Manage Google Group members and settings more easily in the Admin console

What’s changing 

We’re making it even easier to manage Google Groups through the G Suite Admin console. The new improvements include:

  • A new settings card: When you create a group, this card will help you quickly view and customize group settings. 
  • A new hover menu: When viewing the list of Groups, you can use this menu to get quick access to member management and group settings. 
  • Pop-up controls: Using pop up controls, you will be able to add members, manage members, edit settings, and delete groups without leaving the Groups list page. 

These build on other recent improvements to group management in the Admin console. See below for images of these new settings and options.

Who’s impacted 

Admins only

Why you’d use it 

Groups can improve communication and collaboration in your organization. You can use Groups to create mailing lists, web forums, and collaborative inboxes for your team, and also to control access to documents and Google services.

However, it’s important to include the right people in each group, and apply the right settings so groups are secure. By giving admins easy-to-use controls for groups details, we hope to make it easier to share and use information.

How to get started 




New hover menu gives quick access to member management and group settings 


Easily add members without leaving the list page 


Quickly see and edit group settings in-line 


When you create a new group, this settings card can help make sure the right settings are applied 

Helpful links 

Help Center (Admin): Use Groups in your organization

Availability 

Rollout details 



G Suite editions 
Available to all G Suite editions.

On/off by default?
This feature will be ON by default.

Stay up to date with G Suite launches

iOS Accessibility Scanner Framework

At Google, we are committed to accessibility and are constantly looking for ways to improve our development process to discover, debug and fix accessibility issues. Today we are excited to announce a new open source project: Accessibility Scanner for iOS (or GSCXScanner as we lovingly call it). This is a developer tool that can assist in locating and fixing accessibility issues while an app is being developed.

App development can be a time consuming process, especially when it involves human testers. Sometimes, as in the case with accessibility testing, they are necessary. A developer can write automated tests to perform some accessibility checks, but GSCXScanner takes this one step further. When a new feature is being developed, often there are several iterations of code changes, building, launching and trying out the new feature. It is faster and easier to fix accessibility issues with the feature if they can be detected during this phase when the developer is working with the new feature.

GSCXScanner lives in your app process and can perform accessibility checks on the UI currently on the screen simply with the touch of a button. The scanner’s UI which is overlaid on the app can be moved around so you can use your app normally and trigger a scan only when you need it. Also, it uses GTXiLib, a library of iOS accessibility checks to scan your app, and you can author your own GTX checks and have them run along with scanner’s default checks.

Using the scanner does not eliminate the need for manual testing or automated tests, these are must haves for delivering quality products. But GCSXScanner can speed up the development process by showing issues in app during development.

Help us improve GSCXScanner by suggesting a feature or better yet, writing one.

By Sid Janga, Central Accessibility Team

Last call for Google’s Computer Science Summer Institute applications

Applications for Google’s Computer Science Summer Institute (CSSI) and the Generation Google Scholarship close on Monday, Mar 18. Submit your application today!


Ever wonder what it’s like to be a CSSIer? Meet Jonathan James Mshelia, Tarik Brown, and Kaycee Tate — three CSSI students from this past summer here to share their CSSI experiences and give any CSSI/Generation Google applicant (we’re lookin’ at you!) a better idea of what’s to come.
Jonathan is currently a junior at Medgar Evers College. He grew up in Nigeria and moved to America to pursue an education in computer science. When he’s not glued to the computer screen, he’s usually hanging out with friends or learning a new language.
Tarik is now a freshman at the University of Notre Dame (Go Irish!) where he intends to double major in Computer Science and Economics. He has a deep love for jazz and the world of technology (especially robotics). Tarik lost hearing in his right ear when he was young and explains that he is, “quite grateful for this disability because it made me into the dedicated and motivated person that I am today.”
Kaycee grew up in Alabama and is currently attending Xavier University of Louisiana. If she’s not studying for her double major (Computer Science and Computer Engineering) or working on campus, she enjoys quiet time reading, coloring, or researching things that interest her — currently it’s investing and digital currency.

What motivated you to apply to CSSI?

Kaycee: I knew that I wanted to expand my mind as much as possible before getting to college so that I was prepared — not only in actual programming and coding skills, but also in the ability to think creatively and share my perspective in innovative ways. I definitely believe that the CSSI experience gave me a chance to do that.

Tarik: From as early as I can remember, I was always interested in how things worked. This inclination to enjoy knowing the inner workings of everything that I worked with steered me into the direction of the tech world and introduced me to Computer Science.

