Clean Up Duplicate Contacts in Gmail

In January, Gmail's Product Manager Todd Jackson said that Gmail will include a contact deduplicator. "Jackson says a de-duper is on the way and that contacts will have more of a presence both in your inbox and in conversations."

11 months later, Gmail added a feature that detects and merges duplicate contacts. "To clean up your contact list in one fell swoop, just click the Find duplicates button in the contact manager, review the merge suggestions (and uncheck any suggestions you don't want merged), and hit the Merge button." If you have many contacts, it's a good idea to consolidate them and to have a single contact for each person.


Other popular webmail services included this feature a long time ago: Yahoo Mail and Hotmail added tools for cleaning up duplicate contacts in 2007.


Courtesy - Google

Microsoft's Loss, Google's Gain. Don Dodge Gets A New Job

It was just 11 days ago that Microsoft’s “ambassador to startups” Don Dodge waslaid off as part of a broader workforce reduction. Last week he showed up in Silicon Valley to “see friends” as he put it. But it was clear that he was also interviewing for jobs.

We sat down with him to do a proper exit interview while he was in town.

I got a few tips from Googlers that he was seen roaming their Mountain View headquarters, and I confirmed tonight that he has been offered a job at the company. He has accepted, and will shortly begin working for the company that he only recently considered the enemy.

It’s unheard of for Google to go from a first interview to an offer in such a short period of time. For Dodge, the process from first interview to first day on the job was less than a week.

He’ll be working for another ex-Microsofter, Vic Gundotra. Gundotra worked 15 years at Microsoft as General Manager of Microsoft’s developer outreach efforts. He joined Google in 2007 as VP Engineering, responsible for mobile applications and developer evangelism.

Dodge will have a similar job at Google as he did at Microsoft – developer evangelism. He’ll be focusing on Google Apps.

 

 

by Michael Arrington - techcrunch

Google to replace HTTP and make web twice as fast

Bangalore: Google's Chromium group has announced an effort to replace the traditional Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) web browser language with a new protocol that supposedly boosts Internet browsing by up to 55 percent. HTTP currently is the protocol used by all web servers and browsers, hence the "http" in front of web addresses. But, as noted by Ars Technica, HTTP becomes inefficient when transferring many small files on many modern websites.

 

By contrast, Google's cleverly named SPDY protocol can compress and handle the individual requests via one connection that's SSL-encrypted. That allows higher-priority files to slip through immediately without becoming backed up behind large files. 

SPDY has shown up to 55 percent web page loading when tested under lab conditions, and the Google team has released their source code for public feedback.

But Ars Technica raises some points of caution about the mandatory SSL encryption requiring more processing power from small devices and computers alike. Requiring SSL could also worsen the problem where server operators neglect SSL encryption and unintentionally encourage people to ignore warnings about unsecured websites.

Still Google's team recognizes these problems and has already proposed workaround solutions. An open approach has already proven a smashing success on Google's Android operating system, but redesigning the Internet's architecture will undoubtedly prove trickier in the days to come.

 

Courtesy - siliconindia

Go: Google's new open source programming language

Google never seems to just be satisfied with the status quo, and when they run out of fields to compete in they create their own! Google’s new “Go” programming language is one of their newest ventures, a language which is an amalgamation of Python and C++.

 

The Go language, in development since September 2007, has been unveiled by Google along with the release of a free and open source compiler. In fact, Google has released both a stand-along compiler implementation with cryptic names such as 6g (amd64 compiler), 8g (x86 compiler), and 5g (ARM compiler) and one which is a front-end for GCC (gccgo).

Born out of frustration with existing system languages, Go attempts to bring something new to the table, and mix the ease of dynamically typed and interpreted languages with the efficiency of compiled languages.

 

So why make a new programming language?

 

Google believes that the current languages have run their course. The prominent languages in use today (C/C++, Java, C#) are all based around a similar syntax, and updating and adding new features in these language consists of piling on libraries, with little or no upgrade to the core of the language itself. What Google intends to do requires more than just the addition of a new library.

Hello World in Go

package main

import "fmt"

func main() {

  fmt.Printf("Hello, ??n")

}

 

The landscape of computing has changed a lot since C, and as Google notes “Computers are enormously quicker but software development is not faster.” Languages have had to morph quite a bit to take on support concepts such as parallel processing, and garbage collection.

 

Go, on the other hand has been designed by Google from the ground up as “a concurrent, garbage-collected language with fast compilation”.

 

In order to not alienate the majority of developers though, its syntax is quite similar to C, and would not take much time for a developer to catch on to.

 

Go has accomplished some impressive feats. The language is designed to compile fast and Go can compile a “large" program in a few seconds on a single computer. It is designed to simplify the creation of application which can better utilize today’s multi-core processors. The language supports concurrent execution and communication between concurrent processes natively, and is fully-garbage collected.

 

Goroutines allowed are Google’s answer to threading in Go, and any function call which is preceded by the go statement runs in a different goroutine concurrently. A feature called channels allows for easy communication and synchronization between such routines.

