Google might just save you from hitting your browser's "back" button (or sifting through your history) more than you'd like. The company is rolling out a Chrome beta feature that adds New Tab Page cards (pictured below) for resuming recent tasks. You can quickly jump back to your shopping cart, a recipe or a Google Doc you were working on. You'll have to switch this on by enabling the #ntp-modules flag, but it could be helpful if you'd rather not backtrack through your page visits just to pick up where you left off.

Google

Another addition will help you avoid a back-and-forth when digging through your search results. An experimental feature adds a row below Chrome's address bar on Android to display the rest of your search results. If one link wasn't what you were looking for, you won't have to tap "back" to check out the rest. You can try the row by enabling the #continuous-search flag.

The Android beta will help you share pithy sayings, too. Enable the #webnotes-stylize flag and Chrome will create stylized images from quotes. You just have to share highlighted text and tap "create card" to choose a template.

It's not certain if or when these features will be active by default in Chrome. Don't be surprised if Google changes or even cuts them based on feedback. With that said, they appear to be helpful enough that it might just be a matter of time before they reach more users. 

China has announced a further crackdown on the amount of time children can play online video games, with the new limit set to just three hours per week. Bloomberg, reporting from local news sources, says that platforms like Tencent can now offer gaming to kids between the hours of 8-9pm on Friday, weekends and public holidays.

It’s a significant and notable reduction from the previous rule, which had been generally capped at 1.5 hours per day in 2019. Earlier this month, Tencent was forced to cut the amount of time minors could play the smash hit mobile title Honor of Kings to just an hour on weeknights and two hours on the weekend. The added restriction is likely to impact the share price of companies in this space, which has seen recent instability.

Historically, China has always had an aversion to video games, albeit with more nuance than most people believe. The country has, however, amplified anti-game rhetoric in recent years, and on August 3rd, a key state-owned news outlet described video games as “spiritual opium.” The piece, as reported by The New York Times, went on to outline all of the ways in which gaming could harm Chinese kids.

As well as the time limit for online gaming (and we’ve asked our colleagues to clarify if any of this can also apply to offline and console gaming), authorities want all titles hooked up to some form of anti-addiction system. Other new rules include companies keeping (real) name data for all users, more reporting on the use of in-game transactions, and more regulatory scrutiny more generally.

It’s not clear how much of an impact this will have in the real-world since Tencent says minors make up a very small part of its overall business. But given the country’s continuedassault on various parts of the tech industry, it’s likely that there will be more hoops for businesses to jump through in future. A week ago, meanwhile, South Korea declared that it would ditch its infamous "Cinderella Law," banning video gamers from playing between midnight and 6am, saying that it is respecting children's rights. 

At its annual Duocon conference on Friday, Duolingo announced several updates for the language-learning app. Among them is a family plan, which gives up to six people access to Duolingo Plus with a single subscription.

The plan includes benefits like unlimited hearts (so you can keep learning for longer after making mistakes) and an option to keep your lesson streak going if you happen to miss a day. Subscribers won't see any ads in the app either. New features include a hub where you can review all of your mistakes and a more advanced Legendary Level to put your language skills to the test.

The family plan costs around $120 per year, but there's no monthly payment option. The standard plan is $80 per year or $13/month. You can add accounts on shared devices with ease and follow your family members to see their progress. 

In addition, Duolingo is hoping to make it easier for users to learn languages with non-Latin based alphabets, such as Japanese, Korean, Russian, Greek, Arabic and Hindi. The company says it has built new kinds of exercises to help folks get to grips with the character-based languages.

Meanwhile, five more languages are coming to the app soon: Haitian Creole, Zulu, Xhosa, Tagalog and Maori. Duolingo worked with South African organization Nal'ibali on the Zulu and Xhosa courses. 

“For years, we’ve been working to elevate the status of South African languages by creating and distributing high-quality stories for children," Nal’ibali COO Katie Huston said in a statement. "Partnering with Duolingo to create these courses is another step towards elevating and protecting our local languages, and sharing them with new audiences around the world."

Duolingo is also working on an app that teaches elementary-level math. The app will harness the same tech the company uses for language learning and it should emerge next year. On top of that, Duolingo is upgrading the BirdBrain AI learning system. It says the AI will create personalized lessons at the correct difficulty level.

YouTube has an impossibly large video library, and the company knows that navigating it is easier said than done. To that end, the company is introducing a few new features to improve the search experience. Probably the most significant new tool is chapter view right from the search results page. YouTube has offered the ability for users to break longer videos into separate chapters so that viewers can quickly find specific information, but they were only visible when you clicked through. 

Now, chapters will appear alongside the search results, with a time-stamped image thumbnail for each section. This should give viewers more insight into the content inside each video, and you'll be able to tap or click right into a specific chapter if you find exactly the info you're looking for. We're not yet sure if this feature is coming to mobile, desktop or both, but we asked YouTube and will update this if we find out more.

Another new feature we do know is coming to mobile are the little snippets of videos that automatically play when you mouse over them on the desktop. YouTube says it'll roll out "a version" of these previews on mobile, though it's not clear exactly what gesture will be used to get the snippet to play.