Jonathan: My passion for computers and my attitude towards learning were the driving forces behind my choice to join the Google CSSI program. Before CSSI, I only tried to learn the syntax of a programming language and I did not necessarily know how to apply what I learned to make anything, but during the CSSI program I put these programming languages into proper use and I began to see it differently.


What do you wish you’d known before you arrived at Google for CSSI?

Tarik: A valuable lesson that I learned from Google’s Computer Science Summer Institute was that I am much more capable than I give myself credit for. Imposter Syndrome is real and it affects many, I wish I had known that there was no reason to doubt myself and CSSI definitely gave me a more positive outlook upon my ability and self worth.

Jonathan: Upon getting started at Google CSSI I had some experience with a few front end technologies and that gave me the ability to learn more and improve my skills. The learning experience was fun so I never thought about wishing I knew more than I already knew.

Kaycee: Before going to CSSI, I wish I had truly understood that it didn’t matter how much you knew about computer science and programming prior to the experience. Of course the FAQs and application mentioned that, but truly processing that and just hearing it are two different things.


Can you tell us how the CSSI experience has impacted you?

Jonathan: The CSSI experience opened my eyes to the possibilities technology has to offer. I now understand the internal workings of the web — how the front-end and back-end worked hand in hand to give a fully functioning website. This helped me at college because I was able to accomplish more in terms of applying my knowledge to school work.

Kaycee: CSSI isn’t just about computer science — I feel like CSSI promotes the idea that to be good in anything you do, you first have to know yourself, what you’re striving for, and what you want to get out of every experience you are able to partake in.

Tarik: The knowledge I gained from CSSI was truly invaluable. We delved into the world of web development and received instruction on front-end and back-end web development. We ran the gauntlet when it came to learning multiple programming languages as we learned HTML/CSS, JavaScript and Python — all essential tools in web development. Also, we learned how to utilize the Google Cloud Engine which is actually used to run well known applications such as Snapchat. With this we were able to create our own web application from scratch and it was truly an amazing experience. Not only did I gain a wealth of technical skills, I also acquired essential soft skills that involved collaboration in small teams and being able to explain my work to others. We learned how to tactfully use version control with Github and focused on team based work. In the end, we presented our projects to the entire office of Google Software Engineers.

Reminder: applications for Google’s Computer Science Summer Institute (CSSI) and the Generation Google Scholarship close on Monday, Mar 18. Submit your application today!

Grow your games business with ads

There’s so much that goes into building a great mobile game. Building a thriving business on top of it? That’s next level. Today, we’re announcing new solutions to increase the lifetime value of your players. Now, it’s easier than ever to re-engage your audience and take advantage of a new, smarter approach to monetization.

Help inactive players rediscover your game

Let's face it, the majority of players you acquire aren't going to continue engaging with your game after just a handful of days. One of the biggest opportunities you have to grow your business is to get those inactive players to come back and play again.

We’re introducing App campaigns for engagement in Google Ads to help players rediscover your game by engaging them with relevant ads across Google’s properties. With App campaigns for engagement, you can reconnect with players in many different ways, such as encouraging lapsed players to complete the tutorial, introducing new features that have been added since a player’s last session, or getting someone to open the game for the first time on Android (which only Google can help with).

Learn more about it here or talk to your Google account representative if you’re interested in trying it out.

Rediscover game 1

Generate revenue from non-spending players

Acquiring and retaining users is important, but retention alone doesn’t generate revenue.  Our internal data shows that, on average, less than four percent of players will ever spend on in-app items. One way to increase overall revenue is through ads. However, some developers worry that ads might hurt in-app purchase revenue by disrupting gameplay for players who do spend. What if you could just show ads to the players who aren't going to spend in your app? Good news—now you can.

We’re bringing a new approach to monetization that combines ads and in-app purchases in one automated solution. Available today, new smart segmentation features in Google AdMob use machine learning to segment your players based on their likelihood to spend on in-app purchases.

Ad units with smart segmentation will show ads only to users who are predicted not to spend on in-app purchases. Players who are predicted to spend will see no ads, and can simply continue playing.  Check it out by creating an interstitial ad unit with smart segmentation enabled.

Smart Segmentation Flow

To learn more about news ways to help you increase the lifetime value of your players, please join us at the Game Developers Conference. Location and details are below:


What: Google Ads Keynote
Where: Moscone West, room #2020
When: Wednesday March 20th at 12:30 PM


I'm excited for the week ahead and all the new games you’re building—I’m always on the lookout for my next favorite.