 

Unlike other object oriented languages, Go has a much “simplified” type structure, which disallows sub-classing! Go offers a different flavour of object oriented programming using interfaces, which Google believes will simplify use.

 

By using interfaces, explicit type hierarchies need not be defined, instead, a type will satisfy all interfaces which are subsets of its methods. The relationships between types and interfaces need not be defined explicity! This can have some interesting implications as people can add interfaces to connect unrelated types even later in the development of an application.

 

Go seems inspired by Python as well. Python has been one of Google’s favoured languages and was the sole language supported on Google’s AppEngine when it launched. Like Python, Go supports “slices”, which allow you to refer to parts of arrays using a simple syntax. Thus for an array “a” with 100 elements, a[23,42] will result in an array with elements 23 through 42 of a. Go also tracks the length of arrays internally, further simplifying array usage. Additionally, Maps in Go allow you to create “arrays” with custom index types, and are a native feature of the language.

 

One consistent point in the features of Go is that it is better to have one excellent implementation of commonly used features such as garbage collection, strings, maps etc. rather than have them rethought and re-implemented in each program.

 

As nearly all Google products, Go is “beta” and not yet suitable for production use. By releasing it early Google hopes to garner a community around it and hopes that enough people will be interested in it to justify continued development.

 

Get out there and grab Go now! Like any Google product it has the capacity to become standard for the next generation.

 

Google Acquires Gizmo5

Google confirms the acquisition of Gizmo5, a proprietary SIP soft phone. "The Gizmo5 network uses open standards for call management, Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP). However, the Gizmo5 client application is proprietary software and uses several proprietary codecs, including GIPS, iSAC, the wideband adaptive codec made popular by Skype," explains Wikipedia. Gizmo5 is "the only SIP service without PSTN-based US phone numbers that may be used with Google Voice."

"While we don't have any specific features to announce right now, Gizmo5's engineers will be joining the Google Voice team to continue improving the Google Voice and Gizmo5 experience. Current Gizmo5 users will still be able to use the service, though we will be suspending new signups for the time being, and existing users will no longer be able to sign up for a call-in number," mentions Google.

I wouldn't be surprised to see Gizmo5 morphing into a new version of Google Talk, with built-in support for Google Voice.

Google plans to restructure programming with Go

Bangalore: Google software luminaries such as Unix Co-creator Ken Thompson believe that they can help boost both computing power and programmers' abilities with an experimental programming language project called Go. 

The language has been tested internally at Google, but is still at an experimental stage, so the search giant is releasing it as open-source code in the hope that it will get help with its future development. "We developed Go because we had become a bit frustrated with how difficult software development has become in the last 10 years or so," said Rob Pike, Principal Software Engineer at Google. 

So far, Google's Go project consists of the programming language, compilers to convert what programmers write into software that computers can run and a runtime package that endows Go programs with a number of built-in features. It's most similar to C and C++, but, Pike said, it employs modern features and has enough versatility that it could even be used within web browsers, reports CNET News.

Go aims to improve on the way existing programming languages manage dependencies, which are the software components that applications re-use, such as libraries, Pike said. The language is also designed to handle multiprocessor work particularly well, thanks to its concurrent programming model.

Google started working on Go about two years ago and devoted a team to work on it full time about a year ago. It was conceived as a language for systems programming, such as web servers, storage systems and databases. However, Google is open to seeing it branch out into other areas.

At this point, Go is not used in any user-facing Google service or application, since it still has to mature, which is where external programmers come into the picture. "We need better libraries and tools, and the open-source community is great at helping you with things like that," Pike said.

By creating a new programming language, Google continues making inroads into the realm of computing building blocks, prompted by a sense of urgency at making them better. This motivation has also led Google to embark on developing the Android mobile operating system, the Chrome PC browser and the still-unreleased Chrome operating system. 

 

By    siliconindia news bureau

Google Buys AdMob

Google acquired AdMob, a mobile ad company well-known for its innovative solutions to monetize iPhone apps and iPhone-optimized web sites. "AdMob is the world's largest mobile advertising marketplace, offering solutions for discovery, branding and monetization on the mobile web."
"Publishers and developers are increasingly searching for ways to make more money from their content in the rapidly evolving online mobile space. Google is working hard to provide those means of monetization so that mobile content can grow as quickly as we'd all like it to. AdMob accelerates this process for us with their talent and technology," explains Google. "Google currently makes a very small amount from mobile ads relative to our overall revenue, but the prospects for this space are excellent."

In the past year, Google has launched many feature that improved mobile ads: a new search ad format for iPhone and Android phones, ads for mobile apps, better AdSense ads for smartphones.

"Despite the tremendous growth in mobile usage and the substantial investment by many businesses in the space, the mobile web is still in its early stages. We believe that great mobile advertising products can encourage even more growth in the mobile ecosystem. That's what has us excited about this deal," mentions a Google blog post.

