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Official Blog
Insights from Googlers into our products, technology, and the Google culture
More spring cleaning
September 28, 2012
Technology offers so many opportunities to help improve users’ lives. This means it is really important to focus or we end up doing too much with too little impact. So today we’re winding down a bunch more features—bringing the total to nearly 60 since we started our “spring” clean
last fall
.
AdSense for Feeds
was designed to help publishers earn revenue from their content by placing ads on their RSS feeds. Starting October 2, we’ll begin to retire this feature—and on December 3 we’ll close it. Publishers can continue to use FeedBurner URLs powered by Google, so they won’t need to redirect subscribers to different URLs. For more information visit the
AdSense Help Center
.
Classic Plus
is a Google Search feature that lets people upload or select images to use as a background on Google.com. Users won’t be able to upload new pictures starting from October 16, and we'll turn the service off in November 2012. You'll continue to have access to any images you've uploaded.
Google storage
in Picasa and Drive will be consolidated over the next few months, so users will have five GB of free storage across both services. If you’re paying for storage, your free storage will now be counted towards your total. So if you buy a 100GB plan, it will give you 100GB of
total
storage instead of adding to what you already had. We believe this approach will make it much easier for users. For both free and paid storage, people at or near their current storage limits will have the same amount of storage after this change.
Spreadsheet Gadgets
were designed to allow people to add customized features to Google Spreadsheets. But most popular gadgets have now been added directly into
charts in spreadsheets
. So we will slowly start turning off Gadgets in Spreadsheets next year.
Starting on October 15, we'll stop issuing and displaying
Google News Badges
, as well as showing
Recommended Sections
. People can still tailor their Google News experience by adding custom sections or adjusting the frequency with which news sources appear.
We've
merged
Insights for Search
into a revamped
Google Trends
. You can now see search trends and compare search volume patterns across specific regions, categories, time frames and properties in a single place:
google.com/trends
. We will no longer support Trends for Websites, which allowed people to compare traffic to and audiences of different websites.
Places Directory
was an Android app that helped people find nearby places of interest. We've removed the app from Google Play and are taking down the Places Directory site because users can find everything in Google Maps for Mobile, which offers a much better user experience.
We introduced
+1 Reports in Webmaster Tools
to help publishers measure +1 activity on their pages. Given that webmasters now use
Social Reports
in
Google Analytics
to get a wider view of social activity (including +1’s), we'll be discontinuing the stand-alone +1 Reports on November 14. Measuring social media remains a priority for Google Analytics, so stay tuned for future improvements.
We want people to have a beautifully simple experience when using Google. These changes will enable us to focus better so that we can do more to help improve the products that millions of people use multiple times a day.
Posted by Yossi Matias, Senior Engineering Director
More renewable energy for our data centers
September 26, 2012
We announced our
commitment to carbon neutrality
back in 2007, and since then we’ve been finding ways to
power our operations
with as much renewable energy as possible. In our latest step toward this end, we just signed an agreement with the Grand River Dam Authority (GRDA) to green the energy supply to our
Oklahoma data center
with 48 MW of wind energy from the Canadian Hills Wind Project in Oklahoma, which is expected to come online later this year.
We’ve been working with GRDA, our local utility, to procure additional renewable energy since we “plugged in” our data center in 2011, and in February of 2012, GRDA approached us about purchasing power from Canadian Hills. In conjunction with the electricity GRDA already supplies Google to operate its data center, Google will pay GRDA a premium to purchase renewable energy generated by Canadian Hills. This brings the total amount of renewable energy for which Google has contracted to over 260 MW.
This agreement is a milestone for GRDA because it’s their first-ever wind energy project. It’s also a milestone for Google because it’s a little different from the previous Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs)
we’ve signed
, where we agreed to buy the energy directly from the developer who built the wind farm. This agreement, by contrast, marks the first time we’ve partnered with a utility provider to increase the amount of renewable energy powering one of our data centers.
Although both options can make sense depending on the circumstances, we’re excited about this collaboration because it makes the most of our respective strengths: utilities like GRDA are best positioned to integrate renewable energy into their generation mix and to deliver power; we’re a growing company with a corporate mandate to use clean energy for our operations in a scalable way. We’ve been working closely with all of our utility partners to find ways to source renewables directly, and we look forward to working with other suppliers to deliver clean energy to our data centers.
