In case you missed it, Google officially announced today that we'll be applying to participate in the upcoming 700 megahertz spectrum auction. You can read more about it on the Official Google Blog. As Chris notes, we'll be obligated to remain silent on this for awhile -- just so you know.
New magical blue circle on your map
We've all been there: You're out and about, and you need to figure out where you are, what's around you, and how to get there. Google Maps for mobile can help you do all that, but first you have to enter in a starting point using the keypad. And let's face it -- entering things into your phone using the keypad is so 2006. While some people are lucky enough to have GPS-enabled mobile phones that provide location information for Google Maps for mobile, the vast majority of us are not. So what to do?
Starting today, we have an answer: Google Maps for mobile with My Location . My Location is a new beta technology from Google that uses cell tower identification to provide you with approximate location information, so it will work on phones without GPS. Simply fire up Google Maps for mobile, press [0], and the map will indicate your approximate location by centering on a blue circle like this:
If you do have a GPS-enabled device, My Location can actually complement it. My Location kicks in faster than GPS in most cases, so you can access your location even faster on the map. It also works reliably indoors (unlike GPS) and doesn't drain your phone battery at the rate that GPS does.
Of course, this feature is in beta, which in this case means a few different things: First, although accuracy and coverage may vary, both will improve over time as more and more people use Google Maps for mobile. Second, My Location isn't currently supported on all devices (see our Help Center for more on this); we're working on that. Third, we'd love to get your feedback on it -- feel free to leave your comments below.
To give Google Maps for mobile with My Location a try, text "MYLOCATION" to 33669, or head to www.google.com/gmm on your mobile browser.
If you'd like to learn more about the My Location technology, take a look at this short video:
We're open for business
Welcome to the new Google mobile blog. We hope this will be your first stop for the latest news and views from our global team that has been working to bring you innovative mobile products for awhile, now.
Through this blog, we plan to share with you over time more on what we're up to, who we are, and what we think is going on in this dynamic industry. We'll have plenty of product launches, features, and tips to tell you about. We also hope to introduce you to some of our partners and some of our users along with the applications they love. Additionally, we plan to offer up comments on trends in the industry and even an occasional take on non-Google products we feel are particularly noteworthy.
Earlier this month we launched Android, one of our most ambitious mobile initiatives to date. While Android is an important part of our mobile strategy, so too is our goal of developing useful and compelling mobile products for our current and future users, devices, platforms, and partners. As always, you can find out more about our full suite of Google mobile products at mobile.google.com.
Finally, we're very interested in reading what you have to say so we invite you to submit comments below pertinent blog posts. We'll do what we can to respond; feel free to respond to each other as well. For specific questions on Google mobile products, please visit our discussion group and submit them there.
Google Talk gadget adds support for 20 new languages
The Google Talk gadget now supports US English, UK English, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish and Vietnamese.
Editions impacted:
Standard, Premier, Education and Partner Editions
Languages impacted:
UK English, Chinese(Simplified), Chinese(Traditional), Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese(Brazil), Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish and Vietnamese.
How to access what's new:
Bookmark http://hostedtalkgadget.google.com/a/your-domain.com/talkgadget/client to quickly launch the Google Talk gadget.
For more information:
http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/users/talk.html
Gmail in-browser chat supports group chats, emoticons and in-line media previews
When users instant message using Gmail's browser-based chat feature, they can now have multi-user chats, add emoticons to their messages, and view media like YouTube videos right in the chat window.
Editions impacted:
Standard, Premier, Education and Partner Editions
Languages impacted:
US English
How to access what's new:
Sign in to Gmail, and start a chat session with one or more of your contacts. When a contact sends you a YouTube link, you can watch the video right in Gmail's chat window.
For more information:
http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/users/talk.html
Mail migration API available for Gmail
Businesses and other organizations moving from old mail solutions that support IMAP can use the IMAP migration tool, but for administrators currently on a non-IMAP solution, this API lets them build custom applications to migrate mail from any legacy system to Google Apps.
Editions impacted:
Premier, Education and Partner Editions
Languages impacted:
US English
How to access what's new:
Read more about the mail migration API in our developer guide. (see link below)
For more information:
http://code.google.com/apis/apps/email_migration/developers_guide_protocol.html
Postini policy management controls improved for Premier Edition
Administrators can now set email policy rules using regular expressions, which allows for inbound and outbound filtering on content like social security numbers, phone numbers and other structured information.
Editions impacted:
Premier Edition
Languages impacted:
US English
How to access what's new:
Sign in to the Premier Edition administrative control panel and launch the Postini management interface to configure email policy management rules.
For more information:
http://groups.google.com/group/PostiniSupportForGoogleApps
Google Presentations adds more editing options
Google Presentations now supports slide dragging to reorder slides, and right clicks to change slide background and to duplicate slides.
Editions impacted:
Standard, Premier, Education and Partner Editions
Languages impacted:
US English
How to access what's new:
Sign in to Google Docs, open a presentation, and try these new editing options.
For more information:
http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/users/dands.html
Google Calendar adds support for five new languages
Google Calendar now supports US English, UK English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Danish, Dutch, Norwegian, Finnish, Swedish, Russian, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Korean, Japanese, Thai, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Turkish, Hungarian, Lithuanian, Slovenian and Polish.
Editions impacted:
Standard, Premier, Education and Partner Editions
Languages impacted:
Thai, Hungarian, Lithuanian, Slovenian, and Portuguese (Portugal)
How to access what's new:
Sign in to Google Calendar, click 'Settings', and select the interface language you prefer.
For more information:
http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/users/calendar.html
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)