Google Maps Easter Egg for Christmas

The Pegman icon from the new Google Maps looks different: it now has a Santa hat. The classic Google Maps still shows the standard icon.

Check this Google+ album to see almost 200 outfits created when Pegman was added to the new Google Maps.

{ Thanks, Mukil. }

Read More

Google Music to Add Upload Feature

To upload audio files to Google Play Music, you need to use Music Manager. It's only available as a native app for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux, so you can't use it if you have a Chromebook or a mobile device.

What if you need to upload a few songs and you don't want to wait until Music Manager syncs your files? What if you're using someone else's computer and you can't install Music Manager?

Google Play Music's source code includes a message which suggests that you'll be able to upload songs from your browser: "Drag songs or folders here to add music to your library. Or, if you prefer, select from your computer."

{ Thanks, Florian K. }

Read More

Sound Search Playlist in Google Music

Google's Sound Search widget for Android has a history page which shows all the songs that have been recognized by the application. You can also find this list inside Google Play Music if you go to this playlist. This is especially useful if you subscribe to the All Access feature and you can play all the songs.

A Google screenshot shows the Sound Search playlist in the sidebar:

"Hear a song you like while you're out and about? Touch the microphone on the home screen of your Android phone or tablet. Google Play identifies the song and adds it to the Song Match playlist. You can also use the Sound Search for Google Play app," mentions the page.

The first feature doesn't work for me, but maybe it will be added in the future.

{ Thanks, Florian K. }

Read More

Google Zeitgeist 2013

Google's Zeitgeist site redirects to Google Trends, which shows the year in review lists and some clever visualizations. "This year marks our most global Zeitgeist to date - with 1,000+ top 10 lists across categories like Trending People, Most-Searched Events and Top Trending Searches from 72 countries," mentions Google.

The search topics with the largest increase in search volume are: Nelson Mandela, Paul Walker, iPhone 5S, Cory Monteith, Harlem Shake, Boston Marathon, Royal Baby, Samsung Galaxy S4, PlayStation 4 and North Korea. Other popular gadgets: Xbox One, Nexus 5, HTC One, iPad Air, Blackberry 10 phones, Galaxy Note 3 and Nokia Lumia 1020. The most popular movie is Man of Steel and the most popular TV show is Under the Dome.

Google also shows a list of popular Google+ hashtags (#Boston, #BreakingBad, #TyphoonHaiyan) and YouTube videos (The Fox, Harlem Shake Army Edition, How Animals Eat Their Food).

You can select different countries and find the trending topics from other places. For example, the hottest technology topic in South Africa was BBM for Android, the hottest search in Spain was Outlook and the second most popular phone in India was Nokia Lumia 520.

There's also a globe that "visualizes the hottest daily Google searches in 2013 in over 150 cities. Explore what mattered to people by turning the globe, selecting a city, and sliding the date slider to any day of the year."

This video highlights some of the most important events from 2013 (some Google features too):

Read More

Google Zeitgeist Quiz

Update: The site is no longer available, but I'm sure it will be back.

Google Zeitgeist Quiz [update: the link doesn't work] is a site that tests how well you know the most important events that happened in 2013, the most popular news topics and the top Google searches. You'll answers questions about Prince George of Cambridge, Pope Benedict, Paul Higgs, Malala Yousafzai, Harlem Shake, Serge the Llama, the synthetic burger and more. After answering a question, Google shows a funny animated GIF.

{ Thanks, Florian K. }

Read More

Google's Christmas Carols Easter Egg

Google has a new Easter Egg for Christmas, but this time it's only for mobile devices. Search for [let's go caroling] using an Android or iOS device or use voice search and say "let's go caroling" and you'll see a list of 5 carols you can play: "Jingle Bells", "Up on the House Top", "Deck the Halls", "O Christmas Tree" and "We Wish You a Merry Christmas". Tap one of the carols and Google will start playing the karaoke version of the carol, while also displaying the lyrics.

Maybe this Easter Egg will actually be useful.