Google paid $750 million for AdMob, the third biggest Google acquisition after DoubleClick ($3.1 billion) and YouTube ($1.65 billion).

 

 

Courtesy – Google news

Google Dashboard to Control User Data

Several Google obsessed people don't know the amount of Google they use for different services. Probably, one won't realize the statistics of data stored in multiple Google services at that same time. Google has introduced the all new Google Dashboard feature that displays a consolidated summary of information related to a particular Google Account.

Access your dashboard at www.google.com/dashboard and log in with Google Account credentials if required. Otherwise, head to Manage Accounts page and check Dashboard under "Personal Settings".




Google Dashboard is a service console that shows all personal data stored across all Google Products of a Google Account user. Users can change the privacy settings, delete data from a particular Google service and read their privacy policies. Basically, Google has given the key to control user's data in the user's hands to observe better transparency with Google.





Dashboard shows concise display of data from Google services like Search, which gets two thirds of search queries passing, number of conversations and mails in Gmail, Contacts, Docs, YouTube, Picasa, and so on. Each Google service will list the data/information stored with it. Apparently, no information from Blogger was available at the Dashboard.

While competitors accused Google for hoarding user data and controlling it, Dashboard is just a step towards handing over the control.

Check the introduction video of Dashboard below:

Google Fixes Marked as read Issue in Gmail

A few percentage of Gmail users experienced a weird Gmail bug yesterday wherein their unread e-mails were marked as read when the checked their accounts. Google later blamed the alarming bug, which initially made people think their accounts were compromised, on a "code change" issue.

As soon as word spread regarding this "issue", it took no time for the users to hit the panic button - thanks to Twitter and the likes. Many users who were intimated about the issue by their friends immediately logged in to Gmail, only to find almost all of their unread e-mails read. Google has, since then, confirmed that no one has read individual inboxes and that such issues will not be repeated.

Gmail, of late, has been facing reliability and stability issues with the service going kaput quite a few times earlier this year as well. This, however, was not really an outage -- but just an annoying bug that could have affected the credibility of the service. Were you affected by this issue?

Orkut Gets New Version

Google seems to have had enough of Facebook's meteoric rise and has now sprung into action with a host of new design changes to its social networking website, Orkut.




The website, which has been in the decline for the past few months, will see a lot of new features and a drastic change in the looks. The "refreshing new look" of Orkut is based on the Google Web Toolkit (GWT) infrastructure and will include the ability to discover friends automatically, video chat integrated with Google Talk, ability to upload photos in bulk very quickly, add/view photos and videos in-line, and a more interactive activity stream, says Google.

The activity stream looks like a status message update functionality on the lines of Twitter and Facebook. Other new additions include video testimonials and of course applications, which seems to have not taken off much -- especially when compared with Facebook. The aforementioned activity stream has the option for comments as well - quite similar to the Facebook update feature - even visually!




Orkut, in its previous avatar, was notorious for its insecurity. The new version claims to be a lot safer and there will be customized mobile versions too for the iPhone, S60 and J2ME platforms. Orkut also sees a neater integration with other Google services with the typical "Google bar" at the top of the site. This allows quick access to other Google services. Until now, Orkut looked like a Google outcast with no links to other Google services on the homepage - with the only Google indication being the integrated Gtalk and the occasional Chrome advertisements.

The new Orkut is being rolled out to a select few users initially. These selected few can invite others to experience the new Orkut. Orkut has a community for those who wish to take a preview of the new version and where you can list yourselves to be invited. Click here for more on that.


The new version of Orkut with the new features certainly looks promising. However, will this be enough to stop the Facebook juggernaut that is taking over India? We will soon find out!

Source - Techtree

Google Now Lets You Target Ads At Yourself

Google is wading into behavioral ad targeting in a big way today. It will start placing cookies on consumer’s browsers to collect information about their interests whenever they visit sites that show AdSense contextual ads. Then it will show ads targeted to those interests to the same person as he or she browses the Web on other sites that also serve AdSense ads (which is a large portion of all commercial sites).

Since Google already knows what each site or page is about, it will use this information to place each user in one of 600 subcategories of interest. If you visit tech blogs often, you are probably interested in technology. If you visit Trulia, you are probably in the market for real estate. Through AdSense, Google can now target ads not only based on the context of the page you are on, but also based on the context of the pages you have visited in the past, even if you are on a site that is completely unrelated. For instance, as a completely hypothetical example, it might show you a real estate ad targeted to the towns you were searching on Trulia when you visit a gadget blog.

Not only will Google now target ads at you based on your interest, but it will also let you target yourself. Anyone can go to Google’s Ad Preferences Manager and see exactly how Google is categorizing their interests. (Most people will probably see nothing right now, since this program is only being rolled out on a test basis and will gradually expand). Now, here’s the really smart part: Google lets you add or remove any interest. In effect, it is inviting you to declare what kind of ads you wan to see. You can also opt out of the program completely.

