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Catch the London Underground with Google Maps
July 28, 2011
(Cross-posted on the
Lat Long Blog
)
Starting today, you can get
public transport directions
for London within Google Maps. One of Europe’s largest metropolitan areas, London is a major destination for both business travelers and tourists. More than
1 billion
passengers are serviced by Transport for London (TfL) every year across over 18,000 bus stops and over 250 Underground stations.
Let’s say you’re at Trafalgar Square, and you want to visit Madame Tussauds. With a
simple
directions search, you’ll see all the possible public transport connections. In
Maps
, click “Get directions” in the left-hand panel, and then the train icon to see public transport directions. Enter your departure location next to A, and your destination next to B. These can be either street addresses or names of popular places, businesses or restaurants. When you’re done, click the “Get directions” button and suggestions for your trip will appear below.
Public transport directions are available on both
Google Maps
and
Google Maps for mobile
, so you always have access to a trip planner. When you’re on mobile, Maps even uses your current location to determine the best trip to your destination. Just search for your destination location, select it on the map and choose the “Directions” option. The suggested trips will be based on your location by default, and provide you multiple alternatives whenever possible.
If you’re using an Android-powered device, you can also get public transport directions with
Transit Navigation (Beta)
in Google Maps. With this new feature, which we launched earlier this month, you’ll get alerts when it’s time to get off the bus or train at your destination or to make a transfer. Transit Navigation is available in all regions where public transport directions are available, including London.
TfL is among the first agencies in a major European city to make its timetable information
publicly available
through the London Datastore. We’re strong supporters of open data and bringing information out into the open, and believe that making information publicly accessible can be an enormous engine of economic growth and innovation.
ITO World
has been a great partner in this launch by ensuring TfL’s data was adapted correctly and ready for our use.
Public transport directions are available for all Underground, bus, tram and Docklands Light Railway (DLR) lines, and we’ll include more public transport information as soon as it’s available. Whether you use public transport every day or infrequently, as a commuter, on a business trip or as a tourist, we hope that public transport directions in London make planning your trips more convenient!
Posted by Thijs van As, Associate Product Manager, Transit Directions
Google Offers beta launching in New York City and the Bay Area
July 12, 2011
(Cross-posted on the
Google Commerce Blog
)
Following our first launch of Google Offers beta in
Portland last month
, we’re bringing great deals to the Big Apple and the Bay Area starting today. Subscribers who sign up at
www.google.com/offers
or via the new “Today’s Offer” tab in
Google Shopper 2.0
for Android will start receiving emails with local offers in New York and the San Francisco Bay Area today.
We’re kicking off our bi-coastal rollout with offers from some local favorites:
New Yorkers can mix salty and sweet with Belgian fries and mango chutney at
Pommes Frites
, savor chocolate molten cake with a glass of Malbec at
Ayza Wine and Chocolate Bar
or sample a delectable red velvet mini cupcake at
Tonnie’s Minis
in Harlem.
In the San Francisco Bay Area, fresh donuts and apple fritters are served up 24/7 at
Bob’s Donut & Pastry Shop
on Polk Street. You can also get a taste of Provence at the
Le Bateau Ivre Restaurant
in Berkeley.
We caught up with the small business owners of
New York Dog Spa & Hotel
,
Yoshi’s Jazz Club in Oakland
and
San Francisco
plus
Toy Boat Dessert Cafe
in San Francisco to learn more about them and why they’re running Google Offers in the coming weeks.
Also starting later today, you can buy, view and redeem a Google Offer of the day with
Google Shopper 2.0
for Android. Once you’ve bought or saved an offer, it will appear in the My Offers tab in both the Shopper app and when you visit
www.google.com/offers
. Shopper will also connect you to all kinds of deals that are near you in the Nearby Offers tab, so wherever you are, you can still get great offers from Google even if you haven’t signed up for the daily deals in Portland, New York and the San Francisco Bay Area.
This is all just the beginning. Whether it’s
touring Napa wineries
, grabbing a slice of deep dish pizza in
San Francisco
or
Albany, CA
or catching an
improv show in New York
, stay tuned for deals from the best these areas have to offer.
Next up, we’ll be heading to Austin, Boston, Denver, Seattle and Washington, D.C. Point your browser to
www.google.com/offers
to sign up ahead of time so you don’t miss the sweet deals when we launch in these cities.
Posted by Eric Rosenblum, Product Management Director, Google Offers
“Download map area” added to Labs in Google Maps for Android
July 7, 2011
(Cross-posted from the
Mobile
and
Lat Long
Blogs)
One way we bring you new product features is through
Google Labs
—a collection of fun, experimental features you can turn on if you’re interested in the functionality. In fact, Google Maps itself
started as a lab
. In addition to our desktop
Maps Labs
,
Google Maps for Android
has a few tricks you can try out right from your phone. We’d like to introduce you to one new experimental feature, “Download map area," but also remind you of two other ones we already have: “Scale bar” and “Measure.”
Download map area
When you’re visiting an unfamiliar location, Google Maps for mobile is great for getting an idea of how close you are to your destination, where streets and landmarks are in relation to each other, or just for getting “un-lost.” But what if you don’t have a data signal, or you’re abroad and don’t have a data plan? We say that if you use Google Maps for mobile, you’ll never need to carry a paper map again. The “Download map area” lab in
Google Maps 5.7 for Android
is a step in making that statement true even when you’re offline.
Let’s say later you’re visiting Bordeaux during a trip to France. If you were to open Google Maps for mobile and zoom into Bordeaux without data coverage or wifi, you’d see the image on the left:
Left: Bordeaux with no data or wifi. Right: Bordeaux with downloaded map area
That’s not particularly useful when you’re trying to find out how close you are to the
Cathedrale St. Andre
. But a little advance planning and “Download map area” can help. Before you take your trip, while you still have access to WiFi or data coverage, you can open up any
Places page
in the world, click “More” to get the Place page menu, and download Google’s maps for a 10-mile radius.
