It already flags if you've included the word "attached" in the email without having actually added an attachment - very handy indeed. But now it seems Gmail is taking the task of protecting us from ourselves to the next level.
'Don't forget Bob' is the new feature which will offer suggestions of missing people if you are sending a group email. If you usually email Bob alongside Lucy and Jane, Gmail will remind you if you forget.
'Got the wrong Bob?' is the second new feature - as Gmail will suggest all matches as you type in a name, it will now also alert you if it think you have opted for the wrong one. Especially handy if your boss and boyfriend have the same name, this one.
The new features are set to be rolled out within a day or two, according to Techradar.
Pub Quizzes have been killed by the smartphone. Those trivia questions about boxing champions in the 70s are now just a search term and a click away and though you can ban competitors from checking their iPhones you can't really stalk around a pub ripping them out of the hands of your clients...
So, Google have invented their own trivia quiz - where you have to use Google. Trivia is not dead, it's just got way harder and it's about how well you can search rather than how much random shit you can remember. You just have to be smart about using them and think laterally with the search terms.
That's my kind of quiz. Google are posting a question a day for a week on GoogleADay.com. They're artifically altering search results so that spoilers from other users don't come up.
Get cracking! The questions will get more difficult as the week wears on - try out this one for today though:
Two future presidents signed me. Two didn't because they were abroad. Despite my importance, modern viewers seem to think I have a glaring spelling error. What is it?
Google is taking on Facebook with a Like button of its own. The plusone button launched yesterday will be rolled out across all Google search results and will allow your friends
1) It's a little button with a +1 on it that pops up next to search results. Click on it to recommend something you like.
2) Yes, it is like a Facebook Like button. It provides social context to stuff on the web -say your friend Tom +1s a search engine result for a hotel in Barcelona, you'll see his recommendation when you search for hotels in Barcelona.
3) It uses your Google identity to work out a) your name, b) your friends. Your friends are the same as your contacts in Gmail's G-chat. You will need to be signed into Gmail or Youtube for this to work. But lets face it - you probably already are.
4) The +1 button might do better than the Facebook Like button because it's lower impact. My friends will only get my opinions on Spanish hotels when they are searching for Spanish hotels, therefore I'll be more likely to recommend more things because it will only pop up when it's useful to them.
5) Third party websites will be able to embed the button - which will encourage a rapid adoption. Just like the Facebook Like button, this is going to be key for blogs, news sites, online shops in getting their pages and products out there. There is a strong incentive for commercial sites to adopt this and work themselves into the user's social context. More +1 recommendations will also improve the SEO rating of a site. It's a no-brainer for site owners to introduce this..
Google has announced an update to Blogger that should bring it up to scratch with top performing competitors Wordpress and Tumblr.
They are smartening up the back-end of the site - making it easier to see what you're doing, and giving users a more intuitive preview of their work.
There are tweaks to search, improved tags and inbuilt Google Analytics.
Google also forefront the stats that show they are still bigger than Wordrpress or Tumblr/Posterous in terms of users.
My photos are on Facebook, my music is on Spotify and my docs are on Gmail. Faced with the option of buying Microsoft Office recently, I demured, reasoning that I had Notepad, Paint and well, didn't really need it.
Sure - this week with the Google Gmail blip that accidentally wiped the accounts of 100,000 users (story here) keeping your virtual property in the cloud looks like riskier policy than it has done for years.
What if oo, say, all your email contacts, documents and spreadsheets disappeared for a week or so because there was a blip at the GooglePlex? A chilling thought.
Still though Google may have blips - so do hard drives. If you've never tried restoring a back-up of a Windows Vista hard drive to a Windows 7 machine - don't. You'll end up gnawing through the USB cables. And not for the fun of it.
And at least Google backs everything up on off-line tapes as we discovered this week, so full data will be restored to the affected Gmail users after a painstaking process of rebooting.