Source: Google Ads


Your mission, gumshoe: Catch Carmen Sandiego in Google Earth

I distinctly remember being tucked into the couch, computer on and ready for the chase. With my assignment from ACME (first stop: Paris) I traveled from Singapore to Tokyo to Kathmandu chasing VILE villains, always on the lookout for that iconic scarlet coat and fedora.

Like many of my friends, I spent much of my time in the ‘90s obsessing over “Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?”—the games, the cartoon and the classic game show. I can remember Carmen Sandiego teaching me the currency of Hungary (forint), the capital of Iraq (Baghdad), and dozens of country flags—Argentina’s blue and white, Germany’s black, red and gold.

But Carmen Sandiego was more than just fun facts for children and adults alike. The globe-trotting game taught me the world was bigger than my couch, and got me excited to learn about new cultures and customs. That curiosity has taken me to more than 30 countries. (Carmen’s also responsible for a theme song that has been stuck in my head for decades.)

Where on Google Earth is Carmen Sandiego?

To celebrate the global explorer in all of us, today we’re introducing The Crown Jewels Caper, the first in a series of Carmen Sandiego games in Google Earth. Created in collaboration with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, the home of Carmen Sandiego, our game is an homage to the original. It’s for all those gumshoes who grew up with the chase, and for the next generation feeling that geography itch for the first time.

Carmen_Game.png

To get your assignment, look for the special edition Pegman icon in Google Earth for Chrome, Android and iOS. Good luck, super sleuths!

Grow your indie game with Google Play

Posted by Patricia Correa, Director, Platforms & Ecosystems Developer Marketing

Google Play empowers game developers of all sizes to engage and delight people everywhere, and build successful businesses too. We are inspired by the passion and creativity we see from the indie games community, and, over the past few years, we've invested in and nurtured indie games developers around the world, helping them express their unique voice and bring ideas to life.

This year, we've put together several initiatives to help the indie community.

Indie Games Showcase

For indie developers who are constantly pushing the boundaries of storytelling, visual excellence, and creativity in mobile we are announcing today the Indie Games Showcase, an international competition for games studios from Europe*, South Korea and Japan. Those of you who meet the eligibility criteria (as outlined below) can enter your game for a chance to win several prizes, including:

  • A paid trip and accommodation to the final event in your region to showcase your game.
  • Promotion on the Google Play Store.
  • Promotion on Android and Google Play marketing channels.
  • Dedicated consultations with the Google Play team.
  • Google hardware.
  • And more...

How to enter the competition

If you're over 18 years old, based in one of the eligible countries, have 30 or less full time employees, and have published a new game on Google Play after 1 January 2018, you can enter your game. If you're planning on publishing a new game soon, you can also enter by submitting a private beta. Submissions close on May 6 2019. Check out all the details in the terms and conditions for each region. Enter now!

Indie Games Accelerator

Last year we launched our first games accelerator for developers in Southeast Asia, India and Pakistan and saw great results. We are happy to announce that we are expanding the format to accept developers from select countries in the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America, with applications for the 2019 cohort opening soon. The Indie Games Accelerator is a 6 month intensive program for top games startups, powered by mentors from the gaming industry as well as Google experts, offering a comprehensive curriculum that covers all aspects of building a great game and company.

Mobile Developer Day at GDC

We will be hosting our annual Developer Day at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco on Monday, March 18th. Join us for a full day of sessions covering tools and best practices to help build a successful mobile games business. We'll focus on game quality, effective monetization and growth strategies, and how to create, connect, and scale with Google. Sign up to stay up to date or join us via livestream.

Developer Days

We also want to engage with you in person with a series of events. We will be announcing them shortly, so please make sure to sign up to our newsletter to get notified about events and programs for indie developers.

Academy for App Success

Looking for tips on how to use various developer tools in the Play Console? Get free training through our e-learning program, the Academy for App Success. We even have a custom Play Console for game developers course to get a jump start on Google Play.

We look forward to seeing your amazing work and sharing your creativity with other developers, gamers and industry experts around the world. And don't forget to submit your game for a chance to get featured on Indie Corner on Google Play.

* The competition is open to developers from the following European countries: Austria, Belgium, Belarus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom (including Northern Ireland).