Posted by Gary Demasi, Director, Global Infrastructure team
Dive into the Great Barrier Reef with the first underwater panoramas in Google Maps
September 25, 2012
Today we’re adding the very first underwater panoramic images to Google Maps, the next step in our quest to provide people with the most comprehensive, accurate and usable map of the world. With these vibrant and stunning photos you don’t have to be a scuba diver—or even know how to swim—to explore and experience six of the ocean’s most incredible living coral reefs. Now, anyone can become the next virtual Jacques Cousteau and dive with sea turtles, fish and manta rays in Australia, the Philippines and Hawaii.
Get up close and personal with sea turtles at Heron Island, Great Barrier Reef
Starting today, you can use Google Maps to find a
sea turtle swimming among a school of fish
,
follow a manta ray
and
experience the reef at sunset
—just as I did on my first dive in the Great Barrier Reef last year. You can also find out much more about this reef via the
World Wonders Project
, a website that brings modern and ancient world heritage sites online.
At Apo Island, a volcanic island and marine reserve in the Philippines, you can see an
ancient boulder coral
, which may be several hundred years old. And in the middle of the Pacific, in Hawaii, you can
join snorkelers in Oahu’s Hanauma Bay
and drift over the vast coral reef at Maui's
Molokini crater
.
We’re partnering with
The Catlin Seaview Survey
, a major scientific study of the world’s reefs, to make these amazing images available to millions of people through the Street View feature of Google Maps. The Catlin Seaview Survey used a specially designed underwater camera, the
SVII
, to capture these photos.
The Catlin Seaview Survey team on location on the Great Barrier Reef, encountering a manta ray
Whether you’re a marine biologist, an avid scuba diver or a landlocked landlubber, we encourage you to dive in and explore the ocean with Google Maps. Check out our
complete underwater collection
, featuring a
Google+ underwater Hangout
from the Great Barrier Reef. And you can always explore more imagery from around the world by visiting
maps.google.com/streetview
.
Explore more underwater images
Posted by Brian McClendon, VP of Google Maps and Earth (and snorkeling enthusiast)
(Cross-posted on the
Lat Long blog
)
Celebrating the spirit of entrepreneurship with the new Google for Entrepreneurs
September 24, 2012
Startups and entrepreneurs have the power to build technologies and creative solutions that transform the world and move us forward. Innovation is happening everywhere: There are approximately
400 million entrepreneurs across 54 countries
, and 69 million early-stage entrepreneurs offering new products and services. As Google turns 14 this month, we’re celebrating this creative spirit and officially launching
Google for Entrepreneurs
, the umbrella for our several dozen programs and partnerships around the world that support startups and entrepreneurs.
Our focus is threefold:
Partnerships with strong organizations that serve entrepreneurs in local communities
Google-led programs to bring our teams and our tools directly to entrepreneurs
Placing relevant Google tools in the hands of startups as they are getting off the ground and ready to scale
We’re already on a roll, with current projects ranging from support for the
annual journey of entrepreneurship
through India by train, to partnering with a number of accelerator and incubator programs around the world, like
iHub
in Kenya and
Le Camping
in France. And, this week, we’re rolling out our newest partnership: teaming up with
Women 2.0
to bring their Founder Friday events to more cities. These events bring together current and aspiring female entrepreneurs once a month to connect with mentors and one another to build community. We’re partnering to launch Founder Fridays in Detroit, New Orleans, Sao Paulo and Moscow over the next year.
To celebrate both our birthday and the spirit of entrepreneurship that’s helped get us where we are today, we are hosting our first annual Google for Entrepreneurs Week, which will bring together more than 3,000 entrepreneurs and Googlers around the world. We kicked off over the weekend with a
Startup Weekend
event hosted at the Google Ventures Startup Lab in Mountain View, Calif., where Bay Area entrepreneurs came together to create their own startups in 54 hours. Over the course of the next week, Googlers in 28 cities across 13 countries will be hosting an event in their communities to bring their passion and expertise to local entrepreneurs. We’re teaming with a number of partners to make this happen, including the
Idea Village
in New Orleans,
Communitech
in Waterloo,
Tetuan Valley
in Wroclaw, the
Branson Centre of Entrepreneurship
in Johannesburg and the
Council Bluffs Chamber of Commerce in Iowa
.
