Google Now for Almost All Desktop Chrome Users

Back in January, Google Now was available as an experiment feature in Chrome Canary. Then it was added to the other Chrome channels, but you had to manually enable it. Now this feature is rolling out to almost all Chrome users: Windows, Mac OS and Chrome OS are supported, while the support for other Linux distributions is coming later.

"Starting today and rolling out over the next few weeks, Google Now users in all languages will be able to get these notifications in all channels of Chrome. To enable this feature, simply sign in to Chrome with the same Google Account you're using for Google Now on Android or iOS," informs Google. "If you use Google Now on your mobile device, you can see certain Now cards on your desktop computer if you're signed into Chrome, including weather, sports scores, commute traffic, and event reminders cards. Some of these cards may be based on the location of your mobile device," mentions the help center article.

"If you'd rather avoid the wait, the option can be enabled immediately by visiting chrome://flags in your browser and toggling Google Now notifications to enabled," suggests The Verge. You can paste this:

chrome://flags/#enable-google-now

in the address bar, press Enter, select "Enabled" in the drop-down next to "Google Now" and click "Relaunch now" at the bottom of the window to restart the browser.

{ via +Chrome }

Google Now in Chrome for Desktop

Google Now cards are available in the latest Chrome Canary build for Windows and Mac (34.0.1788). You only need to go to chrome://flags/#enable-google-now , then switch from "Default" to "Enabled" and click "Relaunch Now" at the bottom of the page to restart the browser. Chrome Canary and the stable Chrome can run at the same time, but the Canary version is updated daily, has the latest features and it's for developers and early adopters.

If you're signed into Chrome, you should see a Google Now notification and then a list of cards. "Google Now on your desktop! Stay connected to what you need to know, across all devices," informs the first card. Google Now cards are displayed using Chrome's notification interface in the Windows system tray or the Mac menu bar. Just look for the bell icon.

"If you use Google Now on your mobile device, you can see certain Now cards on your desktop computer if you're signed into Chrome, including weather, sports scores, commute traffic, and event reminders cards. Some of these cards may be based on the location of your mobile device. Google Now on Chrome shows a subset of the Now cards you see on your mobile device, which uses your device's location. You can edit your location settings (Location Reporting and Location History) on your Android or iOS device at any time," informs Google.

{ Thanks, Michael. }

Google Search App, the Android KitKat Launcher

Ron Amadeo from Ars Technica noticed last week that Google's KitKat launcher is actually an extension of the Google Search app. "While developing KitKat, Google made a very interesting decision: rather than graft a few new search UI pieces onto the home screen, Google threw the existing home app in the trash and turned all home screen functionality over to the Google Search app."

It turns out that the launcher is powered by the Google Search app and it doesn't work if you disable the app. This is not unexpected: two of the standard features of the Nexus home screen are added by the Google Search app: the Google search bar and the swipe up gesture for Google Now. KitKat brings support for the "OK Google" hotword, so you can trigger Google Voice Search without pressing a button, and adds a new gesture for Google Now: swipe right.

I installed the updated Google Search app and the launcher on an old Galaxy S2 using the instructions from Phandroid.com. I must say that the experience is completely different from Jelly Bean: the app launcher no longer includes widgets and it looks more crowded, the entire launcher can be managed from the Google Search app.

The full-screen Now widget can only be removed if you disable Google Now in the settings or if you install a different launcher.

You can no longer disable and customize cards from the settings. Google opted for a simplified customization feature:

You can now add as many shortcuts and widgets as you want because the number of screens is unlimited. The screens are added and removed dynamically, just like in iOS. You add a new one by dropping a shortcut or a widget and you remove it by deleting all the shortcuts and widgets or dragging them to other screens.

The home screen includes a search box, a Voice Search button, hotword support for Voice Search and a Google Now screen. These are the main features of the Google Search app, so you'll use it without opening it. Removing friction and making the experience more seamless will encourage more people to use Google Now.

Google Now Updates for Notable People

After adding support for reminders about the latest releases from your favorite music artists and actors, Google Now lets you subscribe to updates when you search for notable people. Just click "Keep me updated" in the Knowledge Graph card from Google's search results page and you'll get the latest news articles about that person in Google Now.

Google Now also shows cards for "breaking news and other developing stories you may be interested in", based on your web history.

It's not clear if the new updates feature will replace the reminders feature. Right now, a search for [U2] shows "Remind you about new releases", while a search for [Madonna] shows "Get updates about Madonna".

"Keeping up with the latest information about your favorite musicians, movie stars and other notable people just got easier thanks to the Knowledge Graph and Google Now," informs Google. "Say that you're a Lady Gaga fan and like staying informed about her latest album releases. On the Google Search App, search for [lady gaga]. On the card that pops up, tap 'Remind you about new releases?' and Google Now will keep you updated on your phone or tablet. Similarly, use Google Now to stay in the know about your favorite athletes. For example, search for [colin kaepernick] and tap 'Get updates about Colin Kaepernick' on his card; doing so lets Google Now know that you'd like to receive news. Remember that to use this feature, you'll need to be signed into your Google account on the Google Search App."

