Did you ever wonder if Will Ferrell can play the drums? The movie that changed Nick Jonas’ life? Yes, me neither. However, if you’re into that sort of thing, Google released a new program on December 7 that will be right up your alley. The tech giant now offers a selfie-style answer program for celebrities.
Right now the program is only available for mobile users in the United States. Celebrities can answer their “most asked questions” through the program, according to Google’s announcement. It’s unclear how many of those questions each celebrity answered or how often they will update their answers.
While the program is not meant to provide answers to every question, it does aim to serve as a surprise for users who opt for Google over Bing or other search engines. People who use Google will get a definitive answer from their favorite personality, instead of sifting through sometimes dubious and conflicting search results that appear when you ask these types of questions in that manner.
Google has not announced exactly what questions each celebrity answered and, from our testing, finding these selfie-style answers can be a challenge. For example, if you search “Does Tracee Ellis Ross like to sing?” you’ll get the standard list of search results. However, if you search “Can Tracee Ellis Ross Sing?” the top result will be a video response from Ross. While the questions were not exactly the same, we assumed they would be close enough to both elicit a selfie-style answer.
The celebrity selfie program is still in its infancy. Currently a handful of stars are participating including, Will Ferrell, Tracee Ellis Ross, Nick Jonas, Mark Wahlberg, James Franco, Seth MacFarlane, Jonathan Yeo, Gina Rodriguez, Prijanka Chopra, and Dominique Ansel. If the program is successful, expect to see more in the near future. Google has not announced whether it intends to offer the program to users outside the U.S.
If you want to give the selfie-style answer program a spin, input in Google search, “How many languages does Priyanka Chopra speak?” on your phone. The answer may surprise you.
Two new highly requested iCloud plugins just got added to ChatGPT, giving people who rely on Apple’s Mail and Calendar services a way to search emails, check appointments, and manage their schedules directly through the chatbot.
The integration is rolling out to all ChatGPT plans, including the free tier. You can access it on the web, desktop, and iOS.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.
Samsung’s scandal over its Game Optimizing Service, or GOS, has returned with a bill attached. South Korea’s Fair Trade Commission has tentatively fined the company 20.1 billion won, or about $15.1 million, over gaming claims made for the Galaxy S21, Galaxy S22, and Tab S8.
The regulator says Samsung promoted the devices as gaming powerhouses without disclosing that GOS placed preset CPU and GPU limits on certain demanding games. Samsung disputes that conclusion, calling GOS a legitimate way to manage heat.