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Google Assistant turns three this year. Whether you love it or not, it’s the AI for everyone. Google’s intelligent little helper has been powering almost every other smartphone for the past few years, getting better and smarter each day. Despite its dominance on mobile devices, Google shows no signs of slowing down. Aggressive marketing, widespread device integration and new innovations show where Google is placing its eggs.

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An issue appeared on a number of OnePlus 7 Pro units over the past week having to do with its touchscreen. Several users reported their OnePlus 7 Pro triggering its touchscreen in either the upper-right or upper-left of the display - without their finger. Does your OnePlus 7 Pro have an issue such as this?

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This week a report cited multiple sources from Snapchat describing the non-private nature of the apps' back end. Both iPhone (iOS) and Android versions of the app notwithstanding, Snapchat user data (including Snaps) are accessible with a tool called SnapLion. The SnapLion software is supposedly only accessible by Snapchat employees - but as the rules of the internet state: If it's data that exists, it can be shared.

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While instant messaging and chat is probably still the most popular way to communicate with a group of people, some find it more efficient and practical to actually say what they want face to face. Group video calls are definitely better when facial expressions and body language are just as important as the words being said or when you need to actually show things rather than fumble around with words to describe them. To that end, group calling is now being made available to Google Duo users but with one very important catch.

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Finding something to eat is difficult enough without having to browse through the various services that would like to deliver it to you. There are a lot of them these days too, so Google is trying to streamline the food delivery process by surfacing new features in Search, Maps, and Assistant when you look for food, hopefully decreasing the time between that initial search and when it shows up at your door.

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It was more than a year ago that Google started rolling support for transit tickets into Google Wallet, and now it's looking to further simplify the process of riding public transit. Today, Google announced a new "pay-per-ride" feature for Google Pay, meaning you can use your phone to pay for single-ride tickets instead of buying multi-ride passes ahead of time. Going hand-in-hand with this update to Google Pay are a new transit-related features for both Google Maps and Google Assistant.

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It's almost old news by now. The US government, courtesy of an executive order from President Donald Trump, has blacklisted Huawei from buying from or selling to US companies. That has caused Google, Qualcomm, and ARM to withdraw support from the Chinese manufacturer, three companies that have a mutually beneficial relationship with Huawei. It has gotten a temporary and short reprieve but, unless the situation changes, the hammer will fall again. Disregarding political and economic considerations, the effects of this ban won't just cause headaches for Huawei, it could also throw the Android world into disarray.

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Google Duplex, the AI-powered restaurant reservation service which made headlines last year, relies on humans to make calls more often than you might think, new tests have revealed. Google unveiled Duplex at I/O 2018, wowing attendees with a demo of its AI-powered Assistant calling a restaurant and discussing a reservation with staff there, all apparently independent of the human user.

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Google Search is getting a makeover, with results set to add recognizable brands and more in order to make finding your answer even quicker. The update will be showing up in mobile results first, Google says, though it coincidentally arrives in the midst of an indexing glitch that has left the search giant ignoring new content.

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Starting next month, Google will require advertisers to certify whether they provide abortions before they can run advertisements related to the medical procedure. The new Google Ads policy targets misleading advertisements directing women in need of an abortion to anti-abortion groups. Advertisers that don't actually provide abortions will have their advertisements listed with a disclosure revealing this fact to viewers.

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Today we're going to run down the effective Huawei ban list, the basics in China-based spy fears, and the fallout. This has a little to do with ZTE, a lot to do with China's government, and what might be the worst bout of luck a company ever had (with regard to their native country's timing for a trade war with the United States). But most importantly, we're going to list all the places Huawei's been banned, rejected, or removed in the recent past.

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Phones like the OnePlus 5 and OnePlus 6 will get a new set of features in an update that'll make them more like OnePlus 7. The OnePlus 7/Pro has a set of features like Zen Mode and Screen Recorder that push the already-excellent phone into the "so many features that I'll probably never use them all" zone. That's a good place to be, especially for people that already own a OnePlus phone.

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