Google is shaking up the way users interact with their Bookmarks, Reading List, and History columns on its Chrome browser with a sleek redesign. The familiar side panel button that once resided in the top-right corner, granting quick access to these features, has vanished from desktop Chrome.
In its place, Chrome users will now navigate through a revamped interface. Instead of relying on the side panel button, which resembles a square-ish icon, users will access most features through the Chrome menu, 9to5Google reported.
Previously, the side panel button predominantly led to the Bookmarks section, with a dropdown menu offering access to other pages. However, with this update, the side panels themselves – including Reading List, Bookmarks, History, Reading Mode, and Search – remain accessible. The notable change is the ability to ‘pin’ preferred panels to a new partitioned section, ensuring immediate access. This behaviour mirrors the convenience of extensions present in today’s Chrome setup.
To access Bookmarks and Reading List, users can navigate to the three-dot overflow menu > Bookmarks and Lists. Meanwhile, History (or “Grouped History”) is located a few spots above, and Reading Mode can be launched via a right-click on a page.
The introduction of the side panel UI dates back to 2022, with gradual expansions to its capabilities, including the integration of Google Lens. Users are witnessing the removal of the side panel button with the rollout of Chrome 123 (stable) on Mac, Windows, and ChromeOS. This change is also influenced by a specific flag: chrome://flags/#side-panel-pinning.
In other news, Google seems to be brewing a nifty feature that could streamline user experience. This feature aims to allow users to deactivate all extensions simultaneously.
According to Gamer Stones, Google is tinkering with the Extension menu of its browser. Upon enabling a flag (chrome://flags/#extensions-menu-access-control) in version 125.0.6398.0, the outlet unearthed a new toggle in the menu. This toggle enables users to disable all active extensions with a single click, potentially proving handy when multiple extensions need deactivation for various reasons.
Furthermore, it appears that active extensions in the menu will sport individual toggles, offering users more precise control. These toggles seem to replace the pin icon, which previously allowed users to pin extensions to their toolbar.
Tech. Tech never changes. Well… okay… tech does a lot of changing – there’s exciting new gadgets released everyday – but one constant in the space is the unrelenting speed with which hardware and software updates roll out (and we really wanted to make a Fallout reference because the new show is fantastic, more on that below).
It’s a flurry that we know can be a struggle to keep up with. So if you feel a little out of the loop on this week’s biggest news, and want to get back up to speed, we’ve collected the seven most important tech stories of the last seven days in this one article to help you out.
Below you’ll find quickfire recaps on all of the latest goings on in the technology space including major Google Photos AI updates, our Fallout thoughts, and which phone is best for eclipse photography. Let’s get into it.
7. We launched a new podcast!
(Image credit: Future)
Of course the biggest tech news story of the week is we have a new podcast – very creatively called the TechRadar Podcast. We’ve taken all the tech chats we’d have on Zoom, Slack and at our desks and put them into a microphone – so you can expect more of the insightful, first-person experiential content we give you on the site in a new audio-and-video-based format.
In our first episode we give you a recap of the year in tech so far – discussing CES 2024 and AI highlights – and show off a demo of the Apple Vision Pro. The show is hosted by our Editor at Large Lance Ulanoff, with Josephine Watson (Managing Editor, Lifestyle), Alex Walker-Todd (Senior Phones Editor) and Matt Evans (Fitness, Wellness, and Wearables Editor) lending their expertise, too. And as a futher bonus we were joined by Tom, The Tech Chap.
It’s available to listen to right now on YouTube and Spotify, and it should be appearing in other podcast feeds over the next few days!
Get the hottest deals available in your inbox plus news, reviews, opinion, analysis, deals and more from the TechRadar team.
These include the Photos app getting a version of Google’s AI-powered Magic Eraser, and Nearby Share getting speed and reliability upgrades. Copilot also got some improvements you try out now, such as plug-in support for third-party services.
That said, Copilot also got a downgrade for some users, as Windows Insiders are saying the AI helper now launches on startup automatically in Windows 11 preview builds – which many have said they find frustrating.
5. We saw how well smartphones captured the eclipse
(Image credit: Future / Lance Ulanoff)
Everyone thinks their flagship smartphone is best and they especially have opinions about the cameras. Editor at Large Lance Ulanoff has tried and tested a lot of these phones and their camera arrays, so he decided to put them to the ultimate celestial test: The US Solar Eclipse.