Read More

More About Gmail's Proxy

Last week, Google announced that Gmail will load external images using a proxy. I have the new feature in my Gmail account and it's easy to tell when it's enabled - Gmail will show this message:

"Loading images in Gmail is now safer, so you'll automatically see all images within a message when you open it. You can learn about images or change this option in Settings."

So what's new? You no longer have to click "Display images below" to see the images from a message. Until now, Gmail only displayed the images automatically for the people added to your address book (you had to send them a message at least once or manually add them to the address book). Now Gmail shows all the images, except for spam and other messages that are likely to be dangerous. "Gmail scans every message for suspicious content and if Gmail considers a sender or message potentially suspicious, images won't be displayed and you'll be asked whether you want to see the images."

Images are no longer loaded directly from external sites, they're loaded using a Google proxy. Here's an example of URL (I highlighted the original URL of the image):

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/proxy/AVvXsEjlc-EWBvdNQJMI34qdZ35gLKy5QIlVwuk5K50ozP_DAFi3aCa6oX7c-GZsvDzZBFER2YtsNRsvkkHJ37famvRYXIHgZz4Ep-FjJSC93T5ZQCI9aS3_9Tf4CeXt0PvN-Z86IaqdSshshlPGUDfHsD3q=s0-d-e1-fthttp://qsf.is.quoracdn.net/-b94cd3f312ea9653.png

Images are only loaded when you open a message and they're not cached by Google (browsers can cache them). Google's requests include: "via ggpht.com GoogleImageProxy" and appear to be from Firefox 3.0.7.

Google compresses images, but sometimes the resulting image is a lot bigger than the original.

The proxy feature can't be disabled. You can only go to Gmail's settings and enable "Ask before displaying external images", so you can manually enable images, but this doesn't disable the proxy.

{ Thanks, Artem. }

Read More

Custom Maps in the New Google Maps

The new version of Google Maps constantly brings back features from the classic Google Maps, which shows that it's almost ready to become the default interface. The new Google Maps shows a link for your custom maps below the search box. If you click the link, you should see a list of custom maps created with Maps Engine Lite or My Maps.

You can access your five most recent My Maps and Maps Engine maps in the new Google Maps. To quickly get to your custom maps:

* Open Google Maps and make sure you're signed-in.
* Click into the searchbox.
* Click the 'My custom maps' suggestion that appears below.
* Click the name of the map you want to view. Your map will either open in My Maps or Maps Engine.

You can also still access all of your My Maps and My Places content (available through classic Maps). To get there from the new Google Maps, click the Gear icon gear menu in the bottom right and select My Places.

Read More

Auto Awesome Snow Shake in Google+ for Android

This is another fun feature for the holidays, but it's limited to the Google+ app for Android: "Shake your device while viewing one of your photos, and watch the snow fall. Shake it again to save your new snowy photo and share it with family and friends."

It's a way to manually trigger the Auto Awesome Snow effect for any photo.

You need the latest version of the Google+ app (4.2.4), which was released today. Blame staged rollouts if you don't have the new version. You can also manually download the APK file.

This is not the only new feature: "when you +1 posts in the stream, you'll see something lovely" (hearts). There's also a unified search box, a new section for less important notifications and separate "What's Hot" streams for different categories.

Read More

Updated Google Settings Page

The Google Settings page has received a major makeover and switched to the card interface that's used in many Google services and apps. The page is more compact, better optimized for mobile devices and only focuses on the most important features. Advanced features like Google Dashboard or Takeout are linked from the "data tools" section. Google+ settings are available if you click "edit notification settings" and this page also has a new interface.

The security section lets you change your password and recovery options.

The language section lets you skip translations for one or more languages and also enable input tools.

