After Gmail, Google seems to have devoted its attention to its YouTube multimedia streaming service, with a greater dissemination of health context info, improvements for YouTube Music, tests for YouTube TV and for standard YouTube.
Together with Gmail, another of the most popular services at Google is, since the beginning, YouTube, the streaming platform now branched into several spin-offs, all recently subject to improvements, including Y Music and Y TV.
About a year ago, YouTube Music introduced two functions, including one to randomly play songs or albums / playlists in streaming, and one for repeating in streaming: both were withdrawn after a short time, except that the first of the two was later reintroduced completely, while of the second only a deactivated button remained after the start-pause, next-previous controls.
In the past few hours, it emerged that this function is being distributed again (for the Android and iOS client of YouTube Music, but not for the one on iPadOS, which still has to update the user interface for “Now playing”), also if it works in a somewhat curious way since, once the streaming session is started, the repeat button will initially remain disabled, and then it will be enabled shortly afterwards and allow both the repetition of individual songs and that of entire playlists or albums.
Still on YouTube Music, after the launch at the beginning of the year on iOS, the function that, under the album, the current radio or the playlist, proposes the “Save” command is now widely distributed on Android, acting on which it is revealed to full screen the “Added to playlist” user interface. The problem, in case you add a playlist by mistake, is that there is no option to go back, as only a snackbar appears which only displays the last playlist added.
After having tested last year the hooking of comments to specific timestamps of a video, YouTube standard is experimenting, only on some videos, something similar, in the style of Instagram this time, also about the Reactions, foreseeing that it is possible to release some Reactions, which will appear anchored to particular moments of the video. According to what Google has admitted, various sets of popular emojis are currently being tested that can be used for this purpose, being able to add or remove some based on the direction that the feedback provided will take.
The service, active in the USA, YouTube TV, aimed at providing an alternative to cable TV, is starting to gain 5.1-channel surround (characterized by the ac-3 381 codec) on more devices than those initially planned in June. since now devices with Android TV, Google TV (so perhaps also the new Chromecast), Roku would also be tested. At the same time, an internal experimentation has begun and with some partners, to bring the same improvement also in favor of game consoles, Amazon Fire TV devices, and Apple TV.
Finally, Google has confirmed the arrival also in India of a couple of functions, concerning the correctness of health information, initially present only in the USA. The first foresees that, by carrying out a search on certain topics of physical or mental health, a “shelf” with videos relating to the topic searched for will appear among the search results. Academic medical journals only. Healthcare companies and government agencies will be able to exploit this shelf and suitable channels will be chosen according to criteria set by WHO or by experts convened. The second ad hoc function provides that, among the search results on health-related topics (eg Covid, breast cancer, stroke), a panel of reliable information will appear, taken from authoritative sources (medical institutions or the WHO), related to treatment options, prevention and symptoms of the pathology sought.
