Gmail's People Widget Shows Recent Photo Attachments

Gmail has never included an option to manage the attachments from the messages you've received. You can't see a list of PDFs received this month or a list of photos sent by one of your friends. Gmail's advanced search features let you find the messages that include PDF files or photos, but you have to open each message to see the files.

The people widget now shows more information about a contact: thumbnails of recent photos your contacts sent you. Clicking on a thumbnail opens the corresponding message.

For now, Gmail only shows the most recent 3 photos from a contact and doesn't let you see all of them. Maybe Gmail will integrate with the upcoming Google Drive and all the Gmail attachments will finally be searchable, easy to organize and share, just like Google Drive (Docs) files.

{ Thanks, Daniel. }

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Google Music Labs

If you're looking for more features for Google Music, try the new Labs page. Google informs that "Google Play music labs are a testing ground for experimental features that aren't quite ready for primetime. They may change, break, or disappear at any time."

Right now, there are three experimental features available: desktop notifications for Chrome, HTML5 audio and 5-star ratings. If you enable 5-star ratings, thumbs ups and thumbs downs will be converted to 5 stars and 1 star. HTML5 audio "works in all browsers that support MP3 playback with HTML5 audio: Chrome, Safari 3.1+, and IE 9+" and replaces the hidden Flash player that's currently used.

After enabling desktop notifications, you should see an infobar that asks for permission. Click "allow" and Google Music will show a nice notification enhanced with a cover art thumbnail when a new song starts playing.

{ Thanks, Florian K. }

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Google's Project Glass

After a few months of speculation, Google revealed some information about the project that will make Google Goggles and other mobile apps more useful. Instead of using a smartphone to find information about an object, translate a text, get directions, compare prices, you can use some smart glasses that augment the reality and help you understand more about that things around you.

"We think technology should work for you—to be there when you need it and get out of your way when you don't. A group of us from Google[x] started Project Glass to build this kind of technology, one that helps you explore and share your world, putting you back in the moment," says Google.

There's also a video that shows why the glasses could be helpful:

Google's concept glasses have a camera, a microphone and can connect to the Internet to send and receive data in real time. The interface is simple and it only shows relevant information.

One of the people who used the glasses said that "they let technology get out of your way. If I want to take a picture I don't have to reach into my pocket and take out my phone; I just press a button at the top of the glasses and that's it."

In February, New York Times reported that "the glasses [could] go on sale to the public by the end of the year. (...) The people familiar with the Google glasses said they would be Android-based, and will include a small screen that will sit a few inches from someone's eye. They will also have a 3G or 4G data connection and a number of sensors including motion and GPS." Seth Weintraub found that "the navigation system currently used is a head tilting-to scroll and click, (...) I/O on the glasses will also include voice input and output, and we are told the CPU/RAM/storage hardware is near the equivalent of a generation-old Android smartphone".

It will be interesting to see if Google will actually sell these smart glasses. There are a lot of issues that need to be solved before releasing a commercial product: from battery life to packaging so much technology in a such a small product, from improving Google Goggles to handling real-time video streaming.

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Gmail's YouTube Lightbox

When an email message includes includes links to YouTube videos, Gmail shows a gadget that lets you watch the videos inside Gmail. The YouTube preview feature graduated from Gmail Labs two years ago.

Gmail now tests another interface for previewing YouTube videos, but it only works for YouTube's email digests. When you click one of the thumbnails from the newsletter, Gmail shows the YouTube player in a "lightbox". For some reason, this only works when the "Apps Search" lab feature is enabled.

{ Thanks, Emanuele. }

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It's Easier to Organize Files in Google Docs

Google Docs now lets you move a file to a folder without using the Docs list. Just click the "folder" icon next to the title of the file and you can pick one or more folders. This works for documents, spreadsheets, presentations, drawings, PDF files and any other files.

Google uses the word "collection" instead of "folder" and that's confusing for both Google Docs users and Google's engineers. When you mouse over the new icon, the tooltip reads "folders". Google Docs collections are actually hierarchical labels because you can place a file in multiple collections.

{ Thanks, Cougar. }

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Google April Fools' Day 2012

April Fools' Day is now associated with Google and the countless pranks which show that Google hasn't lost its cheerfulness.

The first hoax for this year comes from Google Japan: you can now try the 8-bit version of Google Maps. Just click the "quest" button in the regular Google Maps interface.

"Our engineering team in Japan understood the importance of maps on retro game systems. With the power of Google's immense data centers, and support from Nintendo and Square Enix, we were able to overcome the technical and design hurdles of developing 8-bit maps. Today, we're excited to announce the result: a version of Google Maps for NES, with beautiful low-res graphics, simple and intuitive controls, and a timeless soundtrack," explains Google.

The 8-bit Google Maps hides some monsters from the Dragon Quest series.

Google Japan also came up with a simplified IME for Japanese (Google Translate) that only uses a single key: space.

Google China changed the search results page for [Qingming], but you'll only see the beautiful animated wallpaper if you use Chrome. "The Qingming Festival (...) is a traditional Chinese festival on the 104th day after the winter solstice (or the 15th day from the Spring Equinox), usually occurring around April 5 of the Gregorian calendar" (from Wikipedia).

"Use the Chrome browser, Google's search box, enter "Qingming", the results page is the past is not the same? Greeted by swaying willow branches, a symbol of spring in the air. "Green little Liulv the Yula have Qingming, the page will float to the surface ripples from time to time, and click a fish tail out of the water continued to click, but also do not like surprises! The bottom of the page are two cowboy, riding a piper playing in the back of a bull, quiet and lightly." (machine translation - Google China Blog)

Don't miss the underwater image search experience developed by Google China. It's so much fun to type your query.

