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Google introduces Workspaces Spaces Chats conversations summaries • ZebethMedia

Having trouble keeping up with the conversations in your Chats in your Workspace Spaces? Google feels your pain, and is “excited to introduce conversation summaries in Google Chat for messages in Spaces.” Now your conversations in Spaces Chats will be summarized right in your Premium Workspace. The issue is, of course, that while Chats in Spaces are perfectly good for conversations, in larger Workspaces these Chats conversations can be difficult to keep up with unless you’re always checking your Spaces for new conversations in Chats. You know the drill – you log into your Workspace, click over to your Spaces, pull up the Chats, and your conversations are just too numerous and long-winded to catch up on! You can’t very well tell your Workspace Spaces conversationalists to leave off chatting in your Chats. Conversation is the very reason Chats exist, that’s why they call it Spaces! I mean Chats! Fortunately Google is bringing its expertise in communications apps to remedy this conversational crisis in your Workspace Spaces Chats. Starting soon, the messages in your conversations will be summarized right in your Chats, inside Spaces in Workspaces! Selected Premium Workspaces, anyway. Google put a summary in your Premium Workspace Spaces Chat conversations. You read that correctly. The Conversation Summary of the messages in your Workspace Spaces Chat will appear at the top of the Chats within Spaces, summarizing any unread chatter in the Chats conversation. Click on the summary of the Spaces Chats and you’ll jump straight to the conversation, even if it’s already visible and the Conversation summary has only summarized a few lines of the Chats conversation. If you use Spaces in your Workspace, and tend to have conversations in the Chats of those Spaces, Conversation Summary in Google Chat could be just the thing to keep those chatty Chats summarized. Sadly, this doesn’t appear to be available for Google Chat, though — which is to say regular Google Chat (that is, the newish one in your Gmail that used to be Hangouts, possibly), only Google Chat for Spaces in Workspaces, and (don’t forgot) select Premium Workspaces at that. Definitely not Meet messaging. So you probably don’t have access. But you might eventually, if Workspace Spaces Chats are still something that exist in six months. (I’m checking with Google on this.) Check out the technical details on how the Google AI team quickly and effectively summarizes conversations in Chats in Spaces in Workspaces right here. 🙂

Google rolls out new features across Maps, Search and Shopping • ZebethMedia

Google announced today that it’s introducing a slew of new Maps, Search and Shopping features. The company revealed majority of the new features during its Search On event in September and is now starting to roll them out to users. Search Starting today, users will be able to use Search to find their favorite dish at a restaurant near them. For example, you can search “truffle mac and cheese near me” to see which nearby restaurants carry the dish on their menu. Once you find a specific dish that you’re looking for, you can get more information about its price, ingredients and more. Another new Search functionality lets you use Google’s multisearch feature to find specific food near you. Say you see something tasty looking online, but don’t know what it is or where to find it. You can now use Lens in the Google app for Android or iOS to snap a picture or take a screenshot of a dish and add the words “near me” to find a place that sells it nearby. Image Credits: Google Later this year, Google is going roll out an update to its Lens AR Translate capabilities so users can more seamlessly translate text on complex backgrounds. Instead of covering up the original text like it currently does, Google is going to erase the text and re-create the pixels underneath with an AI-generated background, and then overlay the translated text on top of the image. Maps As for the new Maps features, Google is launching a new visual search experience called Live View in London, Los Angeles, New York, Paris, San Francisco and Tokyo. “Say you’re visiting New York with plans to knock out your holiday shopping and catch up with friends,” Google says in a blog post. “Lift your phone and tap on the camera icon in the search bar to see nearby stores and other places like coffee shops, banks and ATMs. With AR-powered directions and arrows, you can see what direction they’re in and how far away they are — and even spot places that aren’t in your immediate view (like a clothing store around the block) to get a true sense of the neighborhood at a glance.” If you want to find other places, you can tap on categories to explore what restaurants, bars, dessert shops, parks and transit stations are nearby. In addition to displaying information about where places are, users will be able to see key information about each spot overlaid, such as whether the location is busy, if its open, what the price range is, etc. Image Credits: Google Another new Maps feature makes it easier for EV owners to find the best charging station for their vehicle. Now, you can search for “EV charging stations” and select the “fast charge” filter. You can also filter for stations that offer your EV’s plug type. Google also announced that it’s expanding its “accessible places” feature globally after initially launching it in the U.S., Australia, Japan and the U.K. in 2020. The feature is designed to help people determine whether a place is wheelchair accessible. You can turn on the “accessible places” setting in the app, after which you will start to see a wheelchair icon on places that are wheelchair accessible. You’ll be able to see if a place has accessible seating, restrooms and parking. Google notes that the feature can also be helpful if you want to avoid stairs because you have a stroller or are using a cart. Shopping Google has announced a new AR shopping feature that is designed to make it easier to find your exact foundation match. The company says its new photo library features 148 models representing a diverse spectrum of skin tones, ages, genders, face shapes, ethnicities and skin types. As a result, it should be easier for shoppers to better visualize what different products will look like on them. Image Credits: Google “Here’s how it works: Search for a foundation shade on Google across a range of prices and brands, like ‘Armani Luminous Silk Foundation’,” Google explained in a blog post. “You’ll see what that foundation looks like on models with a similar skin tone, including before and after shots, to help you decide which one works best for you. Once you’ve found one you like, just select a retailer to buy.” Users can now also shop for shoes using AR. You can start exploring shoes from brands like Saucony, VANS and Merrell starting today. The feature will be compatible with more brands in the future, Google says. You can start by searching for a sneaker type, such as “Shop blue VANS sneakers” and tap “View in my space.” Then, you’ll be able to spin, zoom and see the shoes in your space to make it easier to see if you like the color, laces, tread, etc.