For more on these existing programs and to stay connected on upcoming events, visit google.com/entrepreneurs and
follow us on G+
.
Posted by Mary Grove, Head of Global Entrepreneurship Outreach
Google News turns 10
September 22, 2012
Google News launched on September 22, 2002—exactly a decade ago.
Inspired by the widespread interest in news after the September 11 attacks, we invested in technology to help people search and browse news relevant to them. Google News broke new ground in news aggregation by gathering links in real time, grouping articles by story and ranking stories based on the editorial opinions of publishers worldwide. Linking to a diverse set of sources for any given story enabled readers to easily access different perspectives and genres of content. By featuring opposing viewpoints in the same display block, people were encouraged to hear arguments on both sides of an issue and gain a more balanced perspective.
In the last ten years, Google News has grown to 72 editions in 30 languages, and now draws from more than 50,000 news sources. The technology also powers Google’s news search. Together, they connect 1 billion unique users a week to news content.
Google News today
As we have scaled the service internationally, we have added new features (
Local News
,
Personalization
,
Editors’ Picks
,
Spotlight
,
Authorship
,
Social Discussions
), evolved our
design
, embraced
mobile
and run ancillary experiments (
Fast Flip
,
Living Stories
,
Timeline
). In parallel, we have monitored our quality and challenged our engineers to improve the technology under the hood—increase freshness, group news better, rank stories more accurately, personalize with more insight and streamline the infrastructure.
Take a look back at the past decade in Google News through the top stories from each year and a few notable features that have launched in the interim:
It’s undeniable that the online news landscape has changed immensely. Smartphones and social networks have transformed how news is accessed and sourced, and shifted the relationship between readers and authors. Open journalism is the norm, and aggregation by humans and machines is an integral part of the ecosystem. New technologies such as
Hangouts on Air
have the potential to connect users, journalists and opinion makers and transform how stories are discussed.
Opportunities abound, and we are excited for where we can take this product in the next decade. While change is inevitable, one thing remains the same: our mission is to bring you the news you want, when you need it, from a diverse set of sources.
Posted by Krishna Bharat, Distinguished Scientist and Founder, Google News
(Cross-posted on the
Google News blog
)
Arts and entertainment take the stage at our most recent Big Tent
September 21, 2012
What happens when you bring together the head of the Metropolitan Opera, YouTube creators, Comedy Central and Justin Bieber’s manager to discuss the Internet’s impact on arts and culture?
In partnership with the
NYC Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment
, our
Big Tent
in New York City, held this week, fostered a constructive and sometimes challenging conversation that saw more opportunities than challenges for artists through the Internet and technology.
While the speakers recognized the disruptive force of the Internet, they also saw the possibilities that technology creates for artists of all stripes to connect with audiences and tell stories in creative ways. As
Scooter Braun
, manager to artists including Justin Bieber, said, “I don’t think the music industry has changed as much as people think it has. It starts with music. All we have to do today is study interaction, which is the same thing we’ve always had to do.”
Many speakers saw the Internet as essential to their own creative endeavors. YouTube creators like
Michelle Phan
,
Issa Rae
and
Julia Nunes
all used online platforms to launch their careers.
Newsweek Daily Beast’s art and design critic
Blake Gopnik
, while seeing benefits to new cultural platforms like
Google Art Project
, reminded the audience of the importance of appreciating the space that contextualizes a work of art. His message of the communality and shared experience of viewing art live was one that resonated with speakers from the performing arts who stressed that the live experience could not be replicated or replaced by technology.
Google chairman Eric Schmidt made a surprise appearance and emphasized the power of mobile and new platforms to change the way we live. He highlighted how the Internet has led to an increase in content and lower costs of distribution. One of the accompanying challenges, he noted, is how, in this shift to abundant content and cheaper distribution, business models adapt to build audiences and deliver value.
The afternoon ended with drinks under a literal big tent, hosted by Cirque du Soleil, which launched
Movi.Kanti.Revo
—a new sensory Chrome experiment—to close out the day.