Well, I don't see 'Remind you about new releases?' when searching for [Lady Gaga].

Knowledge Graph Reminders

If you search Google for music artists, actors, books, TV shows and you're logged in, you'll see a new "Remind me" button in the Knowledge Graph card. Click the button and "Google Now will remind you about new releases/movies/episodes on your phone or tablet".

Until now, you could add time-based and location-based reminders to Google Now. These new reminders are special and can only be added from Google search. You can manage them from the Google Search app on your mobile device: just go to Settings, My Stuff and select Reminders.

This feature was added last week, when the Google Search app for Android was updated.

Sites That Integrate With Google Now

There's a long list of sites that integrate with Google Now: Air Berlin, Air Canada, Emirates, Booking.com, Lastminute.com, TicketWeb, Ticketfly, Orbitz, CheapTickets, OpenTable, Fandango, Rotten Tomatoes, Zillow and more.

There's nothing magic about integrating travel sites, hotel booking sites, event-ticketing sites with Google Now. You only need to add some markup to email notifications. "By adding schema.org markup to the emails you send your users, you can make that information available across their Google experience, and make it easy for users to take quick action. Gmail, Google Search and Google Now all already use this structured data. (...) Google Now brings users the right information at just the right time. For example, Google Now already provides updates to restaurant and hotel reservations or flight information received in Gmail. By marking up email notifications to your users, you can use Google Now to bring them similar updates about your services and products."

After an email confirming a hotel reservation, the Google Search app shows this card. Here are some examples of code that needs to be added to email notifications.

Google Now only supports schemas for event reservation, flight reservation, hotel reservation and restaurant reservation.

{ Thanks, Florian Kiersch. }

Google Now's TV Card

Google Search for Android has recently added a Google Now card for TVs. You tap "listen now for TV shows" and Google detects the TV show you're watching.

This feature has 3 limitations: it's US-only, you need a smart TV and the phone/tablet needs to be on the same WiFi network as the TV. The first limitation makes sense, but the other two seem unnecessary. After all, Google's app can't communicate with the TV and the TV doesn't broadcast the program you're watching.

Here's Google's explanation: "Your Android device uses the Simple Service Discovery Protocol (SSDP) to determine the presence of a TV on the network and related information, such as its model and brand name. This is a standard way for networked devices to locate other devices or services on a home network." So a smart TV is required to only show the TV card when you're watching TV.

"To provide relevant information after you touch Listen for a TV show, TV cards rely on both the WiFi signal and the sound from your TV. You may need to turn up the volume for the cards to work correctly," explains Google. Does this mean that Google records all the TV shows from the US channels?

"Other cards may also appear, telling you more about specific show content as it happens. For example, they may give you more information about celebrities, actors, or other people mentioned in the show."

This is a cool feature, but I don't see why it wasn't added to Google Sound Search. In addition to finding songs, the widget could also find TV shows. Even better, this could be added to Google Voice Search.

Probably not many people remember this, but Google Video started back in 2005 as a search engine for TV content. "Google Video will search the closed captioning text of all the programs in our archive for relevant results. Click on a program title on your results page and you can look through short snippets of the text along with still images from the show," suggested Google at that time. Ironically, Google Video didn't host any video at launch, but this changed after a few months, when Google Video became a video-sharing site.

Google Now's Topics Page Is Back

Back in March, I posted about a page that lists the research topics that are displayed by Google Now, but the page stopped working after a few days. Now it works again, has more features and it's no longer limited to Android devices.

Just go to www.google.com/now/topics/ and you'll see a long list of topics related to your recent searches. They're based on your search history and should only show up if you performed multiple related searches about a topic.

Click one of the topics and you'll get a list of search results that are supposed to be helpful. You'll see reviews, forum threads, news articles, videos, web pages and other related topics.

It's interesting to notice that Google uses the Knowledge Graph to generate related people, music, movies, hotels and more. There are publicly available topics pages like this one.

The results aren't always great, as you can see here:

{ Thanks, Anthony Raffini. }

Google Now Wallpapers

Google Now's images are beautiful, colorful, cheerful, minimalist and futuristic at the same time. Now you can see the full-size scenes in this Flickr set. They were uploaded by Brent Couchman, who created them.

"Brent Couchman is an independent graphic designer based in sunny San Francisco, California. Originally hailing from the Lone Star State where he developed branding, packaging & illustration for Fossil, Brent moved to the Bay Area to work with Hatch design," mentions his site.

Update: check this gallery for more Google Now wallpapers (they're also 1920x1080 images).

{ via Marques Brownlee and Ade Oshineye. }