Google announced the launch of Knowledge Graph, an enhancement to Google Search. Google will analyze your query and display information that are relevant to what you searched for. Google claims that its database contains more than 500 million objects and more than 3.5 billion facts about and relationships between these different objects. This function is currently available to Google.com US English users only, it will also be available to smartphones and tablets later.
So what does Google Knowledge Graph offer? For example, if you search for “Taj Mahal”, Google brings out both information about the monument and the musician. No matter what you are searching for you don’t miss relevant info.
Besides, you get a summary of the entity you are searching for. Without having to go into the result pages, you get an overview of information.
Google will even go deeper to explore the relationship of the search query with other objects. For example, if you search for somebody’s name, his parent’s and sibling’s names would appear.
The knowledge graph occupies the right hand side of the results page so it does not affect the original search results. My first impression is that Google puts up a mini encyclopedia right on the results page. It is most useful when you search for hard facts about a place, a celebrity, an object, etc. because you’ll no longer need to click the Wikipedia page on the results page.
Google launched Google Drive on 24 Apr. I believe it is a significant step that takes cloud living and working into a new era. In this article I shall briefly introduce what Google Drive is, how to use it and what killer features does it have.
Activation
Currently Google Drive is not fully opened to all users. If you go to http://drive.google.com, chances are you would see the following screen. Note the “Your Google Drive is not ready yet” message and the “Notify me” button (top right corner). From here you could ask Google to send you an activation email.
It may take hours or days to receive Google’s welcome email, which looks like this:
Basically Google Drive is an upgrade of Google Docs. It doesn’t look much different from Google Docs. You can use it the same way as Google Docs, there is not much of the user interface to learn.
Features
But Google Drive is not simply a Google Docs with a larger capacity (Google gives you 5 GB storage for free). I see a few improvements.
Firstly, Google Drive has a built-in OCR function, meaning that if you search for a phrase in your Google Drive, not only would text-based files containing the phrase would come up in search results, pictures which the phrase would also be searched. Google recognizes the text in graphics form. Similarly, Google Drive also integrated Google Goggles the image search engine. So it you try to find “the great wall” in Google Drive, even if the file name does not contain the words, Google Drive could recognize the photo you took in Beijing in your last trip to China.
Secondly, just like Dropbox and Skydrive by Microsoft, the desktop app of Google Drive automatically synchronize your files between your Windows PC or Mac and your Google Drive. There is also an Android app and an iOS app is in the pipeline. This level of synchronization was not available in the previous Google Docs.
Thirdly, Google brought web apps into Google Drive. When I first entered Google Drive, I was asked if I wanted to use Pixlr Editor as the default image viewer and editor.
This is a smart move by Google. There are way too many online storage competitors in the market, the most famous ones include Dropbox, Box and Skydrive. Why should we use Google Drive if other companies provide the same (or more) storage space? By adding web apps to web storage, Google created not only a storage space but an online working space!
There is a growing collection of Chrome web apps that support Google Drive. You can identify these web apps by the Google Drive icon in chrome Web Store:
And you can add more web apps by clicking “Create”, choose “More” and then “Get more apps”.
I see huge potential in integrating Google Drive with web apps. Image editor, word processor, music player and editor, spreadsheet editor… All web apps could be ran on the same Google Drive platform, this makes online working and collaboration much easier. The Google Docs in the past was primitive, it only had basic editing function. Now when third-party app developers could create web apps that have direct access to Google Drive, more possibilities are created.
The launch of Google Drive with web apps also makes Chromebook a much more attractive product. Users can store all their files online in one place and have them viewed and edited in the same one place. Chrome OS + Google Drive + web apps is an integrated, independent and complete system. As long as you have web access, you have access to your files and apps to view/edit your files. I think Google Drive filled the missing piece of a complete cloud system. The cloud era has come, now in a more desirable way.
Finally watch this introductory video, know what Google Drive is and try it now!
Chrome Web Store just received a new update. A major new feature is the “Trending” tab which to let users know what web apps are hot now.
Trending Chrome Web Apps
In the past we could only see “popular” web apps but this list is not frequently updated. The new “trending” tab lists out the hottest web apps and sort by the popularity. Apps are ranked as “on fire”, “hot” and “warm”.
The purpose of this “trending” tab is to highlight web apps that are popular in recent time. These apps may not be found in the “popular” tab that shows all-time hot apps. For example, while YouTube is definitely a “popular” web app (over 1,000,000+ users installed it in Chrome), it is not even “warm” in “trending”. This is obvious because the user count of this web app is stable.
Apart from the trending tab, now you can also sort web apps in each individual category to find out the trending web apps. This is very useful for finding out the hottest web apps such as latest games.
Offline and Playable on Google+ Identification
The second change to Chrome Web Store is the new mark-ups showing particular features of web apps. In the following screenshot, you see a Google+ mark for Diamond Dash, meaning that this game is playable on Google+ (and trending mark for BrowserQuest too). You can also find a lightning mark for apps that run offline. Google said that more marks for other features would follow.
The second round of Google’s April Fools! This time we have a “really” advanced search, Google Analytics that shows traffic from the universe and Google Voice for your pets.
Really Advanced Search
This version of Advanced Search allows users to search for:
“words almost, but not quite entirely unlike” your phrase
“rhyming slang for” your phrase
exact word or phrase, whose sum of unicode code points is a mersenne prime
“subtext or innuendo for” your phrase
and some more… you can also narrow the search results by “font”, “textured background”, “looping midi music” etc. I wish this “Really Advanced Search” comes true someday. If Google is really this intelligent, we could get much more accurate search results that suit our particular needs.
