Google to bring Full Coverage feature and podcasts right into Search

Google’s Search engine has a lot of nifty tricks you can use it for. One of the newest tricks it’s getting revolves around news and podcasts. Google Search will be getting support for Google News’ Full Coverage feature. Launched last year, this feature introduces a more complete picture of a certain story. It introduces a timeline of how events unfold, so you get a better understanding of how it happened. As mentioned, this was unveiled in the Google News app, but it’ll be making its way to Search.

Search will also be getting support for podcasts. This means you can play them right from Search. It’ll surface relevant episodes of a given program based both on the title and content. You can even save episodes for later listening. It isn’t clear if podcasters will gain access to analytics based on those who listen right from Search. According to Google CEO Sundar Pichai, "These are all examples of how we are making search even more helpful for our users by surfacing the right information in the right context."

Source: TechCrunch

Google revamps News app, taps AI to improve personalization

Google is going to be replacing its Play Newsstand and News & Weather apps to bring to Android and iOS users the new News app. It’s going to rely on artificial intelligence to scour the web for articles, videos, podcasts, and comments and bring you items based on your interests. According to Trystan Upstill, an engineer working on News, you won’t need to give your preferences for the app to provide you news items you might be interested in. Instead, it’s going to rely on what it learns from you as you use it. “Our AI constantly reads the firehose of the web for you,” Upstill said.

The app now offers a Full Coverage section, which will show you deeper insight into a specific event. You’ll see top stories from different publications, timeline, videos, and opinion pieces. On top of this, there is also a Headlines section for the biggest stories available, and Newsstand for finding reliable and credible sources to follow. This is also where you can subscribe to your favorite publications. For the paid subscriptions, you won’t need fill out a form or provide payment information, you can simply pay using your Google sign-in information. The new app has begun rolling to both mobile platforms and the web and is expected to come to 127 countries by next week.

Source: CNET