Google Tutor

Chrome For Android Finally Sees the Light of the Day

Abhijeet Mukherjee — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 12:00:03 +0000

One of the pet peeves about Android that its veteran users have had since its early days is its default browser. Its lack of features have prompted Android users to switch to better alternatives like Dolphin. But that may soon be a thing of past because Google has finally introduced the Android counterpart of its popular web browser. Yes, Chrome For Android has hit the stands.

Firstly, Chrome for Android is in beta and currently works only on ICS (Android 4.0) and that means most of the Android users around the world cannot try it. Paris Lemon calls it the browser for the 1% and it’s true for now but eventually the other 99% is going to be using ICS so I think it’s a welcome move by Google.

I don’t have Android ICS so I couldn’t get my hands on this new browser but from what I’ve been reading about it on other tech blogs, I can say that it’s a killer. Techcrunch says it’s fantastic, Paris Lemon in his post that I talked about earlier mostly praised its features and Ars Technica says it’s a big step forward.

Chrome for Android certainly brings some amazing features like bookmarks and tab sync which means that you can have exactly the same open tabs on your Chrome on Android as you have it on the desktop. It all stays in sync!

Android tablets will also have Chrome now but the interface is slightly different. Read more about this new browser and its features on the official blog.

So, what do you say? Are you more likely to buy a new Android handset now considering that you could use this awesome browser on it?

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Grad School to Google: How Larry and Sergey Became Billionaires

Brian Wallace — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:58:17 +0000

This exceptional infographic not only knocks it out of the park graphically but the story keeps you interested and entertained. It is the story of Google creators, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. The infographic shows you how they went from Stanford to billionaires, over the course of 16 years.

(Select Image to Begin)

Created by Online PhD

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Where Did Google Make Their Money In 2011?

Brian Wallace — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 15:58:22 +0000

The Google numbers are in, and the empire went from 32.2 billion to 37.9 billion since the beginning of last year. The latest infographic on the subject shows us just where Google made it’s money and which keywords were the most popular.

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Gmail Offline Chrome App Gets More Features

Abhijeet Mukherjee — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 14:24:08 +0000

Remember the Gmail Offline Chrome app we talked about that lets you work on Gmail in offline mode? Well, looks like it got better with more features.

You’ll now see a Settings button specifically for the offline app where you can change
certain settings.

As you see in the screenshot above, Gmail now gives you more mail sync options in terms of the number of days of emails you want to sync. So you could sync a week, 2 weeks or even a month worth of emails. How is this useful you might ask? Well, as the Gmail team put it elegantly in their official announcement, “the next time you get on an airplane, you can sit back and tackle up to 31 days of mail all while offline.”

Another great improvement has come in the form of ability to download mails with attachments offline. All those attachments can be now downloaded and viewed even if you are working in Gmail in the offline mode.

There are other performance enhancements and you can now use keyboard shortcuts in offline Gmail, which should come as a big relief for productivity buffs like me who tend to frequently use keyboard shortcuts.

Overall, Gmail Offline for Chrome now comes with a new and improved version and you should ensure that you are using the latest Chrome build if you want the app to work perfectly.

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Google’s Campaign Against SOPA and PIPA Saw 4.5 Million Signing the Petition

Abhijeet Mukherjee — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 14:16:36 +0000

I’m sure each one of you would agree that yesterday was an unprecedented day in the history of the Internet. A huge number of major sites, like Wikipedia, WordPress, WIRED, Reddit and many more were on strike protesting the draconian SOPA and PIPA acts and were blacked out as a result. Google did its part too by blacking out the logo, and directing users to their take action page in order to urge them to sign a petition telling the Congress to not censor the web.

Looks like Google’s efforts bore fruits. LA Times reports that the petition was signed by 4.5 million according to a spokeswoman for Google.

That’s a very impressive number if you were to ask me. I’m sure a far greater number of people would have visited the page but getting 4.5 million of them to take action isn’t a small feat. It has proved that the campaign against these censorship laws has been effective and there is genuine concern among people on the consequences of such a legislation on the functioning of the World Wide Web.

