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Saturday, April 30, 2011


Start video chat on your android mobile

Original Post by Colin Gibbs, Product Manager and Wei Huang, Tech Lead

Sometimes, the expressions on a person's face can mean much more than what they say. To help you stay in touch with your friends and family, we're launching Google Talk with video and voice chat for Android phones.

You can now video or voice chat with your friends, family and colleagues right from your Android phone, whether they're on their compatible Android tablet or phone, or using Gmail with Google Talk on their computer. You can make calls over a 3G or 4G data network (if your carrier supports it) or over Wi-Fi.



In your Google Talk friends list, a video or voice chat button will appear next to your contacts and you can simply touch the button to connect with them. Any text chats from the person you're talking with will be overlaid on your phone's screen so you can read them without having to leave the video. And, if you need to check something else, the video pauses automatically so you can go back to your phone's home screen or another app. The audio will keep going even though the video has paused.

Google Talk with video and voice chat will gradually roll out to Nexus S devices in the next few weeks as part of the Android 2.3.4 over-the-air update and will launch on other Android 2.3+ devices in the future. To learn more about using video and voice chat, check out our Help Center.

see also: 

Tuesday, April 26, 2011


Gmail Labs: "Background Send" - No need to wait!

Original post by Patrick Doyle, Software Engineer 

We're always looking for ways to make Gmail faster. One of the most common delays happens after you hit that "Send" button, when you're waiting patiently for a couple seconds for Gmail to send your message. If you send a lot of email, that can add up to a lot of lost time. 

To help give you that time back, there's a new feature in Gmail Labs called Background Send. Once you turn it on from the Labs tab in Settings, you can get on with what you're doing while Gmail quietly sends off your mail in the background. You can keep reading your inbox, compose new messages, chat with people — all the things you'd usually do. You can even send more than one message in the background at the same time.


If anything goes wrong (maybe you got that email address wrong, or maybe your connection had a hiccup), you'll see a warning message that prompts you to go back and fix the issue or try again later. 


The "Send errror" message will stay around until you decide to fix things, so you don't have to stop whatever you're doing right away. The only catch is that you should wait for your mail to finish sending before you close Gmail or shut down your computer. If messages are still being sent in the background when you shut down, your messages are probably going to be lost. You'll know you're good to go when you see a message like this:


We've been trying out Background Send for a while here at Google, and we like it a lot. We hope you like it too, and we hope it gives you back a little bit of your day!

Sunday, April 24, 2011


New feature in gmail labels

Original post from Maciek Nowakowski, Associate Product Manager, Gmail Enterprise Team

Today we're making a small change that makes it easier to handle long label names: you can now add and edit label names up to 225 characters. The old limit was 40 characters, which wasn't enough for some people who had switched from Outlook or accessed Gmail through IMAP.


Label names can get really long, especially when you use Nested Labels. When that happens, Gmail will shorten them if necessary to avoid cluttering your view. 


You can always mouse over to see the full label name and use colors to better distinguish your labels from each other.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011


The royal wedding live on YouTube

Original post by Rachel Ball, Partner Development Associate

As the historic day approaches, the much-anticipated wedding of Britain's Prince William and Miss Catherine Middleton has people around the world buzzing with excitement.

While millions will be in London for the big day, it's clear that people around the world have wedding fever. Google search trends show that in addition to the UK and the US, the top ten countries searching for "royal wedding" include places like Singapore and the Philippines. In response, we've been working to make as much of the big day as possible accessible to everyone. We previously announced the expansion of our Google Earth 3D imagery to offer a "Royals'-eye" view of the entire wedding procession, complete with 3D images of iconic landmarks and five species of digital trees that can be seen along the route.

Today, we're thrilled that the Royal Household has just announced that footage of the entire ceremony will be live-streamed on their official YouTube channel:www.youtube.com/theroyalchannel. 