Google Play streamlines policies around kids’ apps as regulations tighten • ZebethMedia

Google Play today announced a series of changes to its programs and policies around apps designed for children. The company is describing the update as an expansion of its previously launched “Teacher Approved” program, which includes a review process where teachers and experts vetted apps not just for safety and security elements, but for educational quality and other factors. The newly revamped policies will now impact how apps qualify for this program, which allows apps to gain entry to the Play Store’s “Kids” tab. These changes should help to streamline some of the policies around apps made for children which, in turn, will increase the number of apps that become eligible to be reviewed for the Teacher Approved program. In addition, these policy updates and other changes will push Android app makers to come into compliance with stricter regulations and laws around software targeting children. Before, Google Play ran two (sometimes overlapping) programs around apps aimed at kids. App developers were required to participate in Google’s “Designed for Families” program if their app was aimed at children, and could optionally choose to participate in the program if their app targeted both kids and older users. The Designed for Families program included a number of requirements around the app’s content, its functionality, use of ads, data practices, use of warning labels, feature set, underlying technology components, and more. Any apps in this program were also eligible to be rated for the Teacher Approved program, which had stricter guidelines, but entry was not guaranteed. Now, the additional policy requirements for the Designed for Families program are being rolled into the Play Store’s broader Families Policy. This latter set of guidelines requires apps to comply with applicable laws and regulations relating to children, like the U.S. Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), and the E.U. General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), for example. The Families Policy also prohibits access to precise location data, prevents developers from transmitting device identifiers from children, and includes additional privacy and content restrictions, among other things. For developers, the merging of the Designed for Families requirements into the Google Play Families Policy simplifies and strengthens the rules for developers around apps that target kids. And, with this change, all the apps that meet the now more robust Families Policy will become eligible to apply for the Teacher Approved program. The Teacher Approved program’s requirements are not changing, however, and only a subset of apps meeting the overarching Families Policy will qualify. The Teacher Approved program itself first arrived in April 2020 — at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdowns. At this time, many schools had shifted to virtual learning, and children were spending more time on their devices to both learn and be entertained. Beyond meeting safety requirements and government regulations, the apps chosen for “Teacher Approved” were vetted by a panel of academic experts including more than 200 U.S. teachers. The panel rated the apps on various aspects like age-appropriateness, quality of experience, enrichment, and whether kids enjoy using the app, among other things. This information would then be displayed on the app’s Play Store listing if the app was approved so parents could determine if the app was right for their child. Consumers can find these Teacher Approved apps on the “Kids” tab of the Play Store or they can look for the Teacher Approved badge on an individual app’s listing. With the update, all apps that are compliant with the Families Policy will also soon receive an additional badge that’s displayed in the Data safety section of their app’s listing. This badge will indicate the app has committed to the Play Store’s Families Policy. Image Credits: Google In addition to the merging of its two families policies, Google also noted it recently updated its Families Self-Certified Ads SDK Program. Makers of SDKs (software development kits, or software used by developers to expand the functionality of their apps), must now identify which versions of their SDKs are appropriate for use in Families apps. In 2023, Android app developers in the Families program will be required to use only the SDKs that are identified as appropriate — though Google suggests developers start to make the shift to these safer SDKs now. These changes aren’t just about serving developers or consumers — they also help Google to meet stricter regulations being considered, drafted, and enacted worldwide around how software is permitted to handle kids’ data — such as the EU’s GDPR and the U.K.’s Age Appropriate Design Code. Failure to meet these requirements can result in significant penalties, as Meta recently learned when it was fined roughly $400 million for how it treated children’s data on Instagram.  