Each Big Tent gives us the opportunity to engage with our audience on the impact of the Internet and society. Our next event is on innovation and entrepreneurship in Seoul, South Korea. Keep up with us at
www.google.com/+googlebigtent
.
Posted by Peter Barron, Director, External Relations, Europe Middle East and Africa
Hanging out for Jewish-Arab dialogue in Israel
September 21, 2012
Despite the fact that Israeli Arab and Jewish youth live in the same country and even study at the same universities, they often grow up without meeting. When tensions rise in the region, this lack of mutual understanding can lead to stereotyping, hostility and even violence.
We believe the Internet can help break down these barriers. In honor of today’s 30th annual International Day of Peace, we’re partnering with the
Peres Center for Peace
, a non-profit organization founded by the President of Israel and Nobel Peace Prize laureate
Shimon Peres
. The center promotes cooperation and peacebuilding between Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel as well as between Israel and its Arab neighbors.
Together, we’ll be holding a series of Hangouts on Google+ designed to enable dialogue between Israeli Arab and Jewish students. “Hanging Out for Peace” is a six-month project that will involve nearly 150 Israeli university students, women and men, with an equal number of Arabs and Jews. Students will be divided into mixed Jewish and Arab ‘circles’, matched with other students who study the same subject at university.
The circles will meet via Hangouts on Google+, led by instructors from the Peres Center, and will undertake online and offline projects related to the circle’s area of academic focus. After a series of Hangouts, the students will meet face to face, present the projects they’ve developed to the larger group of participants and discuss issues that arose during their work together.
The Internet provides a perfect platform for dialogue and cooperation. It can help overcome
physical barriers
and connect people from
different cultures
who have shared interests and common values. We’re excited to see how this project develops and hope that, in a small way, it will help foster coexistence and understanding between Israeli Jews and Arabs and, in the future, build bridges between other communities, too.
Posted by Doron Avni, Head of Policy, Israel
Moving, singing and dreaming with a Chrome experiment from Cirque du Soleil
September 19, 2012
Cirque du Soleil
stages impressive live performances that challenge the laws of physics and the limits of the human body. Today, at Google’s
Big Tent event
in New York, the wonder of
Cirque du Soleil
transcended the confines of real world performance and embraced the entire web through
Movi.Kanti.Revo
, a new sensory Chrome experiment crafted by
Cirque du Soleil
and developed by Subatomic Systems.
Movi.Kanti.Revo comes from the
Esperanto
words for moving, singing and dreaming. In the experiment, you can follow a mysterious character through a beautiful and surreal world to encounter enchanting
Cirque du Soleil
performances and live an emotional journey made of love, doubts, hopes and dreams.
Breaking with the tradition of point and click web browsing, you can navigate through this unique experience simply by gesturing in front of your device’s camera. This was made possible using the
getUserMedia
feature of WebRTC, a technology supported by modern browsers, that, with your permission, gives web pages access to your computer’s camera and microphone without installing any additional software.
To bring the creativity of
Cirque du Soleil
to the browser, we mixed traditional HTML and CSS with 3D transitions and HTML5 APIs. If you’re more technology-curious, you can get a backstage tour via our
Chromium blog
and a brand new
technical case study
.
Chrome Experiments
like Movi.Kanti.Revo demonstrate how the web has evolved into a beautiful creative canvas underpinned by continuously evolving web technologies. For optimal viewing, you’ll need to use a computer that has a camera and a browser that supports WebRTC, like
Chrome
. You can also access the experiment from a tablet or a mobile phone for a slightly different yet still beautiful experience.
Start your journey at
www.movikantirevo.com
.
Posted by Christos Apartoglou, Marketing Manager
(Cross-posted on the
Google Chrome blog
)
Greater accessibility for Google Apps
September 19, 2012
It's been a year since we posted about enhanced accessibility in
Google Docs, Sites and Calendar
. As we close out another summer, we want to update our users on some of the new features and improvements in our products since then. We know that assistive technologies for the web are still evolving, and we're committed to moving the state of accessibility forward in our applications.
Since last year, we've made a number of accessibility fixes in Google Calendar, including improved focus handling, keyboard access, and navigation. In Google Drive, we incorporated Optical Character Recognition technology to allow screen readers to read text in scanned PDFs and images, and we added NVDA support for screen readers. New accessibility features in mobile apps (Gmail for Mobile and Google Drive on iOS and Android) included enhanced explore-by-touch capabilities and keyboard/trackpad navigability. For a full list of new features and improvements for accessibility in our products, check out our
post
today on accessible@googlegroups.com.