There has been much debate over whether Google Apps will ever manage to make a dent in Microsoft Office's sales - an area where Microsoft have been so dominant for so long. Really, though this blip has caused a reassessment of that, it's also reminded people how much we do depend on Google Apps, how great they are, and the fact that they are free - and constantly updated.
Of course Office gets updated too but you have to pay for the new versions.
There's also the fact that I can log into any computer with internet anywhere and edit one of my documents and that I can get Spotify on my phone etc etc. When I get a tablet, as I undoutedly will - I'm sure google apps will be at the heart of that as well.
Hell, I quite like having a clean hard-drive and there's not much I miss about either Office or the bulk of my pictures.
How do you guys feel about moving to the Cloud? Have you done it already?
Google is adding a "Recipe" section to its search options, alongside "Images", "Videos" and "News".
If that seems a bit of a trivial category to you - just consider the Wall Blog's stats on the matter - 1% of Google searches on any given day are for recipes. Which works out at 100,000 a day.
Google are proud of their new search tool, which also lets users search for particular things within recipes like low-calorie meals or ones with or without particular ingredients. It's all about their shift to intelligent structured search tools instead of random word association..
One hundred thousand gmail users logged on today to find that all their old emails had disappeared, due to a problem that Google is now working to fix.
Little information is available about the issue which Google says affects 0.08% of its users. Just writing about it makes me feel a cold clench of fear in my stomach.
"Google Mail service has already been restored for some users, and we expect a resolution for all users in the near future. Please note this time frame is an estimate and may change.
"This issue affects less than 0.08% of the Google Mail userbase. Google engineers are working to restore full access. Affected users will be temporarily unable to sign in while we repair their accounts."
Users are posting for help in forums with desperate names like "I have lost ALL on my emails/folders etc. from gmail. Why would this happen? How can I restore everything?" here.
It comes just after a Google Calendar flaw last week when a bunch of people found their future appointments has been deleted from the Google database..
Most of the time the effect is so subtle that we don't notice, but Google is constantly tweaking our search results. This time the effect is a little stronger than usual, with precisely 11.8% of searches being affected by the latest change: the rejection of content farms.
You've probably come across these during searches: you click on a result and find yourself looking at a random collection of links to other sites, and usually not very relevant ones. Google somewhat euphemistically calls these "low-quality sites: sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful".
Going for quality
So the great Google has decided to shove these content farms as far away from the front page as possible, something it has achieved by tweaking the search algorithm. While not much more was said about the technical aspects, Google Fellow Amit Singhal writes on the official Google blog that it "will provide better rankings for high-quality sites: sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on."
The change is now being rolled out in the US first, with other geographies to follow later. Singhal says feedback from the new 'personal blocklist' Chrome extension was compared with the sites identified as content farm by Google's technology: "We were very pleased that the preferences our users expressed by using the extension are well represented. If you take the top several dozen or so most-blocked domains from the Chrome extension, then this algorithmic change addresses 84% of them, which is strong independent confirmation of the user benefits."
Volume control
The message is clear: Google doesn't want any nonsense. It wants to deliver "perfect" search results every time, something which is also increasingly demanded by its users. And it has to be said: Google is good at what it does. In the earlier days of the internet, searching was a much less exact science, but now I rarely have to type in more than one or two search terms before I find what I'm looking for. Interestingly I'm getting sloppier with my search terms too - it's no longer necessary to be overly specific or detailed, because Google works out what I'm getting at. There's probably a host of algorithms at the core of this, but for the user it translates as pure intuition.
While there isn't a monopoly on internet search, the fact that 'to google' has become a verb goes a long way to show the solidity of its position as the market leader. The fact that Google can, and will, tweak search results could be perceived as somewhat unsettling; the conspiracy minds amongst us must surely take issue with this sort of meddling. But while there is much to be said for openness and impartiality, the internet is becoming too vast to manoeuvre without some sort of filter.
