Enhanced Google Voice Search for iOS

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Google's search app for iOS has always included voice search. Now iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad users can try Google's updated voice search, 5 months after the Android Jelly Bean launch. Just install the latest version of the Google Search app.

The original voice search feature was just another way to enter a query. The new version shows instant answers and a robotic voice reads them for you. Another improvement is that your words are displayed as you speak, so you don't have to wait so much.




Google's voice search is more interactive and Google does a better job at answering simple questions, but it doesn't integrate with the operating system like Google Search for Android or Siri. You can't use it to launch apps, play music, check your calendar or add an alarm, but it's great for weather forecasts, sports scores, definitions, unit conversions, simple calculations, facts. Try "play Rihanna Diamonds video" and the video starts playing, "cat pics" returns image search results, "directions to Los Angeles" shows Google Maps directions.


It's hard to beat Siri because Apple's iOS feature is easier to access and it integrates with the built-in apps. Siri is also conversational, it remembers things and doesn't require some specific keywords in a certain order. For example, you can ask Siri [is it cold outside?], [will it rain should I get my umbrella tomorrow?] and you get accurate answers. Google doesn't answer the second question and only shows the current temperature for the first question. Google's voice is less robotic, Google supports more languages than Siri, local search results are not limited to a few countries and Knowledge Graph results constantly get better. Still, Siri feels more like a voice assistant, while Google Voice Search is another way to search the Web and get impersonal answers from Google. Understanding the query continues to be a difficult task.

{ via Google Blog }

How to Open Any Mail in Gmail's New Panels

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If you've enabled Gmail's new interface for composing messages, there's a simple way to open any Gmail message in the chat-like panels:

1. open the message

2. edit the URL from your browser's address bar. Replace the last slash (/) from the URL with ?compose=

For example, replace:

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?shva=1#inbox/13a111c6f50b9084

with:

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?shva=1#inbox?compose=13a111c6f50b9084


Gmail actually creates a new message with the same content and saves it as a draft. That's the reason why you can edit the message. When you no longer need the message, click the "close" button. You may need to delete the messages from the "drafts" label.

You can open multiple messages using the same trick. After using the instructions above:

3. open a new Gmail message

4. edit the URL from your browser's address bar. Replace ?compose= with & and the last slash (/) from the URL with ?compose=.

Gmail Smart Label for Social Updates

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Gmail has a new smart label that groups messages received from social networks, blogs and more, so you don't have to create complicated filters. You'll find messages from Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Blogger, Quora and other social sites.

Just like the previous smart labels for notifications, forums and bulk messages (now called "promotions"), the new smart label can be hidden, renamed or even removed from Gmail's settings page.


Smart Labels is a Gmail Labs feature, so it's not enabled by default, it's still an experiment and it "may change, break or disappear at any time". "Smart Labels help you classify and organize your email. Once you turn it on from the Labs tab in Settings, Smart Labels automatically categorizes incoming Bulk, Notification and Forum messages, and labels them as such," explains Google.

Share Google Drive Files to Google+

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Google Drive added a new feature that lets you share files to Google+, just like you can share them to Facebook and Twitter. Click the "share" button or right-click a file and select "share" twice, then click the Google+ icon.




Google displays thumbnails for documents, spreadsheets, drawings and music files, a player for presentations and videos and the description for archives. It's important to change the visibility options to "anyone with the link" or "public on the web".

You can also paste a Google Drive URL in a Google+ post and you'll the same thumbnails and players.


Google still doesn't do a good job at integrating Google Drive with other Google services. For example, you can't pick a Google Drive file (other than photos) when writing a Google+ post. You can't select a Google Drive file when composing a Gmail message and you can't upload files to Google Drive instead of sending them as attachments.

Microsoft's Hotmail (now called Outlook) has a clever feature that uploads large attachments and Office documents to SkyDrive, so it only sends the links.


{ Thanks, Herin. }

Google's Improved Word Translator

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Google Translate is great for translating long texts, but it's also useful for translating words and expressions. The main difference is that words can have multiple meanings and Google Translate will usually show more than one translation.

Now it's easier to select the right translation because Google shows if they're common and groups synonyms. Another improvement is that Google displays a list of reverse translations for each candidate, so you can pick the most appropriate word. "Reverse translations can distinguish translations of different meanings and reveal subtle differences among similar words. Each translation is now annotated with its most frequent reverse translations," explains Google.

For example, the French word "fort" has a lot meanings, so it's hard to pick between "loud", "strong", "heavy", especially if you don't know English. Google's reverse translations are helpful and it's nice to know that "strong" is the most common translation.


Unfortunately, the new features are only available if you're translating from English or into English.

Easily Add a Logo to your YouTube Videos

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Would you like to add some branding to your YouTube videos? Maybe an overlay logo or some sort of a watermark image that is permanently displayed in one of the corners of the video (similar to TV programming). →

You can use any video editing software to add logos or watermarks to your videos before uploading them to YouTube but how do you put them in your existing videos that are already on the web?

Well, YouTube has recently added a new feature called InVideo Programming that will help you add any custom image to all your Youtube videos with a few clicks without having to edit the original video.

Put a logo inside your YouTube Videos

The image can be your brand’s logo (make sure it’s a transparent png) or use one of these YouTube buttons to promote your main YouTube channel inside all your videos.

You can choose to display the logo at the start of the video, somewhere in the middle or even for the entire duration of the video. Also, the logo can be placed in either corners of the YouTube player.

That said, YouTube internally uses annotations to display the images over the video and thus, if you a YouTube viewer has turned off annotations, your logo won’t be visible.

Thanks Ashish Mohta for the tip.

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This story, Easily Add a Logo to your YouTube Videos, was originally published at Digital Inspiration on 07/10/2012 under YouTube, Internet.

How to Install Extensions from outside the Chrome Web Store

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A warning message in Google Chrome v22.0

Google wants your Chrome browser safe and therefore discourages users from installing any web apps and extensions that aren’t available in the official Chrome Web Store. →

If someone tries to add an unapproved extension (CRX file) or a user-script (*.user.js) in Chrome, the browser will throw a yellow warning message as shown in the above screenshot.

There’s however an easy workaround to this problem.

First download the CRX file of any Chrome extension /web-app to your computer. Then click the Settings icon in Chrome (previously a Wrench icon) and go to Tools -> Extensions. Drag and drop the CRX file on this page and Chrome will gladly install the add-on.

Here’s a video demo illustrating all the steps in detail. The same technique can be used to install the unofficial Greasemonkey userscripts in Chrome.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AQWUhHt35c

Also see: View Source of a Chrome Extension

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This story, How to Install Extensions from outside the Chrome Web Store, was originally published at Digital Inspiration on 08/10/2012 under Google Chrome, Internet.