The live stream will begin at 10:00a BST (9:00a GMT, 2:00a PT, 5:00a ET) on Friday, April 29, and will follow the wedding procession, marriage ceremony at Westminster Abbey and balcony kiss. Alongside the live stream, The Royal Channel will also feature live blog commentary of the event to give timely updates and insights as the day unfolds. For those of you in different time zones, the footage will be reshown in its entirety directly following the event and will be available in full on the site to view afterwards. 

You don't have to wait until the big day to "attend" the wedding, though. A video guest book has just been opened on The Royal Channel for anyone in the YouTube community to upload messages of congratulations, inspiration or well wishes to the happy couple.

More than 50 years ago, the marriage of The Queen's sister, Princess Margaret, and Antony Armstrong-Jones was the first royal wedding to be broadcast on television and had over 20 million viewers. This one is already heralded as the first of the Internet age, where for the first time in thousands of years of royal history, the moment will be captured online and preserved forever.

see also:

Undo actions in your mobile

Original Post by Bryan Logan, Software Engineer


Sometimes when I'm using Gmail on my phone, I delete a message by mistake or label it incorrectly. Sure I can fish the message out of my Trash or remove the label and apply the correct one, but that takes several steps. Even just a few seconds is usually enough time to catch those annoying mistakes.

Now when you use the Gmail mobile web app, you'll have a small window of opportunity to undo four key actions: archive, delete, add or remove a label, or move a message/conversation.

When you take one of these actions, Gmail displays a yellow bar that recaps what you just did and allows you to undo it:



This bar stays in position even if you move to another screen (e.g. moving to 'Menu' from 'Inbox'). If you don't happen to catch your mistake in time, not to worry: all four actions can still be undone through other means (e.g. you can move a message from Trash back into your Inbox).

Try it out at gmail.com in the browser of your Android or iOS device.

Sunday, April 17, 2011


More Language support in Google Translate Android App

Original post by Awaneesh Verma, Product Manager


Today we launched an update to Google Translate for Android that allows you to listen to translations in several more languages.

We've dramatically improved the quality of our spoken translations in over 15 languages, including Russian, Chinese and Portuguese, and added the ability to listen to three new languages: Japanese, Arabic and Korean. Text-to-speech is one of the most popular features of this mobile interface. Whether you're learning how to say a foreign phrase, or trying to share information with someone in their language, simply tap the Speaker icon after doing a translation and you'll hear the difference.

With today's launch, Google Translate for Android supports translation between 58 languages and can speak translations in 24 languages. The application works on phones and tablets running Android 2.1 and above. To download Google Translate for Android, scan the QR code below, or visit us on the Android Market.

Friday, April 15, 2011


Custom background image themes in Gmail

Original post by Jiri Semecký, Software Engineer 


Themes in Gmail are great — there are tons to choose from and they give your inbox a personalized look. But we've heard from many of you who thought it would be even better if you could give Gmail an even more personalized look and create themes completely on your own.

For a while, you've been able to set your own colors, and starting today you can customize your inbox with your own background image too.



Just go to the Themes tab in Settings and choose "Create your own theme." There, you can select background images for the main area and the footer. 


You can pick from any of your Picasa images or upload a new one. Enjoy!

Wednesday, April 13, 2011


Google Calendar team celebrating 5th birthday & New favicon

Original post by David Tattersall, Product Manager,


On April 13th, 2006 we released Google Calendar to the world. What started as an experimental project by several Googlers has grown to become a service that millions of people rely on every day. From photography studios to schools to airlines to supermarkets, we discover new ways people are using Calendar all the time.

A birthday wouldn't be a birthday without a little present, so today we're happy to announce our latest tiny addition: the up-to-date favicon. When you look at the Google Calendar icon at the top of your browser window, it will no longer always display "31" but will instead change to reflect the current day of the month. Today's date is now always a short glance away. 

If you don't see the new up-to-date favicon already, you should within the next couple of days. To keep up-to-date on all things Google Calendar, check out our Twitter account (and feel free to tell us how you're using Calendar too). 

The Google Calendar team celebrating our 5th birthday at Google Zurich

Tuesday, April 12, 2011


IPL is back to YouTube!

