Panoramio Redesign

Google's Panoramio service has been redesigned and now looks just like a Google Maps extension. The new interface (codenamed "acrylic") is borrowed from Google Maps Views. You can go back to the old UI by clicking "Return to classic Panoramio"."We've made photos the hero on the page while still keeping the important features that people enjoy. On the photo page, by far the most popular on the site, we've made the photo over three times bigger! We've...

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Google Keyboard Themes

If you use the stock Android keyboard, which is also available in the Play Store, you can change the look and feel of the keyboard. Google Keyboard has a few themes you can choose, but they're not available in the settings.Here's a quick way to pick a different theme, assuming your device runs Android 4.0 or later:1. you first need an application that lets you create shortcuts to app activities. Some apps that let you do that: Nova Launcher and Apex...

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Google Tests a New Tablet Search Interface

Remember the card-style redesign for Google mobile search? Google tests a similar interface for tablets:There's more white space, top search results stand out even more, while Knowledge Graph cards and results from specialized Google search engines look like distinct sections of the page.{ via Techno-Net...

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The $199 Phone

It's hard to believe that a high-end smartphone can cost only $199 without contracts and carrier subsidies. Nexus 4 was released last year and its specs don't look that great when you compare it with phones like HTC One or Samsung Galaxy S4, but Nexus 4 runs the latest Android version, it has a smooth interface and many developers use it to test their apps.From $299 to $199, Nexus 4 managed to become the first high-end smartphone that costs less...

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Google Earth Tour Builder

Google has a new experimental service that lets you build Google Earth tours from your browser. It's called Tour Builder and it requires the Google Earth Plugin (you also get the plugin when you install Google Earth)."Tour Builder is a new way to show people the places you've visited and the experiences you had along the way using Google Earth. It lets you pick the locations right on the map, add in photos, text, and video, and then share your creation....

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New Google Sign-in Page for Mobile Devices

Google's mobile sign-in page has a new interface that uses the same slogan from the desktop: "One password. All of Google." It's a more crowded page that includes a silhouette icon, a list of icons for Google services like Gmail, YouTube, Google Maps and a small "Create an account" link at the bottom of the page instead of the red "sign up" button.Here's the old interface:For some reason, the new sign-in page lacks the "stay signed in" checkb...

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Knowledge Graph Reminders

If you search Google for music artists, actors, books, TV shows and you're logged in, you'll see a new "Remind me" button in the Knowledge Graph card. Click the button and "Google Now will remind you about new releases/movies/episodes on your phone or tablet".Until now, you could add time-based and location-based reminders to Google Now. These new reminders are special and can only be added from Google search. You can manage them from the Google...

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Sites That Integrate With Google Now

There's a long list of sites that integrate with Google Now: Air Berlin, Air Canada, Emirates, Booking.com, Lastminute.com, TicketWeb, Ticketfly, Orbitz, CheapTickets, OpenTable, Fandango, Rotten Tomatoes, Zillow and more.There's nothing magic about integrating travel sites, hotel booking sites, event-ticketing sites with Google Now. You only need to add some markup to email notifications. "By adding schema.org markup to the emails you send your...

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New Layout for Google+ Post Pages

Google+ post pages look different: posts are now moved to the right and there's a huge box that shows the name of the page or author and the number of followers. The new layout encourages people to follow pages and Google+ users, but makes posts more difficult to read.Here's an example of post from Gmail's Google+ pa...

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Better Photo Attachments in Gmail's iOS App

The latest version of the Gmail app for iOS added a better way to open photo attachments. Until now, you had to tap each photo to open it using the app's internal browser and go back to the message.Now you can tap a photo attachment and use swipes to go to the next or previous image, just like in the built-in Photos app.The "print" link is no longer displayed next to the thumbnail, but it's still available in the actions menu. For some reason, filenames...

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Use Gmail's New Compose Interface for Replies

When Gmail launched the new compose interface, I wondered why the interface for replying to other messages is different. By default, when you reply to a message or you forward a message, Gmail shows the rich-text editor below the message, just like before.There are a few ways to make the reply box look like the compose box, so you can open other messages or use Gmail's search feature while replying to a mail.1. Shift-click the "reply" link or the...

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Head back to school with Drive: Student Edition

Guest posted by Alex NagourneyAlex Nagourney is a 2013 graduate of Wellesley College. She was a 2011 Google BOLD intern and a Google Student Ambassador from 2011-2013. She currently lives in New York City.Summer is coming to an end, which for college students usually means the end of a grueling internship, a road-trip or cross-country flight back to campus, embracing friends you have not seen in months, and, oh yeah, that other tiny detail: the start...

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No More Notification Ads and Icon Ads in Android Apps

Here's a Google Play policy change that will make a lot of Android users happy: Android apps will no longer be able to install home screen icon for third-party services and show notification ads.From Google: "Apps and their ads must not add homescreen shortcuts, browser bookmarks, or icons on the user's device as a service to third parties or for advertising purposes. Apps and their ads must not display advertisements through system level notifications...

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New Gestures in Chrome for Android

One of the most annoying features in Chrome for Android has been finally removed in the latest beta release: swiping from the edge of the screen to switch tabs. It's very easy to trigger this gesture accidentally when you open desktop sites and some sites use similar gestures (Google Image Search).Google replaced it with a gesture that's less error-prone: "swipe horizontally across the top toolbar to quickly switch tabs". It's hard to this accidentally...

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Which Google Drive Images Are Added to Google+ Photos?

If you're wondering why not all the image files from Google Drive are available in Google+ Photos, here's the explanation. Google+ Photos only imports photos if they meet these criteria:1. photos MUST be at least 512 x 5122. JPG photos MUST have 'Date Taken' EXIF metadata3. supported formats: JPG, GIF, WebP, RAW.I've tested various image files and these are the rules. Google wants to restrict the feature to photos, but it's not clear why GIF and...

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Google Updates the Dictionary OneBox

Google updated the dictionary OneBox with etymological information, a translation box and a graph that shows the use of a word over time. The graph is based on the Google Books Ngram Viewer and it shows the number of mentions of a word over time in a corpus of millions of books. You need to click the arrow icon at the bottom of the box to see the new features.Here's the expanded definition box for [sophist definition]:Google offers a lot of useful...

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Google Tests a New Mobile Search Interface

Google tests a new card-style interface for mobile search results. There are special cards for Knowledge Graph results, results from specialized search engines and for related searches. The new interface only shows Previous/Next buttons.Many Google web apps and mobile apps use the card-style interface that was first added to Google Now. You can find it in Google Search, Google Play, Google+, the new Google Maps, Google Keep, the new YouTube app....

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