While the new interface looks nice, I feel that there are too many links that send you to separate pages and the transition is not smooth. Here's an example for Google Takeout, which shows a "Data Tools" link that sends you back to the Google Settings page:

{ Thanks, Emanuele, JD, Jérôme. }

Read More

Google Uses a Proxy to Load Gmail Images

This is one of those features that users will love and marketers will hate (or maybe it's the other way around?). Until now, Gmail didn't display the images from messages sent by people that aren't in your address book if those images had to be loaded from an external site. You had to click "display images below" or "always display images from..." to see the images. This was done to protect your privacy: embedded images could set cookies or include unique IDs and inform those who sent the messages that you've read them or that the email address is active. Many newsletters and spam messages include images.

Google found a way to address this issue: it will display all the images by default, but load them from a proxy server. "Instead of serving images directly from their original external host servers, Gmail will now serve all images through Google's own secure proxy servers. So what does this mean for you? Simple: your messages are more safe and secure, your images are checked for known viruses or malware, and you'll never have to press that pesky 'display images below' link again. With this new change, your email will now be safer, faster and more beautiful than ever," informs Gmail's blog.

"Some senders try to use externally linked images in harmful ways, but Gmail takes action to ensure that images are loaded safely. Gmail serves all images through Google's image proxy servers and transcodes them before delivery to protect you in the following ways: senders can't use image loading to get information like your IP address or location, senders can't set or read cookies in your browser, Gmail checks your images for known viruses or malware. In some cases, senders may be able to know whether an individual has opened a message with unique image links," mentions Gmail's help center.

If the images are loaded using a proxy, the external server still receives a request and the sender can find if you've read the message. After all, this could actually be a good news for marketers: they may not get your IP address, but they'll know if you've read the message.

Here's some text that has been removed from the Gmail help article:

When you receive an email that contains externally linked images, Gmail usually doesn’t display the images automatically. This behavior is designed to help protect your privacy; if we displayed the images automatically, it could potentially allow the sender of the email to see that the images are being fetched, and therefore know when you've read their message. But, if someone you've sent email at least twice sends you a message with images in it, you'll see the image by default (because the people in this group are likely people you know and trust).

You can still choose to manually authorize images by selecting "Ask before displaying external images" in Gmail's settings. This is especially useful if you have a slow Internet connection or you want to be extra safe.

So when will you get the new feature? "This new improvement will be rolling out on desktop starting today and to your Gmail mobile apps in early 2014."

Read More

Google's Animated Decorations for Christmas

Last month, I mentioned that Google's search results pages got some special decorations when searching for [Hanukkah] and [Festivus]. Nothing for Christmas? Todd Kuk, a reader of this blog, says he noticed an animated image when searching for [Christmas], [A Christmas carol] and other queries that include "Christmas". I tried these queries, but I don't see the ornaments.

The animated GIFs:

Todd also recorded this video:

Here are the decorations from 2011 and from 2012.

{ Thanks, Todd. }

Read More

The New Google Sheets

There's a new version of Google Sheets. "It's faster, supports larger spreadsheets, has a number of new features, and works offline," informs Google.

Just in case you're wondering how to enable it, you should go to Google Drive's settings page, enable "Try the new Google Sheets" in the Editing tab and click "Save". You'll get the new version of the application only for the files you create from now on. The existing files will still open in the old Google Sheets.

There are some missing features in the new Google Sheets (protected sheets, spell check, publishing) and this shows that this is an early release.

So what's new? You can create and edit spreadsheets offline in Chrome, just like in Docs and Slides. The new Sheets is designed with performance in mind and handles huge spreadsheets: it supports 2 million cells of data and all of the other limitations have been removed. You're no longer limited to 256 columns per sheet. Other improvements: spreadsheets load faster and scrolling is smoother.

There are some new formula editing tools. "In the new Google Sheets, we've made it easier to build complex formulas in your spreadsheets. For example, you'll now see syntax highlighting, which shows you the argument in your function that you are working on, and you'll get more details on how to fix errors in your formula by hovering over them." Google also added 24 new functions, including SUMIFS, COUNTIFS, and AVERAGEIF.

Another new feature is called filter views and it lets you create, save and share filters, so you can get different views of your data without disrupting how others are viewing your spreadsheet.