It was an amazing show – even if New York City didn’t get totality – and a great showcase for the optical zoom capabilities of the iPhone 15 Pro Max, Google Pixel 8 Pro, and Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra. The only rule was no digital zoom.
The photos, which only worked because we used three tripods and an eclipse glasses lens as a filter, were way better than we expected. You might, though, be surprised by which phone did best.
4. Spotify’s playlist-making AI brought the party
(Image credit: Spotify)
Spotify has been steadily integrating more AI into its music streaming platform, and it’s now released a playlist-making bot for all Premium subscribers in the UK and Australia.
It’s in beta, currently – read: it’s a little rough around the edges – but the idea is you give the AI a prompt like “hard hitting beats that’ll help me ace my next workout” or “relaxing music to tide me over during allergy season” and it’ll spit out a selection of tracks.
There are some prompt restrictions, for instance you can’t make playlists for current events, for brands or use offensive language – but you can have a lot of fun with the tool. And if it doesn’t get things quite right you can add follow up prompts such as “more death metal” or “less upbeat” to fine-tune the selection. And of course you can also straight up delete tracks you hate.
3. Google gave away its Magic Editor – kinda
(Image credit: Google)
Google’s impressive AI image editing software, Magic Editor, is currently exclusive to paying Google One subscribers and Google Pixel 8 – or Pixel 8 Pro – phone owners, but this week Google announced that come May 15 all Google Photos users will have access to the tool for free.
Thanks to Magic Editor you can erase annoyances in your shot, reposition your subjects, cleverly adjust the lighting, and unblur your snaps to help make your favorite shots look even better – all you need is Google Photos and a smartphone with at least 3GB RAM and that’s running Android 8.0 / iOS 15 or higher.
Unfortunately, the free version only allows you to save 10 edited images a month but if you like the service you can pay for Google One or buy a Pixel phone to remove the restriction.
2. Fallout blew us away
(Image credit: JoJo Whilden/Prime Video)
Prime Video’s hotly anticipated Fallout show released this week, and it continues the golden age of video game adaptations we’ve seen in recent years through Netflix‘s Castlevania and Arcane, HBO’s The Last of Us, and even the big-screen takes on Sonic and Mario.
We watched the first four episodes, and found the ambitious adaptation is nothing less than “atomically entertaining” with a “satisfying blend of source material devotion and narrative originality.” Sure, there’s odd bump in the road, but these blemishes do little to spoil the luster of what is yet another fantastic video-game-to-TV adaption.
If you want to watch it yourself then you can binge the whole eight-episode first season on Prime Video right now.
1. Google launched its take on Apple’s Find My network
(Image credit: Google)
Android fans have been waiting for more than a year for Google’s rebooted Find My Device network – and this week it finally arrived. The feature, which is rolling out worldwide starting in the US and Canada, works in much the same way as Apple’s Find My network. Because it anonymously piggybacks millions of Android devices around the world, the network can show you precisely where your lost phone is – even if it’s offline.
If you have a Google Pixel 8 or Pixel 8 Pro, the network even helps you find your phone when it’s powered off. We’ve also just seen the arrival of the first Find My Device-compatible trackers, courtesy of Chipolo and Pebblebee, which attach to your wallet, keys or luggage. We might attach one to our cat too, just to foil its hide-and-seek plans.
iQoo Neo 9s Pro is currently in development, according to recent reports, and the company’s purported addition to the Neo series of smartphones could be equipped with two different chipsets. A few months ago, the iQoo Neo 9 Pro was launched in China with a MediaTek Dimensity SoC, while the global variant arrived with a Snapdragon chip. The upcoming iQoo Neo 9s Pro, on the other hand, could arrive with a MediaTek chip in international markets, while the Chinese variant might feature a flagship Snapdragon processor.
Weibo user ‘Experience more’ (translated from Chinese) spotted the iQoo Neo 9s Pro on the China Quality Certification Centre (CQC) website with the model number V299FA. The entry for the purported iQoo Neo 9s Pro on the website reveals that it will be equipped with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset in China. It will also support wired charging at 120W, while the charging brick will support USB PD and PPS charging at 100W, as per the listing.