While most people will probably never bother to tweak their ad preferences or even be aware that they can, this represents an important new precedent in online advertising. Why should the ad networks be the only ones who can determine how to target ads at consumers? Why not let the consumers self-target if they care to do so?

Google knows that its interest-based targeting algorithms need a lot of work. Even if it can get just a small percentage of people to correct the algorithm, that data theoretically could be applied to other people with similar browsing patterns. Google gets to say that it is giving users more privacy and control, while collecting really valuable data that will help make its targeting more effective. In the online ad game, whoever can target the best can charge the most.

Source - techcrunch

Is Google’s Behavioral Targeting A Bust? Only 25 Percent Of AdSense Publishers Use It

For advertisers on the Web, behavioral targeting is held out as the nirvana they’ve been waiting for: the ability to show ads only to those people most likely to be interested in them based on their past behavior. The growth of this type of ad targeting also raises a host of privacy concerns, but setting those aside for a second, do these ads even work? Do they perform better than regular ads? If they did, you’d expect advertisers to pay more for them and for Website publishers to be flocking to them.


Brock comes to this figure by counting the links to Google’s privacy policy, which is a requirement of the program. Google counts 277,000 links, and Yahoo counts 224,000 links, so he splits the difference and divides it by the one million AdSense publishers Google recently disclosed in its latest earnings call to come up with 25 percent. Google actually said there are more than one million AdSense publishers, so the percentage using interest-based advertising is probably lower.

Google started behavioral targeting last March. It tries to determine your interests by placing cookies in your browser and tracking what types of sites you visit. You can see what interest Google has assigned to you and even change your interests by visiting Google’s Ad Preference Manager. You can also opt out of the program entirely.

So why isn’t there a higher adoption of this type of advertising among publishers? One answer could be that they don’t want to wade into controversial waters. But that’s never stopped Websites or advertisers before. If these ads were performing significantly better than regular AdSense ads, there would be a stampede to adopt them more broadly.

Brock suspects Google’s interest-based ads aren’t working so great because Google doesn’t actually know most people’s interests. He’s trying to get some more data on this. You can help him by using this survey tool which lets him count how many people have their interests mapped by Google. So far, based on a very small sample, only one in four do. And of those who can be targeted, the average number of interests is only five, which isn’t a lot.

I guess I’m the exception, because Google has my interests down pat. It shows ten different interests, including technology news, business news, mobile phones, blogging services, advertising, and air travel. Am I really so transparent?

Google looks for 3G prospects in India

Google seems to be eyeing opportunities in the third generation (3G) of mobile telephony in India. The search engine giant is likely to participate in the auction with an Indian partner.

Sources in the telecom industry say that Google is eyeing at broadband wireless access (BWA) in the country. BWA is also known as worldwide interoperability for microwave access (WiMAX). As an alternative, Google could be just a technology partner to a telecom service provider. Foreign companies can buy up to 74 percent equity in such a venture.

This is not the first time that Google is planning to enter into mobile telephony. It shook the world two years ago by announcing that it would bid for the U.S. government's auction of radio frequencies that could be used to deliver the next generation of internet and mobile phone services. The company's plan was to provide a nationwide wireless broadband service that would take on digital subscriber line services and cable internet access. However, it lost out in the auction as incumbent telecom behemoths like AT&T and Verizon stole a march.

Analysts say that there are many reasons for Google to look at 3G. "With the wave of consumers adopting BWA as the likely scenario in India, it is expected to bring about a shift in the focus of advertisement revenue from fixed line internet to mobile internet. Search-led advertisement is the biggest of all in the online business, and Google is the natural stakeholder in the Indian BWA space," says Alok Shende, Principal Analyst, Ascentius Consulting.

Google has also submitted a proposal to regulators in the U.S. for clearance to use unused channels, which the company calls Wi-Fi 2.0 and on which it is possible to offer wireless broadband services at very high speeds.

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) is offering spectrum both for 3G services as well as BWA and hopes to auction spectrum by the middle of January next year. It finalized the information memorandum last week.

The BWA spectrum to be put up for auction by DoT will be in the frequency of 2.3 GHz, with a base price of Rs.1,750 crore for a pan-India licence. The government will auction two blocks in BWA spectrum and reserve one for state-owned Mahanagar Telephone Nigam in Mumbai and Delhi and Bharat Sanchar Nigam elsewhere.

A spokesperson for Google in India, when contacted, said that the company would not comment on speculation.

