TECHDIGEST – Technology can help you get those fresh opportunities and goals you seek to attain in this new year

The new year is only a few weeks old, but for many, the optimism for fresh opportunities and goal setting that informed their new year’s resolutions may be starting to disappear.
If you’ve already gone off track , adopting technology can help ensure you achieve your goals.. Here are seven ways that technology can help you conquer 2022.

1. Stay motivated, ask Assistant: One way to make sure that you stay on track with your set goals is to stay consistently motivated. Using your mobile device or phone, simply ask Google Assistant: “Hey Google, how do I stay motivated?” You will get a list of suggestions from how to regularly review your goals, how to find mentors, how to surround yourself with positive people and how to exercise among other motivational tips.

2. Set reminders, be punctual: If you’re looking to be more punctual this year, set reminders so you don’t lose track of time. You can easily create reminders with the help of Google Assistant. Using your mobile device or phone, simply say, “Hey Google, set a reminder”, or “Hey Google, remind me to attend a meeting at 7am.” Google Assistant will go on to set a reminder and send you a notification when it is close to the time. This way, you can be sure that you will always be on time.

3. Eat healthy, count calories: Are you planning to start your healthy eating journey? You can search for healthy diet recipes for satisfying meals. You can also watch a variety of videos on YouTube to learn how to make healthy foods at home. Also, you can check the amount of calories in single ingredient foods by simply asking Google Assistant. For instance, you can say, “Ok Google, how many calories are in bananas?” This way, you are conscious about what you eat, whether you are trying to lose weight, gain weight or simply maintain a healthy lifestyle.

4. Keep in touch, Meet friends: The Covid-19 pandemic limited social activities like travelling, seeing friends and going out. Even with the recommendations now to ease Covid-19 travel restrictions, connecting virtually is still the adopted norm to keep in touch with friends. If you vowed to be more sociable this year, you can connect with friends and family using Google Meet. Just set up a time to meet and share the link with your friends to join. Using Meet allows you to save time and the hassle of planning actual physical hangouts. Most of all, it is flexible as you can join meetings on the go from your mobile devices, on the Meet app or Gmail.

5. Learn something new: If your goal for 2022 was to increase your knowledge on a subject matter, learn new interesting things or develop a skill, YouTube videos are a treasure trove of knowledge. For instance, you can watch videos that teach you how to play an instrument, cook like a pro, learn video editing or photography. There are lots of videos on YouTube that can help you take the initiative to learn without the assistance of anyone. If you plan to accelerate your digital technology skills as well, for your business or career, the Google digital skills for Africa programme offers free online training.

6. Fitness goals, workout devices: Improve your workouts by connecting a fitness device to your Android phone. There are a host of devices from fitness watches, to heart rate monitors or foot pods that will pair with thousands of apps available in the Play Store, to help you reach your fitness goals. Throw in a YouTube playlist of your favourite songs, and you’re sure to get your heart rate up in no time.

7. Explore new destinations: Whether you are planning to travel out of the country or just to explore more local destinations this year, Google Maps helps beyond just providing navigation, getting alternative routes and real time information about traffic jams. You can also search for exciting places such as restaurants, parks, tourist attractions, cultural sites, beaches and natural areas that you would like to visit.

For resolutions to be successful, they should follow the SMART principle and be specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timebound bound. Technology provides the tools for you to tackle your goals in the smartest way possible.

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TECHDIGEST – Focused on metamorphosing sustainable and resilient changes in the African tech ecosystem, Google for Africa plans to develop an environment where the internet would be more beneficial to individuals, businesses, and organisations in Africa.

The ultimate goal is to keep unlocking the benefits of the digital economy globally, while simultaneously accelerating Africa’s digital transformation.

Since 2016, Google has periodically hosted similar events across several African countries, including Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa. The Google for Africa is the first virtual edition of its kind, involving several African countries at a time.

In 2019, the third Google for Nigeria event was held. Themed ‘Making our products more helpful to more people’, Okada mode and Danfo directions were introduced in Google Maps and the Nigerian voice in Google Go and Google Maps as well as the emPawa initiative to support emerging music artists, were announced.

Still in 2019, the second Google for Kenya was hosted. The programme was themed ‘Preserving our culture, and helping Kenyan businesses grow.’ The digitised collections from the National Museums of Kenya, “Utamaduni Wetu: Meet the People of Kenya” and Bolo, the reading app to help children learn in English, were launched.

Finally, the first Google for South Africa event, themed ‘Digital inclusion’, also took place in 2019. The goal of the event was to create a more helpful internet for South Africans. The improved Google Assistant allowed users to order an Uber or read South Africa-specific news from their favourite local news outlets. Google Go and Bolo, the reading app to help children learn in English, was also launched.

The programme seeks to leverage on the changes brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic, in terms of access to digital tools and reliable information becoming a necessity. The programme is set to ensure the role of technology is well played. This includes facilitating connections, enabling remote learning and helping communities recover from the effects of the pandemic.

Committed to working together with partners to address the challenges across countries, the programme also drives at ensuring technology helps small and medium-sized businesses recover from the effect of the pandemic, further promoting economic recovery through digital transformation.

Register to attend the Google for Africa programme to drive your business acceleration. The programme will be held on Wednesday, October 6, 2021.

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TECH DIGEST – Here’s a quick and easy guide on how to share location on Google Maps, on any device

Knowing how to share location on Google Maps can be seriously useful for gathering friends or arranging a meeting. You can even share locations that aren’t marked on the map, so it’s handy for meeting up if you’re in a park or out in the countryside.

In this guide, we’ll show you how to share Google Maps locations on Android, iOS, PC and Mac, so you can start using this convenient feature on any platform.

Location sharing in Google Maps is built-in, so you don’t need any extra apps to create a shareable link — though on mobile devices, you will be asked if you want to share using a particular app, such as Gmail or WhatsApp.

When your recipient receives your link, all they need to do is open it. This will open Google Maps on their own device, showing them the location you’ve marked. They then have the option of getting directions to it, searching for other points of interest near it, and so on.

How to share location on Google Maps on Android

1. In the Google Maps app, tap a location or tap and hold anywhere to create a marker pin. Tap the location name or address at the bottom of the screen.

2. Tap “Share place.”

3. Tap the recipient or app that you want to share the location through. This will open up the corresponding messaging or email app with a link to the location on Google Maps already pasted in, all you need to do is hit send.

How to share location on Google Maps on iOS

1. In the Google Maps app, tap a location or tap and hold anywhere to create a marker pin. Tap the location name or address at the bottom of the screen.

2. Tap “Share.”

3. Select an app to send the location link through, or tap “Copy” to copy the link to your clipboard for you to paste anywhere.

How to share location on Google Maps on PC and Mac

1. Click on or search for a location. Then, in the top-left corner (next to the search bar), click the Menu button — it’s three horizontal lines.

2. Click “Share or embed map.”

3. Click “Copy link” to copy the location link to your clipboard. You can now paste this in an email, message or other sharing app of your choice.

If you’d like to see more Google Maps tips and tricks, we’ve also prepared guides on how to download offline Google Maps and how to measure distance with Google Maps. We’ve also got plenty of guides on using Google’s other services, like how to use Google Photos; we can also show you how to disable Gmail’s smart features and prevent tracking.

Source: tomsguide

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