Left: Tap a landmark to enter its Place page. Right: Place page “more options” menu
The download can take as little as a minute or two. This download stores only the base map tiles and the landmarks on the map, so you still need a data connection to see satellite view and 3D buildings, search for Places and get directions. But we hope the level of detail available will help you find your way!
Left: Status screen for download. Right: Coverage of downloaded map area
All your downloaded map areas can be managed in your Google Maps cache settings so you can delete maps you no longer need or if you want to free up storage. After 30 days, all downloaded map areas will be removed from your cache; they can be re-downloaded any time.
Scale bar
Google Maps has approximately 20 different zoom levels that range from a 2,000 mile scale to a 20 foot scale. With finger gestures making it really quick and easy to zoom in and out, sometimes it’s not always clear what zoom level you’re at. What might be just a few streets away can be quite a long walk depending on the scale. To help with this, you can turn on a scale bar, which updates based on your zoom level.
Scale bar in the lower left
Measure
If you ever need to know the distance between San Francisco and New York (about 2602 miles) or between any other two points on the map, the “Measure” lab can help you out. Once it’s enabled, you’ll notice a tape measure icon just above the zoom buttons. After clicking that icon, you’ll be prompted to tap two points on the map and Google Maps will calculate the straight distance between those points (this direct distance is “as the crow flies”).
Example of the “Measure” Labs feature
To access Labs on your phone, press your phone’s menu button once in Google Maps, choose “More” and select Labs. On a tablet, click the menu button in the upper-right corner of Maps. The “Download map area” lab requires Android 2.1+ and the
latest version of Google Maps
. We look forward to bringing you more experimental features soon and hope you enjoy trying out Labs in Google Maps for Android.
Posted by Chikai Ohazama, Director of Product Management, Google Maps for mobile
Google Maps 5.7 for Android introduces Transit Navigation (Beta) and more
July 6, 2011
(Cross-posted on the
Google Lat Long Blog
and the
Google Mobile Blog
)
Today we’re releasing
Google Maps 5.7 for Android
. From Bangkok to Baltimore, we’ve added Transit Navigation (Beta), updated access to directions, better suggested search results and a photo viewer to Place pages—all of which can help you whether you’re traveling to an unfamiliar part of town or visiting a city across the world.
Transit Navigation (Beta)
Google Maps Navigation (Beta)
currently provides over 12 billion miles of GPS-guided driving and walking directions per year. Now, GPS turn-by-turn (or in this case, stop-by-stop) navigation is available for public transit directions in
400+ cities around the globe
with Transit Navigation.
Transit Navigation uses GPS to determine your current location along your route and alerts you when it’s time to get off or make a transfer. This is particularly helpful if you’re in a city where you don’t speak the language and can’t read the route maps or understand the announcements. After starting your trip with Transit Navigation, you can open another application or put your phone away entirely and Google Maps will still display an alert in your notification bar and vibrate your phone when your stop is coming up.
Left: Transit directions without Navigation. Right: with Navigation
Navigation alerts appear even if you switch to another app
Now you can spend more time enjoying the sights out the window and less time worrying about how many stops are left, where you are along the route or whether you missed your stop. Since Transit Navigation relies on GPS signals, we recommend using this feature for above-ground transit.
Updated Directions
Now that we’ve improved our directions services, we wanted them to be incredibly easy to pull up on your screen. If you select the driving or walking icon and your route is supported by Google Maps Navigation, the Navigation icon will automatically appear so you can get access to step-by-step directions in one click. Note: this change is currently only in place for driving and walking and does not appear for public transit.
One-click access to Navigation from directions
We’ve also streamlined how you access directions from within a Place page. Before, clicking directions in a Place page would bring up options for “Driving Navigation,” “Walking Navigation” and “Directions.” Now, you’ll be taken straight to the map and see the new directions box shown above.
Improved Search Suggest
We’ve made two changes to search suggestions that improve their quality and speed. First, we’ve added category icons, so instead of all search suggestions displaying the same icon, the icon next to the listing will reflect the type of result. You’ll see a pin for a
Google Places
listing, a star for a starred Place or location, a clock for a previously used search term, a person for contacts and a magnifying glass for “anything else.”
Two examples of search suggest with new icons
Also, any place you got directions to or called directly from its Places page will be included as a suggestion for a relevant search. For example, if you recently received directions to the U.S. Post Office on Wilshire Boulevard, afterward, when you begin a search with [p] or [bou], that U.S. Post Office would appear as a search suggestion.
Photo viewer for Place pages
Since we released
business photos for Place pages
last October, millions of photos have been added to Place pages around the world. To enable you to view these photos on the run, a slick new photo viewer has been added so you can browse photos while deciding where to go.
Left: Business photos in Place pages. Right: New photo viewer
To start using Google Maps 5.7 for Android, download the update
here
. This update requires an Android OS 2.1+ device and works anywhere Google Maps is currently available. Learn more at our
help center
and have fun exploring, whether it be by car, transit, bike or foot.
Posted by Chris Van Der Westhuizen, Software Engineer
The J. Paul Getty Museum collection comes alive with Google Goggles
June 27, 2011
The
Google Goggles
team has worked with The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles to “Goggles-enable” their permanent collection of paintings. Now you can use the Google Goggles app on your phone to take a photo of any of the paintings in the Getty’s permanent collection and instantly access information about the work from both the Getty’s mobile-optimized webpage about the painting and from around the web. Instead of being limited to the amount of information that fits on the wall next to a painting, Getty museum staff can now share a fuller story that all visitors can enjoy online.
From your phone you can read and hear commentary from artists, curators, conservators or the works of art themselves, such as the anthropomorphic voice of the pig in the
Adoration of the Magi
. Snap a quick shot of the artwork and have an interactive experience with what is on the wall in front of you—all in in the palm of your hand (just remember to respect museum photography rules and to turn off your flash).
