Google Now… do you use it?
For those that use Google Now, a feature of the Android operating system that uses Google’s (through its complex algorithms) understanding of your persona by going through your browsing history, location data, email and calendar information and so on, it is invaluable. Once hailed as Google’s response to Apple’s personal digital assistant, Siri, Google Now has grown to be appreciated for its core strength: surfacing information that is relevant to its users at any given time of day. It will suggest exactly the right time to leave the office for that meeting on the other side of town before traffic on your route starts building up, it will show you the latest scores (in real-time) from your favourite team’s match as well as suggest news articles that may be relevant to you.
Once hailed as Google’s direct response to Apple’s personal digital assistant (it still is anyway), Siri, Google Now has grown to be appreciated for its core strength: surfacing information that is relevant to its users at any given time of day. It will suggest exactly the right time to leave the office for that meeting on the other side of town before traffic on your route starts building up, it will show you the latest scores (in real-time) from your favourite team’s match as well as suggest news articles that may be relevant to you.
For as long as Google Now has been around, users have not been able to explicitly block or opt out from receiving news article cards from certain sources. Say for instance I no longer want to get news cards from some shady gossip blogs that Google thinks I am interested in what do I do? In an update that is currently rolling out around the world, users will be able to state that when they tap the three dots at the top of every card.
Currently, users are not presented with many options and have little control over the sources of the news presented to them by Google Now. Occasionally, Google Now will randomly ask users if they are still interested in certain topics or news cards. That is as far as it goes. Nothing more.
The new update is reminiscent of what Facebook has been doing on its mobile apps where users have had the ability to stop seeing certain posts on their news feeds.
Source: Google+
Via: Android Police