Last month, another Chinese tipster shared details of a new iQoo smartphone that could debut as the iQoo Neo 9s, iQoo Neo 9 Racing Edition, or the iQoo Neo 10 model. It is said to be powered by a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset and sport a 1.5K OLED screen. The handset is also tipped to feature a 50-megapixel primary rear camera with support for optical image stabilisation.
If iQoo launches the Neo 9s Pro in global markets, it could arrive with a different mobile processor. According to a recent report, the handset was spotted on the Google Play Console with the model number V2339FA and a MediaTek Dimensity 9300 chipset, along with 12GB of RAM. The other specifications of the handset are expected to match the Chinese model.
The iQoo Neo 9 Pro that was launched in international markets, including India, is powered by a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip, paired with a dedicated Q1 chip. The phone comes with up to 12GB of RAM and up to 256GB of inbuilt storage. The smartphone sports a 6.78-inch 1.5K AMOLED screen and packs a 5,160mAh battery with support for 120W charging.
Affiliate links may be automatically generated – see our ethics statement for details.
Google knows everything! Whether it’s your favourite place, your favourite music, or anything else, Google gives you accurate results whenever you search on its platform. This is primarily because Google saves all these activities in your Google account. The company uses this data to provide a personalised experience based on your search history. However, if you don’t want Google to track your search history, it’s better to delete it simply.
Moreover, you can also turn off the tracking. So, how do you do it? In this guide, we will give you a step-by-step guide for deleting your activity on Google search.
Delete your Google search history on your PC or Mac
One can quickly delete the Google search history and other activities on your laptop or PC. Here’s everything you need to know.
Delete Search History on Chrome
Follow these steps to delete the search history on Google Chrome installed on your PC or Mac system.
Open Google Chrome on your laptop or PC, then click on three vertical dots in the top-right corner.
Go to the History option and click History from the menu. Alternatively, you can also press Cltr + H on Windows or Cmd + Y on Mac.
Now, click on Clear Browsing data, which will appear on the left side of the menu.
Tick the mark on the Browsing history box and then click on Clear Data.
With this, you can delete your Google search history from your Chrome browser. However, it is important to note that the above-mentioned method will only delete your Google search history from the Chrome browser,
Delete Search History from your Google Account
If you want to delete my activity history, you need to delete it from your Google account. Clearing all the history from your account will delete the search history from all the devices you are logged in to, websites you have visited, and even the videos you have watched. Here’s how you can do it.
Open Google Chrome and search for Google’s My Activity page.
Login or select the desired account from which you want to delete the search history.
Just beneath the search bar, you will find the Delete option.
Select the range from which you want to delete the search history. You can also select All Time to delete all the Google search history.
You will see a pop-up message to confirm whether you want to delete your Search history. Click on Delete.
With this, Google will clear all the browsing history from your Google account.
Delete your Google Search History on Android
One can also effortlessly delete the search history on your Android smartphone. There are two ways through which you can delete the Google search history from your Android phone, including Google Search and Google Chrome. Here’s how you can do it:
Via Google Search App
Follow these steps to delete your history using the Google Search application:
Open the Google application on your Android smartphone and then click on your profile image.
Go to Search History from the menu.
Select the Delete option and select the date range according to your need. You can select from Today, a custom range, Delete All Time, and more.
Once done, select the Delete option and your search history will be deleted automatically.
Via Google Chrome
In this section, we will discuss how to delete Google search history from the Chrome browser on your Android smartphone.
Open the Google Chrome application on your Android device and tap on the three dots in the top-right corner.
Select History from the menu and then tap on Clear browsing data.
Tap on the Browsing history option from the list and select the time range.
Once done, tap on Clear Data.
Delete your Google Search History on iOS
Deleting your Google search history on iOS is slightly different from Android. Here’s how you can do it:
Open the Google Chrome application on your iOS device.
Tap on the three horizontal dots at the bottom right corner of the app.
Tap on the History option from the menu.
Now, tap on Clear Browsing Data at the bottom of the app.
From the menu, select Browsing History from the options. Moreover, select the time range for the browsing history you want to delete.
Tap on the Clear Browsing button and then again on the same to confirm.
With this, you can easily delete your browsing history on your iOS device.
