Google Maps can now remember your parking spot

Google Maps quietly added a sweet new feature that will help you remember where you parked. Just park the car, open up Google Maps, and tap on the blue location dot. You'll be presented with a new menu offering to "save your parking" which lets you store everything you need to find your car again.

The new interface will save your current location and slap a big "P" icon on the map. This wouldn't be enough for a multistory parking garage though, so you can bring up a new interface that lets you save a ton of information. You can adjust the dot location, add photos to your parking spot, and type notes. If there's a parking meter, you can even set a "time left" field that will count down the time remaining.

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from Google Maps can now remember your parking spot

Parents can now create Google accounts for their kids with Google Family Link

For the first time ever, Google is targeting children under 13 for account creation. The new "Google Family Link" app allows parents to make special Google accounts for kids under 13, which can be monitored and locked down. Right now, the program is in a US-only, invite-only "early access" beta, and the child's device has the hefty requirement of running Android 7.0 Nougat and up.

In the US, the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) restricts the collection of data on children under 13, requiring parental notification and consent. Previously Google complied with this law by banning kids under 13 from making an account. Google has created some kid-focused products in the past, namely YouTube Kids, but that app did not have a login feature—a bummer for anyone who wanted customization or their ad-free YouTube Red subscription to work.

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Samsung commits to monthly security updates for unlocked US smartphones

Google is turning Hangouts into a Slack competitor

With the launch of Google Allo—Google's newest (and something like ninth) instant messaging client—Google's older IM service, Google Hangouts, was put on notice. The company didn't have much concrete information on what it would do with Hangouts, only offering a vague indication that it would get a reboot focused on "business." Today, the company showed off the future of Hangouts: it's going to be a Slack competitor.

"Hangouts Chat" is Google's latest entry in the communication space, after the Android SMS app, Google Talk, Voice, Buzz, G+ Messenger, Hangouts, Spaces, and Allo. This one is a straight-up Slack clone, with rooms people can join and auto-completed @[username] mentions. Discussions are threaded, a feature Slack has been experimenting with recently, but, in Hangouts Chat, threading seems to be much more front-and-center. While Slack is "optionally threaded," Hangouts Chat is more like "threaded by default"—the main input bar is actually labeled "Create a new discussion."

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Google’s reCAPTCHA turns “invisible,” will separate bots from people without challenges

Google's reCAPTCHA is the leading CAPTCHA service (that's "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart") on the Web. You've probably seen CAPTCHAs a million times on sign-up pages across the Web; to separate humans from spam bots, a challenge will pop up asking you to decipher a picture of words or numbers, pick out objects in a grid of pictures, or just click a checkbox. Now, though, you're going to be seeing CAPTCHAs less and less, not because Google is getting rid of them but because Google is making them invisible.

The old reCAPTCHA system was pretty easy—just a simple "I'm not a robot" checkbox would get people through your sign-up page. The new version is even simpler, and it doesn't use a challenge or checkbox. It works invisibly in the background, somehow, to identify bots from humans. Google doesn't go into much detail on how it works, only saying that the system uses "a combination of machine learning and advanced risk analysis that adapts to new and emerging threats." More detailed information on how the system works would probably also help bot-makers crack it, so don't expect details to pop up any time soon.

reCAPTCHA was bought by Google in 2009 and was used to put unsuspecting website users to work for Google. Some CAPTCHA systems create arbitrary problems for users to solve, but older reCAPTCHA challenges actually used problems Google's computers needed to solve but couldn't. Google digitizes millions of books, but sometimes the OCR (optical character recognition) software can't recognize a word, so that word is sent into the reCAPTCHA system for solving by humans. If you've ever solved a reCAPTCHA that looks like a set of numbers, those were from Google's camera-covered Street View cars, which whizz down the streets and identify house numbers. If the OCR software couldn't figure out a house number, that number was made into a CAPTCHA for solving by humans. The grid of pictures that would ask you to "select all the cats" was used to train computer image recognition algorithms.