By siliconindia news bureau

12 Expert Google Search Tips to improve your search

Explicit Phrase:
Let’s say you are looking for content about internet marketing. Instead of just typing internet marketing into the Google search box, you will likely be better off searching explicitly for the phrase. To do this, simply enclose the search phrase within double quotes.
Example: "internet marketing"

Exclude Words:
Let’s say you want to search for content about internet marketing, but you want to exclude any results that contain the term advertising. To do this, simply use the "-" sign in front of the word you want to exclude.
Example Search: internet marketing –advertising

Site Specific Search:
Often, you want to search a specific website for content that matches a certain phrase. Even if the site doesn’t support a built-in search feature, you can use Google to search the site for your term. Simply use the "site: somesite.com" modifier.
Example: "internet marketing" site: www.smallbusinesshub.com

Similar Words and Synonyms:
Let’s say you are want to include a word in your search, but want to include results that contain similar words or synonyms. To do this, use the "~" in front of the word.
Example: "internet marketing" ~professional

Specific Document Types:
If you’re looking to find results that are of a specific type, you can use the modifier "filetype:". For example, you might want to find only PowerPoint presentations related to internet marketing.
Example: "internet marketing" filetype: ppt

This OR That:
By default, when you do a search, Google will include all the terms specified in the search. If you are looking for any one of one or more terms to match, then you can use the OR operator. (Note: The OR has to be capitalized).
Example: internet marketing OR advertising

Phone Listing:
Let’s say someone calls you on your mobile number and you don’t know how it is. If all you have is a phone number, you can look it up on Google using the phonebook feature.
Example: phonebook: xxxxxxxxxx

Area Code Lookup:
If all you need to do is to look-up the area code for a phone number, just enter the 3-digit area code and Google will tell you where it’s from.
Example: 617

Numeric Ranges:
This is a rarely used, but highly useful tip. Let’s say you want to find results that contain any of a range of numbers. You can do this by using the X..Y modifier (in case this is hard to read, what’s between the X and Y are two periods. This type of search is useful for years (as shown below), prices or anywhere where you want to provide a series of numbers.
Example: president 1940-1950

Stock (Ticker Symbol):
Just enter a valid ticker symbol as your search term and Google will give you the current financials and a quick thumb-nail chart for the stock.
Example: GOOG

Calculator:
The next time you need to do a quick calculation, instead of bringing up the Calculator applet, you can just type your expression in to Google.
Example: 48512 * 1.02

Word Definitions:
If you need to quickly look up the definition of a word or phrase, simply use the "define:" command.
Example: define:plethora



Source - siliconindia

Microsoft Office Web Apps vs. Google Docs and Zoho

Web-based office suites is the latest competitive zone for Google, Microsoft and Zoho. In addition to the typical features of desktop productivity suites, each offering assures greater integration with the web, including collaboration and publishing features not available with traditional applications.

No company is more jazzed about web-based applications than Google, so you'd expect its suite to be the best, right? Wrong. In fact, the most amazing thing about Google Docs turned out to be just how woefully inadequate for serious work it actually is. When you log in to Google Docs, you're greeted with a familiar, Google-style UI (user interface): spare, reserved, understated, even elegant. But while this trademark approach works wonders for Google's search products, with Google Docs it belies a paucity of features that's instantly frustrating.

Just for starters, forget about a smooth migration away from Microsoft Office. Google added support for Office 2007 file formats in June, but so what? Even with the older Office formats, Docs chokes on all but the most rudimentary formatting. If the goal was simply to mimic the current office paradigm on the web, Docs would be a miserable failure, but Google is looking at the bigger picture.

But most of us in the real world have given up on the 'paperless office', and once your feet land back on the ground, Docs disappoints once again. Joel Spolsky once wrote that the problem with lightweight office suites is that 80 percent of users need only 20 percent of the features of Microsoft Office, but it's a different 20 percent every time. Google Docs doesn't give you all of the features of Office and it doesn't try to. Unfortunately, in its present state it's missing so much that it's sure to lack something for just about everybody. Zoho offers a slightly different take. While Google Docs presents a Spartan UI that emphasizes the online aspect of the suite, Zoho makes more of an effort to mimic the look and feel of traditional desktop applications. The results might seem more familiar to new users, but they also underscore the limitations of this strategy.

Zoho has a few features that Google Docs lacks, but most are minor. For example, Google's word processor offers a robust equation editor based on the TeX language, but Zoho's equation editor is better. Zoho's thesaurus gives the part of speech for synonyms, while Google's does not. Zoho allows you to insert HTML (Hyper Text Marquee Language) and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) directly from files on the web, rather than simply editing it in your browser as Google Docs allows you to do.

Like Google Docs, Zoho encourages web-based publishing and collaboration. Here, Zoho's minor advantages include the ability to post to blogs directly using the MetaWebLog or Blogger APIs, the ability to generate a 'doc roll' of recent documents for embedding in a web site, and integration with EchoSign for digital signatures.
icrosoft is also planning to offer several versions of its web-based Office at launch. The consumer version will be ad-supported and offer similar web-publishing features as its competitors. Microsoft will also offer a hosted subscription version for businesses, with improved document management and workflow features. Customers who prefer to run the suite on their own servers will be able to do so if they buy a volume license to Office 2010.

Google believes that the web is the future and it's inevitable that document creation, publishing and collaboration will move online. If you agree with that vision, then online productivity software offering from a company as prominent as Google will naturally be attractive to you.

