Google announces 9 new features on Android and Wear OS

Google has introduced new features on Android, Chromebook, and Wear OS that are designed to improve productivity, accessibility and connectivity.

The announcement was made at Mobile World Congress which kicked off yesterday in Barcelona, Spain.

Here’s what’s new.

The Google Keep single note widget is coming soon to help users manage notes and check off to-do lists directly from the Home screen. Syncing with the smartwatch, this widget displays reminders, background colours, and images added to notes from the Keep app.

The company has also introduced two new shortcuts which enable users to create notes and to-do lists with a single tap on their Wear OS smartwatch.

Furthermore, Google Meet now provides noise cancellation during calls on a wide range of Android mobile devices – filtering out distracting background sounds during conversations.

So many new ways to stay productive and keep things fun with friends and family while #RunningAndroid ? Get into updates like Google Keep single note widget and shortcuts for Wear OS, Fast Pair on Chromebook, and many more! https://t.co/GkGJdDejjZ

— Android (@Android) February 27, 2023

In the near future, Fast Pair will be able to connect new Bluetooth headphones to Chromebooks with just one tap. In addition, if the Chromebook user has previously set up headphones on their Android phone, the Chromebook will automatically connect to them as well.

Meanwhile, a new set of emoji combinations is now available on Emoji Kitchen. Also, new tap-to-pay animations will be available next week on Google Wallet to facilitate the confirmation of in-store transactions.

Additionally, Chrome browser now allows users to increase the size of text, images, video and interactive controls by up to 300 percent while maintaining the layout of the page. As part of this feature, they will be able to set their preferred content size as a default, so that they do not need to change it every time they launch Chrome.

Last but not least, Wear OS 3+ will introduce two new audio and display modes to make the watch more accessible. Mono-audio can decrease disorientation caused by split-audio, while colour-correction and grayscale modes provide a greater variety of display options.

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