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Nest reportedly planning a cheaper smart thermostat for “under $200”

Walking the 2.5 million square feet of MWC 2017

 

BARCELONA—Most pictures you find of Mobile World Congress (MWC) are likely to be the same thing: a picture of a smartphone or tablet tethered to a table. MWC is more than just a collection of smartphones on tables, though. It's always fun to point the camera at all the other things that happen at the big show to bring a bit of the MWC experience home. MWC is full of massive crowds and hundreds of vendors all competing for attention. The need to stand out leads to a crazy atmosphere, with interesting booth designs, LED light shows, sculptures. decorations, and all sorts of fun booth gimmicks.

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Sony’s Xperia Touch projector turns any surface into an Android device

BARCELONA—Not every device at Mobile World Congress is a phone or tablet—Sony is launching the "Xperia Touch," a portable short-throw laser projector that turns any surface into a touchable Android device. Sony has shown off the device at various tech conferences as a "concept," but in Barcelona, Sony is announcing the device as a real product, albeit for the eye-popping price of €1,499 ($1,588, probably ~£1,400).

The device is a 134mm × 143mm × 69 mm (5.3 × 5.6 × 2.7 inches) metal box with all the usual smartphone parts, but instead of a screen, it has an LCoS laser projector with auto focus. As the name implies, the Xperia Touch also supports touch controls through a combination of an IR array and a 60fps camera.

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Huawei P10 hands-on: Basically an iPhone 7 clone, which is good and bad

BARCELONA, SPAIN—We're making the rounds at Mobile World Congress checking out all the new flagship smartphones, and next up is Huawei's latest: the P10 and P10 Plus. The rumors on the P10 Plus claiming it had a curved screen were totally wrong; the 5.1-inch P10 and 5.5-inch P10 Plus have identical, flat-screen designs.

The P10 looks and feels just like an iPhone 7, which is both a ding on the design and very high praise for the build quality. As usual, Huawei does a great job building an aluminum phone that just oozes quality. It feels super solid, and the smooth, rounded edges make it a joy to hold.

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Nokia 6 hands-on: A metal phone with stock Android?! Someone is listening!

BARCELONA, SPAIN—We're at Mobile World Congress, where a ton of new smartphones are launching, but MWC is also serving as the debut of a brand-new Android OEM. That company is HMD, a new Finnish upstart that seems like it was purpose-built to undo the damage Microsoft did to the Nokia smartphone brand. The company is made up of a ton of old-guard Nokia employees and has licensed the Nokia brand for smartphones.

Unfortunately, HMD didn't announce a high-end flagship smartphone at its MWC event. It did bring the Nokia 6, Nokia 5, and Nokia 3, which all start with a Snapdragon 430 and work their way down the spec totem pole from there. This is a brand-new OEM, though, so a look at the Nokia 6 will help us get to know HMD a bit better.

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Xperia XZ Premium hands on: Sony powerhouse has a Snapdragon 835, 4K LCD

Ron Amadeo

BARCELONA, Spain—Mobile World Congress is well underway, and the latest flagship to pop up is Sony's Xperia XZ Premium. If the LG G6 is a rejection of the specs race in favor of a slick new design, the Sony Xperia XZ is the complete opposite—the same boring old Sony design with a monster spec sheet. How monstrous? How about a Snapdragon 835 and a 4K screen? Oh, and a camera that can record at nearly 1000FPS.

Despite the rumors that Samsung was hogging all the Snapdragon 835s for itself, Sony has brought a device with Qualcomm's top-of-the-line 2017 SoC to MWC. Of course Sony wouldn't give us a release date for this device; the launch could be months away, and the Galaxy S8 could still be the first for-sale Snapdragon 835 device ever. In the short time I had to try the XZ, it felt fast. Qualcomm promises "27 percent more performance with 40 percent less power" with the new chip. You'll need all that extra horsepower to pump out games and the occasional video in 4K.

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Nokia 3310 hands-on: It’s hard not to like this modern take on the feature phone

BARCELONA, SPAIN—Feature phones are cool again! At least that's the feeling you get when you are holding the new Nokia 3310, a candy bar feature phone made out of weapons-grade nostalgia. It doesn't really have apps, you'll be texting with T9, it has a new color version of Snake, and of course it plays the traditional Nokia tone when you get a call.