As discussed in this article over at sister site TechDigest, social networks fill an important role in helping us filter down our internet experience to a more manageable mass. Google's crack-down on content farms is another example of internet volume control. When this is done right, it becomes quality control - this is why we are likely to see more of these sorts of measures in the future. There is a fine line here though, and you don't have to be a conspiracy nutter to see how this could go too far. But for now it looks like Google has yet again changed our internet experience for the better.
Suddenly noticed that your google calendar is blank today - and for the rest of the week..? Best double check that you actually have nothing on, because Google Calendar is experiencing problems today, and affected users are finding that entries in their calendar have been removed, that they are unable to access their G-cal accounts or that the service is flashing up error messages.
Google say only 0.001% of users are affected - but just check it's not you because mysteriously removed entries is exactly the sort of easy-to-miss error that could cause big problems.
As one affected user - AlaistairMCK commented on Twitter: Google calendar status here http://bit.ly/cb3aMj Apparently we're an insignificant prob. "Less than 0.001% of users"
Google's One Pass payment system only charges a 10% commission fee, potentially putting the newcomer ahead of Apple, which charges 30%.
Google boss Eric Schmidt announced the One Pass system yesterday in Berlin, just one day after Apple announced new rules for publishers selling subscriptions on its iOS platform. While vendors could previously sell directly, Apple says companies now have to offer users the option to buy directly through an iTunes account, which would give 30% of the selling price to Apple.
Buying online content through Google One Pass would mean being a sign-in name and password, granting access the content on tablets, smartphones and websites without having to re-subscribe in order to access the content on new devices.
Publishers will be able to customise their content as well, Google wrote on its official blog: '[Publishers can] experiment with different models to see what works best for them--offering subscriptions, metered access, "freemium" content or even single articles for sale from their websites or mobile apps.'
While it's early days for One Pass, some competition in this area might not be a bad thing. At least publishers should be happy about this following Apple's unpopular announcement forcing them to hand over 30% of profits.
In a great move for making culture accessible - Google have opened up some of the world's greatest museums on Streetview. Institutions including the New York MOMA, the Uffizi in Florence and the Tate Modern in London are now visible through the 360degree photo project that is Google Streetview.
They're also available on a dedicated site - the Art Project site Google created specially for it.
The Art Project provides close-up detailed images of individual pictures while streetview allows for more of a virtual gallery feel giving a direct experience of being in there.
You can create your own virtual art collection too...
The guys over at Mashable seem to have gotten a hold of a "confidential fact sheet straight from the Googleplex" which outlines a new Google product: Google Offers. This latest offering from the search giant appears to be another group buying service similar to Groupon.
The documents discovered by Mashable explain the basic idea: Customers receive an email with a local deal and are given the chance to buy that deal within a certain time frame. If enough people buy the deal the offer is triggered... So yeah exactly the same as Groupon.
Google has not made any official announcements regarding Google Offers yet.
An Android app made by Google could revolutionise how the nations of the world understand each other. Google Translate has now got a real-time conversation function that can translate between two people having a conversation in different language. This is pretty revolutionary. The app uses voice recognition to work out what the speaker is saying, runs it through Google Translate and then speaks it out loud so that a speaker of another language can understand it.
We can say right off that there are going to be wrinkles in this - have you ever tried Google translate from English to another language and back again? It's not exactly seamless, but at least people will get the gist.
It's similar to ground-breaking app Word Lens - an iPhone app that uses image recognition to read and translate text from a foreign language.
This, plus the update of Google Goggles gives the Android store some master apps, enough to make iPhone users seriously jealous. To date neither Goggles nor Translate are available on the iTunes store.
Google has jumped into the location-finding area with a bang - and an app - and it spells trouble for anyone else in that area.
Using your location, Google Places lists venues near you complete with thumbnail pictures from Google Streetview and star ratings plus with reviews pulled from elsewhere on the internet. You can call them, see them on a map, or go to the Google Place page.