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Chrome for Android Update

Hi, everyone! We've just released Chrome 73 (73.0.3683.75) for Android: it'll become available on Google Play over the next few weeks.

This release contains the following features, as well as stability and performance improvements:
  • Offline Content on the Dino Page: easily browse suggested articles while offline
  • Lite pages: get optimized pages that save data and load faster
You can see a full list of the changes in the Git log. If you find a new issue, please let us know by filing a bug.

Ben Mason
Google Chrome

Google Drive is getting a new look on iOS and Android

What’s changing  

Google Drive is getting a new look and feel on iOS and Android, making it easier to communicate and collaborate across files in Drive on mobile devices.



This Material redesign is part of a larger effort to bring the look and feel of our G Suite apps together as a whole, with ease-of-use in mind.

Some improvements you’ll see include:
  • New Home tab and bottom navigation 
    • Similar to Drive on the web, the Home tab will surface the files that are most important to you, based on things like: 
      • The last time you accessed or edited a file 
      • Who specific files are frequently shared with 
      • What files are used at specific times of day.
  • A more intuitive bottom navigation bar that features options to switch between Home, Starred, files shared with you (Shared), and all files (Files), allowing for quicker access to your most important items.

  • Expanded search bar 
    • The search bar is now more accessible across the application, including from the Team Drives page.
  •  My Drive, Team Drives and Computers in Files view 
    • Team Drives will be now be displayed as a tab next to My Drive in the Files view. Users will also see a Computers tab if they have backed up content from a local machine to their account. 

    •  New account switching experience 
      • The feature to switch accounts is moving from the left navigation menu to an icon in the top right.


      •  Revised actions menu 
        • A revised actions menu attached to every file and folder emphasizes the most frequently used actions at the top. Toggles for starred and offline are now changed to buttons.

        Who’s impacted 

        End users

        Why you’d use it 

        We know that mobile devices are critical to getting work done, whether it’s at our desk, in a meeting, sending an email, or collaborating. Drive is not just a way to backup files to the cloud, but a critical way to easily share work, make last minute changes to content, or review important content on the go. The Drive Mobile redesign aims to make these workflows easier.

        How to get started 

        • Admins: No action required. 
        • End users: You’ll see the new look coming your way soon. 

        Additional details

        iOS users will begin seeing the redesign starting on March 12, 2019. Android users will see the redesign starting on March 18, 2019.

        To help your users navigate this redesign, see this change management guide or download this PDF.

        Helpful links 

        View the change management guide for this update. Also available as a PDF.
        Using Google Drive on Android
        Using Google Drive on iOS 

        Availability 

        Rollout details 
        • iOS: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) rollout starting March 12, 2019.
        • Android: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) rollout starting March 18, 2019. 
        G Suite editions 
        Available to all G Suite Editions.

        On/off by default? 
        This feature will be ON by default.

        Stay up to date with G Suite launches

        With Lookout, discover your surroundings with the help of AI

        Whether it’s helping to detect cancer cells or drive our cars, artificial intelligence is playing an increasingly larger role in our lives. With Lookout, our goal is to use AI to provide more independence to the nearly 253 million people in the world who are blind or visually impaired.

        Now available to people with Pixel devices in the U.S. (in English only), Lookout helps those who are blind or have low vision identify information about their surroundings. It draws upon similar underlying technology as Google Lens, which lets you search and take action on the objects around you, simply by pointing your phone. Since we announced Lookout at Google I/O last year, we’ve been working on testing and improving the quality of the app’s results.

        We designed Lookout to work in situations where people might typically have to ask for help—like learning about a new space for the first time, reading text and documents, and completing daily routines such as cooking, cleaning and shopping. By holding or wearing your device (we recommend hanging your Pixel phone from a lanyard around your neck or placing it in a shirt front pocket), Lookout tells you about people, text, objects and much more as you move through a space. Once you’ve opened the Lookout app, all you have to do is keep your phone pointed forward. You won’t have to tap through any further buttons within the app, so you can focus on what you're doing in the moment.

        Lookout modes.png

        Screenshot image of Lookout’s modes including, “Explore,” “Shopping,” “Quick read” Second screenshot of Lookout detecting a dog in the camera frame.

        As with any new technology, Lookout will not always be 100 percent perfect. Lookout detects items in the scene and takes a best guess at what they are, reporting this to you. We’re very interested in hearing your feedback and learning about times when Lookout works well (and not so well) as we continue to improve the app. Send us feedback by contacting the Disability Support team at g.co/disabilitysupport.