Google Play finally adds UPI subscriptions in India • ZebethMedia

Unified Payments Interface — commonly known as UPI — has become the most popular mobile payment route for P2P and merchant payments in India, and now Google’s stepping up with an updated UPI functionality to meet demand. Google Play has enabled users in the South Asian country to make subscription-based purchases using UPI. On Tuesday, Google announced that it introduced UPI Autopay as a payment option on the Play Store to allow its users in the country to purchase subscriptions using UPI. The update comes months after Google launched UPI as a payment method for buying apps, games and in-app content through the Play Store in 2019. Users need to select the ‘Pay with UPI’ option after selecting a subscription plan using Google Play Billing to use UPI for recurring payments. Google confirmed to ZebethMedia that adding the new payment option will not bring any other changes to its billing system. This means it will continue to take commissions from subscription-based purchases through the Play Store in the country. The UPI Autopay option is available alongside the existing credit and debit card, net banking, direct carrier billing and gift cards options. Image Credits: Google “With the introduction of UPI Autopay on the platform, we aim to extend the convenience of UPI to subscription-based purchases, helping many more people access helpful and delightful services – while enabling local developers to grow their subscription-based businesses on Google Play,” said Saurabh Agarwal, Head of Google Play Retail & Payments Activation – India, Vietnam, Australia & New Zealand, in a prepared statement. The governing body overseeing UPI, the National Payment Corporation of India, launched the UPI Autopay service in 2020 to expand UPI to recurring transactions. It, however, received little interest last year when companies including Netflix and Disney+ Hotstar in the country enabled UPI Autopay on their apps. This resulted from the Reserve Bank of India’s payments rule that requires banks, financial institutions and payment gateways to obtain additional approval for auto-recurring transactions worth over 5,000 Indian rupees ($62). Last month, India’s antitrust body fined Google $113 million for abusing the dominant position of its Play Store in the country and ordered the company not to restrict app developers from using third-party payment processing services for in-app purchases and purchasing apps through the Play Store. As a result, Google indefinitely paused its policy’s enforcement requiring developers to use Play Store’s billing system for user transactions in the country. The Android maker is also testing alternative payment systems for the Play Store in countries including South Korea, Australia, Japan and most recently in the U.S. to resist regulatory pressure.

Google to pay $391.5 million in location-tracking settlement with 40 states • ZebethMedia

Google has agreed to a $391.5 million settlement with 40 state attorneys general over its location tracking practices. The settlement outlines that Google misled its users into thinking they had turned off location tracking even as the company continued to collect their location information. The investigation, which marks the largest attorney general-led consumer privacy settlement ever, was co-led by Oregon and Washington. “For years Google has prioritized profit over their users’ privacy,” said Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum in a news release. “They have been crafty and deceptive. Consumers thought they had turned off their location tracking features on Google, but the company continued to secretly record their movements and use that information for advertisers.” Google said in a statement that it has already addressed and corrected some of the location tracking practices detailed in the settlement. “Consistent with improvements we’ve made in recent years, we have settled this investigation which was based on outdated product policies that we changed years ago,” a spokesperson for Google told ZebethMedia in an email. As part of the settlement, Google has agreed to improve its location tracking disclosures and user controls starting next year. The settlement requires Google to show additional information to users whenever they turn a location-related account setting on or off. Key information about location tracking must also not be hidden going forward. In a blog post, Google outlined it will “provide a new control that allows users to easily turn off their Location History and Web & App Activity settings and delete their past data in one simple flow.” The company also plans to add additional disclosures to its Activity controls and Data & Privacy pages. Alongside these changes, Google is going to create a comprehensive information hub that highlights key location settings. In addition, Google plans to give users who are setting up new accounts a more detailed explanation of what Web & App Activity is and what information it includes. The company said it will continue deleting location history data for users who have not recently contributed new location history data to their account. “Until we have comprehensive privacy laws, companies will continue to compile large amounts of our personal data for marketing purposes with few controls,” Rosenblum said in the news release. The attorneys general opened the Google investigation after a 2018 Associated Press report found that the company recorded users’ movements even when they explicitly told it not to. The investigation found that Google violated state consumer protection laws by misleading consumers about its location tracking practices since at least 2014. Last month, Google agreed to pay the state of Arizona $85 million to settle a separate lawsuit that alleged the search giant deceived users by collecting location data without their consent. Google is also currently facing a lawsuit from Washington, DC, Texas, Washington state and Indiana. The lawsuit alleges that Google deceived users by collecting their location data even when they believed that kind of tracking was disabled.

