Google Currents revamped with ability to scan through breaking news, editions

Google has announced in an official blog post that it has revamped Currents to make it easier for users to scan through their favourite categories and specific editions with the swipe of a finger. The Google Currents app allows users to discover, share and read their favourite news blogs, online magazines on their device – be it a smartphone or a tablet, even if they are offline. At the moment, users can find editions like  Hindustan Times, Mint, NDTV, IBNLive, ESPNCricinfo, ABP News, Dainik Jagran, Tehelka, Mid Day and ZigWheels.

For the revamp, Google has used some of the technology behind Search to offer users breaking news on celebrity scandals, stock market update, the next technology frontier, among others. Google Currents app now features editions grouped into categories, allowing users to track their current subscriptions while discovering new ones. Users can look at the editions related to their interests, through categories like News, Entertainment, Technology, Sports, Lifestyle, among others. All of their content will be collected in these categories and users will be able to access them from a sidebar. They can also organise their editions within each category with favourites on top. 

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It lets you scan through editions

With the revamp, Google shares that it has also made it easy to browse through top articles from all their favourite editions in category – all they have to do is swipe horizontally.  For instance, if a user subscribes to over a dozen News editions, he can quickly swipe through the complete category and then move into the editions of his interest. 

Further, users can now scan headlines within a particular edition by swiping vertically. To view all that is new in a particular edition, they will need to just swipe through the headlines. After a user views a story, it’ll be marked as read; this makes it simpler to view new content each time a user uses the Currents app.

To help users stay on the top of the latest news, Google Currents uses some of the technology behind Search to bring to users the ‘hottest breaking stories’ in categories like World, Entertainment, Sports, Science and more. Users can find new articles from hot topics interesting them while they discover the existing Currents editions that they can subscribe to. Breaking stories are customised based on the user’s country and language. Interestingly, Currents optimises editions to suit whatever type of device that a user may be using. 

Google recently updated its Currents app for Android to version 2.0. This update featured a wide variety of improvements with the highlighted feature being the addition of an Edition sidebar, which can enable a user to browse feeds based on genres.

Another inclusion in the update was the ‘Fast scan’ feature, which allows a user to swipe vertically to scan an edition and swipe horizontally to advance to the next edition. The app update also featured an Edition-section chooser where a user can choose to filter out sections. 

Another interesting and useful additions in that update were  ‘Unread Marks’, where stories that are read are marked as such, and ‘Breaking Stories’, where stories are ranked by Google News along with links to full length content. You also have the option to save stories for future reference. The update also brought a new catalogue design and a new widget.