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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