The new 3310 is no longer a "brick." It's a lot rounder than the old one—it feels like a well-worn river rock. I actually would have liked if it was a little squarer and more reminiscent of the original. Given that it has a really light plastic body (79g) and a plastic screen, it can probably stand up to lots of abuse (though no one would let me test this at the event).

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from Nokia 3310 hands-on: It’s hard not to like this modern take on the feature phone

Huawei Watch 2 hands-on—This feels like a last-gen smartwatch

BARCELONA, SPAIN—We're just getting started at Mobile World Congress 2017, and the latest new gadget revealed is the Huawei Watch 2. Huawei's flagship smartwatch is getting a upgrade, and this version has GPS, NFC, optional LTE, and is launching with Android Wear 2.0.

There are actually two Huawei Watches: The "Huawei Watch 2" and the "Huawei Watch 2 Classic." The classic version is made of metal, has a 22mm watch band, and looks a lot like the original Huawei Watch, while the non-classic version is "sportier" (read: made totally of rubbery plastic), has a 20mm watch band, and has optional LTE. The materials, band size, weight, and LTE availability are really the only two differences between the watches.

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LG G6 Hands On: A beautiful design with a disappointing processor

Ron Amadeo

BARCELONA, Spain—We're live from Mobile World Congress, and the time has come for the stampede of high-end Android devices to begin. The first out of the gate—and one of the best looking—is the LG G6, a gorgeous slim-bezeled phone with a truly questionable SoC choice.

After the failure of the LG G5—the company lost nearly $400 million in Q3 2016, which it blamed on "weak sales of [the] G5"—LG is scrapping just about everything from its prior flagship. The modularity is gone, as is the removable battery. Instead, we get a simple slab phone with IP68 water resistance.

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Google Assistant comes to every Android phone, 6.0 and up

BlackBerry KeyOne Hands On—BlackBerry wants $549 for mid-range device

Ron Amadeo

BARCELONA, Spain—Mobile World Congress is starting right now, and BlackBerry is the first out of the gate with a new phone. Remember the "BlackBerry Mercury" from CES? That phone is now the BlackBerry KeyOne, a mid-range QWERTY-bar phone.

The release of the KeyOne marks the end of BlackBerry's days as a hardware manufacturer. While the KeyOne seems like it was designed by BlackBerry, from now on the hardware will be outsourced to TCL, a Chinese company that also owns the Alcatel brand. We've already seen the beginnings of this with the DTEK line, but the KeyOne looks like the last "BlackBerry" BlackBerry phone.

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What to expect at MWC: Five flagship smartphones and the return of the brick

No key, no login: G Suite admins can now make FIDO security keys mandatory

Galaxy S8 gets pictured with display on; new button design leaks, too

Ice Universe

Although the Galaxy S8 won't be at Mobile World Congress, it's expected to have an unveiling sometime in March. But that hasn't stopped the leaks from coming. Today, we have yet another drip of info about Samsung's upcoming flagship.

After showing off pictures with the screen off, Twitter user "Ice Universe" has some convincing pictures of the device with the screen on. They give us a great idea of just how slim the bezels are, and we can see the rounded display corners, just like the Xiaomi Mi Mix and the upcoming LG G6.

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Moto G5 and G5 Plus listings briefly go live early with pictures, specs

@davidteixe

Mobile World Congress is right around the corner, and all sorts of smartphones are expected to be announced. Apparently, Motorola has a bit of an untended leak on its hands—Spanish retailer Ktronix accidentally went live with press pictures and specs of some upcoming budget smartphones. The page was quickly taken down, but nothing like this ever disappears from the Internet, and in this case, some Twitter users (@davidteixe, @LSAwesome) managed to snag some pictures. Evan Blass saw the leak party and joined in with a picture, too.

The Moto G5 and G5 Plus look nearly identical, and not far off from the Moto G4. They have a hardware fingerprint reader that looks just like a physical home button but apparently isn't one, given that the devices have on-screen navigation buttons. The backs of the devices pick up a camera arrangement that looks a lot like the Moto Z—a big, round cutout in the back houses the camera equipment. On the G5 Plus, this section seems to stick out of the device; on the G5 the camera section is flush with the device.

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