"In the new Google Sheets, you can apply conditional formatting using a custom formula. This allows you to apply formatting to a cell or range of cells based on the contents of other cells."

You can also add a color to each of your sheet tabs, paste a rotated version of the copied cells from a column to a row or from a row to a column, restrict find and replace to a range of cells and apply custom formatting for currencies, dates, and numbers.

Read More

Google's Video Duration Experiment

This is a strange experiment: Google tests adding the duration of a video to the search result title. I've noticed this experiment by searching for [zero 7 in the waiting line]. Google seems to change the title only for YouTube videos, but not for all of them.

The duration of the video is already displayed on top of the thumbnail, so this is redundant.

Read More

New Google Sheets: faster, more powerful, and works offline

(Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog)

Whether you’re crunching big data or tracking your family budget, you don’t want to waste time waiting for files to load or re-doing edits that were lost because your Internet connection dropped. You can now get more done by switching to the new version of Google Sheets. It’s faster, supports larger spreadsheets, has a number of new features, and works offline.

Bigger, faster spreadsheets
The new Sheets supports millions of cells and kicks many of the old size and complexity limits to the curb. Scrolling, loading and calculation are all snappier, even in more complex spreadsheets.

New features based on your feedback and requests 

Filter views is a new feature unique to Google Sheets that lets you quickly name, save and share different views of your data. This comes in handy when you’re collaborating so you can sort a spreadsheet without affecting how others see it.

Whether you’re new to formulas or a whiz at running complex functions, it’s now easier to set up and perform calculations. New function help and examples guide you as you type, and error highlighting and coloring make it easy to spot and fix mistakes.

As another time-saving improvement, text now automatically flows into empty adjacent cells—no manual merge needed.

With the improved conditional formatting, you can add rules to change the colors and styles of cells in your spreadsheet based on custom formulas.

No internet connection? Work offline with Chrome 
You shouldn’t have to think about whether you have a WiFi connection when you want to work. So just like Google Docs and Slides, you can now make edits to Sheets offline. When you reconnect to the Internet, your edits will automatically sync. If you've edited Docs or Slides offline in the past, then you’re already set up to edit Sheets offline. If not, follow these one-time instructions for setting up offline in Chrome.

Ready to try it out? 
Turn on the new Sheets by checking the “Try the new Google Sheets” box in Google Drive settings. From then on, all new spreadsheets you create will work offline and include these new features. We’ll be adding a small list of missing features in the coming months, so if you rely on any of them, you may want to wait a little longer before opting in.

We hope you enjoy these and the many other updates that come along with the new Google Sheets, including colored sheet tabs, custom number formatting, paste transpose and more. Let us know what you think on our Google+ page!

Posted by: Zach Lloyd, Software Engineer

Read More

9 New Languages in Google Translate

Google Translate supports 9 new languages: Hausa (Nigeria, 35 million speakers), Igbo (Nigeria, 25 million speakers), Yoruba (Nigeria, 28 million speakers), Somali (Somalia, 17 million speakers), Zulu (South Africa, 10 million speakers), Mongolian (Mongolia, China, 6 million speakers), Nepali (Nepal, India, Bhutan 17 million speakers), Punjabi (India, Pakistan, 100 million speakers), Maori (New Zealand, 160,000 speakers). Google Translate now supports 80 languages and that's impressive.

According to Ethnologue, there are 80 languages with more than 10 million native speakers, 200 languages with at least 3 million speakers and 1,300 languages with at least 100,000 speakers. Google Translate supports all the languages with more than 100 million native speakers, 13 of the 16 languages that have between 50 and 100 million speakers, 4 of the 13 languages that have between 30 and 50 million speakers and 15 of the 47 languages that have between 10 and 30 million speakers.

Read More

10 New Chromecast Apps

The number of apps that support Chromecast has increased: there are 10 new apps and most of them are free. Here's the list:

* VEVO (Android, iOS) - music videos app, available in a few countries: Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Spain, UK and US.