Original post by Amit Agrawal, Head of Content Partnerships in India

Indian Premier League may only be four-years old, but it's quickly established itself as the hottest new addition to the world of cricket. And again this year, YouTube is bringing you all the action straight from the pitch of this superstar cricket extravaganza.

In partnership with Indiatimes, fans can watch games as they happen, view entire past matches, and enjoy highlight clips of all 74 matches on Indiatimes' YouTube Channel (www.youtube.com/indiatimes). This fourth instalment of IPL should be even more exciting than last year as two new teams Pune Warriors and Kochi Tuskers Kerala have joined the fray to battle it out with the eight veteran squads for the title.



The 51-day tournament kicked off Friday night with the returning champion Chennai Super Kings besting the Kolkata Knight Riders at home. That very first match and every other game of the IPL season will be webcast globally on YouTube (Note: 5 minute delay in India, match-length delay in U.S.), and the full-length videos of each match will be made available soon after they pull up stumps and retired to the pavillion. And this year everyone can watch the catch-up videos and highlights on their mobile phones as well as their computers.

So tune in as the match is happening. And if you missed a match (or want to watch in a more friendly time zone), view the whole thing later in the Past Matches tab atwww.youtube.com/indiatimes. And since this is YouTube, you can always share, rate, and comment on videos throughout the channel, or upload your own video responses to the action.

So get ready for another big season of bouncers, leg breaks and sixes. It's going to be a fun 51 days.

**sponsor update**

Friday, April 8, 2011


Gmail is better now

Original post by Sara Goetz, Consumer Experience Specialist,

Ever since I joined the Gmail team, my friends have been eager to tell me, "I love Gmail! Except for this one thing..." And every day, Gmail users share their "one thing" that would make Gmail better for them through our suggestions page. While we enjoy creating new solutions to old problems with features like Priority Inbox, those little annoyances and missing pieces are important, too. Recently, we've rolled out several small tweaks to Gmail to show it a little extra love.


Here's a rundown:

  • Auto-save contacts setting: Most people like that Gmail automatically saves every email address you send messages to; it can help recover forgotten addresses of former teachers, bosses, and people you contacted once but never thought you'd need to contact again. For some people, though, this feature can cause too much contacts clutter. Today, we're rolling out a new setting to let you turn off the auto-save option. You'll see it on the General tab of Gmail Settings.

  • Better warnings for typos in email addresses: We all make typos, even when addressing email. In the old days, when you accidentally left out the "." in your ".com", Gmail would tell you there was an error but not point it out. Now, it'll let you know which address has the problem -- much easier when sorting through a long "To:" list.

  • Fewer annoying error pop-ups: Gmail's filters are really useful for organizing your messages automatically, but sometimes those filters can have unintended consequences, like sending mail you'd like to keep to the trash. When you replied to a message in the Trash, Gmail would show an error message you'd have to click through to continue working. Now, you'll still see the error, but it's no longer a pop up and it gives you an easy way to move the conversation out of Trash right from there.

  • Easier transitions between certain actions: You can create filters quickly from the "Filter messages like this" option that shows up on some messages. Now, after you've saved your filter, Gmail will send you right back to the message you were reading so you can go right back to what you were doing before.

  • Keyboard shortcut guide for everyone: Keyboard shortcuts can be a huge productivity boosters. If you've never tried them, try hitting Shift+? -- that's one keyboard shortcut that's now automatically turned on and gives you a peek into the rest of them and a quick link to enable from there.

  • Refresh button: For a long time, people have pointed out the inconsistency of having "Refresh" as a link in the menu bar, next to all of the buttons. We changed it to a button to match.

If any of these small fixes were your "one thing," we hope you've noticed the changes as they rolled out. When you find the next little tweak that would make you love Gmail even more, let us know.

source: http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/fixing-little-things.html

Wednesday, April 6, 2011


Page Speed Labs from Google [overview]


Get suggestions to speed up your site

Page Speed Online analyzes the content of a web page, then generates suggestions to make that page faster. Reducing page load times can reduce bounce rates and increase conversion rates.