Google Goggles results and the Getty webpage for Portrait of the Sisters Bonaparte
If you want to take your art history lesson home with you, you can store a record of the art you captured by enabling Search History on your Android phone. In fact, anytime you stumble across a piece of art, whether it be a reproduction on a poster or a print in a book, you can take a photo with your phone and Goggles will recognize it and supply you with rich info.
Download Google Goggles for your
Android
or
iOS device
as part of the Google Search app, and give it a try if you stop by the Getty. You can also view the J. Paul Getty Museum collection online at
http://www.getty.edu/art
. For more information about the Getty-Goggles project, visit
mobile.getty.edu/gettygoggles
or scan the QR code below.
Posted by Shailesh Nalawadi, Product Manager
Know when your bus is late with live transit updates in Google Maps
June 8, 2011
(Cross-posted on the
Lat Long Blog
and
Mobile Blog
)
Often when I’m taking public transit, I arrive at my stop on time only to anxiously check my watch and look down the street for my bus, which is running late once again. Those extra minutes I’m forced to wait seem like an eternity, and the only information I can access on my phone is when the bus was
supposed
to arrive.
Starting now,
Google Maps for mobile
and
desktop
can tell you when your ride is
actually
going to arrive with new live transit updates. We partnered with transit agencies to integrate live transit data in four U.S. cities and two European cities: Boston, Portland, Ore., San Diego, San Francisco, Madrid and Turin.
When you click on a transit station or plan a transit route with Google Maps and there are delays or alerts related to your trip, you’ll now see “live departure times” (indicated with a special icon) and service alerts.
Live transit departure times after tapping on a station
Live service alerts when receiving transit directions
Live departures and alerts on desktop
We’re working with our public transit partners to help them provide live data to more people in more cities. You can get live transit updates in the latest version of
Google Maps for mobile
(requires Android 1.6+), as well as Google Maps on all supported desktop and
mobile browsers
.
Posted by Sasha Gontmakher, Software Engineer
Coming soon: make your phone your wallet
May 26, 2011
(Cross-posted on the
Google Commerce Blog
and
Google Mobile Blog
)
Today in our New York City office, along with
Citi, MasterCard, First Data and Sprint
, we gave a demo of
Google Wallet
, an app that will make your phone your wallet. You’ll be able to tap, pay and save using your phone and near field communication (NFC). We’re field testing Google Wallet now and plan to release it soon.
Google Wallet is a key part of our ongoing effort to improve shopping for both businesses and consumers. It’s aimed at making it easier for you to pay for and save on the goods you want, while giving merchants more ways to offer coupons and loyalty programs to customers, as well as bridging the gap between online and offline commerce.
Because Google Wallet is a mobile app, it will do more than a regular wallet ever could. You'll be able to store your credit cards, offers, loyalty cards and gift cards, but without the bulk. When you tap to pay, your phone will also automatically redeem offers and earn loyalty points for you. Someday, even things like boarding passes, tickets, ID and keys could be stored in Google Wallet.
At first, Google Wallet will support both
Citi MasterCard
and a Google Prepaid Card, which you’ll be able to fund with almost any payment card. From the outset, you’ll be able to tap your phone to pay wherever MasterCard
PayPass
is accepted. Google Wallet will also sync your
Google Offers
, which you’ll be able to redeem via NFC at participating SingleTap™ merchants, or by showing the barcode as you check out.
Many merchants
are working to integrate their offers and loyalty programs with Google Wallet.
With Google Wallet, we’re building an open commerce ecosystem, and we’re planning to develop APIs that will enable integration with numerous partners. In the beginning, Google Wallet will be compatible with
Nexus S 4G by Google, available on Sprint
. Over time, we plan on expanding support to more phones.
To learn more please visit our Google Wallet website at
www.google.com/wallet
.
This is just the start of what has already been a great adventure towards the future of mobile shopping. We’re incredibly excited and hope you are, too.
Posted by Rob von Behren and Jonathan Wall, Founding Engineers on Google Wallet
AdMob celebrates one year at Google as mobile growth accelerates
May 25, 2011
As we approach the first anniversary of
AdMob’s arrival at Google
this Friday, it’s amazing to look at how much the mobile industry has grown since last year: an estimated
300 million
smartphones were shipped,
average smartphone data-usage doubled
and hundreds of thousands of new mobile apps have been created.
Many thousands of mobile publishers and developers use ads to support their businesses, so we’re excited to see rapid growth in mobile advertising, too. For example, in the last year, traffic on the AdMob network has grown more than three and a half times, and we now get more than 2.7 billion ad requests every day. We have thousands of advertisers both large and small getting great results every day on AdMob’s network of more than 80,000 mobile apps and sites. To celebrate AdMob’s first year at Google, today we’re introducing a set of new products and features for mobile advertisers and publishers.
New ad formats for tablets
In the last six months alone, traffic from tablets on the AdMob network has increased by 300 percent. To help advertisers better connect with tablet users, today we’re launching a variety of new, tablet-specific rich media ad formats. These new HTML5-based ad formats are built specifically for tablets’ larger, high-definition screens, and make use of features like touch, tap and swipe. Together, these features will enable advertisers to develop rich, engaging campaigns and run them across multiple mobile platforms.
Enhanced tools for mobile app developers
To help app developers grow their app businesses, we’re releasing a significant upgrade to our AdMob “House Ads” product, which developers can use to promote their own products within their mobile apps. The new version includes improved campaign management, new ad formats and better ad targeting options.
In the coming months, we’ll also improve mobile app developers’ ability to use AdMob to deliver the most valuable ad by integrating a new “mediation” feature that selects the best ad from multiple, competing ad networks directly into the
Google AdMob Ads SDK
.
Deeper integration with Google advertising products
Many advertisers, agencies and publishers use DoubleClick’s ad serving and measurement tools to manage their digital ad campaigns. We envision a single platform that enables seamless management of ads across desktop, video, mobile and tablets. Our announcement earlier this week about the availability of
DoubleClick Rich Media ads on the AdMob Network
on the AdMob network is one example of this commitment. In a few weeks, we’ll also add support for mobile to our DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP) Small Business ad serving product, which thousands of web publishers use today to manage ads that appear on their sites.