        We hope to bring Lookout to more devices, countries and platforms soon. People with a Pixel device in the US can download Lookout on Google Play today. To learn more about how Lookout works, visit the Help Center.

        Stable Channel Update for Desktop

        The Chrome team is delighted to announce the promotion of Chrome 73 to the stable channel for Windows, Mac and Linux. This will roll out over the coming days/weeks.

        Chrome 73.0.3683.75 contains a number of fixes and improvements -- a list of changes is available in the log. Watch out for upcoming Chrome and Chromium blog posts about new features and big efforts delivered in 73.

        Security Fixes and Rewards
        Note: Access to bug details and links may be kept restricted until a majority of users are updated with a fix. We will also retain restrictions if the bug exists in a third party library that other projects similarly depend on, but haven’t yet fixed.

        This update includes 60 security fixes. Below, we highlight fixes that were contributed by external researchers. Please see the Chrome Security Page for more information.

        [$TBD][913964] High CVE-2019-5787: Use after free in Canvas. Reported by Zhe Jin（金哲），Luyao Liu(刘路遥) from Chengdu Security Response Center of Qihoo 360 Technology Co. Ltd on 2018-12-11
        [$N/A][925864] High CVE-2019-5788: Use after free in FileAPI. Reported by Mark Brand of Google Project Zero on 2019-01-28
        [$N/A][921581] High CVE-2019-5789: Use after free in WebMIDI. Reported by Mark Brand of Google Project Zero on 2019-01-14
        [$7500][914736] High CVE-2019-5790: Heap buffer overflow in V8. Reported by Dimitri Fourny (Blue Frost Security) on 2018-12-13
        [$1000][926651] High CVE-2019-5791: Type confusion in V8. Reported by Choongwoo Han of Naver Corporation on 2019-01-30
        [$500][914983] High CVE-2019-5792: Integer overflow in PDFium. Reported by pdknsk on 2018-12-13
        [$TBD][937487] Medium CVE-2019-5793: Excessive permissions for private API in Extensions. Reported by Jun Kokatsu, Microsoft Browser Vulnerability Research on 2019-03-01
        [$TBD][935175] Medium CVE-2019-5794: Security UI spoofing. Reported by Juno Im of Theori on 2019-02-24
        [$N/A][919643] Medium CVE-2019-5795: Integer overflow in PDFium. Reported by pdknsk on 2019-01-07
        [$N/A][918861] Medium CVE-2019-5796: Race condition in Extensions. Reported by Mark Brand of Google Project Zero on 2019-01-03
        [$N/A][916523] Medium CVE-2019-5797: Race condition in DOMStorage. Reported by Mark Brand of Google Project Zero on 2018-12-19
        [$N/A][883596] Medium CVE-2019-5798: Out of bounds read in Skia. Reported by Tran Tien Hung (@hungtt28) of Viettel Cyber Security on 2018-09-13
        [$1000][905301] Medium CVE-2019-5799: CSP bypass with blob URL. Reported by sohalt on 2018-11-14
        [$1000][894228] Medium CVE-2019-5800: CSP bypass with blob URL. Reported by Jun Kokatsu (@shhnjk) on 2018-10-10
        [$500][921390] Medium CVE-2019-5801: Incorrect Omnibox display on iOS. Reported by Khalil Zhani on 2019-01-13
        [$500][632514] Medium CVE-2019-5802: Security UI spoofing. Reported by Ronni Skansing on 2016-07-28
        [$1000][909865] Low CVE-2019-5803: CSP bypass with Javascript URLs'. Reported by Andrew Comminos of Facebook on 2018-11-28
        [$500][933004] Low CVE-2019-5804: Command line command injection on Windows. Reported by Joshua Graham of TSS on 2019-02-17

        We would also like to thank all security researchers that worked with us during the development cycle to prevent security bugs from ever reaching the stable channel.

        As usual, our ongoing internal security work was responsible for a wide range of fixes:
        • [940992] Various fixes from internal audits, fuzzing and other initiatives
        Many of our security bugs are detected using AddressSanitizer, MemorySanitizer, UndefinedBehaviorSanitizer, Control Flow Integrity, libFuzzer, or AFL.

        Interested in switching release channels? Find out how here. If you find a new issue, please let us know by filing a bug. The community help forum is also a great place to reach out for help or learn about common issues.

        Thank you,
        Abdul Syed