This new product features “technology originally developed for NASA spacesuits”. A LED emitter could project a virtual keyboard on the ground for your pet to type messages (if you pet knows how to tap). By putting a collar on your pet’s neck, what is “said” by it wuold be collected and uploaded to your Google Voice account. The voicemail transcription engine will translate your pet’s messages into English. There is even an Android app to make voice call to your pet!
What would happen if you “Call” your pet? Will the system translate your voice into cat meows?
My final pick is Google Analytics. For the first time we can track the visits by our extraterrestrial friends! This new function shows the visitor number from Mars,Venus, Jupiter… The following screenshot shows a web site with around 200 hundred visitors from some planets:
If this could happen, I want to see friend from Mars landing on my site too!
There are lots and lots more April fools by Google and other tech companies such as Google Fiber Bars, Google Street Views by kangaroos, super miniature Ultrabook by Sony, Reddit timeline, etc. Find out more from these April Fool Round-ups:
Hi guy, today (1 April) is the April Fool Day, our naughty little brother Google has prepared many funny things for you.
Chrome Multitasking Mode
The first came to my attention is the “Chrome multitask mode” video in YouTube. In this video, the “Google employee” claims that you can use more than 1 mice at a time on the same screen. I don’t have two mice to test it, but I bet if you really try to follow these instructions, you get… nothing.
8-bit Google Maps
Is this April Fool? Or a permanent feature? I hope it is the latter one because it’s so funny. Today if you go to Google Maps, you will see a box telling you the 8-bit version is released.
You can find the 8-bit rendering of some landmarks.
UFO at Area 51:
And there are hidden monsters, like this:
People have been crazily sharing the landmarks and monsters they found, probably you already seen some on your Facebook, Twitter or Google+ statuses!
Google even released a video introducing 8-bit Google Maps like a serious product launch!
YouTube Collection
The final amazing product is YouTube Collection. You can order YouTube videos in DVDs delivered to your home! A vast variety of collections with different themes are available, check this out:
Google Chrome Web Store has just received a little change. As introduced in Chromium Blog, there are new top level categories and sub-categories in the Store, such as Business Tools.
This is certainly a move to help (and attract) corporate users. There are also new sub-categories, such as Shopping under Lifestyle. This is how Google described the benefits of these changes:
The new structure of the store will improve discoverability for apps. For example, users searching for a photo album app can now easily drill down to the “Photos” subcategory level and track down the app they are looking for. At the same time, apps assigned to a subcategory show up in the category page as well giving them wider exposure; an app in “Photos” will appear on both the “Photos” page and the “Entertainment” page.
From now on, an app would only be shown in the primary category the developer chose, to avoid confusion caused. It would, however, be shown in both the category and sub-category it belongs to.
Web app developers are certainly affected by this change because they have review the categories of their apps after this update. For web app users, I believe this brings easier app searching. The new top level categories and sub-categories are, in my opinion, much better and clearer than the original categorization.
Christmas is coming, and Google is prepared to give us surprises. The first one is an easter egg in Google search. Try entering “let it snow” (without the quotes) and see what happened?
Yes, your web browser is snowing! You can see snow flakes fall down and your browser screen gradually becomes frozen. a “defrost” button will appear later, click on it to return to a workable Google search.
Another surprise by Google is call or video by Santas. This is a US / Canada only service in which you can ask Santa to give a call to your friend. Simply go to http://www.sendacallfromsanta.com/ to begin or you may also find the following banner when you log-in to Gmail.
No it’s not those simple canned messages, you can customize it by giving the name of your friend, his likes/dislikes, where he lives, etc. so that the message by Santa would be more lively.
This funny game is available as a Chrome web app, check it out now!
Many people have already tried Google Currents on their smartphones and tablets. It is obviously Google’s attempt to challenge the mobile reading market. While many users opined that Google Currents is similar to its competitors like Flipboard, Pulse, Zite, etc. and did not really stand out from them. However, ther is one less talked about feature that got my attention: Google Currents Producer.
Google Currents Producer is a tool for all content providers to create their publications for Google Currents users to read. I said “all” because everyone can do it, even if you are a not-so-popular blog owner. Let us see how this function works.
Google Currents Producer – Create Your First Edition
You would be asked to provide some basic information of your new “Edition”. The easiest way to create an Edition is to import the RSS feed of your blog or web site. You can also enter the name of your YouTube channel if you want to create a video-oriented Edition.
You will then enter more details, including an icon and a custom splash image. As the publisher you can choose to collect reader’s email address. This means that people must opt-in by providing their email addresses before they could get your Edition. You can also add Google Analytics code to track the traffic. You can instantly preview the Edition as on Android phone, tablet, iPhone and iPad.
Your content could be divided into different sections. Apart from RSS feed and YouTube video, you can put photos, articles, social updates (including your Google+ updates) as well. The order of sections could be re-arranged.
When you are finished with customizing the Edition, click “Distribute”. You can preview the Edition on your smartphones and tablet using logging in using the publishing account. Click “Distribute to Google Currents” and choose a publishing date to pas it to the hands of your readers. My Edition looks like this on Android phone:
While Google Currents in its existing form still needs improvements on performance, user interface, etc. I see Google Currents producer as a handy tool for individual publishers to extend their readership. It could help bloggers to explore the market because they have an extra channel to be known. The ability to import from RSS feeds, YouTube channels and Google+ updates makes publishing as simple as re-using existing content.
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