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEUyVC0mr7hoazsLoOqo7Y5RbB9RBRaZU9VbXQ1qNasS_fA9GwLsxOlKjhYskuCI8rgmENitJVwIm0Mc3tg_eRKMISY7C-ltPVy3SX7etYH9j-HYTogcxEffY54eVQPZ6UuZ9S3-BKU6s/

Why faster is better

At Google, we've found that faster sites make for a better user experience. Here are some resources on the benefits of faster sites:

What's new in Page Speed?


see also: http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/introducing-gmail-motion.html

Friday, April 1, 2011


"Helvetica & Comic Sans" font trick from Google Search

Wow.. here is the another cool trick from google today. try your own :)


search the word Comic Sans in google, what you can see now?


and again search the word Helvetica in google


see some other tricks from google today:

Damn Gmail fooled me this morning :(

When i try to login this morning (April 1st) i got a new notification like "Try New Gmail Motion" in the link http://mail.google.com/mail/help/motion.html and the message is

A new way to communicate
The mouse and keyboard were invented before the Internet even existed. Since then, countless technological advancements have allowed for much more efficient human computer interaction. Why then do we continue to use outdated technology? Introducing Gmail Motion -- now you can control Gmail with your body. 
 
Easy to learn
Simple and intuitive gestures

Improved productivity
In and out of your email up to 12% faster

Increased physical activity 
Get out of that chair and start moving today
 

and finally it says

 

Introducing the +1 Button


Original Post by David Byttow, Software Engineer, +1 Button from google webmaster blog

We all know what it’s like to get a bit of help when you’re looking for it. Online, that advice can come from a number of places: a tweet, a shared video, or a blog post, to name a few. With Google Social Search we’ve been working to show that content when it’s useful, making search more personally relevant.

We think sharing on the web can be even better--that people might share more recommendations, more often, if they knew their advice would be used to help their friends and contacts right when they’re searching for relevant topics on Google. That’s why we’re introducing the +1 button, an easy way for Google users to recommend your content right from the search results pages (and, soon, from your site).





+1 is a simple idea. Let’s use Brian as an example. When Brian signs in to his Google Account and sees one of your pages in the organic search results on Google (or yoursearch ads if you’re using AdWords), he can +1 it and recommend your page to the world.



The next time Brian’s friend Mary is signed in and searching on Google and your page appears, she might see a personalized annotation letting her know that Brian +1’d it. So Brian’s +1 helps Mary decide that your site is worth checking out.



We expect that these personalized annotations will help sites stand out by showing users which search results are personally relevant to them. As a result, +1’s could increase both the quality and quantity of traffic to the sites people care about.

But the +1 button isn’t just for search results. We’re working on a +1 button that you can put on your pages too, making it easy for people to recommend your content on Google search without leaving your site. If you want to be notified when the +1 button is available for your website, you can sign up for email updates at our +1 webmaster site.

Over the coming weeks, we’ll add +1 buttons to search results and ads on Google.com. We’ll also start to look at +1’s as one of the many signals we use to determine a page’s relevance and ranking, including social signals from other services. For +1's, as with any new ranking signal, we'll be starting carefully and learning how those signals affect search quality over time. At first the +1 button will appear for English searches only on Google.com, but we’re working to add more languages in the future.

We’re excited about using +1’s to make search more personal, relevant and compelling. We hope you’re excited too! If you have questions about the +1 button and how it affects search on Google.com, you can check the Google Webmaster Central Help Center.


some other links about the google +1:
http://newsgrange.com - http://newsgrange.com/why-googles-1-is-not-a-facebook-like-competitor/
http://gigaom.com - http://gigaom.com/2011/03/30/sure-i-could-join-a-google-based-social-network-but-why/
http://techcrunch.com - http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/31/google-like-pretty-much-eliminates-the-need-for-1/
http://searchengineland.com - http://searchengineland.com/meet-1-googles-answer-to-the-facebook-like-button-70569
source: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/03/introducing-1-button.html
see also: http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/faces-of-gmail-manu-cornet.html
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