Google’s Health Connect app is now available in beta • ZebethMedia

Google announced today that its Health Connect app is now available in beta on the Play Store. Health Connect is designed to centralize access to health and fitness data from various eligible apps. Today, more than 10 health and fitness apps are launching integrations with Health Connect, including MyFitnessPal, Oura and Peloton. The app syncs health and fitness data from eligible platforms and allows other apps to gain access to this data with their consent, while providing centralized privacy controls for users. Developers have previously had to establish multiple API connections to share data between different apps, which limited developers’ data sharing capabilities and made it hard for users to unlock this data for use in different apps. With Health Connect, developers no longer have to build a whole new integration. Google says building an integration with a new app is as simple as reading in new data from Health Connect. “For example, Android users will now be able to sync and get credit for their Peloton workouts in apps like Oura, MyFitnessPal, WeightWatchers and Lifesum,” Google said in a blog post. “Now, through a single integration with Health Connect, Peloton Members will have the option to share their workout stats across the ecosystem of apps they use to support their overall wellness.” Image Credits: Google Google says Health Connect provides a standardized data schema that supports 40+ data types across six categories. The schema covers a wide range of use cases, from exercises to sleep tracking to vital signs. The app not only simplifies app connectivity, but also give users more privacy controls by allowing them to monitor which apps have access to data. In the past, users have had to navigate to multiple apps to manage data permissions and developers had to build out permissions management UIs themselves. Health Connect allows users to manage permissions in a single place. As for developers, Health Connect provides the permissions management hub and granular permissions UIs out of the box. Google collaborated with Samsung to build Health Connect with the goal of  simplifying the connectivity between health and fitness apps. The company first unveiled the initiative earlier this year at its I/O developer conference. Health Connect is available to download as a public beta via the Google Play Store starting today. Google hasn’t detailed its plans regarding a full public release. At launch, the app has integrations with Fitbit, Samsung Health, Google Fit, MyFitnessPal, Peloton, Oura, WeightWatchers, Flo, Lifesum, Signos, Tonal, Outdooractive and Proov Insight.

Klarna brings its price comparison tool to Europe • ZebethMedia

Klarna is expanding into the competitive world of price comparisons, with the launch of a new tool that compares prices across thousands of retailers. The company quietly rolled out the price comparison service in the U.S. a few weeks back, and is now extending this into additional markets in Europe including The U.K. and the Nordics. The European “buy now, pay later” fintech has had a turbulent year, laying off 10% of its workforce in May followed by a second round of layoffs in September. Sandwiched in between, news emerged that Klarna had raised $800 million in funding, albeit at a valuation 85% lower than the previous year, a trend that has echoed elsewhere across the fintech sphere and beyond. With today’s announcement, Klarna is building on an acquisition that closed just six months ago, when it snapped up comparison shopping service PriceRunner in a $124 million deal. At the time, it said that it would use the acquisition to power new features in the core Klarna app, including produce search and price comparisons — and that is what it has been rolling out over the past few weeks. It’s a notable expansion for Klarna, which has hitherto been better known for a service that allows consumers to buy goods through third-party retailers in instalments. Moving forward, the Klarna app will not only serve as a payment network, but a “single shopping destination” for finding the cheapest deals and paying. Digging into the specifics, the new price comparison smarts allow customers to filter their searches by criteria such as size, color, ratings, availability, shipping options, and more. On top of that, Klarna shows shoppers historical pricing data, which shows how the cost has fluctuated over time and whether they should buy now, or wait a little longer to see if the price goes down.  A ‘credible alternative’ The company said that the tool is designed to serve as a “credible alternative” to other shopping services from the likes of Google and Amazon. Indeed, PriceRunner is in fact in the process of suing Google for more than $2 billion in Europe, alleging that the internet giant continues to breach a 2017 antitrust enforcement order against Google Shopping. The long and short of that case involves Google allegedly giving prominence to its own comparison shopping service in Google Search results. And this is why Klarna is pushing the message here that its own price comparison product is “unbiased” in the results that it serves up.  “You could spend the whole day comparing offers at conventional search engines or marketplaces, but you’ll always have doubts — have I really found the best product at the best price?,” Klarna cofounder and CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski said in a press release. “Klarna’s new search and compare tool does the hard work for consumers and compares thousands of websites in real time to ensure they have all the information they need to make informed and confident purchase decisions.”