Based on these updates, we’ve also created an
Administrator Guide to Accessibility
that explains best practices for deploying Google Apps to support users’ accessibility needs. We want to give everyone a great experience with Google Apps, and this guide is another resource designed with that goal in mind.
For more information on these specific accessibility improvements, using Google products with screen readers, how to submit feedback and how to track our progress, please visit
www.google.com/accessibility
.
Posted by Jeff Harris, Product Manager
More movies and TV shows from Twentieth Century Fox coming to Google Play and YouTube
September 18, 2012
Google Play
and
YouTube
offer the latest new movie releases and your favorite TV shows to enjoy on your Android phone or tablet and on the web. But you’ve been missing one critical thing…Stewie Griffin. We’re happy to share that Stewie, “Family Guy,” and more than 600 other titles from Twentieth Century Fox will soon be joining the catalog for you to rent or buy on Google Play and YouTube.
Today you can buy Fox’s new release
Prometheus
in HD, available three weeks ahead of the Blu-ray, DVD and video-on-demand release. And over the next few weeks you’ll be able to rent or buy your favorite Fox movies like
X-Men
,
Ice Age
and
Black Swan
, and TV shows like “Glee,” “Modern Family,” “New Girl” and many more.
These new titles will be available first in the U.S., and we’ll be bringing them to more countries soon. We’re now working with all six of the major film studios and many independent studios to bring you the best new releases and your favorite classics to rent or own.
Posted by Jonathan Zepp, Manager of TV & Film Content Partnerships
A new way of doing things on campus
September 13, 2012
Josh remembers the old days at college, when working on a group project meant trekking through the snow (uphill both ways, of course) to meet with his team in the library, followed by endless rounds of back-and-forth revisions (in red pen, no doubt). And by old days, he means last year. As
Josh
—a rising senior at Princeton University—heads back to campus this fall, he and his classmates will be getting a whole new experience with
Google Apps for Education
.
Princeton is just one of the many colleges and universities now using Google Apps. In fact, seven of the eight Ivy League universities and 72 of this year’s top 100 U.S. Universities (as determined by 2013
U.S. News and World Report
’s ranking) have gone Google, too.
We’re also welcoming 14 other new schools to the Google Apps for Education family, just in time for back-to-school:
Bates College
Carnegie Mellon University
Georgetown University
Princeton University
Rice University
Smith College
Stony Brook University
University of California, Berkeley
University of Colorado, Boulder
University of Dayton
University of Mississippi
University of Pennsylvania, School of Arts and Sciences
Vassar College
Virginia Tech
By
going Google
, students and teachers have access to a whole new way of doing things: They can better collaborate in and out of the classroom; office hours can be held via hangouts; e-portfolios can be created and maintained in a Google Site; professors can give real-time feedback in a Google document (no red pen necessary); and group projects can take place across continents instead of side-by-side in a library.
And this is just the beginning. As more schools go Google, we continue to be amazed by the creative ways students and teachers are using technology to work better together, and we’re looking forward to the surprises in store this school year.
Posted by Miriam Schneider, Google Apps for Education
(Cross-posted on the
Google Enterprise Blog
.)
Google Maps shows how we spent summer 2012
September 13, 2012
In the blink of an eye, summer is coming to an end. It feels like it was just yesterday that I was planning out all my summer activities as I eagerly awaited the start of long, sunny days and warm nights.
Before we approach the official end of summer on September 21, our
Google Maps
team thought it’d be fun to see how those of us in the Northern Hemisphere have spent the dog days. To do this, we reviewed the summer search activity on
maps.google.com
in several countries between the end of May and the beginning of September. Within each country, a look at some of the top-rising searches and the often-searched landmarks on Google Maps gives us a sense of how people around the world spent their summers.
