can remix their favorite emoji into stickers which are possible to be sent as messages via Gboard. Taking a bite of new aquatic-themed emoji combinations that lets you cool down the summer.

7. Scan the dark web for your Gmail address:

In the United States, for most Google Accounts, dark web reports are available to use on the Google One website and app. It is possible to check if a Gmail address is exposed on the dark web via scanning. Moreover, you can receive guidance on the actions that you need to take to protect yourself online. If you are a Google One member in the U.S., you can scan for extra personal information like social security number. In the upcoming months, over twenty nations will be able to access this.

Conclusion:

New updates & features are added constantly by the Android team to improve Google apps and your devices. If you want to know more information about Android new things, visit Android.com/updates.

RAR vs ZIP

Several file formats available in computer file systems, and ZIP & RAR are the most common names among them. These two archive file formats store various files and folders in one container. But these file formats are different from each other. The basic difference between these two is that you can enable ZIP, a standard archive file format in any operating system. But RAR is an archive file format that needs a third-party tool called WinRAR for processing. Dig into the article, to learn about RAR vs ZIP.

What Is ZIP?

It is a standard file format used to compress files in the computer system. Gary Conway and Phil Katz developed this famous file format in 1989.

Just like other file formats, these refer to the data buckets for one or more files with the help of ZIP compression. Software companies like Apple Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows use this. These types of files are accessible by those programs that are able to create ZIP files.

Apart from compressing files, this format encrypts files that are password protected. Then, it splits them with some taps. Every file is stored separately in the zipped folder to make it accessible randomly. As a result, adding new files has become simple without zipping the whole archive. You can zip files & folders using many methods such as WavPack, BZIP2, PPMd, DEFLATE, LZMA, etc. The Zip archives contain extra content which is unrelated to the archive.

What Is RAR?

The term stands for Roshal ARchive. It is a compressed file that Russian Eugene Roshal created. This proprietary archive file contains one or more folders in a single place. It serves as the regular folder in the computer system where people keep their documents.

This format needs a third-party software application to allow you to open files or extract them from it. This one is the native file format of the WinRAR archiver that stores the files in compressed form. Besides, the compression ratio is more than the ZIP compression. It can incorporate a compression algorithm that can handle file spanning, lossless data compression, error recovery, etc. Remember that any type of file with the '.RAR' extension is called a RAR file.

RAR vs ZIP:

ZIP	RAR
This one is an archive file format.	This one is a proprietary archive file format you can use for lossless data compression.
Phil Katz created it as a standard format for data lossless compression.	Eugene Roshal developed it.
This one is free, which means open standard.	It isn't free.
ZIP comes with several implementations and is supported in many places.	It needs a third-party tool called WinRAR Archiver.
Its compression rate is lower than that of the RAR format.	With the help of the WinRAR archiver, compressing or decompressing files is possible. Compared to ZIP, the rate of compression is better.
ZIP provides password-based protection.	ZIP does not offer password-based protection.
You can use the filename extension as  ".zip" or ".zipx."	In this case, filename extensions may be ".rar," ".rev," ".r00", or ".r01".
This one uses the ZIP 2.0 encryption algorithm.	RAR uses AES-128 encryption.
ZIP compresses data using the 'DEFLATE' compression algorithm.	Hence, the used compression algorithm is more efficient than the 'DEFLATE' compression procedure.
ZIP is a comparatively weak algorithm.	RAR is a powerful algorithm.
You can make files with programs such as WinRAR, WinZip, and Freebyte Zip.	In this case, files are limited to a program called WinRAR.

 Conclusion:

This entire discussion about the difference between RAR and ZIP concludes that ZIP is a standard file format you can use to archive & compress lossless data. On the other hand, RAR is a proprietary archive file format that needs WinRAR archiver, a third-party tool.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. Are ZIP and RAR the same?

ZIP format compresses data at a slower rate compared to RAR. It can offer password-based security, but the RAR does not have such a feature.

