Google Wallet app for Android stores all sorts of cards

My membership card for a local art museum never arrived. “We don’t use physical cards anymore,” the museum staffer explained. She suggested Google Wallet.

The free Google Wallet app for Android now contains my museum card, credit card and loyalty cards from restaurants and stores. It can also store virtual car keys, transit cards and vaccination cards. If I had also been able to store my driver’s license, I would have saved a lot of hassle at the airport recently when I accidentally left it at home. But the Wallet only accepts driver’s licenses issued in Arizona, Colorado, Georgia or Maryland.

With Google Pay, a part of Wallet, I can use my phone instead of a credit card. It’s safer, since no one can see the number. To buy something with Wallet, download the free app and add your credit card. When you’re ready to pay at a store or restaurant, tap the Wallet icon, then bring the image of your credit card close to the card reader.

The equivalent for iPhone users, with slightly fewer features, is Apple Pay. But with Apple Pay, you only need to be 13. For Google Pay, you must be at least 18. But it’s being phased out as a stand-alone app on June 4th. After that, you can only get it in Wallet.

NOSY VENDING MACHINES

An M&M vending machine angered Canadian students when it captured their gender and age through facial recognition. But what about American vending machines?

American Green said it uses facial recognition in machines that dispense cannabis and alcohol, among other adult products. Otherwise, it can’t tell if a driver’s license scanned into an app is the real thing. Similarly, Popcom vending machines, which sell bath products and organic teas, use facial recognition to capture demographic info. They also use blockchain technology to verify IDs for regulated products, according to BiometricUpdate.com.

I was surprised that the Canadian students were so upset. After all, the machine didn’t

link their gender or age to them specifically. It only saved general statistics. But whatever the fuss, I’ll bet there’ll be a lot more nosy vending machines in our future.

RESCUING AN OLD NOTIFICATION

If you missed a notification on your Android phone, you can get it back even if you deleted it. Open “Settings” go to “Notifications, then tap “Notification History.” You’ll see every notification you’ve received in the past 24 hours.

ANDROID 15 PREVIEW

Here’s a sneak peak at a feature in the upcoming Android 15. It’s called “Notification cooldown.”

Notification cooldown stops an app from bombarding you with a burst of messages. This can happen when you’re part of a group text. For example, recently a group text asked whether I wanted the chicken dinner or the vegetarian lasagna. Boom, boom, boom, there were suddenly lots of people chiming in, with notifications for each. It would have been disruptive if I hadn’t been so excited to see what other people were ordering.

Another new feature in Android 15 is partial screen recording. It lets you record an app or part of a website instead of the whole screen. It will be released to the public between August and October, according to Lifewire. The first phones to get it will be Google Pixel phones, version 6 and later. Just like Samsung, Google starts with the owners of the latest model and gradually gets around to the older ones. But for now, while still in the testing phase, it’s only available to developers.

NEW FEATURES IN CHROMEBOOKS

Chromebooks are great laptops for anyone who mainly uses a computer to go online. Here are two of their newest features.

Chromebooks now have extended clipboards. That means you can copy multiple items and paste exactly the one you want from a long list. To start, tap the Everything button — which looks like a dot with a thin line around it — plus the letter “V,” then select what you want to paste into an email, a Facebook page, or wherever. For example, you might want to copy a lot of recipes from the web, then choose one of them to paste into an email, text or document.

Another new feature is the smart battery. This means it won’t charge to 100% even if it stays plugged in. Experts recommend not going past 80%, or below 20%, in order to extend your battery’s lifespan. To see if your Chromebook has a smart battery, go to “Settings” and search on “Adaptive Charging.” My Pixelbook Go has it, even though it’s 4 years old.

REMIND ME

Every morning at 7:30, my Google Home smart speaker annoys me with the words: “Time to brush your teeth.” I tried to cancel it but couldn’t. Google tech support — which is free for Google One users who pay $20 a year for extra storage — denied that I was even hearing that. So for now, I unplug my Google Home if I think I’m going to sleep in. When I need reminding, I ask Alexa, either with the Alexa app on my phone or an Echo device. The only time she messes up is if I ask too quickly. For instance, if I said: “Alexa, at 10 a.m., remind me to call royal ballet,” she might say “Fall loyal ball boy.” You can also ask Apple’s Siri to remind you. For example: “Siri, remind me to meet Joe Doe at 11 a.m.”