Microsoft is moving to the web as a defensive measure, but its goal is not to replace the Office we have now. Rather, it has planned to augment its current offering with an online option. In that sense, the Office web applications will probably fill much the same niche as Outlook web access. They'll be invaluable for mobile workers, but where possible, most will stick with the desktop versions. In addition, by bringing support for the Microsoft Office file formats to the web, Microsoft further cements its status as the de facto standard for Office documents.

Don't be surprised if you find yourself using web-based productivity software in the near future; the online publishing and collaboration features are too valuable to ignore. At the same time, don't wipe your current office suite from your hard drive just yet. Although the current offerings are impressive, browser-based applications have a long way to go before they become the standard for business users.

Courtesy - SiliconIndia

[Rumour] Cloudboard: Google’s upcoming Web-based clipboard

A leaked internal feedback form and other data from Google suggest that the Internet search giant is getting ready to roll out a new Web-based clipboard manager called Cloudboard.

The Google Operating System blog stumbled upon the feedback form for internal testing purposes, and it gives out quite a few interesting details.

Calling it a ‘server-side clipboard for Google Apps’, the Cloudboard is kind of a replacement for Google Notebook, making it easy to paste excerpts from Google Spreadsheets to Gmail, copy multiple images from Picasa Web Albums, copy YouTube videos, copy an event and pasting it into Google Docs or Gmail, paste copied items from Google Image Search, copy maps into Google Docs, etc.

One of its coolest features seems to be an ability to automatically format the data you are copying to play nice with the app you paste it to. The form cites an example that if you copy a formatted cell in Google Spreadsheets onto the Cloudboard and then paste it into Google Docs Writer, the Cloudboard would transform the data into a comparably-styled HTML table.

This seems like it would be quite a useful app, and we wouldn’t be surprised to see Google integrate it in some way into the Chrome browser too.


Source – thinkdigit

Obscure Google Features

One of the most frequently used reason for removing features from Google's products is that not many people used them. Here's a recent example:

"Google Base has its own search page for users to search across everything that's been uploaded, but it isn't widely used. Instead, people search on Google Product Search for products, or on Google Maps to find houses for rent or sale. Therefore, we're planning to retire Google Base's separate search page in a few weeks."

Google Base search is not the only obscure Google feature. Even though it's difficult to estimate how often each feature is used, it's safe to say that the following features are rarely used:

1. Gmail mute. The option that lets you ignore boring conversations from mailing lists is available in Gmail's standard interface and it has recently been added to Gmail Mobile.

2. Google Reader's auto sorting. "This works by prioritizing subscriptions with fewer items. So, with this setting, your friend's blog with one item a month will not be drowned out by higher volume sites such as the New York Times because we'll raise the blog to the top."

3. Google Chrome's docking positions. "Drag a tab to pre-defined locations, or docking positions, on your computer monitor or browser window to quickly resize your browser window. When the docking icon appears, release the mouse over the icon to have the tab snap in place."

4. GoogleTournament function from Google Spreadsheets. "The GoogleTournament function returns live data for games occurring during the Men's and Women's NCAA Division I Basketball Championship."

5. Google Toolbar's "up" button lets you go up one level in a web site.

6. Google Music Search, used for showing outdated information about music artists.

Can you think of other obscure Google features that are probably used by a small number of people?


Courtesy : googlesystem.blogspot.com

Google's PowerMeter to boost energy efficiency

Los Angeles: Google is partnering with privately held firm Energy, to provide households with free energy management software called PowerMeter, which will boost energy efficiency, the company said on its blog.

Google had launched PowerMeter, which is a web tool, in February to let consumers monitor how much electricity they use at home. But in order to use PowerMeter consumers needed a smart meter installed. Many customers have already tested and used this application. Now, consumers can buy Energy's power-usage measuring device called TED 5000 which costs around $200, and use Google's software on top of it, without ever needing a smart meter. 

Even though many companies are now trying to propagate smart meters they still account for a small percentage of all U.S. electricity meters. Technology giants like Google and IBM are shifting into the world of building a smart grid, envisioning a more efficient electricity grid that uses more renewable energy and powers up 'smart' appliances.

Google's partnership with Energy does not include any financial terms. Google is already working with Sempra Energy's San Diego Gas and Electric and Germany's Yello Strom. Google is also trying to develop clean technology. Some of its projects include ways to write software to connect plug-in hybrid vehicles to the power grid and a mirror technology that could reduce the cost of building solar thermal plants by more than a quarter.

 

Source - siliconindia news bureau

 

 

Gmail Messages with Enhanced Content

Gmail added a feature that lets you interact with the messages sent by some companies without opening a new page. It's called "sponsored mail with enhanced content" and here's the description:

If you're subscribed to receive email from certain senders, the messages you receive from them will be enhanced with an interactive gadget that has up-to-date content from their website (you'll also see an icon in your inbox identifying these messages).

