Google adds E2E RCS encryption to Messages, emoji mashup suggests, and more for Android

Google has announced seven new features for Android that it says will help improve accessibility and make Assistant Shortcuts more useful, among other things. The new features announced today are:

Google announced that RCS chats sent through the Messages app will now be end-to-end encrypted. The feature was rolled out in beta last November, but it seems that Google is now releasing it for everyone who has access to RCS. When a message will be encrypted, the send button will have a lock icon on it — that’ll be important to keep an eye out for, as many people you text may not have RCS, or may not be using messages. It’s also worth noting that, according to Google, the feature will only be available for one-on-one conversations, so your group chats won’t be getting the feature at this time.

Google says its phone-based earthquake detection and alert system will be coming to Turkey, the Philippines, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The system, which uses Android phones to create an earthquake detection network that will warn people if they’re in a potentially affected area, originally launched in California, but it was made available in Greece and New Zealand in April.

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