The last year has seen incredible growth, but it’s just the beginning. We believe that the products we’re announcing today will further accelerate the growth of mobile advertising, enable marketers and developers to rapidly grow their businesses and help to fund more great mobile content and apps for users.
Posted by Clay Bavor, Product Management Director, Mobile Display Ads
Android: momentum, mobile and more at Google I/O
May 10, 2011
(Cross-posted on the
Google Code Blog
)
This morning at
Google I/O
, the Android team shared some updates. It’s hard to believe a little more than two and a half years ago, we were just one device, launching in one country, on one carrier. Thanks to the ecosystem of manufacturers, developers and carriers, the platform has grown exponentially. There are now:
100 million activated Android devices
400,000 new Android devices activated every day
200,000 free and paid applications available in Android Market
4.5 billion applications installed from Android Market
Mobile—one OS everywhere
Over the past two and a half years, we’ve shipped eight releases of Android and there are now more than 310 Android devices around the world, of all shapes and sizes. This morning we talked about our next version of Android, Ice Cream Sandwich. Our goal with Ice Cream Sandwich is to deliver one operating system that works everywhere, regardless of device. Ice Cream Sandwich will bring everything you love about
Honeycomb
on your tablet to your phone, including the holographic user interface, more multitasking, the new launcher and richer widgets.
We also launched
Music Beta by Google
, a new service that lets you upload your personal music collection to the cloud for streaming to your computer and Android devices. With the new service, your music and playlists are automatically kept in sync, so if you create a new playlist on your phone, it’s instantly available on your computer or tablet. You can use a feature called Instant Mix to create a playlist of songs that go well together. You can even listen to music when you’re offline: we automatically store your most recently played music on your Android device and you can choose to make specific albums or playlists available when you’re not connected. The service is launching in beta today to U.S. users and is available by invitation.
We’ve also added Movies for rent to
Android Market
. You can choose to rent from thousands of movies starting at $1.99 and have them available across your Android devices—rent a movie on your home computer, and it’ll be available for viewing on your tablet or phone. You can rent from Android Market on the web today, and we’ll be rolling out an update to Verizon XOOM customers beginning today. We’ll start rolling out the update to Android 2.2 and above devices in the coming weeks.
The Android ecosystem has been moving really fast over the last two and a half years and rapid iteration on new and highly-requested features has been a driving force behind Android’s success. But of course that innovation only matters if it reaches consumers. So today we’re announcing that a founding team of industry leaders, including many from the Open Handset Alliance, are working together to adopt guidelines for how quickly devices are updated after a new platform release, and also for how long they will continue to be updated. The founding partners are Verizon, HTC, Samsung, Sprint, Sony Ericsson, LG, T-Mobile, Vodafone, Motorola and AT&T, and we welcome others to join us. To start, we're jointly announcing that new devices from participating partners will receive the latest Android platform upgrades for 18 months after the device is first released, as long as the hardware allows...and that's just the beginning. Stay tuned for more details.
More—extending the platform beyond mobile
From the beginning, Android was designed to extend beyond the mobile phone. With that in mind, we’ve developed Android Open Accessory to help developers start building new hardware accessories that will work across all Android devices. We previewed an initiative called Android@Home, which allows Android apps to discover, connect and communicate with appliances and devices in your home. We also showed a preview of Project Tungsten, an Android device for Music Beta to give you more control over music playback within the Android@Home network.
You can watch the entire Android keynote from Google I/O on our
Google Developer YouTube Channel
shortly. On behalf of the team, we want to thank the entire Android community of developers, OEMs and carriers who are pushing the platform into new areas and building great experiences for consumers. Without you, the Android platform wouldn’t have grown so large in the past two and a half years. We look forward to seeing where you take it next.
Update
May 11
: The video from the keynote is now available:
Posted by Hugo Barra, Product Management Director, Android
Sprint integrates Google Voice
March 21, 2011
(Cross-posted from the
Google Voice Blog
)
Over time, we've worked to bring an integrated Google Voice experience to your mobile device by building
mobile apps
, introducing
Google Voice Lite
, and most recently
Number Porting
. But we felt that ultimately, the most simple solution would be to partner with carriers to seamlessly integrate Google Voice with your mobile phone.
Today, we’d like to share that we’ve teamed up with Sprint to do just that.
First, Sprint customers will be able to use their existing Sprint mobile number as their Google Voice number and have it ring multiple other phones simultaneously. So now, calls to your Sprint mobile number can easily be answered from your office or your home phone, or even your computer
through Gmail
. Calls from Gmail and text messages sent from
google.com/voice
will also display your Sprint number. This basically gives Sprint customers all the benefits of Google Voice without the need to change or port their number.
Alternatively, Google Voice users can choose to replace their Sprint number with their Google Voice number when placing calls or sending text messages from their Sprint handset. This feature works on all Sprint phones and gives Sprint users all the benefits of Google Voice without the need for an app.
In both cases, Google Voice replaces Sprint voicemail, giving Sprint customers transcribed voicemail messages available online and sent via email and/or text message. International calls made from Google Voice users’ Sprint phones will be connected by Google Voice at our
very low rates
, and Sprint customers will also have access to the rest of
Google Voice’s features
, like creating
personalized voicemail greetings
based on who’s calling,
call recording
,
blocking unwanted callers
and more.
To learn more, watch the video below and visit
google.com/voice/sprint
.
This feature will be available soon to Sprint customers in the United States. Once it is launched, it will be rolled out gradually to all Google Voice users, and can be enabled through the
Google Voice website
. If you don’t see it right away, don’t worry—you can leave your email address at
google.com/voice/sprint
and we’ll notify you as soon as this becomes available.
In addition, today we’re introducing the Nexus S 4G for Sprint—which takes advantage of Sprint’s high-speed 4G data network and lets you enable Google Voice directly from the mobile app. Learn more on the
Google Mobile Blog
.