For example, if you receive a Pregnancy Bulletin newsletter from Babycenter, you'll be able to view up-to-date content, including the baby name of the day, and browse though the current top 100 baby names within the message. Aside from the convenience of being able to interact with certain websites from inside Gmail, the branded content will help identify that your messages are legitimate and not spoofed (we'll only show branded content when the sender authenticates their mail). We're currently testing this with a small number of senders and will decide whether to make it widely available based on user and partner feedback

Courtesy – Google Blog  

Google has Done it Again !!! A Very Smart Innovation

Check out this device ...

Guess what you can do with a touch screen, camera, scanner, WiFi, and google maps ...

View a building through it, and it gives you all the information about that building....

Choose a building and touch a floor and it tells you more details of the building. You can use it when you want to know a car model, an insect name, what kind of food is served at a restaurant and how much, who built a bridge, etc. etc. 

It’s got a scanner built in. 

so you can use it this way when you want to check the meaning of a word in the newspaper, book, magazine, etc. It would be much easier to read a real book. You can use the dictionary, wikipedia, thesaurus and anything else available on the web. What do you think? 

Indoor guide: Works in a building, airport, station, hospital, etc.

Automatic simultaneous translation: here Latin to English. 

Search keyword: Helpful when you want to find out a word from a lot of text in newspaper/book

Nutrition: This kind of function would be helpful for health freaks.. 

100K Google Wave Invites

Some call Google Wave the next big thing on the Internet while others think that it does not add anything new or exciting to the web. Whatever it is, most users have not had a chance to test Google Wave as Google has closed registration for the service. The Google blog announced yesterday that they will open the service to a new batch of 100.000 users. Registrations on the other hand remain closed and the only way users can grab one of these invites is by being a developer who have been active in the developer preview started in June, being one of the first users who signed up for Google Wave (and offered to give feedback) or by being a select customer of Google Apps.

Best chance for most interested users is therefore if they have filled out the registration form at the Google Wave website back when it was announced for the first time. Everyone else will have to wait just a bit longer before they can experience the service first hand.

Take a look at the video about Google Wave if you have not heard about it before: (it’s long)

Your best bet currently is to signup at the website as soon as possible for a chance to be included in one of the upcoming invitation rounds (it is likely that there will be more or that Google will let users who have registered join eventually).

Coursey - Ghack

Gmail: 90 Tools And Tips To Make You A Gmail Pro

Google Mail is without doubt one of the most popular online email services. What makes it so interesting is not only the functionality that it provides out of the box but also its extensibility. The following article contains all the tools and tips needed to make you a Gmail pro. It contains the best Firefox extensions, Greasemonkey scripts; desktop tools as well as how tos and other tips that will increase the functionality of Gmail immensely.

Firefox add-ons:

Better Gmail – Compilation of some of the best Greasemonkey scripts for Gmail compiled as a Firefox add-on.

Cookie Swap – Manage multiple Gmail accounts at once with this Firefox add-on.

DragDropUpload – Drop files into attachment boxes easily.

Email This – Emails the current title, highlighted text and link of the active page using email applications like Gmail.

Email Yourself – Use this Firefox add-on to email information about the current webpage to yourself.

GContactSync – Synchronizes the contacts between Gmail and Thunderbird.

Gmail Ad Blocker – Removes the ads that are shown in the Gmail interface to make more room for your messages.

Gmail Agenda – Integrates Google Calendar into Gmail.

Gmail Checker – Checks for new emails automatically in Firefox.

Gmail Contact Book – Easily pick contacts when writing mails in Gmail.

Gmail Manager – Manage multiple Gmail accounts and display new mail notifications.

Gmail Notifier – Will monitor a single or multiple Gmail accounts from within Firefox. Displays information such as unread email messages in the status bar.

Gmail Redesigned – A complete new CSS stylesheet for Gmail that changes the look and feel of the website.

Gmail S/Mime – Makes it possible to send and receive signed and encrypted emails in Gmail.

Gmail Signatures – Automatically inserts HTML signatures in Gmail messages based on the address the emails get send from.

Gmail Skins – Change the color of the skin of the Gmail website.

GTD Inbox – Increase the productivity and manageability of Gmail with this Getting Things Done add-on.

Integrated Gmail – Makes it possible to display other Google services like Google Calendar or Reader directly in Gmail.

Bookmarklets:

gCompose – Will display the new mail dialog when pressing the bookmarklet’s button.

Gmail Search Bookmarks – Save searches with this bookmarklet.

Gmail This – Button to email the current page using Gmail.

Multiple Gmail Signatures – Create and use multiple signatures in Gmail.

Greasemonkey:

Always Show CC Field – Will always display the CC and BCC fields in Gmail.

Attachment Reminder – reminds you of an attachment based on words used in the email.

Gmail + Reader Integrator – Integrates Gmail and Google Reader.

Gmail Attachment Icons – Adds bigger and better attachment icons to Gmail

Gmail Emoticons – Adds emoticons to Gmail.

Gmail Filter Assistant – Ads an advanced filter management module to Gmail.

Gmail Macros – Adds extra keyboard shortcuts and macros.