Q. Is RAR faster than ZIP?

It has a faster compression rate than ZIP when the third-party tool WinRAR is used. However, the overall rate of compression is slower than WinZip or 7-Zip.

Q. Is RAR or ZIP more secure?

RAR format can't provide security with a password. But the ZIP 2.0 algorithm is used for encryption by the ZIP file format. RAR uses more efficient AES-128 encryption. Whereas, you can create ZIP files with different programs, including WinZIP, WinRAR, Freebyte ZIP, etc.

Gmail is the Latest to Introduce Blue Verified Checkmarks

A blue Checkmark will soon be available next to select senders' names on Gmail by Google. The company announced that it is mainly for verifying the user's identity. Companies that have already adopted the BIMI feature of Gmail will get the new blue checkmark. The term BIMI represents Brand Indicators for Message Identification.

The BIMI feature rolled out in 2021. It needs senders to use powerful authentication. Besides, it helps to verify their brand logo for displaying a brand logo as an avatar in emails. As a user, you can see a checkmark icon for senders adopting the BIMI feature. According to Google, the update helps users to identify messages from legitimate senders versus impersonators.

Why is it important?

With the help of this strong email authentication, you can identify spam & stop it. The same thing goes for the email security systems. It allows senders to leverage their brand trust. While it boosts confidence in email sources, it can also give readers an immersive experience. Thus, it can generate a better email ecosystem for everyone.

Admins:

Your first task is to go to the Help Center to learn more about the setup process of the BIMI. If you want to take the benefits of BIMI for your outgoing emails to Gmail & other platforms, your company needs to adopt DMARC. It is necessary to validate your logo with a VMC, which a Certification Authority like Entrust or DigiCert issues.

End users: No end user setting is there for this feature.

Rollout pace:

The full rollout started on May 3, 2023. You can see there are 1–3 days for feature visibility.

Availability:

• The feature is available to Google Workspace customers, legacy G Suite Basic and Business customers. 
• In addition, it is available to users with personal Google Accounts. Google introduced BIMI in 2020 for Gmail. 

Its core functionality is to enable organizations & vendors so that they can claim ownership of respective businesses. However, it was updated with more effective security measures. But, it failed in its mission and what it wanted to achieve.

The company now wants to take this a notch further and keep people more concerned than before. So, Google adds a blue checkmark in Gmail after the sender's name. It means that those senders have verified their legitimacy through BIMI. It also indicates that the specific person is the original email owner in your inbox.

So, when you receive a new email from any company or a business, each verified sender has its official logo with a blue checkmark. Once you hover over the checkmark, you can see a floating pop-up. It notifies that the sender owns the domain and the logo.

Conclusion:

For most end users, it is an update which will soon be available. If you have admin rights, it is possible to visit the official Google Workspace Admin blog to learn how you can verify your business with BIMI. Gmail has already begun rolling out of the new blue checkmark update.

2023 Google I/O 2023

Google I/O  2023 conference is almost there and it indicates that the highly anticipated Pixel Fold & Pixel Tablet will launch very soon. This conference, which is organized annually geared toward developers. It can hold a keynote that reveals the latest things. If you are willing to watch the keynote live without attending the event, this article is for you. Go through the entire article to know everything about the event, like when & where to stream it, and which things you can expect.

When is the main 2023 Google I/O keynote?

This annual event begins on May 10th, 2023, at 1 PM ET / 10 AM PT. Google CEO Sundar Pichai will introduce the event. In 2023, the event will take place in person live with a limited audience at the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, California.

It seems like Google is encouraging people to tune into the event online. Previously, conferences of developers usually took up to three days. It appears as Google is willing to de-emphasize this event. Besides, the company is willing to remain there for Android and web developers through other channels. In 2020, the event was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, while the 2021 event was online. However, people can still access the opening keynote and multiple expected panels online, as previously.