How to set the Auto-Delete for Google My Activity History
Google also allows you to auto-delete your search history. The Google My Activity page allows you to delete your search, web, and activity history every three, 18, or 36 months. Here’s how to activate this feature.
Open the Google My Activity page on your Chrome or any other browser.
Go to the Web & App Activity section and scroll down to the Auto-delete option.
Click on Choose an auto-delete option and select the duration of the auto-delete activity. One can select from three, 18, or 36 months.
Click on Next, and you will see a list of search histories for that tenure. Click on Confirm.
This will allow you to auto-delete all search activity from your Google account for a fixed tenure.
How to Stop Tracking in Google My Activity?
Many users don’t want Google to track their browsing history. However, the company gives you the option to limit its tracking on the My Activity page. Here’s how you can stop tracking your search history:
Open the My Activity page on your desktop or mobile device.
Click on the Web & App Activity section and select Turn off on the next page.
This will allow you to stop tracking in the future. However, please note that turning off tracking may affect the personalized experience that Google provides based on your search history. Moreover, you can use the same steps to turn off Location History and YouTube history on the My Activity page.
The stock market has punished Apple Inc. this year for failing to offer a vision of where its future growth will come from. The shares caught a bid Thursday after the tech giant took a step toward providing an answer.
Apple’s decision to overhaul its Mac computer line to focus on artificial intelligence, as reported by Bloomberg, struck a chord with investors, sending the stock up 4.3% and adding $112 billion in value in its best performance in nearly a year.
“Any announcement that pushes AI into consumer hardware could be very beneficial for Apple,” said Anthony Saglimbene, chief market strategist at Ameriprise Financial. “However, the impact is yet to be determined.”
That will be key for assessing whether this latest rally can be sustained. Before Thursday’s announcement, the stock was down 15% from its record high set in December, wiping out more than $460 billion in market value. Trading close to its cheapest level in about a year, bargain-hunters clearly could justify taking a chance on Apple’s latest stab at AI relevance.
Sustaining this momentum, however, will depend on Apple’s ability to deliver on the promise of growth. For the Cupertino, California-based tech giant, that likely means getting AI into the iPhone.
The stock gained 0.5% on Friday.
Trading at Discount
“We think Apple will come back,” said Daniel Skelly, head of Morgan Stanley’s wealth management market research and strategy team. “It is hard to bet against some of the perennial winners forever.”
Apple has paid mightily for its recent stagnation. It’s one of the weakest performers among the so-called Magnificent Seven this year, trailing only Tesla Inc. That has made it relatively cheap.
The stock trades at 26 times earnings, a discount to megacap peers such as Microsoft Corp. It’s less expensive than the Nasdaq 100 benchmark, which has an average multiple of 27, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
The underperformance reflects the lack of a defined AI strategy and several quarters of weak trends, despite the company’s strong financial position and proven revenue generation.
“It has all these defensive qualities, like its cash flow, balance sheet and buybacks,” said Skelly. “It will start outlining more clarity and visibility around its AI pipeline, and while it may not be this year, expectations are building for an AI-enabled iPhone. In other words, it is becoming increasingly attractive.”
Hedge Fund Enthusiasm
JPMorgan Chase & Co. sees rising enthusiasm for Apple among hedge fund investors, as its reduced valuation and AI tailwinds offset challenges in China and the company’s services business.
Hedge funds are eyeing the headwinds for an entry point while “increasingly warming up to the opportunity of the AI upgrade cycle,” according to JPMorgan analyst Samik Chatterjee, who has an outperform rating on the stock, in a recent note.
The broader hope for Apple investors is that AI will be the catalyst that spurs a re-acceleration of growth. Margins are tight as revenue has declined in four of the past five quarters, and analysts expect sales to contract by 4.6% in its second-quarter results, which will be released in coming weeks. While this represents some of Apple’s weakest growth in decades, the upside is revenue is expected to gradually rebound later this year.
“Investors have historically underestimated Apple’s gross margins and it appears that it is happening again,” Bank of America Corp. analyst Wamsi Mohan wrote in a note to clients. “We see gross margins at Apple headed significantly higher, driven by increased mix of services within the overall portfolio,” he added.