Finally, some of Google's auto-translate tools are coming to YouTube search results to make them useful to more people. Specifically, the company is starting to include automatically translated video titles, descriptions and captions to search. These results will show when there isn't enough related content in a user's local language to be useful. YouTube is first adding these translations to English-language videos, and right now it's only being tested on mobile devices in India and Indonesia; the company says it'll "consider" expanding to more locations based on user feedback. 

Google has long run an Android Auto beta program, but joining it was almost impossible before today. Those who tried to take part often got an error message that said the program was maxed out. Thankfully, that's no longer the case. Google is expanding the program, giving anyone with an Android device and a willingness to put up with bugs the opportunity to test the platform's latest features before they're available to the public.

"As a beta tester, you can help us build a better version of Android Auto. You can test how well new features work with your specific phone and vehicle in your part of the world," Google says of the initiative on a support page. "When you share your feedback, we'll use it to help plan improvements for future releases."

You can join the program by visiting the beta opt-in page Google has set up. Click the "Become a tester" button, and then download the beta version of Android Auto from the Play Store. If you eventually decide using unstable software isn't all it's made out to be, you can leave the program.

With Google inching closer to the official release of Android 12, the company likely wants to avoid a repeat of last year's Android 11 release. While the operating system was buggy as a whole at release, Android Auto suffered from some particularly rough bugs. There were numerous audio issues and missing apps. In some instances, the software was also known to 'soft-brick' devices like the Pixel 3 XL. So it's no surprise Google wants more help testing the software.

Folks who want to check out Clubhouse no longer need to join a waitlist. Sixteen months after it debuted, the audio discussion app is moving out of beta. It’s now open to everyone.

Clubhouse says users can share links with others and invite them to join. The company claims there are half a million audio chat rooms on the app each day, and that 10 million people have signed up since the Android app arrived in May. Clubhouse added a direct message system last week and it says the community has already sent 90 million messages. Meanwhile, on average, users are spending over an hour a day on Clubhouse.

While many Clubhouse users certainly seem to be hooked on the app, it’s facing stern competition from elsewhere. The likes of Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Discord and Spotify have all moved into audio chat rooms in recent months. Opening up the app to everyone is an important step for Clubhouse as it looks to keep growing. 

Clubhouse plans to keep things fresh by rolling out big updates every week or two. The app also revealed a new logo. 

Clubhouse, the oftcloned invite-only audio chat platform that recently expanded to Android, has since its inception lacked a seemingly fundamental feature present on virtually every other social media app: the ability to directly message other users. But no longer! On Wednesday, the company announced that the Clubhouse app will now support DMs in the form of the new Backchannel messaging feature.

Backchannel will function as both a private messaging system for both 1:1 interactions and group chats. With it, Clubhouse envisions users employing it to coordinate privately among a channel's co-hosts, take sensitive questions or privately thank participants outside of the general group discussion, or just audibly shoot the breeze with your buddies. 

While Bird is best known for its electric scooters, it recently expanded into the bikeshare market and is now also moving into the accessibility space. With help from Scootaround, a company that specializes in wheelchair and mobility scooter rentals, the startup is piloting a new program. It’s adding a dedicated interface within its app that allows those with mobility issues to reserve and rent one of three different electric vehicles.

Rentals can vary between one and 14 days in length, and you can decide where you want to pick up your ride and drop it off. With each rental, Bird will provide an in-person tutorial to answer any questions you might have about the EV you’re about to rent. The company will also have a toll-free number customers can call to ask about the entire process.

One of the vehicles Bird will allow people to drive is the Whill Model Ci2 (pictured above). We got a chance to test the first Ci variant back at CES 2018, driving it across the Vegas show floor at a brisk five miles per hour. The program will come first to New York City, with other cities to follow throughout 2021 depending on how the pilot pans out.

There's plenty to look forward to in the upcoming iOS 15 update: SharePlay in FaceTime, new Focus modes, better Maps and Weather apps, as well as deeper integration across Messages, Photos and more. Though there's still some time to wait before the next OS officially rolls out, those eager to try early versions of these new features can check them out starting today. Apple has released the iOS 15 public beta and if you're curious enough to install potentially unstable software, you can run it today. Additionally, Apple also dropped the public betas for iPadOS 15 (which shares many of the same features as iOS 15) and watchOS 8. Make sure you back up your data before you begin!

iOS 15 will be compatible with iPhone 6S and later (including both generations of the iPhone SE), as well as the 7th-generation iPod Touch. Those hoping to test watchOS 8 will also need an Apple Watch Series 3, 4, 5 or 6 running the iOS 15 beta. If you have compatible hardware, all you have to do is sign up for Apple's beta program on its website here. You'll get a notification that it's ready to install (or you can keep looking at your "Software update" page in Settings). We've been using a developer beta build for a couple of days and, assuming it's largely similar to the public beta, the software seems fairly stable with occasional glitches in specific apps. 

While your devices are enrolled in the beta program, you'll receive updates automatically when they're publicly available. If you've played around with the preview and decide you've had enough, you can revert to an older version by unenrolling. Once again, to ensure that your data is safe, make sure you perform a back up before getting the beta.