Google Now update brings more cards, voice actions and more
Google has been busy today, it seems, as it has had to launch three new devices despite Hurricane Sandy limiting their ability to do so at a live unveiling event. Now the efforts have been taken to the Google Play Store where Google Now is seeing an upgrade. A lot of new changes have been made with this new version.
For starters, we’ve got new voice actions that will allow you to set a meeting entry in your calendar, pull up your next meeting/appointment at any given time, and launch apps. There are also new cards for nearby attractions and photo spots, movies opening in nearby theaters, concerts going on, and more.
Even more, Google Now now works with Gmail (but it’s English only for now), supports flights, restaurant reservations, hotel confirmations, events, packages scheduled to be shipped to you and more.
Personally I’ve only gotten the new calendar features, Gmail and the package tracking to work. I have WWE 13 headed my way tomorrow morning via Amazon and Google Now sent me a notification as soon as I updated the Google Search app letting me know its status.
I’m not sure if the status updates are real time yet so I’ll have to wait for it to change in the wee hours of the morning to see how that goes. Finally, the Gmail integration allowed me to send an email to a contact without having to type a word.
As for the rest I haven’t been able to get them going just yet but I’ll see what I can do to trigger some of these new cards and automatic notifications. In the meantime be sure to get your upgrade from the Google Play Store and let us know which new features you were able to use and see.