On another note, I’d say Google did a pretty good job with their landing page. It is neatly designed and has useful content that educates people on SOPA and PIPA. The image is appealing and the message on the sidebar is assertive enough to get people to sign the petition.

We at Google Tutor oppose SOPA and PIPA, and applaud Google and all other vanguards of the Internet economy for their drive against these stupid acts. You can still sign the petition if you haven’t yet – Take Action!

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Has Google Erred Big Time With Search Plus Your World?

Abhijeet Mukherjee — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 14:28:23 +0000

Have you started noticing more of Google+ in the results when you search Google while you are signed in to your Google account? Like, Google+ status updates and photos of those who are in your circles and are saying something relevant to your search query? An example of that can be seen in the screenshot below.

These changes are part of what Google calls Search, plus Your World that it introduced last week and it basically integrates Google+ deeper into Google search results. This works only when you are signed in to your Google account and have personalized search enabled, which is enabled by default. You should be able to see your Google+ friends’ posts, photos etc in the Google search results.

This change didn’t take the tech world by surprise because everyone anticipated that Google will integrate Google+ into search results sooner or later but the scale at which it was implemented did irk a lot of Google watchers out there.

Search guru Danny Sullivan was quite critical of the change and went on to say that “Google is abusing its dominant position in search” by implementing this change.

Twitter said that it was concerned and the change is bad for people, publishers, news organizations and Twitter users.

Jerry Brito took a different take on the subject on TIME and said that this change negatively affected Google’s image as a user-friendly and credible search engine and people are likely to move on to Bing which is far more clutter free.

Matt Cutts on the other hand praised the change and pointed out that this doesn’t mean Google isn’t pulling data from the open web.

If you were to ask me, I am yet to form a firm opinion on this subject. I have tried it a bit and on one occasion it worked quite well and on the other, it was just adding more clutter and prevented me from quickly reaching the most relevant result.

Overall, it is clear that Google will leave no stone unturned in pushing Google+ to the masses, and the question is if this will ultimately lead to the deterioration of the world’s foremost search engine or if people will get used to it to the point that they’ll start praising this Google step in hindsight.

What do you think? How has Google+ affected your Google search experience?

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Search Different Google Services From One Page With What Do You Love

Abhijeet Mukherjee — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 14:00:02 +0000

What do you love? (WDYL) is an all-in-one search page created by Google that lets users conduct a search for a single query across multiple Google services (the ones that are searchable).

The homepage, as you see above, is clean and simple and just wants you to enter your query without really giving you an idea of the products that’ll show up on the next page.

When you hit that button with the heart icon you’ll be greeted with a grid-based page showing snippets of search results across different Google products like Google Translate, Google Trends, Google Books, Google Alerts, YouTube, Maps etc.

There’s a link in each snippet to go to the main page of that service. There’s also a vertical slider on the left sidebar that lets you quickly scroll through the grids.

Overall, it’s a sweet page to bookmark if you tend to frequent different Google services mainly to search for things.

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In College? Google Has Some Tips For You

Abhijeet Mukherjee — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 14:33:08 +0000

One of the creative product marketing methods that Google uses now and then is creating landing pages that target a specific demographic. You might remember about the Teach Parents Tech initiative that Google ran last year at about this time (December). A similar initiative was launched recently, called College Tips by Google.

College Tips by Google, as the name suggests, is a collection of tips by Google for college aspirants, students studying in college at the moment and seniors who have passed out of college.

As you would expect, the site does its best to promote Google products. It has cleverly separated the suggested products in three categories – Prospective College Students, Current College Students and College Seniors. There are different videos, product descriptions for each of those categories.

One can also try the tools right from this page. There are buttons that let you try/download Google products right away.

Well, I find it hard to believe that the products or their uses mentioned by Google staff on this page is not already known to a college goer. But nonetheless, it’s a good page to share with a college aspirant if you have one in your family. Won’t harm to send him the link.