Posted by Jacob Hesch, Software Engineer
Instant Previews now available on mobile
March 8, 2011
(Cross-posted from the
Mobile Blog
)
Instant Previews
provides a fast and interactive way to evaluate search results. Starting today, Google Instant Previews is available on mobile for Android (2.2+) and iOS (4.0+) devices across 38 languages. Similar to the desktop version of Instant Previews, you can visually compare search results from webpage snapshots, making it easier to choose the right result faster, especially when you have an idea of the content you’d like to see.
For example, if you’re looking for a webpage that has both photos and descriptions, you can use Instant Previews to quickly identify these pages by navigating across the visual search results with a few swipes of your finger. Or perhaps you’re looking for an article, a step-by-step instructions list, or a product comparison chart—with Instant Previews, you can see easily spot pages with the right content without having to navigate back and forth between websites and search results. And when the mobile version of a website is available, we’ll show you a preview of the mobile page.
To use Instant Previews on your mobile device, do a search on
www.google.com
and tap on the magnifying glass next to any search result. A side-by-side comparison view of the webpage previews for the first page of search results will appear. When you find a result you like, tap on the preview to go straight to the website. It’s as easy as finding a recipe for poaching an egg:
You can learn more about Instant Previews for mobile in our
Help Center
. We hope you enjoy finding the right result faster with Instant Previews!
Posted by Brian Ngo, Software Engineer, Mobile Search team
You’ve got better things to do than wait in traffic
March 7, 2011
(Cross-posted on the
LatLong Blog
and
Mobile Blog
)
Ever been stuck in traffic, only to find out you’d have been better off going a bit out of your way to take a less congested route? If you’re like me, you probably hear the traffic report telling you what you already know: traffic is bad on the road you’re currently on, and you should have taken another. It doesn’t need to be this way, and we want to help. So we’re happy to announce that
Google Maps Navigation (Beta)
will now automatically route you around traffic. With more than 35 million miles driven by Navigation users every day, this should add up to quite a bit of time saved!
On a recent trip to New York, I was running late to meet some friends at the Queens Museum of Art. I had no idea that there was a traffic jam along the route I would normally have taken. Thankfully, Navigation routed me around traffic. I didn’t even have to know that there was a traffic jam on I-495, and I got to enjoy a much faster trip on I-278 instead.
Navigation now uses real-time traffic conditions to automatically route you around traffic.
You don’t have to do anything to be routed around traffic; just start Navigation like you normally would, either from the Navigation app or from within Google Maps. Before today, Navigation would choose whichever route was fastest, without taking current traffic conditions into account. It would also generate additional
alternate directions
, such as the shortest route or one that uses highways instead of side roads. Starting today, our routing algorithms will also apply our knowledge of current and
historical
traffic to select the fastest route from those alternates. That means that Navigation will automatically guide you along the best route given the current traffic conditions.
Not only can you save time and fuel, you’re making traffic better for everyone else by avoiding traffic jams. Keep in mind that we can’t guarantee that Navigation will be able to find a faster way, but it will always try to get you where you’re going as fast as possible.
You can begin routing around traffic with Google Maps Navigation for Android in North America and Europe where both
Navigation
and
real-time traffic data
are available.
Enjoy your newly found free time!
Posted by Roy Williams, Software Engineer, Google Maps Team
Dialed up: the rapid launch and growth of Click-to-Call
February 9, 2011
This post is the first in our
series
profiling entrepreneurial Googlers working on products across the company and around the world. Here, you’ll get an in-depth look at how one of our most successful mobile advertising features was launched by one and a half engineers in a matter of months. -Ed.
I’ll always remember my first cell phone—a big, black brick that was really only good for making calls. While technology certainly has advanced since then, I still appreciate the speed of connecting to people and businesses instantly over the phone, something that I found harder and harder to do when I searched, for example, for the number of a restaurant to make a reservation.
So in June of 2009, a few engineers and I pooled our 20% time and worked to develop a prototype of what would eventually become
Click-to-Call
for smartphones, an ad unit that makes it easier for people to connect to a business by phone, rather than through a website.
Building the feature was the easy part; essentially, we developed an ad extension that allows advertisers to include a phone or location in their campaigns. However, it was launching it to advertisers that posed the biggest challenge.
With new products like Click-to-Call, we often choose to launch in beta, and incrementally roll out the features to a small subset of users, usually beginning at a 1% test and increasing from there. With Click-to-Call, we’d developed a mobile feature that we wanted to launch as soon as possible, but since mobile advertising was much smaller at that point—then with only about one-sixth as many search queries we get today—we calculated that it would take nearly
three years
to roll out to 10% and around
10 years
to actually launch it. At that rate, the feature would likely become antiquated long before it ever officially launched.
So I decided not to follow the usual process and took a risk, choosing to launch to 50% of Google’s mobile advertisers within the first week. In my view, there was simply no other way to collect enough feedback in a short period of time so that we could quickly iterate based on feedback. Thousands of advertisers—an unprecedented amount for a brand-new feature—were on board to try it out, and with a few engineers and some pretty massive spreadsheets, we started to see real results. Within a month, we had the magical ingredient—momentum—and from there we were collecting enough feedback to be on track to bring the feature to all advertisers in a matter of months.
This is one of the reasons I work at Google. Google gives me freedom to experiment, ownership of my ideas, and amazing resources and support. We built Click-to-Call in June 2009, began testing it in July, and had it up and running for all advertisers in January 2010. One year later, Click-to-Call ads on both search and the Google Display Network are generating millions of calls every month on mobile phones and
driving strong performance
for advertisers.
If you’re interested in exploring some of the most significant trends in mobile, you can watch our
Think Mobile
livestream this Thursday, February 10 at 1:05pm EST, where we’ll discuss why it’s “not too late for businesses to still be early” in this space.