Google One users received disappointing news today as Google announced the discontinuation of its VPN feature in the coming months. Introduced back in October 2020, the VPN by Google One aimed to provide an extra layer of online protection for Android users, promising peace of mind regarding data safety. Despite its initial promise, Google revealed that usage of the VPN feature was significantly lower than anticipated, leading to its discontinuation.
Reasons for Discontinuation
Initially available exclusively to Premium plan subscribers at $9.99 per month, the VPN was later offered at a reduced rate of $1.99 per month in March 2023. However, even with the price drop, adoption rates remained low, prompting Google to shift its focus to more in-demand features within the Google One platform, reported 9to5google.
The decision to sunset the VPN feature aligns with Google’s recent efforts to streamline its services and prioritize features with higher user engagement. Earlier this year, Google One celebrated reaching 100 million subscribers, with CEO Sundar Pichai highlighting it as a key growth area driven by AI technology.
Existing users of the VPN by Google One will be directed to third-party VPN alternatives, with no specific timeline provided for the discontinuation. However, Google assures users that the transition process will be seamless.
Despite the discontinuation of the Google One VPN, Pixel users need not worry, as the free Pixel VPN introduced with the Pixel 7 series in 2022 remains unaffected. Moreover, an exciting upgrade is on the horizon for Pixel 7 users, with the introduction of the big VPN upgrade initially introduced with the Pixel 8. This upgrade, scheduled for June, will provide users of older Pixel devices with an enhanced VPN experience, eliminating the need for the Google One app and persistent notifications.
Additionally, Google Fi users can continue to access the VPN available with their service, ensuring that they maintain a secure online experience. While the discontinuation of the VPN by Google One may disappoint some users, the upcoming enhancements to Pixel VPN and continued availability of VPN services through Google Fi offer alternatives for those seeking online protection.
One more thing! We are now on WhatsApp Channels! Follow us there so you never miss any updates from the world of technology. To follow the HT Tech channel on WhatsApp, click here to join now!
Most of the best robots, ones that can walk, run, climb steps, and do parkour, do not have faces, and there may be a good reason for that. If any of them did have mugs like the one on this new research robot, we’d likely stop in our tracks in front of them, staring wordlessly as they ran right over us.
Building robots with faces and the ability to mimic human expressions is an ongoing fascination in the robotics research world but, even though it might take less battery power and fewer load-bearing motors to make it work, the bar is much much higher for a robot smile than it is for a robot jump.
Even so, Columbia Engineering’s development of its newest robot, Emo and “Human-robot Facial Co-Expression” is impressive and important work. In a recently published scientific paper and YouTube video, researchers describe their work and demonstrate Emo’s ability to make eye contact and instantly imitate and replicate human expression.
To say that the robot’s series of human-like expressions are eerie would be an understatement. Like so many robot faces of its generation, its head shape, eyes, and silicon skin all resemble a human face but not enough to avoid the dreaded uncanny valley.
That’s okay, because the point of Emo is not to put a talking robot head in your home today. This is about programming, testing, and learning … and maybe getting an expressive robot in your home in the future.
Emo’s eyes are equipped with two high-resolution cameras that let it make “eye contact” and, using one of its algorithms, watch you and predict your facial expressions.
Because human interaction often involves modeling, meaning that we often unconsciously imitate the movements and expressions of those we interact with (cross your arms in a group and gradually watch everyone else cross their arms), Emo uses its second model to mimic the facial expression it predicted.
Get the hottest deals available in your inbox plus news, reviews, opinion, analysis, deals and more from the TechRadar team.
“By observing subtle changes in a human face, the robot could predict an approaching smile 839 milliseconds before the human smiled and adjust its face to smile simultaneously.” write the researchers in their paper.
In the video, Emo’s expressions change as rapidly as the researcher’s. No one would claim that its smile looks like a normal, human smile, that its look of sadness isn’t cringeworthy, or its look of surprise isn’t haunting, but its 26 under-the-skin actuators get pretty close to delivering recognizable human expression.
(Image credit: Columbia Engineering)
“I think that predicting human facial expressions represents a big step forward in the field of human-robot interaction. Traditionally, robots have not been designed to consider humans,” said Columbia PhD Candidate, Yuhang Hu, in the video.
How Emo learned about human expressions is even more fascinating. To understand how its own face and motors work, the researchers put Emo in front of a camera and let it make any facial expression it wanted. This taught Emo the connection between its motor movements and the resulting expressions.