Google Australia found a way to capture more Street View images for Australia: Google Street Roo. "Over the next four weeks, more than a thousand Big Red kangaroos will be equipped with a 360-degree head camera that will automatically capture images when the marsupial is on the move during daylight hours. The cameras on our Street Roo collection team will be powered by solar panels stitched into the back pocket of custom-made roo jackets. Images will be wired to Google in real-time. A GPS tracker embedded into the jacket will match the location of the kangaroo to ensure the image is accurately uploaded onto the new Street View layer."

Inspired by the Japanese IME and the Morse Code, Gmail's team introduces a new way to type on a mobile device. "Gmail Tap takes the keyboard from 26 keys to just two. Every letter of the alphabet is represented by a simple pattern of dots and dashes, and once you know them you can type without even looking at your screen. This makes it ideal for situations where you need to discreetly send emails, such as when you're on a date or in a meeting with your boss."

AdWords brings a new ad extension: click-to-teleport. "While features like call extensions and location extensions have aimed at solving the online to store marketing objective for multichannel advertisers, Click-to-Teleport shortens the offline conversion funnel by allowing a user to teleport directly to your business location by clicking on your search ad."

If you've already optimized your sites for mobile phones, you can now optimize them for rotary phones.

YouTube offers a way to enjoy your favorite videos even when you don't have an internet connection. The YouTube Collection lets you watch any YouTube video on DVD and you can still share your feedback.

Just click the "home" button from the YouTube player to watch a demo.

Chrome's engineers found a new way to multitask. "We call it Multitask Mode. Multitask Mode lets you have access to multiple mice at the same time, so you can make a chess move while you watch a dance move, or draw a horse while you draw on a friend for relationship advice. Chrome can handle as many mice, touchpads, styli, joysticks, trackballs, and other pointing devices as you can plug into your computer, so you and your friends can browse dozens of sites at the same time."

Jargon-Bot for Google Apps translates business jargon into plain English. " Jargon-Bot has been integrated across the entire suite of Google Apps so that next time you are on an IM chat with your manager, it will help you recognize and say no to unrealistic expectations. When you receive an e-mail from your supplier, Jargon-Bot won’t let you get ripped off by demystifying the fine print," explains Google.

Make sure you try the interesting new options from Google's search sidebar that let you find pages from the past: "Jurassic Era", "Victorian Era", "Enlightenment", "Once Upon a Time" and even tomorrow's pages.

Image Search lets you find images from "the Gilded age".

Here are the queries used by Google:

* Hadean Era: just us rocks, move along
* Jurassic Era: It's a UNIX system, I know this!
* Cretaceous Era: "dinosaur repellent" OR "time machine repair"
* New Kingdom Era: tetrahedral real estate listings
* Once Upon A Time: Poisoned Apple Antidotes
* Enlightenment: ego quaerere ergo ego sum
* Victorian Era: this query served from Google's Difference Engine cluster
* Past 5.391e-44 seconds [Planck time]: a photon passes, no new celebrity news, must refresh faster
* Tomorrow: todo: create tachyon web crawler

For even more search options, try Google Really Advanced Search. You can find pages with words "almost, but not quite entirely unlike" a word you enter, "this exact word or phrase, whose sum of unicode code points is a mersenne prime". You can narrow the results by font, textured background, "embarrassing grammatical faux pas" or "looping midi music".

Google's weather OneBox is now more powerful and it lets you change the weather. "Don't like the weather? Now you can change it in your region by selecting from the dropdown to change precipitation and setting your own temperature. Please notice, after submitting it takes approximately 45 minutes until your weather changes take effect," informs Google.

There's also a new Cloud API for the App Engine which lets you "gain cloud coverage in locations around the globe within minutes".

Google Analytics promise to add support for interplanetary reports, just in case your site has visitors from another planet. "While currently you only get a partial picture of website visitor location, we want to expand beyond Earth to help you understand visitor activities from neighboring stars and planets. You’ll also be able to drill down on each planet to see greater detail. For example, which colony or outpost your visitors came from similar to the city drill down available for Earth today."

Self-driving cars are becoming a reality, but happens if you bring self-driving cars to NASCAR? "Our autonomous cars have now been test-driven (or rather, test-ridden) for more than 200,000 miles without a single machine-caused mishap. And today we're moving the project one great leap forward with Google Racing, a groundbreaking partnership with NASCAR to help self-driving vehicles compete in the world of stock car racing."

Google is bringing an ultra high-speed fiber network to Kansas City, but also releasing a Fiber Bar. "Google Fiber starts with 100 times more fiber than any source of fiber available today. Tested in labs across our Mountain View campus, we found that in just the right synthesis, psyllium and vitamins C and D morph into a byproduct we have coded as Fiberlicious. This smarter fiber delivers just what the body needs to sustain activity, energy and productivity up to 100 times more than you have experienced before."

{ Thanks, everyone. }

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Google Account Stats

Google added an interesting feature that shows stats for services like Google Latitude, Gmail, Google Search and more. If you go to the Account Activity page, you can opt in for a monthly report that provides a "summary of your account activity across many Google products".

It's like a personal Google Analytics, but it's less detailed and it focuses on security features. For example, Google shows a list of locations and browsers detected when you've signed in. If you never use Opera, but the browser is included in Google's list, then it's likely that someone else found your password. The activity page also includes the number of emails you've sent and received, the number of Google searches and stats from Google Latitude, Picasa Web and YouTube.

I've enabled this feature and Google says that my "next report will be ready in a few days" and I'll receive an email notification when it's ready. It would be nice to aggregate the data in real time and integrate Account Activity with Google Dashboard, which already shows some stats.

{ via Google Blog }

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