Posted by Surojit Chatterjee, Senior Product Manager, Google Mobile Ads team
Introducing the Google Translate app for iPhone
February 8, 2011
(Cross-posted from the
Google Mobile Blog
)
Back in August 2008
, we launched a Google Translate HTML5 web app for iPhone users. Today, the official
Google Translate for iPhone app
is available for download from the App Store. The new app has all of the features of the web app, plus some significant new additions designed to improve your overall translation experience.
Speak to translate
The new app accepts voice input for 15 languages, and—just like the web app—you can translate a word or phrase into one of more than 50 languages. For voice input, just press the microphone icon next to the text box and say what you want to translate.
Listen to your translations
You can also listen to your translations spoken out loud in one of 23 different languages. This feature uses the same new speech synthesizer voices as
the desktop version of Google Translate we introduced last month
.
Full-screen mode
Another feature that might come in handy is the ability to easily enlarge the translated text to full-screen size. This way, it’s much easier to read the text on the screen, or show the translation to the person you are communicating with. Just tap on the zoom icon to quickly zoom in.
And the app also includes all of the major features of the web app, including the ability to view dictionary results for single words, access your starred translations and translation history even when offline, and support
romanized
text like Pinyin and Romaji.
You can
download Google Translate now from the App Store globally
. The app is available in all iOS supported languages, but you’ll need an iPhone or iPod touch iOS version 3 or later.
Posted by Wenzhang Zhu, Software Engineer
Mobile now! Helping businesses succeed in the mobile era
February 7, 2011
(Cross-posted on the
Mobile Ads Blog
)
By the end of 2011, an estimated one billion people around the world will be connected to the mobile web and 50% of all Americans will own a smartphone. Because of the explosion of web-enabled mobile devices, mobile usage is now on a hockey-stick trajectory: searches on smartphones and tablets have increased by 4x in the last year, and the world of mobile apps continues to engage mobile users—125 years’ worth of Angry Birds are played every day!
For people everywhere, the mobile era has begun.
Yet most businesses haven’t adapted their online strategies—advertising, webpage design, commerce—to mobile. The opportunity for these businesses is huge and we want everyone to be able to take part. On February 10, we’re hosting an event at our New York office called “
ThinkMobile
”: Mary Meeker, Partner at Kleiner Perkins, and our own Dennis Woodside, SVP, Americas Operations and Jason Spero, Head of Mobile, Americas, will explore some of the most significant trends in mobile and explain why it’s “not too late for businesses to still be early” in this space. We invite you to
livestream
these talks at 1pm ET/10am PT this Thursday on desktop, or—for the first time from a Google event in the U.S.—on both Android and iOS mobile devices as well. In other words, you can Think Mobile....on mobile!
Right now, advertisers engaging on mobile are increasing brand awareness, purchase intent and sales with effective mobile search and display campaigns. Mobile developers and publishers are supporting
very profitable
businesses with advertising revenue. And consumers are benefiting from relevant and useful ads on their mobile devices.
To help all businesses take advantage of the opportunities that mobile advertising presents, we’re focusing on three core principles with our mobile ads business:
Seamless
: We’re bringing the best characteristics of desktop advertising to mobile devices. We want to help marketers and developers extend the benefits of their desktop advertising to people on mobile devices, while effectively managing their campaigns and ad space across many channels.
Inclusive
: It’s clear that mobile is about more than just one device, one type of ad format or one style of ad campaign. Our ad solutions span across search, text, display, video, commerce and more, on a wide variety of devices, and enable businesses and consumers to connect in newly relevant and useful ways.
Made for mobile
: Mobile devices have unique characteristics like location awareness and touch screens (and the ability to make phone calls!) that make it easy for people to engage with information conveniently, and create unique opportunities for businesses as well. Our ad solutions are built to help marketers, developers and publishers take advantage of these mobile-specific characteristics.
The power of constant connectivity on mobile is a thrilling new reality, and has already transformed the way people engage with information, businesses and certainly with each other. We’re just now scratching the surface of what’s possible on mobile. This is an exciting time, and there’s much more to come.
Posted by Karim Temsamani, Global Head of Mobile
Check in with Google Latitude
February 1, 2011
(Cross-posted on the
Mobile Blog
and
LatLong Blog
)
We first
introduced Google Latitude
to help you stay in touch with your friends and family by making it easy to share where you are. For the 10 million people actively using Latitude each month, this “where” has been a location on a map. Starting today in Google Maps 5.1 for Android, you can also connect that location to a real place by checking in there using
Latitude
.
Connecting your location with places
You can still use Latitude to automatically update and share your location, but check-ins let you add context to the location—like captions to a photo. For example, I live in San Francisco but often travel around the world. Until today, sharing my location let friends and family know if I was across the globe or in their neighborhood. Now, check-ins let them see the cool restaurant I’m trying in Taipei or join me for a latte at the cafe nearby.
See where your friends are on a map and where they’re checking in.
Not your typical check-ins
Because you can use Latitude to automatically detect your location, we’ve added a few twists to checking in to make it really easy:
Notifications
: Turn on check-in notifications in Latitude’s settings and get a notification to check in at a nearby place once you arrive. Never forget to check in again.
Automatic check-ins
: Choose to automatically check in at specific places you designate, and you’ll be checked in when you’re there. You can talk to friends or finish your bagel without fumbling with your phone.
Check out
: Once you leave, Latitude knows to automatically check you out of places so friends aren’t left guessing if you’re still there.
Explore your world one check-in at a time
Latitude is built right into Google Maps for Android so check-ins work across Latitude and Maps seamlessly. For example, check in at that new hamburger joint, and you’ll see its
Place page
with reviews to help you order. When friends check in at a place, you can go straight from their Latitude profile to its Place page to learn about it, fire up Google Maps Navigation (Beta) for turn-by-turn directions to them, and more.
You can also check in at a favorite place to earn special status there; you’ll see if you’ve become a “Regular,” a “VIP” or a “Guru” on its Place page. Keep checking in to hold onto your status or reach the next level.