Gmail Persistent Search – Save and access previous searches in Gmail.

Gmail Preview Bubbles – Preview a message without opening it.

Gmail Right-Click – Adds a right-click menu to Gmail to navigate the website faster and more comfortably.

Gmail Spam Count Hide – Hides the spam count in Gmail.

Gmail Super Clean – Provides a cleaner interface for Gmail.

Gmail To – Forces all mailto links to use Gmail.

Gmail Unread Message Count In Favicon – Display the unread message count of your Gmail account in the Gmail favicon.

Google Account Multi-Login – log into multiple accounts at the same time.

One Click Conversations For Gmail – Access conversations with one click.

Desktop Applications:

Blogsigs – For Webmasters: Add the title of your latest blog post in your email signature.

Gdisk (MAC) – Turns the Gmail account into a portable hard drive on the computer.

Gmail Assistant – A notifier for multiple Gmail accounts with many options.

Gmail Backup – Explains how to backup all mails of a Gmail account locally.

Gmail FS (Linux) – Add Gmail as a hard drive in the Linux operating system.

Gmail Mobile – Mobile application for Gmail.

Gmail Todo – Quickly Add ToDo’s to the Gmail account.

GMDesk – Run Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs and Google Maps as standalone applications.

Google Email Uploader – Upload emails to Gmail.

Google Mailbox Loader – Import mailboxes into Gmail.

GPhotospace – Use Gmail as a online storage space for your photos.

GSN SMS Notifier – Send SMS when new mail arrives.

GTray – Display notifications of new email messages in the system tray.

KCheckGmail (Linux) – System Tray application for Linux KDE.

Mailstore Home – Backup Your email using this email backup software.

You’ve got Gmail (Trillian) – Adds new mail notifications to Trillian.

Tips:

11 Power Tips For Gmail – A collection of 11 tips for Google Mail.

Add Gmail Tasks To Your Firefox Sidebar – Explains how to add Gmail tasks to the Firefox Sidebar.

Edit Gmail Contacts From Chat List – It is far easier and faster to edit the Gmail contacts from the chat list.

Force Gmail to Always use Secure Connection – Forces Gmail to always use a https connection.

How To Read Mail Without Touching Your Mouse – It is possible to use Gmail without using the mouse at all.

Mark All Unread Mail As Read – Explains how to mark all unread mail in Gmail as read.

Ten Gmail Labs Features You Should Enable – A list of ten experimental features that can be activated in Gmail.

Top 10 Gmail Tips And Hacks – Ten excellent Gmail tips.

Watch Videos right in Gmail Chat – Watch videos that have been posted in Gmail chat in the same window.

What To Do If You Cannot Access Your Gmail Account – A collection of tips that explain what a user can do if he cannot access Gmail anymore.

How To:

Access Gmail From Thunderbird – How to configure Thunderbird to work with Gmail

Access Your Gmail Inbox With Python – How to access the inbox with a python script.

Analyze Mail Usage With Mail Trends – How to analyze mail usage over time.

Archive Mail On The iPhone – Explains how to backup mails on the iPhone.

Attach and Send Any File Type with Gmail – How to send blocked file types with Gmail.

Backup Gmail In Linux – A four step guide on how to backup Gmail in Linux.

Build Advanced Gmail Filters – How to create and use advanced Gmail filters.

Compose Gmail Messages With Launchy – Using the launcher Launchy to compose Gmail messages.

Create A Feed For Unread Gmail Messages – Use RSS Feeds For Unread Messages.

Export And Backup Emails From Outlook To Gmail – How to export email messages from Microsoft Outlook To Gmail.

Fast PDF Viewing in Gmail – How to view PDFs right in the browser.

How To Setup Gmail In External Mail Clients Properly – Explains how to setup Gmail in external mail applications like Mozilla Thunderbird or Microsoft Outlook.

Import Contacts From Hotmail – How to import Hotmail contacts into Gmail.

Import Emails Into Gmail – How to import desktop emails into Gmail.

Manage All Email Accounts With Gmail – Guide for users with multiple email accounts.

Set Gmail As The Default Mail Client – How to set Gmail as the default mail client in Firefox 3.

Send SMS Text Messages – How To send SMS messages with Gmail.

Use Gmail As A Drive In Windows – Configure Gmail to Appear as a normal drive letter in Windows.

Use IMAP in Gmail – Explains how to use Gmail over IMAP.

Work With Attachments – Work with attachments in Gmail.

Misc:

Gmail Mobile - Access Gmail from a mobile phone.

Gmail Productivity Tips – Three productivity tips for Gmail.

Gmail Shortcut List – List of Gmail Shortcuts.

Gmail Shortcuts – How to use shortcuts for Gmail shortcuts.

Gmail Stickers – Get some Gmail stickers for your computer keyboard from Google for the price of a return stamp.

How To Make a Physical Gmail Notifier – Create a new gadget that will tell you if new mail has arrived in the Gmail inbox.

Courtesy - ghacks