How to watch 2023 Google I/O:

If you are willing to participate on Google's website, you should register for the event. However, it is essential to use a Google account. Whether you desire to watch the main keynote, it is expected that you can get this on YouTube without registering yourself.

What can we expect at 2023 Google I/O?

The company released the event's schedule on April 27, 2023. Generally, this planned event is more condensed as the developer conference takes place only one day this year. It is categorised into four sections: mobile, web, AI, and cloud. These inform us what the theme of this year's I/O will be.

Google I/O's official schedule reveals the expected large themes:

In this event, you will get a clear overview of all details which Google will introduce during I/O, along with the largest announcements. The company is expected to use its AI announcements because it wants to win a few excitements around its projects in the department.

People will learn more about what the company has planned for Android 14 and the next versions of ChromeOS. Google also plans a few extra specialized panels such as Google Pay and Google Wallet, Material Design, Google Home, and the web. As it is a developer conference, it is possible to look forward to deep dives into languages (Dart, Flutter, Firebase, and machine learning) & other programming topics. The company has also planned to reveal some hardware-related announcements— the budget Google Pixel 7a or the Google Pixel Fold. The company might have also planned to introduce a few Android 14 features as well as explain to developers how they can benefit from these.

Focus on AI at 2023 Google I/O:

After the launch of ChatGPT 4.0 and Bing's chat-based search, the company activated code red internally. Google also reacted with a Live from Paris event where Google Bard, a chat-based search engine, is displayed. In March 2023, the chatbot was launched as a limited beta in the U.S. and U.K. According to a recent leak, it can come to the Pixel phone as a widget.

Google Bard is the beginning of its grand plans for AI-powered search. As per a report, for the services, Samsung may ditch Google as the default search engine. Whereas Google is working on the next stage of the search engine that may integrate a chatbot.

Developers can get an opportunity to experience new tools. A new Colab option can become a part of Android Studio that is also known as Google's developer environment. It is beneficial for developers to resolve the code. With the help of this tool, you can write code depending on prompts from programmers.

Google Pixel 7a and the Google Pixel Fold:

People learned about the Google Pixel Tablet at the previous developer conference, and it has been almost a year, but still, Google didn't make this available to the public. The company is expected to change it in 2023 Google I/O. While the launch date is almost confirmed, the price can be guessed due to the leaks.

The company will launch Google Pixel 7a at this event after teasing a new phone launch for the day after May 11. According to the leaks, the Pixel 7a will be almost identical to the Pixel 7. It is because the model will have the same Tensor G2 chip, camera setup, and display refresh rate. The difference is that the side of the model may be smaller, and it can consist of less premium materials. Although the Pixel 7a will launch after its predecessor, the Google Pixel 6a was announced in May 2022. However, it is going on sale at the end of July.

On May 4, 2023, the company revealed the Pixel Fold in a launch page on its Google Store website and in a tweet where it promised to announce more details on this Google I/O. You might glimpse the Google Pixel 8 lineup, which is expected to arrive at year's end. The same was applicable to last year's Pixel 7 and 7 Pro.

About Android 14:

Android 14 is currently available for developers and those who are eager to use beta software. The previous builds look exactly like Android 13. Mishaal Rahman has found several other features. So, the company is expected to make them official in this event and release Android 14 Beta 2 soon after.

Conclusion:

Google I/O is almost there and we also learnt about a few things and what to expect before it happens. It will be better if you try to catch up on things that happened at the previous event.

Frequently Asked Questions:

Q. How To Register to Attend the Event?

It is free & open to all. Once you register yourself here, you can save content and chat in I/O Adventure, a virtual event of 2021.

Q. How Much Is Google I/O?

Since 2021, this online event has been free.

Q. Where Is Google I/O Held?

It is held at the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, CA. Being the hometown of Google, the city is approx forty miles south of downtown San Francisco.

Google Cloud Spanner

Google Cloud Spanner is the first relational database service that is totally managed across the world. It can offer strong consistency and horizontal scalability for OLTP applications. This service lets you enjoy all the traditional advantages of a relational database. It is different from other relational database services because this one usually scales horizontally to a lot of servers for handling the pressure of substantial transactional workloads.

