The Google Gmail team announced that Gmail and Google Contacts will start seeing Google+ integration over the next few days. With the update, users are going to be able to add people to their circles directly from Gmail, filter mails by Google+ Circles, and share photos to Google+ directly from your inbox.
Probably the most interesting feature out of this update is the ability to filter mail by circles. If your contacts are on Google+ and you have them in your circles, you'll be able to view mail that's just from those circles.
Today Google+'s photo app launched a new feature called Find My Face, which purports to make tagging photos of you and your friends much easier. Thankfully, this isn't a super creepy facial recognition tool. Not only is it completely opt-in, which means that Google asks for your permission before turning anything on, but users can decide whether or not they want to make the switch using Google+ settings. Matt Steiner, the engineering lead on the Google+ Photos Team, made the announcement today on Google+. Find My Face rolls out over the next few days.
Ending months of rumors, Google today launched its own personalized news-reading app for tablets and smartphones. Google Currents, as it's called, is an app for iOS and Android that presents content from magazines, news sites and blogs in a format that's far more digestible on mobile devices.
It lands in a somewhat crowded space occupied by offerings from Yahoo and AOL as well as from startups like Flipboard, Flud, Pulse and Zite, which was acquired by CNN earlier this year. Even before today's launch Google Currents was billed as a potential "Flipboard killer." After taking Google's new app for a spin, we're not convinced it poses a credible threat.
What's an Android user to do about this not-so-shocking fact? Rejoice?
A new report from ComScore tries to make it look like 10% of iPhone users is a huge marketshare when, really, it's not. For the three month period ending October 2011, reports showed that 234 million Americans ages 13-and-older used mobile devices. Apple has bumped its way up to number four, trailing behind Samsung, LG and Motorola. It did pass up RIM.
What might actually be more significant than the amount of mobile subscribers achieved by Apple is that of the five brands listed in this report, Apple is the only one that has actually gained more subscribers over the past three months alone. And just to be clear, this data was collected before the launch of the iPhone4S.
Yesterday, Google added flight information to Web search results. It launched Google Flight Search in September for select U.S. cities. Google Flight Search is powered by technology and expertise from Google's acquisition of ITA Software in 2010, a service that boasted a list of clients including airline websites and booking services like Orbitz and Kayak.
Google recently launched the first version of Google Maps for Android that adds complete building maps inside airports, so now Google can take you all the way from booking the flight to shutting off your phone when the flight attendant asks you to without using any other Web service.
Today Google rolled out the latest of its Google+ integration projects. This time it was YouTube, which at the same time launched a snazzy new design. The redesign is not only visually more colorful and appealing, it also promotes sharing in a big way. YouTube is enabling you to autoshare to four different social networks: Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and Orkut. But wait... notice anything missing there? That's right, Google+ is not included in the autosharing.
On the face of it, this makes little sense. Now I can 'like' a video on YouTube and it automatically shows up on my Facebook wall and Twitter feed. That's actually very cool. It saves me having to manually share things, yet I still control the autosharing (as I have to click the 'like' button in YouTube). Indeed this is frictionless sharing the way it should be - the user is in control of what gets shared, but it's made much easier for them. So why on earth isn't Google+ part of the autosharing?
The YouTube redesign we got a sneak peak into last month is now going live for all users. It has been reborn as a social and customizable media site, letting users customize their lists of channels right on the front page, as well as share to Google+ and Facebook.
It might be surprising to see Facebook integration so prominently on YouTube, with Google+ is trying to make a name for itself, but think of it this way: Facebook is huge. YouTube is huge. Google+ is not yet huge. What better way for Google to introduce Facebook users to Google+?
According to a public post from Jarkko Oikarinen, creator of the trusty chat protocol IRC, Google+ Hangouts will now let you conference people in by phone for free. You can use Hangouts with extras to dial in anyone in the U.S. and Canada. It allows anyone with a phone number to participate in a Hangout right alongside the people on video.
Smartphone users have been able to use the Google+ mobile apps to Hangout on video since September, but now there's no video necessary. Hangouts are now an easy way to hold a meeting, even for people away from their computers. It could be used just for fun, but it's also another reason why Google+ Hangouts are a great tool for work.
Only three years after hitting the market, Google's Chrome Web browser has overtaken Firefox as the #2 most-used browser, according to new data from StatCounter.
Chrome now has 25.69% of the global browser marketshare, just a slight notch above Firefox, which holds on at 25.23%. In September, it was predicted that Chrome was on track to bump Firefox from the #2 slot by about this time, and sure enough that projection has come true. Granted, that prediction was also based on StatCounter numbers, and this data often looks different depending on who is doing the reporting.
Google has replaced that ubiquitous black bar with a Google search bar that more closely matches the gray, red and blue design scheme that has rolled out across so many of its Web properties this year.
Instead of text links to the various Google services across the bar, they now appear in a drop-down menu under the Google logo. The new bar still displays the Google+ notification box and share button. There's also a search box right in the toolbar now, restoring Google's core product to the very top of all its pages. The bar lets you search whatever Google service you're currently using, offering voice search when available.