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Google’s Revamped Doodle Site Shows Off Its Impressive Doodle Collection

Abhijeet Mukherjee — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 13:54:01 +0000

We all love Google Doodles, don’t we? And this year, Google has been really experimenting with them, bringing out video doodles, doodles that play music and what not. Plus, there have been a lot of them too. Now you can easily browse through all of them on the revamped Google Doodle site.

The new design of the site offers a cleaner interface and the ability to search doodles by year and by country.

Each doodle has a page dedicated to itself containing some information about it.

There’s also Doodle store in case you want to get Doodles on retail products.

Overall, a nice way to curate Google Doodles, and also a site you should bookmark if you want to check Doodles from the past.

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Google Zeitgeist 2011 is Out; Rebecca Black Pips Google’s Own Google+ to Occupy Top Spot

Abhijeet Mukherjee — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 15:00:58 +0000

It’s the time of the year when Google Releases its Zeitgeist, a compilation of search trends that dominated billions of Google searches across the world. The Zeitgeist shows the fastest-rising global search queries in 2011, as well as the rising search trends on Google in different countries around the world.

So, who topped the list globally this time?

Surprise, surprise, it’s Rebecca Black! Yes, that girl who uploaded her song on YouTube and then the rest is.. well, whatever it was, there is no denying the fact that she was the hot topic for discussion for many weeks which resulted in catapulting her to the top of Google’s global zeitgeist for 2011.

What’s interesting however is that Rebecca Black surpassed both Google’s own hot new service Google+, and Steve Jobs, whose death caused a flurry globally.

Google has made many changes to its Zeitgeist site for this year. In their own words:

For our 2011 Zeitgeist site, we’ve improved the visualizations to make it easy to compare terms across categories, added detailed infographics for an immersive dive into the data and created a video overview of the search terms that captivated the world this year.

You can check more on the official blog post introducing Google Zeitgeist 2011.

So, spend some time on the Zeitgeist and let us know what do you think about it. Did you expect Rebecca Black to feature as the fastest rising search trend around the world in 2011? Well, honestly, I didn’t.

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Google+ Adds Cool New Features to Hangouts

Abhijeet Mukherjee — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 14:00:43 +0000

Google continues to add more awesomeness to its flagship social network Google+, and this time it has chosen its already cool and popular Hangouts for the new additions, thereby making it better and much more useful.

Let us check out the new Hangout features that is going to be available to every Google+ user around the world very soon.

Web Broadcast and YouTube Upload

Everyone can now go on Air using Google+ Hangouts. You could broadcast to the world using the broadcast and record option that you should see soon, and once your broadcast is over, the entire recording of that broadcast gets uploaded as a private video to your YouTube account. Cool, isn’t it?

Move From Text to Video in Conversations

You can easily switch to a hangout from a text conversation in Google+ from now on. As you see in the screenshot above, all it takes is a click on the Hangout link. This feature will also be available on Google+ for Android.

Dial-in to Telephones All Over the World

You can now dial-in to phones around the world from Google+, just like you can from Gmail. The calling to US and Canada is free and the ones to international destinations are priced reasonably.

Better Hangout Notifications

You’ll see more live hangouts in the sidebar and get notifications on desktop and mobile when someone invites you to a hangout.

And lastly, you can have more fun by adding virtual horns to faces of people with whom you are having hangouts. Overall, Google+ Hangouts is just getting better and better, don’t you think?

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Google+ Decentralizes Photo Tagging With Find My Face

Abhijeet Mukherjee — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 14:15:14 +0000

One of the things I hate about sharing photos or photo albums on social networks is tagging. It’s just too much of work to select and tag faces. Of course, not doing that is always an option but tagging has its benefits. Like, if your Mom is going through your snaps on Facebook, it’s better to let her see the names right on the pictures instead of spending hours with her later on the phone explaining who was who in the photos.

Google+ realized this, and hence they’ve now introduced a neat new feature called Find My Face. What it does is basically de-centralizing the task of tagging your face in the pictures. That means, once this feature is turned on in the settings, people you know would be prompted to tag you in the photos where you appear.