Twitter’s crazy week drives social apps’ growth, Google expands user choice billing • ZebethMedia

Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly ZebethMedia series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy. Global app spending reached $65 billion in the first half of 2022, up only slightly from the $64.4 billion during the same period in 2021, as hypergrowth fueled by the pandemic has slowed down. But overall, the app economy is continuing to grow, having produced a record number of downloads and consumer spending across both the iOS and Google Play stores combined in 2021, according to the latest year-end reports. Global spending across iOS and Google Play last year was $133 billion, and consumers downloaded 143.6 billion apps. This Week in Apps offers a way to keep up with this fast-moving industry in one place with the latest from the world of apps, including news, updates, startup fundings, mergers and acquisitions, and much more. Do you want This Week in Apps in your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here: techcrunch.com/newsletters It’s a Twitter dumpster fire and I can’t look away Image Credits: Cloudytronics (opens in a new window) / Getty Images Where to even begin? This week Twitter became one of the most chaotic, most disastrous social networks in history — and arguably, also the most interesting, in a sort of rubbernecking kind of way. There was something new taking place either on the platform directly or within the company itself at nearly every minute. In just a handful of days since Musk’s takeover, Twitter has seen the following: The launch of Twitter Blue (11/9) followed by a pause (11/10), followed by its disappearance from the app entirely (11/11). Widespread impersonation of high-profile accounts, including Musk’s own, by Verified users — including, almost immediately, the $8/month Twitter Blue Verified users after the new subscription went live. The launch of Official badges (11/8) for high-profile accounts, followed by their disappearance (11/9) followed by their return (11/11). Elon Musk’s reveal of his plan to have Twitter enter the payments business. Further departures of key execs, including its most senior cybersecurity staffer Lea Kissner (11/10), chief privacy officer Damien Kieran (11/10), chief compliance officer Marianne Fogarty (11/10) Head of Trust and Safety Yoel Roth (11/10) — the latter who has been one of the last remaining sane voices at the company amid the upheaval. Musk held a call with advertisers (11/9) that did not offer any solid assurances that all would be well. After this call, the call’s host and head of ad sales Robin Wheeler, quit. Later, she tweeted “I’m still here” after being persuaded by Musk to stay (11/10). After the departure of key executives across trust, safety, data governance and security, the FTC issued a rare warning to Twitter (11/10). The agency said had been “tracking the developments at Twitter with deep concern,” and that “no CEO or company is above the law.” Twitter was put under an FTC consent order in 2011 after being found to have misused user data. The order requires, among other things, that new product rollouts receive full security reviews and it dictates what Twitter can and cannot do with data. The number of rapid changes, eliminations of departments, departures of key personnel and fast launches and shutdowns of new products are now raising questions as to whether or not Twitter has managed to remain compliant with the FTC’s decree. The lead regulator in the European Union then came after Twitter, setting a meeting for next week to discuss concerns including the data protection officer’s departure and whether Twitter’s main establishment for GDPR purposes is still located in Ireland. Musk addressed employees at an all-hands (11/10) and warned them Twitter may have a net negative cash flow of billions in 2023 and suggested bankruptcy was not out of the question. One can argue that Musk was right to take a new approach at Twitter, which was losing money and failing to grow its user base. Coming in with fresh ideas and swapping out the executive team isn’t that unusual in a takeover, nor are widespread layoffs when a company is in financial trouble. New product experimentation is also to be expected. And revamping Twitter Blue, which has so far failed to attract subscribers, makes sense too. But it’s not the what that’s the issue here, really — it’s the how. Musk clearly had not thought through the impact of his changes and he laid off people who could have offered deeper insight. His move to immediately make deep cuts across Twitter (after weird ideas about code reviews, apparently), meant he missed the opportunity to actually listen to current staff who could explain what Twitter has tried, what’s failed and why they’re doing the things they are. Even if Musk disagreed with Twitter’s current direction, those understandings could be used to better inform his future decisions. Instead, he’s approached Twitter as a toy to be played with, saying even “Twitter will do lots of dumb things in coming months.” And it already has. Please note that Twitter will do lots of dumb things in coming months. We will keep what works & change what doesn’t. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 9, 2022 Living up to its promise, the first project Twitter landed on saw it reinventing the wheel. Musk, having only perceived the value of a blue Verified badge as a status symbol, believed a wide swath of Twitter users would pay for the privilege of owning one. What he didn’t understand (unlike most of Twitter’s user base), is that Verification is actually a service the platform provides its community, not just an ego-pleasing checkmark. In fact, many of those with the original badge don’t see it as a status symbol, and wouldn’t pay for the “honor” of having one. Instead, the original blue badge was a way to quickly see that someone is who they claim to be or that they’re a trusted source of news and information. Musk, on the other hand, thinks “citizen journalists” and everyday folks

