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Heads up, folks — Google Now is getting even more awesome. Google has revealed some new features for the voice-activated, location-aware service that everyone has fallen in love with. For travelers, Google Now is getting even more awesome with the ability to show rental car information when you need it, just as it now shows you hotel information and flight details. Every part of your itinerary should be covered now, so there should be no reason you are lost on travel day.
A new commute sharing card will allow you to get alerts whenever someone close to you leaves work for home. This is either the perfect tool for lovebirds who can’t stand to be apart, or for folks who want to clean up and stop having fun before the significant other makes their way home. Whatever your disposition, it’s an awesome new feature that I’m sure many people will be able to appreciate.
If you’re going to a concert, Google will automatically pull your ticket up, as well as showing you relevant websites related to the event. Those using public transit will be notified about the last train or bus home. TV enthusiasts can say “listen to TV” to get more information about the TV show they’re watching, including info about the news being mentioned, music being played, actors, and more.
Staying within the theme of multimedia, you can set reminders for music artists, movie actors, directors and TV shows for whenever they have newly released material out. Finally, Google Now supports NCAA football scores and news — simply go into the settings and add your favorite team. We’re not sure where each of these features will work (some features tend to be US or North America only), so until we can figure that out be sure to try everything out for yourself.
Be sure to update to the latest version of Google Search in the Google Play Store to be sure you get all of these features. Let us know how they’re treating you in the comments below.
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Amazing.
I love google now, but I wish they would bake it into Google Search for phones running on older versions of android.. maybe 2.3+
Anything below ICS (4.0) needs to burn and disappear with the dinosaurs. Although I understand why you would like to see GNow in 2.3, it just wouldn’t operate as smoothly.
Burn in HELL.
Sound like my users. They can’t understand why we can’t make our software run faster even though I keep telling them those 10 year old pc with 500megs of main memory ain’t gonna cut it. It wasn’t until I told them something they can relate to that they understood like I wish my dad’s 84 Chevy can sync up with my bluetooth headset.
The moon didn’t appear blue at all last night.
Scratches head…Not sure if this is sarcastic comment or if serious. Assuming best and saying sarcistic.
google is just very unreliable, their info just isn’t correct.
Yes I was being sarcastic
Sarcasm points +100 to you!
my Google Now barely sows me s**t anymore… Just weather, nearby and work distance time. It’s boring… It never brings up items I searched for, or even albums that are out
I just wanted to use it as a “phone search” like on Froyo, so I’ve actually disabled ‘google now’. NOW it actually loads like “butter” :).
The search results though lack any priority sorting. Ex: if i search for my wife’s first name, she’s the 3rd result, behind two contacts that have her name mentioned in the “Notes” section. In other searches it often returns contacts from hidden contact groups first (see “custom views”).
Maybe you are trying to search with another language.. that would make sense..
Everything soon will be Google Now. You won’t be able to do anything on your phone without going through Google Now.
I thought the same thing. I am wondering if Google is evolving this into a “skin” for their OS and not just an app.
It’s a horrible idea. I’ve got it disabled on my phone because it kept getting in the way and draining my battery. However, Google has disabled the long-press of the Search button on my Razr so I have to use Google Now to do voice search easily. That’s evil.
The main thing I don’t like about google now is it doesn’t really work that well if your Gmail account is not your primary account.
Yeah, I’m in the US, and all I get is the weather card. Thanks, Google… it’s summer in Texas, and I really needed you to tell me that it’s 100 degrees outside :P
What I don’t like about Now is that it doesn’t warn you about the options it filtered out and why it did so. I was looking up for a franchise location nearby on Sunday, and although I knew there was one close, it kept sending me to an outlet location. It was correct, because the nearest location didn’t work on Sunday, but at least it could have told me that. I tend not to trust the software that is “too smart” in my opinion.
Thats the silliest thing ive ever read.
He’s unorthodox
Errrr so when you tell Google now you are hungry you want it to show you 100 different restaurants and starbucks in the area that are closed, gone out of business etc so that you can click on each one and see that is closed until you find one that is open.? clearly we ihave different ideas of relevant search results
I don’t think that’s what he meant. I think he’s just asking for a little more transparency. Like tell me why you’re not showing me what I asked for (i.e. because it’s closed) rather than just saying, “oh here are alternatives”.
Sometimes it’s not what is communicated but how it’s communicated that can be the difference between seeing it as a useful tool, or an annoying tool that is cryptic about why it’s showing you what it is (thank you Windows blue screen of death for being a dependable meme).
This is great progression. Keep it up google.
Google now gave me a notification for my flights to my recent trip to Florida, I didn’t even book the flight. My girlfriend booked it, and forwarded me the invoice. So I was surprised that it knew I was flying. Luckily when you get a Now tile there’s a lil question mark at the top that tells you why this tile appears. It was due to that email from my girlfriend. It predicted that id need the flight status. Needless to say I was pretty impressed, and I recently turned on my Google search history, just to see what else it may suggest. Some say may find it creepy and invasive, but I think its pretty neat!
A few weeks ago when I was traveling G now alerted me to a 4 hour flight delay and a gate change 3 hours before the airline displayed it on the board at the airport.
That’s…
wow just tried the listen for tv show on google now. Cant believe it got the game right.
I’m still a little disappointed with Google Now. idk what i expect. I just feel like it could be so much better than it is. I thought after a year of being released, it’d have more cards available than just the weather and time home cards I see 24/7
Exactly… I don’t see anything else besides those 2
Once it gets more capable app launching abilities then I’ll start signing its praises. Also I’d like to see some more hands free stuff, like reading incoming texts, and allowing me to respond in kind while driving. Currently Vlingo InCar is my go to for that. If Google could make Now more like that then it would be killer!