* Red Bull.TV (Android, iOS) - videos and shows

* Songza (Android) - music streaming, online radio (there's an iOS app, but it doesn't support Chromecast yet)

* PostTV (Android) - news from Washington Post

* Viki (Android, iOS) - "Korean dramas, Taiwanese, Chinese and Filipino dramas, Telenovelas, Japanese dramas and anime, American cartoons, NBC Universal, History Channel, A&E, E! TV shows, as well as movies from Indonesia, Hong Kong"

* Revision3 (Android, iOS) - shows

* BeyondPod (Android) - podcast manager

* Plex (Android) - media player, Chromecast support only for videos, the app costs $5 (there's an iOS app, but it doesn't support Chromecast yet)

* Avia (Android) - media player, Chromecast support for local videos, music and photos, requires an in-app purchase that costs $3. I tried the app and it works well for local files, but the Google Cast API supports a small number of file formats

* RealPlayer Cloud (Android, iOS) - movie player that stores your videos online, US and Canada only

"There's no need to huddle around small screens when you can share your own photos and videos using your phone, tablet, or laptop," mentions Google.

From what I tried, the most interesting apps seem to be Songza (for playing online music) and Avia (for playing local files).

Read More

Google Settings Page for Phone Numbers

Google's account settings page has an updated section for phone numbers that groups some features that were already available elsewhere. If you click "edit" next to "phone numbers", Google will show the phone numbers associated with your account.

You'll probably see a phone number associated with Hangouts. You can enable or disable this setting: "Help people who have your phone number find and connect with you on Google services, like Hangouts and caller ID by Google." You can edit the phone number, change the way it's verified or remove the number.

There's also a phone number that's used for account recovery. Google encourages users to enable this feature, but it's optional. For now, the account recovery page is not integrated with the account settings page, so it looks different and has a long URL. "We'll use your phone to do things like challenge hijackers or send you a text message to help you access your account if you forget your password," informs Google.

The phone number management page was added back in May, but now it's more functional.

{ Thanks, Herin. }

Read More

Connect Google Photo Spheres

Google Maps Views has a new feature that lets you connect your photo spheres and create constellations. "By connecting your photo spheres you can create even more immersive, 360° views called constellations. You can choose to add your 'constellations' to Google Maps, so people can explore your favorite places on Maps. Keep your constellations private or share them with others on Google Maps or Views," informs Google.

Just go to your profile in Google Maps Views, select the photo spheres and click "connect images". You can create something like this:

This article has more information about changing photo sphere locations, rotating photo spheres in the right direction and connecting them. You can use multiple photo spheres to create your own Street View imagery.

Here are some examples: Google Boulder, Android Building, Carrick-A-Reed, Dunluce Castle, Asilomar Beach. Press the arrow icons to move between photo spheres.

{ via Google LatLong Blog }

Read More

Google Open Gallery

If you expand the list of services from Google's support page, you'll find an interesting service: Open Gallery. Clicking the link redirects you to the main Google support site.

I tried to find this service and searched for [open gallery]. Most of the results are about art galleries. Google actually has a service that brings museums online: Google Cultural Institute's Art Project. "Museums large and small, classic and modern, world-renowned and community-based from over 40 countries have contributed more than 40,000 high-resolution images of works ranging from oil on canvas to sculpture and furniture. Some paintings are available in 'gigapixel' format, allowing you to zoom in at brushstroke level to examine incredible detail," explains Google.

I've checked the source code of some Art Project pages and found this: "New! Artists, museums, galleries, archives: discover Google Open Gallery, powerful free tools to bring your content online." Google Open Gallery pointed to google.com/opengallery.

Update: Google Open Gallery is now available. "Google Open Gallery makes the technologies behind Google's cultural projects (Art Project, Historic Moments, World Wonders), plus additional tools, freely available to everyone to publish their artwork, archives, and other cultural content. Anyone, including individual artists and collectors, galleries and museums, and any organisation with an archive they want to share, can use Google Open Gallery." You only need to request an invitation.

{ Thanks, TomHTML and Artem. }

Read More