What is Google Cloud Spanner?

Google cloud spanner is actually a distributed relational database service. This service runs on Google Cloud and supports global online transaction processing deployments, SQL semantics, horizontal scaling & transactional consistency.

Interest in Google Cloud Spanner focuses on the cloud database's ability for providing availability as well as consistency. These are actually traits that are considered at odds with each other. Data designers create tradeoffs to emphasize both consistency and availability. We can describe the trade-off in the CAP Theorem. It remains underprinted as a casual move for availability and scalability in web and cloud systems. It also combines SQL & NoSQL traits to pursue system availability and data consistency.

Google Cloud Spanner's roots:

The first appearance of this service was as a key-value NoSQL store. But as time goes on, it has added a powerful typed schema and a SQL query processor. Google engineers have undertaken the work on the NoSQL processor core and SQL interface as part of the company's in-house F1 system to manage Google AdWords data. Google Cloud customers will be capable of accessing this in May 2017.

It is compatible with distributed SQL queries, and query re-starts in response to failures. This service uses TrueTime, a Google Cloud clock synchronization service using a mix of atomic clocks and GPS technology.

Other cloud databases:

It is an excellent alternative to cloud relational databases like Azure SQL, Amazon Aurora, IBM DB2 hosted, and Oracle Database Cloud Service. This one is also an excellent alternative to the commonly used open-source web and cloud application databases like MySQL and PostgreSQL.

As it can combine NoSQL and SQL traits, you can also classify this as a NewSQL database. It can support CrateDB, NuoDB, the in-memory database management system MemSQL, CockroachDB, etc. Due to the support of NoSQL and SQL approaches, this service is included in the multi-model database category. This one is an emerging type, including databases like Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB & MarkLogic.

Google Cloud Spanner pricing:

Its pricing depends on three infrastructure components:

• Nodes 
• Storage 
• Networking

The pricing for nodes depends on hourly work and the number of nodes used within any given hour in a project. Besides, the pricing for storage is set on a per-month basis. It depends on the average data in the service's tables and secondary indexes during that month. Its pricing for network bandwidth is usually monthly based and depends on the amount used during that month.

Features:

It can store plenty of mutable structured data. Besides, it enables people to perform arbitrary queries with the help of SQL with relational data and maintain strong consistency as well as high availability for the data with synchronous replication.

Key features of Google Spanner:

• Applying transactions across rows, columns, tables, and databases within a Spanner universe is possible. 
• With the help of automatic multi-site replication and failover, you, as a client, can control the replication and data placement. 
• Replication is consistent & synchronous. 
• Reads are consistent, as well as data is versioned to permit for stale reads: clients will be able to read older versions of data. 
• This database service can support a native SQL interface to read & write data.

History:

The service was described first in 2012 for internal Google data centers. In 2017, its SQL capability was included. Later, it was documented in a SIGMOD 2017 paper. That year it started to be available as part of the Google Cloud Platform in 2017 under "Cloud Spanner."

Google Spanner Architecture:

With the help of the Paxos algorithm as a work part, it partitions data across up to many servers. This service uses hardware-linked clock synchronization to make sure global consistency with the help of GPS clocks and atomic clocks. The brand name of the distributed cloud infrastructure of Google is TrueTime. DBMS of Google's F1 SQL is made on its top, which exchanges Google's custom MySQL variant.

Conclusion:

In this article, we have covered the details related to the Google Spanner database. Still if you have any doubt or queries, you can let us know via comments.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. Is Google Spanner SQL or NoSQL?

It came first as a key-value NoSQL store.

Q. What is Google Spanner used for?

It is used to decouple computing from storage. Therefore, it becomes possible to scale processing resources separately from storage.

Q. Is Google Spanner free?

Its free trial is an addition to the $300 credits that the Google Cloud free trial provides.