We’re honored that people rely on the comprehensive and accurate imagery in Google Maps to research, plan, preview and digitally experience distant as well as local destinations across the globe. Take a look and click through for a larger image:
North Americans sought out the best local beaches to help cool off from the summer heat. In comparison, many more people from Spain, Italy and France searched for community swimming pools. In cooler areas of the U.K. the rising Google Maps searches included many indoor activities such as squash, bars and going to the gym. And, as expected, travel was a clear choice for the summer, as indicated by a surge in searches for lodging in almost every region.
Many popular destination searches were located outdoors. National parks and Hawaiian islands were the most popular searches in the U.S., while local parks, zoos, gardens and playgrounds topped Canada’s and Europe’s list. Major landmarks such as the Empire State Building in New York City, Niagara Falls in Canada, the Eiffel Tower in Paris and the Taj Mahal in India also topped the list of often-searched places in Google Maps. And of course, with the Summer Games drawing in international audiences, Wembley Stadium and the Olympic Stadium were two of the most searched for locations throughout the U.K. this summer.
Check out the destinations that captured people’s attention this summer and see how your interests compared to others around the world. We hope you enjoy this look back to remember the fun places we all went with Google Maps this summer, and we can’t wait to help you
find your next adventure
!
Posted by Manik Gupta, Sr. Product Manager, Google Maps
(Cross-posted on the
Lat Long blog
)
Getting America’s businesses online
September 12, 2012
The web is where we go to find things—somewhere to eat tonight, someone to cut your hair or someone to come quickly to tend to your plumbing disaster.
Ninety-seven percent
of Americans who use the Internet—pretty much all of us—are looking online for local goods and services. Businesses need to be where their customers are. In 2012, that’s online.
Yet, more than half of all small businesses in the U.S. don’t have a website. Many of those businesses are completely invisible in the one place people are looking for them. The impact of being online is real: Businesses that make use of the web are expected to
grow 40 percent faster and are nearly twice as likely to create jobs
. Since small businesses make up half of the U.S. GDP and contribute two-thirds of all new jobs, the potential impact of getting these businesses (more than 15 million of them) online is enormous. We wanted to help spur a new wave of SMBs on the web, and change the perception that getting online is hard, expensive and time-consuming.
In July 2011, we went to Austin to get Texas businesses on the web.
Texas Get Your Business Online
helped any business in Texas get a free, easy-to-build website as well as a free, customized domain name and web hosting for one year. The tools and resources made it fast, easy and free for any business in Texas to get online.
The response from the small business community in Texas was tremendous—thousands of businesses started to get online at events throughout the state and on the web. So we decided to expand the program, going state-by-state to get businesses online. At the end of August 2012, we went to Alaska and Hawaii. These were our 49th and 50th states. Just over a year after our experiment in Austin, we’ve brought
America Get Your Business Online
to all 50 states, with help from
ASBDC
,
Score
,
Intuit
and over 500 local partners. We’ve had more than 20,000 small businesses attend more than 200 events throughout the country.
This is just the beginning of our commitment to get businesses on the web and succeeding online. Today, small businesses throughout the U.S. can get online for free at
www.AmericaGetOnline.com
. Businesses get a free, easy-to-build website as well as a free, customized domain name and web hosting for one year. It’s fast, it’s easy and it’s free.
If you’re a small business, get your business online today. Or, if you know a great business that is not online, use this tool to
invite them to the web
. Getting America’s businesses online may very well be the fastest, easiest step we can take to grow our small businesses and our economy.
Posted by Scott Levitan, Director of Small Business Engagement
Introducing a new YouTube app for your iPhone and iPod touch
September 11, 2012
For all you diehard YouTube fans out there who can’t get enough YouTube on your mobile, we’ve got some great news: starting today, you can
download
the official YouTube app for iPhone and iPod touch from the
App Store
, bringing you more of the videos you love and more ways to share them with the people you care about.
The new app is built by YouTube engineers, to give our iPhone and iPod touch users the best mobile experience. Here’s what you’ll find:
Tens of thousands more videos:
Watch official music videos like
Taylor’s latest hit
.
New YouTube channel guide:
Swipe your finger from the left edge of the screen to reveal a guide with your subscribed channels on YouTube, giving you instant access to everything from
Alli Sports
to
YOMYOMF
.
Find awesome videos faster:
Get to videos like “
Gangnam Style
” faster with new search tools that give suggestions while you type, and let you sort through videos or channels. Flip through related videos, comments and more info, all while watching a video.
