Skip to main content

Google News badges introduced for news junkies

google news badges“Keep track of what you’re reading, read more of what you like, and share what you love with friends,” says the man at the end of the latest video posted on the official Google blog.

He’s talking about the introduction of Google News badges, launched on Thursday initially for the US edition of Google News. According to the blog post, “The more you read, the higher level badge you’ll receive, starting with Bronze, then moving up the ladder to Silver, Gold, Platinum and finally, Ultimate.”

More than 500 badges are available, covering just about every type of news. There are, for example, colorful little badges for stock market news, Harry Potter news (see, every type of news), Chicago White Sox news – you name it, there will probably be a badge for it (just don’t be too obscure).

The post, written by Google engineer Natasha Mohanty, explains: “Your badges are private by default, but if you want, you can share your badges with your friends. Tell them about your news interests, display your expertise, start a conversation or just plain brag about how well-read you are.”

Whether news junkies are excited by the prospect of earning badges for the amount of news content they get through remains to be seen.

To try it out, you’ll need to sign in to your Google account (with web history enabled) and visit the new feature’s help page.

In the same post, Mohanty also announces that the joint Sci/Tech news page is no more. “We have heard loud and clear from the many of you who asked us to separate our Sci/Tech section into two distinct sections,” she writes. “We are happy to report that we have now done this for all English editions, with more languages coming soon.”

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
PowerPoint will use ChatGPT to create entire slideshows for you
Microsoft Copilot creating a PowerPoint presentation for a user.

Microsoft has revealed its thoughts on how artificial intelligence (AI) could shape how we work in the years to come -- and how it plans to help guide those changes. The announcement was made by Microsoft’s Satya Nadella and Jared Spataro at a company event titled The Future of Work with AI.

As the name suggests, the show was focused on how artificial intelligence (AI) could affect how we work, both now and in the future. More specifically, the tech giant discussed how it will add AI smarts into its suite of Office apps.

Read more
Firefox just got a great new way to protect your privacy
Canva in Firefox on a MacBook.

If you’re fed up with signing up for new accounts online and then being perpetually spammed in the days and weeks after, Mozilla has an idea that could help. The company has just announced its Firefox Relay feature is being directly integrated into its Firefox web browser, and it could help guarantee your privacy without any extra hassle.

Firefox Relay works by letting you create email “masks” when you sign up for new accounts. Instead of entering your real credentials into the sign-up field, Firefox Relay provides you with a throwaway address and phone number to use. Any messages from the website -- such as purchase receipts -- are then forwarded to your real email address, with all the sender’s tracking information stripped out to protect your privacy.

Read more
Microsoft’s Bing Chat waitlist is gone — how to sign up now
Microsoft Edge browser showing Bing Chat on an iPhone.

It appears Microsoft is doing away with the long Bing Chat waitlist. As originally reported by Windows Central, new users who sign up for the waitlist are immediately given access to the AI chatbot, without having to wait, and Digital Trends has confirmed this to be the case.

Microsoft hasn't officially killed the waitlist, but it should go away in short order. On Tuesday, Microsoft bolstered OpenAI's launch of the GPT-4 model by confirming that it was the model behind Bing Chat. Microsoft is also set to host an AI-focused event on Thursday, where we expect to hear about AI integrations in Microsoft's Office apps like Word and PowerPoint. It's possible Microsoft could remove the waitlist during the presentation.

Read more