Google is launching cross-platform features to make it easier to follow the FIFA World Cup • ZebethMedia

Google is rolling out a bunch of updates across platforms making it easier for fans to follow the FIFA World Cup starting November 20. These include a daily highlights video from TV networks, customized notifications, a dedicated section on Google TV, and a multiplayer game. Just like for any sport, you can search with phrases like “FIFA World Cup” or the “World Cup” and you’ll get the latest scores from the tournament. You can subscribe to tournament notifications by hitting the bell icon. Plus, you can subscribe to individual teams’ alerts under the notification menu. Scores of these world cup soccer matches will also show live stats and win probability graphs. If users want to follow individual matches but don’t want to search every time for updates they can pin scores to the home screen. To do that, they can tap the “Pin live score” option in the score pane for an ongoing upcoming match. Notably, these features are available for other tournaments and sports as well. Image Credits: Google Google has partnered with FIFA+ and official broadcasters including beIN Sports, BBC, ZDF and more to show daily video recaps under the matches section. So if you have missed out on some key moments, you can easily catch up. Image Credits: Google The search giant is soon adding the ability to rate a player based on how users think they will perform in the tournament. They can also compare these scores with other players. Google usually adds a little browser-based game for big events like this and the World Cup is no exception. Once the real-life match is set with line ups, you can choose a team and try and score as many goals as possible in the game. The score of gamers across the world will be added to that team’s total. You will see that score while playing the game as well. Image Credits: Google The company is adding a new label for businesses that will help users discover places that are showing world cup matches. When you search for “Where to watch the world cup near me,” you will see a label saying “Showing the world cup” in the listing for bars and restaurants in Search and Maps. This label will launch just before the world cup and business owners will be able to apply for it at that time. Image Credits: Google YouTube TV subscribers will be able to watch the world cup on FOX and FS1 with gameplay features like real-time highlights, stats, and scores. They can also stream these matches in ultra-high definition if they have subscribed to the 4K Plus add-on. Google TV will show live matches in the “For You” tab and it will add a new row showing world cup content from partners like FIFA+, ITV, Peacock, Telemundo, and ViX. Image Credits: Google

Gmail will no longer allow users to revert back to its old design • ZebethMedia

Google announced today that it’s making the new Gmail interface the standard experience for users. The company first released the new interface earlier this year, but allowed users to revert back to the original view. Starting this month, users will no longer have the option to go back to the old interface. “The integrated view with Gmail, Chat, Spaces, and Meet on the left side of the window will also become standard for users who have turned on Chat,” the company said in a blog post. “Through quick settings, you can customize this new interface to include the apps most important to you, whether it’s Gmail by itself or a combination of Gmail, Chat, Spaces, and Meet.” Image Credits: Google Google notes that the ability to customize the new interface makes it easier to stay on top of what’s important and reduces the need to switch between various applications, windows or tabs. It’s worth noting that with this new change, users will no longer have the option to configure Chat on the right side of Gmail. The company’s decision to make its new user interface the standard experience isn’t surprising, but it will likely be a frustrating change for users who preferred the old design.

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