Google Friends Newsletter - November 2010

POWER TIP

Edit Google Docs on your mobile browser

Now you can edit your Google Docs on the go from your mobile device. To get started, go to docs.google.com in your mobile browser and select the document you want to edit. Then, while viewing that document, press the "Edit" button to switch to the mobile editor. This feature is currently available to English-language users on Android with Froyo (version 2.2) and on iOS devices (version 3.0+).
http://mobile.google.com/docs

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NEW PRODUCTS & UPDATES

Instant Previews

Instant Previews helps you choose the right search result faster by displaying a visual preview of each result showing the layout of that webpage as well as text call-outs that highlight where your search term appears on the page. To use Instant Previews, click once on the magnifying glass next to any search result to see a preview of the webpage. After you activate Instant Previews, you can hover over any other result to see a preview.
http://www.google.com/instantpreviews

Google Earth 6

The newest version of Google Earth features an integrated Street View experience, so you can seamlessly explore areas at street level. Try it by dragging and dropping Pegman from the navigation control dock to any highlighted blue road, then look around. We've also added dozens of species of 3D trees all over the world. Finally, it's now much easier to travel back in time and browse historical imagery. Download Google Earth 6 for free.
http://www.earth.google.com

Boutiques.com

Boutiques.com is a personalized shopping experience that lets you find and discover fashion goods, by creating your own curated boutique or through a collection of boutiques curated by taste-makers—celebrities, stylists, designers and fashion bloggers. Boutiques uses computer vision and machine learning technology to visually analyze your taste and match it to items you might like.
http://www.boutiques.com/

Track Santa on Christmas Eve

This Christmas Eve, visit the NORAD Tracks Santa website to follow Santa on Google Maps and Google Earth. Follow Santa as he travels around the world and watch videos of him delivering presents to children everywhere. Visit the site from December 1-23 to play a fun game in the Countdown Calendar and don't forget to come back on December 24 to watch Santa's flight live on Google Maps.
http://www.noradsanta.org

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MISCELLANY

For YouTube fans with little time on their hands, we recently started a new series of YouTube updates on the Official Google Blog. Every couple of weeks, we'll share the latest product features, interesting programs to watch and tips you can use to grow your audience on YouTube. So far, we've covered a wide variety of topics, including Chrome browser extensions to make the YouTube viewing experience more cinematic, milestones like the fact that 35 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute and much more.
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/search/label/youtube%20highlights

Google Friends Newsletter - November 2008

POWER TIP

Google Translate adds 11 new languages

We recently added 11 more languages to Google Translate, making it easier than ever to read web pages in other languages. The newest language additions include Catalan, Serbian, Slovenian, Slovak, Latvian, Filipino, Indonesian, Hebrew, Ukrainian, Lithuanian, and Vietnamese.
http://translate.google.com

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NEW PRODUCTS & UPDATES

Update for Google iPhone apps

A number of updates for the Apple iPhone (including Street View, Google Transit, walking directions, and voice search) are now available. Access transportation schedules for 100+ cities worldwide - New York, Tokyo, Montreal, Zurich, Perth, and more - from your iPhone. And now voice search is integrated into the latest version of the Google Mobile App for iPhone: just hold the phone to your ear and say what you're looking for, and you'll hear Google search results. If you do a local search for something like [pizza], we'll automatically find pizza places near your current location.
http://www.google.com/mobile/apple

Gmail launches themes, voice and video chat

This month we introduced Gmail themes in 50 languages. Similar to iGoogle, these 31 different themes range from options that simply change colors to ones that change based on the time of day or the weather. To customize your inbox, go to the "Themes" tab under "Settings." We also rolled out Gmail voice and video chat for Macs and PCs, supporting 53 languages.
http://www.gmail.com

Stay ahead of the flu with Google Flu Trends

You can better prepare for flu season with a new tool that provides up-to-date estimates of flu activity in the U.S. Google Flu Trends uses aggregated Google search data to track flu activity up to two weeks faster than traditional flu surveillance systems. The site also includes flu news articles, a flu shot locator, and lots of information about how we calculate the estimates from aggregated search queries.
http://www.google.org/flutrends