Latitude check-ins are built right into Google Maps and Place pages.
Of course, we thought carefully about how to make checking in to places quick and easy while giving you control over your privacy. Just like when sharing your location with Latitude, checking in is 100% opt-in, and you can choose to share any check-in with your friends on Latitude, publicly on the web and your Google profile, or just yourself. Learn more about checking in and managing your check-ins with Latitude in the
Help Center
. Coming later this week, you’ll also be able to see your complete history of check-ins using the optional History tab at
google.com/latitude
from your computer.
Choose options for individual check-ins or turn on and off notifications in the Latitude settings.
Start checking in by downloading the latest Google Maps from Android Market (on Android 1.6+; tap
here
if you're on your phone) and then joining Latitude from the main menu. You can check in everywhere Maps and Latitude are already available. If you’re using the new
Latitude app for iPhone
, you’ll see your friends’ check-ins, and we’ll update the app soon so you can check in too.
Just the beginning...
Checking in from Latitude is just one step in helping you connect the places you go with the people you care about. We believe in letting you
use or share your location however you like
, and we’re working on making location and check-ins useful in more places—across Google and the web.
Posted by Joe LaPenna, Software Engineer, Google Latitude Team
A new look for Google Translate for Android
January 12, 2011
(Cross-posted from the
Google Mobile Blog
and
Translate Blog
)
When we launched the first version of Google Translate for Android in January 2010, we were excited about the year ahead. For the first time, we were bringing the capabilities supported on
Google Translate
—like machine translation,
romanization
of non-Roman scripts and spoken translations—to the Android platform. We also offered voice input to let you speak the word or phrase you wanted to translate instead of typing it in, and SMS translation so you could translate SMS messages sent to you in foreign languages.
Today, we’re refreshing Translate for Android with several updates to make the app easier to interact with. Among other improvements, we’ve created better dropdown boxes to help select the languages you want to translate from and into, an improved input box, and cleaner icons and layout.
We also want to let you in on an experimental feature that’s still in its earliest stages—Conversation Mode. This is a new interface within Google Translate that’s optimized to allow you to communicate fluidly with a nearby person in another language. You may have seen an
early demo
a few months ago, and today you can try it yourself on your Android device.
Currently, you can only use Conversation Mode when translating between English and Spanish. In conversation mode, simply press the microphone for your language and start speaking. Google Translate will translate your speech and read the translation out loud. Your conversation partner can then respond in their language, and you’ll hear the translation spoken back to you. Because this technology is still in alpha, factors like regional accents, background noise or rapid speech may make it difficult to understand what you’re saying. Even with these caveats, we’re excited about the future promise of this technology to be able to help people connect across languages.
As Android devices have spread across the globe, we’ve seen Translate for Android used all over. The majority of our usage now comes from outside the United States, and we’ve seen daily usage from more than 150 countries, from Malaysia to Mexico to Mozambique. It’s really rewarding for us to see how this new platform is helping us break down language barriers the world over.
Translate supports 53 languages, from Afrikaans to Yiddish, and voice input for 15 languages. You can download the application, available for devices running Android 2.1 and above, by searching for “Google Translate” in Android Market or by scanning the QR Code below.
Posted by Awaneesh Verma, Product Manager
Now available: Google Places with Hotpot for iPhone
January 12, 2011
(Cross-posted from the
Google Mobile Blog
,
LatLong Blog
and
Places with Hotpot Blog
)
We recently released Google Places with Hotpot in
Google Maps for Android
, and starting now, you can have that same great experience as an iPhone app. We realize the importance of finding places you’ll love while you’re out and about, no matter what mobile device you use. And Places with Hotpot not only helps you find places near where you are, it gives you the best places to go
for you
by personalizing your search results.
In case you aren’t familiar with
Google Places
, it lets you quickly search for places nearby and personalizes the results based on places you’ve rated. We get you started with a few popular search categories, but you can also tailor the list by adding your own favorite searches. This makes it fast and easy to find the best places for you with little fuss.
Use a default search category, save your own, or rate the nearest place quickly.
It can be pretty rewarding to discover a new place you love, but we also realize that there are some experiences you just can’t wait to share. So Places makes it super simple to rate a place with your iPhone
while you’re there
. Just fire up the app and hit “Rate now.” It will use your location to guess your current place and let you post a Hotpot review right from your phone. But it’s not just about getting to say what you think—the more you rate places, the more you’re sharing about your tastes and the more we can give you personally tailored recommendations.
Give your star rating and add optional details or a review so Hotpot knows your taste.
If you want to make things even tastier, just visit
google.com/hotpot
from your desktop computer. Here you can add friends to the mix and quickly rate all the places you already know. Once you’ve added friends, you’ll find your results seasoned not just with reviews from around the web and recommendations based on your own personal taste, but also with your friends’ opinions too.
Once you start rating and add friends, Places can give you personalized recommendations.
Get the Places app on your iPhone now by searching for Google Places in the App Store or going
here
.
This first version of Places is available for all iOS devices in English only. However, expect more features and improvements to roll out soon, including localization in many new languages. We’re hard at work to make Places with Hotpot more and more delicious.
Posted by Greg Blevins, Software Engineer, Google Hotpot team
Google Goggles gets faster, smarter and solves Sudoku
January 10, 2011
(Cross-posted from the
Google Mobile Blog
)
Today we’re launching a new version of
Google Goggles
that’s faster and smarter than ever before. The new Goggles 1.3 client for Android can scan barcodes almost instantly. All versions of Goggles can now recognize print ads in popular magazines and newspapers. Finally, Goggles has also learned a fun new trick for Sudoku fans.
Barcodes
When shopping offline, it’s helpful to be able to learn more about a product by scanning its barcode. With the new Android version of Google Goggles, scanning barcodes is much faster. Open Goggles and hover over the barcode or QR code. Within a second the phone gently vibrates and presents results, without requiring a button press. Simply tap on the result to read product reviews, check in-store availability and compare prices.