More ways to share with the people you love:
Share that
incredible video
you found on YouTube on Google+, Facebook or text message in the app, as well as from Twitter and email.
There’s even more to explore with the new YouTube app for iPhone and iPod touch, available for download from the App Store today. We’re working on an optimized version of the YouTube app for iPad in the coming months, and stay tuned for more details.
You’ve already shown us you love YouTube on mobile—to the tune of
1 billion mobile views a day
—so we can’t wait to see what you think about this new experience.
Posted by Andrey Doronichev, head of YouTube mobile
(Cross-posted on the
YouTube blog
)
Google Drive: Updates for iOS and Android
September 10, 2012
Every day, more and more people are choosing to live online and
get things done in the cloud
. Helping to make this experience as seamless as possible,
Google Drive
is one place where you can create, share and keep all your stuff. Drive is available on the web, as well as
Mac
,
Windows
and
Android
and
iOS
.
Updates for iOS
Starting today, if you’re using the
Drive app
on your iOS device you can also
edit
Google documents, just as you can with the
Android app
. From your iPhone or iPad, you can
create a new document, edit an existing one or format text
. And, just like on your computer, you’ll be able to see other people’s edits instantly as they’re made.
You’ll also notice other new improvements to the iOS Drive app. For example, you can now view Google
presentations
on your iPhone or iPad, including speaker notes, full-screen mode and the ability to swipe between slides. You can also
create new folders, move files into folders and upload stuff
(like photos and videos) from your device directly in the Drive app.
Updates for Android
We’re also updating the Drive app for Android phones and tablets today. You can now add comments, reply to existing comments and view tables in your Google documents. And you’ll have the same new abilities to view presentations and organize your stuff as your friends with iPhones do.
More to come...
Looking ahead, we have plenty more planned for the Drive mobile apps—including native editing and real-time collaboration for Google spreadsheets. Stay tuned.
Get Drive in the
App Store
for your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch and visit the
Play Store
to get the latest on your Android phone or tablet. To learn more about Google Drive, visit
drive.google.com/start
.
Posted by Anil Sabharwal, Senior Product Manager
(Cross-posted on the
Enterprise
and
Drive
blogs)
Making exploration easier for people around the world with Google Maps
September 5, 2012
Maps keep our spirit of adventure alive by making it easier for us to explore the world around us. That’s why today, we’re making Google Maps even better with new turn-by-turn navigation with traffic conditions, biking directions, Map Maker and new Street View imagery in more locations globally. These improvements are part of our ongoing effort to build the best map we can -- one that’s comprehensive, accurate and easy for you to use.
First, we’re expanding
Google Maps Navigation (Beta)
with voice guided, turn-by-turn directions in thousands of towns across
India
. Navigation is one of the most frequently requested features in this region and can be especially helpful when driving in densely populated cities like Delhi or Bangalore. We’re also adding
live traffic conditions
for major roads with estimated travel times to help you save time and to reduce stress on the road.
Turn-by-turn voice navigation in New Delhi, India
Biking directions
and
Map Maker
are also now rolling out to
New Zealanders
. Local cyclists can access biking directions directly on Google Maps, and use Map Maker to add bike lanes and trails if their favorite route is missing or they discover a new one. Beyond biking trails, Map Maker can also be used to make the New Zealand map more accurate with details such as new road names, building footprints and more.
Biking directions from Remuera in Auckland to the local Google office
Later today, we’ll also release new Street View imagery for more than 150 university campuses globally. With classes just getting started, freshman students, transfers and even empty-nesting parents can now familiarize themselves with college campuses around the world, including UCLA in the U.S., Pembroke College in the U.K., McGill University in Canada and Sophia University in Japan. These new panoramic views join our
growing list of universities
whose campuses are already available in Google Maps.
View Larger Map
Royce Hall at the University of California, Los Angeles
Finally, to celebrate all the places you can reach with Google Maps—all seven continents, the sky, the moon and even the depths of the ocean—we made a video that we hope will inspire you to keep exploring.
Keep exploring at
maps.google.com/helloworld
. Here’s to many new adventures.
Posted by Brian McClendon, VP of Google Maps and Earth
(Cross-posted on the
Lat Long blog
)
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