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One of Android’s greatest key strengths has always been the way it handles notifications. Google’s mobile OS was the first to adopt and popularize this system of kind like passive app alerts piling up in something like a notification shade, and the Android team has advanced this functionality greatly with every new release.

It’s little surprise then to see Android Nougat again focusing a lot on that aspect, introducing things such as a new look for notifications, grouped notifications, new & more highlighted control options and a new direct reply implementation for messaging apps.

At first, all these updates might not sound like much and kind like like not needed updates and catch-up features. Actually, however, I’ve found that they’re a lot more significant than their names and first appearance might suggest, perhaps even displaying the greatest advancement to Android’s notifications since 2011’s introduction of actions and resizing, as they appear to be just the beginning of a deeper rethought of the system’s notification system.

Google Play Music has always had a big focus on the cloud. In fact, it was basically completely build around this very concept when it launched as “Google Music” more than five years ago, with the main feature being that users could upload their entire personal music library for free and then stream and listen to it from anywhere (and since the desktop music player was nothing but a lightweight website, anywhere really meant on any thinkable device just with a web browser!).

And until today - countless new iterations, a new name, several complete overhauls and the introduction of a new main feature with music subscriptions later -, this core concept and type of cloud integration is still what defines the service and sets it apart from the competition.

But though a cloud service at its very core, one thing that has not progressed, and which makes Google Play Music feel strangely unconnected today, is the still local-only listening experience. Instead of a unified, cloud-based implementation, every device still has it’s own local music queue and, even worse, own local music history and often thereof based suggestions, leading to many small, divided experiences in all the different places that a user is interacting with the service.

That one of Google’s self-driving cars was responsible for an accident on public roads for the very first time also didn’t go unnoticed to the news and social media last week, and one thing that I’ve thereby noticed is that many people appear to not yet understand the whole deeper relevance of autonomous cars. Focusing on the fact that they can drive by themselves and that there are taxicabs and trains as an alternative if they couldn’t, many don’t understand why the industry is investing so much in those projects.

Thus, I’ve decided to create this list with some less obvious aspects that self-driving cars could fundamentally change, also beyond the usual stuff like that they are way more secure than we human drivers. Of course the majority of people certainly understands that it’s about more than just ‘who is driving’, but I think it’s interesting anyway for everyone to try and think on the one hand side more openly about this rising technology, as well as about a few more concrete ideas what changes might come with it, perhaps even touching science fiction to a certain degree.

Synced Tabs have always been a defining feature of Google Chrome. They’ve already been part right from the beginning when the browser launched in 2008, a highlight when Chrome went mobile in 2012 and they’re still one of the main reasons for Google Chrome’s success on Mac OS and even on iOS, despite all restrictions.

Today however, this big strength appears to be rather underutilized. On the desktop, Synced Tabs have been downgraded to being just a part of Chrome’s “recent tabs” menu, which also includes 2-3 recent links from other connected devices. Of course it can still be very useful that way, but in first place, Google is making Synced Tabs a niche feature, and this despite the ever increasing role of smartphones, mobility and cross-device browsing.

To take full use and fully accelerate the growing potential of this feature, this concept imagines how Synced Tabs could be implemented in a better way. Considering just how few Chrome’s UI has changed over all the years, the idea presented in this concept might actually display the biggest shift in user experience ever for Chrome, though I’m convinced that this would be the right step and pay off.

The reaction from many tech blogs was overly positive when an update to Chrome’s bookmark manager fully leaked months ahead it’s official release. They figured Google was “trying to revive” bookmarks after a decade without any innovation and seemed genuinely excited.

However, following a big backlash from beta users, Google Stars appears to be dead. Besides many small flaws, the biggest problem with Google Stars was in my opinion that it had the same fundamental problems as it's predecessor.

As someone who always wanted to, but never really got into bookmarks, I was very disappointed and asked myself what Google Stars maybe should have done different, and what might had been able to revive bookmarks. And I'm convinced that the solution presented in this concept, which focuses on a reworked favorites bar, is actually capable to do this and to finally carry browser bookmarks into 2015!

Even though driving already a lot of users just because of it's name, YouTube's apps are in no way relying on this aspect, but offer a unique user experience. Nonetheless, there's of course a lot that could be improved, and while a previous concept focused on the app's design, this concept focuses on functionality and especially on giving the service's individual channel's a far bigger meaning, and thus shooting YouTube as a platform to a whole new level.