Print ads in magazines and newspapers
We’re excited to take another step in our vision of connecting offline media to online media. The next time you're flipping through the pages of your favorite magazine, try taking a picture of an ad with Goggles. Goggles will recognize print ad and return web search results about the product or brand. This new feature of Goggles is enabled for print ads appearing in major U.S. magazines and newspapers from August 2010 onwards.
This feature is different from the
marketing experiment that we announced in November
. We're now recognizing a much broader range of ads than we initially included in our marketing experiment. And when we recognize a print ad, we return web search results. While in the experiment, we return a specific link to an external website.
Sudoku
Our favorite weekend distraction is a quiet 15 minutes spent solving a Sudoku puzzle. But even that can be an frustrating experience if (like us) you make a mistake and are unable to solve the puzzle. Now, Goggles on Android and iPhone can recognize puzzles and provide answers to help make you faster than a Sudoku champ. So if you ever get stuck, take a clear picture of the entire puzzle with Goggles and we’ll tell you the correct solution. Check out this video to see how it works.
Google Goggles 1.3 with improved barcode scanning is available for download in Android Market. Recognition of print ads and Sudoku solver is now enabled for the Google Goggles app on Android, as well as the Goggles component of the
Google Mobile App on iPhone
.
Posted by Leon Palm and Jiayong Zhang, Software Engineers
Some cool Android tips and tricks
December 21, 2010
Last week, I sent a note to my team with some of my favorite tips and apps for
Nexus S, which features Android 2.3, Gingerbread
. A lot of Googlers liked it, so we thought some of you might enjoy it as well. (Note: Many of the tips are specific to Android 2.3.)
Tips
Visual cue for scrolling
: When you are in a scrollable list (like your Gmail inbox) and you reach the end of the list it shows an orange hue—a visual cue that you can’t scroll anymore.
Notification bar icons (Wi-Fi, network coverage bars, etc.)
: Turn green when you have an uninhibited connection to Google, white when you don't. Hint: if you're in a hotel or airport using Wi-Fi, the bars won't turn green until you launch the browser and get past the captive portal.
Voice actions
: Tell your phone what to do by pressing the microphone icon next to the search box on the home screen, or long press the magnifying glass. You can tell it to send an email or text message (“send text to mom, see you for pizza at 7”), call someone ("call mom"), navigate somewhere (“navigate to pizza”), or listen to music ("listen to Mamma Mia").
Find things you’ve downloaded from your browser
: Your downloads are now neatly collected in a Downloads manager, which you can find in the apps drawer.
Turn a Gallery stack into a slideshow
: In Gallery, when you are looking at a stack of photos, put two fingers on the stack and spread them. The stack spreads out and the pictures flow from one finger to the other, a moving slideshow that lets you see all of the photos.
Walk, don’t drive:
Once you’ve gotten directions within Google Maps, click on the walking person icon to get walking directions.
Easy text copy/paste from a webpage
: To copy/paste from a webpage, long press some text, drag the handles around to select the text you want to copy, and press somewhere in the highlighted region. To paste, simply long press a text entry box and select paste. Gmail is a bit different: you need to go to Menu > More > Select Text.
Turn your phone into a Wi-Fi hotspot
: Go to Settings > Wireless & Networks > Tethering & Portable Hotspot. (You may have to pay extra for this feature.)
Look at Maps in 3D
: With the
latest release of Google Maps
, you can now look at 3D maps. Tilt the map by sliding two fingers vertically up/down the screen, and rotate it by placing two fingers on the map and sliding in a circular motion, e.g., from 12 and 6 o’clock to 3 and 9.
Cool shutdown effect
: When you put the phone to sleep, you’ll see an animation that resembles an old cathode tube TV turning off.
Keyboard tricks
Shift+Key to capitalize a word
: In Gingerbread (and supported hardware), you can Shift+Key to capitalize a letter instead of going to a separate all caps keyboard.
Auto-complete
: The space bar lights up when auto-complete can finish a word.
Quick replace
: Tap on any previously typed word, then tap on a suggestion to automatically replace it with the suggested word.
Easy access to special characters (like numbers, punctuation)
: Press and hold any key to go to the special character keyboard. You can also press and hold the "," key for an extensive punctuation keyboard.
Applications
Angry Birds
: Popular game that lets you knock down blocks by slingshotting birds.
Astro
: Awesome file explorer app. Browse and access the directories on your phone, and take full advantage of its capabilities. Great if you’re a power user.
Chrome to Phone
: This one is really useful for Chrome users. You can send anything you browse on your computer to your phone. So if you are heading out to a restaurant or party and look up directions on your computer, just click the “send to phone” button (requires Chrome to Phone extension) and that exact page will open on your phone. Same with virtually any webpage.
Flash
: Install from Android Market to watch Flash videos embedded throughout the web. Runs even better on Gingerbread.
Fruit Ninja
: A juicy action game that tests your ability to smash flying fruit. A fun time-killer on the bus or train.
FXCamera
: Popular photo sharing app with slick effects and filters.
Google Maps
: Use your device as a GPS navigation system with free turn-by-turn voice guidance, and take advantage of other Google Maps features like Street View, Latitude and Places.
Instant Heart Rate
: Measure your heart rate using your camera.
Phoneanlyzr
: Track your phone usage: who you text most, call most, average call length distribution, etc.
RemoteDroid
: Control your computer from your phone. Gives you a mobile wireless mouse and keyboard. Great if you’re using your computer for music or movies.
Shazam
: Identifies virtually any song you are listening to.
SoundHound
: Record a snippet of a song and get it identified instantly. You can even hum (if you can carry a tune!).
Tango
: A free, high-quality video call app that works on both 3G and Wi-Fi. If your device has a front facing camera (e.g., Nexus S), you will love this app.
YouTube
: New UI. Plus, portrait-mode player, and view comments and drop-down box video information
Posted by Jonathan Rosenberg, Senior Vice President, Product Management
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