They also trained the AI on real human expressions. The combination of these training methods gets Emo about as close to instantaneous human expression as we’ve seen on a robot.
The goal, note researchers in the video, is for Emo to possibly become a front end for an AI or Artificial General Intelligence (basically a thinking AI).
Tech company Western Digital breaks new ground as they have created the world’s first 4TB microSD card for laptops and cameras, the SanDisk Extreme PRO SDUC UHS-1 memory card. The company says the upcoming SanDisk model is set to release next year “and will be showcased at NAB 2024” in Las Vegas.
We can infer much about the upcoming card’s performance by looking at its name. UHS-1 refers to the Ultra High Speed-1 interface, which boasts a maximum data transfer rate of 104 MB/s, according to AnandTech. High transfer speeds don’t really matter to the average person, as slower cards can meet most people’s needs, but speed matters greatly to photographers.
Photographers who take a ton of pictures in rapid succession using a camera’s burst mode need SD cards that can keep up with them. Plus, the SanDisk 4TB card reportedly meets Video Speed Class V30, allowing it to support write speeds of 30MB/s. AnandTech states that level of speed is “good enough for 8K video recording.” If you’re going to shoot footage in 8K, you’ll need all the space you can get.
Speculation
Besides that, very little is known about the SanDisk 4TB card, but its name does offer more interesting tidbits. SDUC, for example, stands for Secure Digital Ultra Capacity, which is a storage standard enabling drives of up to a theoretical maximum of 128TB.
AnandTech speculates the device could “support the off-spec DDR200/DDR208 mode” to push transfer rates beyond what UHS-1 can do normally. Speeds can get as high as 170 MB/s, as seen with the SanDisk Extreme Pro SDXC 1TB card. We wouldn’t be surprised if this new card has the same level of performance, if not a better. Of course, that’s assuming Western Digital decides to implement it in the first place.
For what it’s worth, the 1TB Extreme Pro card retails for $140 on Amazon at the time of this writing. The 4TB SanDisk card will likely retail for several hundred dollars more.
Be sure to check out TechRadar’s list of the best SD cards for 2024. Spoiler alert: SanDisk shows up three times.
Get the hottest deals available in your inbox plus news, reviews, opinion, analysis, deals and more from the TechRadar team.
MSI, which releases some of the best gaming PCs in the market, is launching several lines of desktops including the Aegis 14th series, Codex 14th series, and the newly released Vision 14th Series. Each one features 14th-Gen Intel Core processors and Nvidia RTX 4000-series graphics cards, though the exact configurations differ.
The Vision Elite is the flagship PC that has a single model type, while the Codex and Aegis lines have two model types that differ in color and chassis design. There’s not too much information on the Codex and Aegis lines right now, but as more is revealed we will make sure to update you.
Vision Elite
(Image credit: MSI)
This is the flagship gaming PC of the Vision Elite line and it’s outfitted with the highest-end components and chassis features a panoramic tempered glass panel that shows off the internals including the gorgeous RGB lighting.
Spec-wise, you’ll get an Intel Core i9-14900KF processor, Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card, 32GB DDR5 RAM, 2TB M.2 NVMe SSD storage, and a 1000W power supply. It also supports WIFI 7 and includes Bluetooth 5.4 support alongside a 2.5G LAN port. This configuration will have an MSRP of $4,299.99 and can be found on the official MSI store.
Aegis series
(Image credit: MSI)
The Aegis series features configurations with distinct faceplates that include mesh-like designs as well as venting through the aluminum side panel. This ensures great performance from the powerful hardware within by improving airflow throughout the system.
We don’t have any specific configuration or pricing information regarding the Aegis series. It comes in two different colors, white and black.
Codex series
(Image credit: MSI)
The Codex series, like the Aegis line of gaming desktops, is also refreshed with two new chassis styles with augments to airflow and design. It’s meant to invoke the look of a PC built from scratch by using standardized parts, according to MSI.
Get the hottest deals available in your inbox plus news, reviews, opinion, analysis, deals and more from the TechRadar team.
We don’t have any specific configuration or pricing information regarding the Codex series, either, but you can expect it to feature current-gen parts including DDR5 and PCIe 5.0 support.