Ancient Rome in 3D now in Google Earth

Take a step back in time and explore Ancient Rome in 3D, now available in Google Earth. This layer includes more than 6,700 ancient Roman buildings rebuilt in 3D - and more than 200 placemarks that provide historical information about famous sites. The project originated from "Rome Reborn," an international academic initiative to create a digital model of Rome as it appeared in late antiquity.
http://earth.google.com/rome

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MISCELLANY

Crowded airports, unruly security lines, and jammed highways: Yes, here comes the year-end holiday travel season. Thanks to a few search tips and tricks, you can make traveling to and fro a little bit easier. Before you leave the house, you can track flight status information just by entering the airline and flight number into the search box. You can also see delays at a specific airport by typing in the name of the city or three-letter airport code followed by the word "airport." And Google Maps will get you through the alphabet soup of airport codes, too. If you're headed one place but your itinerary indicates you'll be changing planes at an unrecognizable three-letter destination (SJC or DCA, for example), just enter the airport code to find it on the map. We also offer a host of products designed specifically for mobile phones, making it easy to track traffic and weather conditions while you're on the road. We hope tools like these will help de-stress the holidays so you can stay focused on good cheer.
http://www.google.com
http://maps.google.com
http://www.google.com/mobile

Google Friends Newsletter - November 2007

POWER TIP

Google Tip of the Day Gadget

Various updates to Google products are sometimes released at such a pace that even we Googlers have a hard time keeping up -- and some of the best aspects can be lost in the shuffle. The Google Tip of the Day gadget highlights some of the lesser-known or recently-added members of the Google family, with short, easily-digested descriptions and examples. We serve up a new tip every weekday and you can scroll through the archive to see earlier tips as well. Just add this gadget to your iGoogle homepage or embed it on your own website or blog.
http://www.google.com/ig/directory?url=google_tips.xml

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NEW PRODUCTS & UPDATES

Updates to Google Notebook

This month we've unveiled a number of updates to Google Notebook, most notably a mobile version so you can access your notebooks from your cell phone or other handheld Internet device. In addition, we've also improved and simplified the interface, added labeling functionality for improved organization, and integrated Google bookmarks.
http://www.google.com/notebook

Google products optimized for the iPhone

Those already in possession of an iPhone will notice we've recently optimized Google search, Gmail, Calendar, Picasa, Reader, and Docs to work better than ever. The iPhone-optimized properties take advantage of the Safari browser to render touchpad-friendly pages along with the high processing power of the iPhone to offer a seamless browsing experience.
http://www.google.com

Updates to Google Maps

Over the past month Google Maps has made a number of improvements, including adding a Terrain overlay that displays physical features such as mountains, valleys, and forestation as well as elevation shading, river rapids, and hiking trails. By clicking the Terrain overlay for New York, for instance, you can see 3D models of buildings in Manhattan. There's also the new Editable Maps, to help correct data on Google Maps, such as the exact location of your house -- just like a wiki database.
http://maps.google.com

Five new iGoogle themes

Those of you who use iGoogle now have five additional theme choices to personalize your homepages. These include: the solar system, showing a new scene for each day of the week; the Hong Kong skyline (it changes in light and texture based on time of day); a family of raccoons playing in a leaf pile; a tiger on Jeju Island, South Korea; and JR, the lovable monster who grapples with life in a city for which he is entirely too big.
http://www.google.com/ig

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MISCELLANY

+ Voters go online +

The 2004 presidential contest was the first major campaign that featured a notable amount of online activity - fundraising, blogging, petition-gathering. Since then, it's only heated up, as even more people are conducting their business, and spending their leisure time, online. During this run-up period to the 2008 election, YouTube has broken new ground by collaborating with CNN to organize major candidate debates for both parties featuring video questions submitted by thousands of voters. YouTube also launched a meta-election site called YouChoose, so that folks can track the candidates on the issues they care most about. The Internet is a powerful tool for sharing information quickly, presenting all sides of the issues, candidate positions, and much more. We are planning for a busy campaign season leading up to November 2008, and we encourage everyone to get informed and stay current as the candidates, the polls, and the issues continue to play out next year.

YouChoose: http://www.youtube.com/youchoose
CNN-YouTube Republican debate: http://www.youtube.com/republicandebate
CNN-YouTube Democratic debate: http://www.youtube.com/democraticdebate

Related post: google, friends, newsletter, november, 2007