It's what apps like AroundMe and Yelp previously did, though they know face stiff competition from this smooth, functional app and the massive Google database powering it.
As you might expect it has a social aspect built in with the HotPot feature which lets you see places your friends have reviewed or rated. HotPot then uses that info to recommend places to you..
Smart Android app Google Goggles just got better as Google updated it with faster smarter barcode recognition and the ability to link real world adverts to online shops. The key changes:
Barcode search has been on Goggles for a while, but Google have speeded it up, and it now send you directly to an online shopping results page, letting you compare prices in store, while looking at an item.
Excellent image recognition means that the app can now read text in paper form and translate it into type that it can understand and use to search for stuff. That means that pointing your phone at a watch ad on a page in a magazine will take you directly to a web page where that watch is being sold.
And yes, now you can totally cheat at all sudoku, and win. You can beat the US national champion. Err. Thanks for that Google.
This morning Vatornews is reporting that Google has bought Groupon. Citing an "unnamed insider" who told them Google "has just purchased Groupon for $2.5 billion."
Talk of the possible acquisition of the popular group buying site by Google emerged earlier in this month, after Yahoo failed to negotiate an acquisition deal earlier this year. On November 15th speculation grew when rumors began to surface that Google had made an offer of $2 billion to $3 billion.
Groupon was founded in 2008, and has been one of the biggest online success stories in recent years. The company's revenues are estimated to be in the region of $50 million a month, from 20 million subscribers across 29 countries throughout Europe, North America, Latin America, and Asia. Group buying has now become a huge trend with a number of copycats emerging, trying to emulate its success.
A few months ago after my hard drive died, I made the switch to Google Docs. At the time it was mainly so that I would never have to worry about losing all my work again. But now, having written well over 200 documents in it, I don't think I will be making the switch back to Microsoft Office anytime in the foreseeable future.
However, the majority of people still using Office, if only for work. So to help encourage others to make the move over to Google Docs, they have launched the aptly named "Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office plug-in". This simple plug-in effectively turns Microsoft Office into a front-end for Google Docs so that everything you do in Word, Excel and Powerpoint ends up synced and backed up in your Google Doc account.
This not only means you don't have to worry about your work disappearing, but gives you the ability to collaborate with other Google Docs users. The only negative at the moment is that this plug-in only works on Windows.
Yes, now the internet is in the sky. Google - those masters of the world - have worked out how to set up a WiFi system 30,000ft above the ground.
I know, I have trouble setting one up at ground level with a call centre worker on the phone and no oxygen issues, but somehow they have got the internet working on 3 airlines in the States.
It's free as well. Nice touch.
Google is in partnership with AirTran, Delta and Virgin America to offer free Gogo Inflight Wi-Fi on every domestic flight from November 20, 2010 through January 2, 2011.
Now that they have proved it can be done. We hope it will get rolled out to other service providers.. though we imagine RyanAir will charge for it...
More history of the world as brought to you by Google. It's 115 years since the invention of the x-ray and Google treated us by showing us the bones, key, coins and uh pigeon behind their lettering.
No games this time, but it's still pretty exciting.
Google has just stumped up $8.5 million for online privacy charities to clean its slate with privacy campaigners, after the introduction of social network Buzz landed Google with a host of privacy complaints earlier this year.
Buzz was launched in February of this year and was built to run from the Gmail interface, so far, so fine - but a teething issue with privacy cropped up as it automatically set users to follow their most emailled contacts in their gmail.
People were surprised to see they were suddenly publicly following ex-boyfriends/ex-girlfriends, contacts from rival businesses and other people that they shouldn't be.
It was the equivalent of publishing a list of the people's most emailled, and in a few cases that was something people wanted to keep to themselves.
At the time Google quickly made the privacy controls more obvious. But now, 8 months on following a class action on behalf of all American Gmail users by a group of people in the states, Google has dedicated $8.5-million US fund
From: CES 2012 - More fitness and health gadgets - Basis, Qualcomm and Striiv