The tags won’t actually appear until you accept them, so that’s a security measure against unnecessary tagging (guess they learnt it from Facbook’s experience).

So you see how this helps. I mean, imagine every Google+ user having this feature turned on. The tagging work could then get distributed among friends making it easier and quicker. The feature is being rolled out so you might need to wait for a few days before it is made available to you.

This should also help getting more photos on Google+, which currently is dominated by Facebook. So, are you planning to upload your photo albums this holiday to Google+?

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Reduce Google Calendar Clutter By Hiding Morning and Night Hours

Abhijeet Mukherjee — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 14:00:34 +0000

Frequent users of Google Calendar will agree that when it comes to looking at your schedule for the next day, the long, empty hours at night just unnecessarily add to the screen real estate and are better removed from the picture so that you can immediately focus on the busy hours and see what you need to attend to on the concerned day.

Looks like the Google Calendar team thought about this and hence they’ve come up with a new Calendar lab feature called Hide morning and night.

What does this feature does is simple – it lets you use a slider to drag and fold all the morning and night hours which are likely to be empty in your schedule, and combine them into one single row.

You can also comfortably set the hours to hide and if you have any events in those hours, you’ll still be able to see them, just not in a way you used to see them when the rows were not folded.

Overall, I think this is one of those small and beautiful tweaks that’ll impress the regular Google Calendar users. The feature needs to be enabled in Labs under Calendar Settings.

What do you think of this new feature? Like it?

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Schemer by Google Wants to Help You Find Stuff to Do

Abhijeet Mukherjee — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 18:30:21 +0000

Google has launched a new, and I have to say kinda different service called Schemer. This service wants to help you find things to do near your location. The name comes from the word “scheme” or a plan, and wants you to create schemes.

First things first, the service hasn’t been launched to the public yet. It is in private beta and you’ll need to submit your email address on the site and wait till they open the service for more users. I was able to get an invite through a friend who’s already using the service and decided to share some screnshots and information about the tool here.

Unfortunately, the location based thing of Schemer only works in the US so my being in India didn’t help. However, I could still get an idea about how the tool works.

As you see below, there’s recommended schemes which should be based on your location and what your friends are doing, ability to search schemes and more.

Clicking on the button on the right lets you add an item from anyone else’s scheme to your scheme.

There are categories on the left, and you’ll find things to do accordingly as you click on them.

There’s the social part where you can who’s done what, and who wants to do what.

An interesting thing about this service is that it integrates with Google+ circles. So people in your Google+ circles who are using Schemer get automatically added to your friends list in Schemer. It looks ok to me overall at this point and we’ll have to wait and see how this pans out for Google.

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Google+ Further Penetrates Google Contacts and Gmail

Abhijeet Mukherjee — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 15:10:48 +0000

Google+ is going to be integrated with every Google service out there sooner or later and an indication of that came up yesterday when Gmail team announced that more Google+ features have been integrated into Gmail and Google Contacts. Lets check out what they are.

Add to Circles From Gmail

Right, you can now add people to your Google+ circles directly from your Gmail interface. Obviously, that person needs to be on Google+ in the first place. If he is, you will see an add to circles button along with his profile info on the right of the email he or she sends you.

Filter by Circles

Your circles will now show up as a list in your Gmail sidebar and you may use it to filter email accordingly. So if you remember getting emails from people in certain Google+ circles of yours, you could quickly jump to that email via this filtering method.

Share Photos on Google+ Directly from Gmail

Yes, you can now quickly share a photo you received in an email on Google+. No need to download it first.

Automatic Contacts Updation

Contact information in Google profile becomes contact information in Google Contacts and hence Gmail. As simple as that. Anything added or deleted from the Google profile gets the same treatment in Google Contacts. This can have both good and adverse impacts. If a contact decides to remove information from his Google profile, you stand to lose that information about him in your Google contacts too.

The changes are being rolled out, and as usual, Google Apps users will have to wait before this is made available to them.

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