Google Account History

Google's Account Settings page has a new section called "Account History". The section shows some links that let you manage Google search history, Google location history, YouTube search history and watch history (the videos you've watched).

Google also includes "pause" buttons for all the 4 data streams. When you click "pause", Google shows black-and-white pictures and tells you what you'll be missing.

"Pausing Google Search History may limit or disable features such as Google Now, more accurate search results and predictions, and saved searches on mobile devices. Pausing Google Location History will limit the functionality of some Google products over time, such as Google Maps and Google Now. Pausing YouTube Search History does not delete existing history. To view your history, remove individual items, or clear your entire history, go to your YouTube Search History page."

Here's what happens when you pause Google search history, Google location history, YouTube search history and watch history: the colorful images are converted to black and white.

YouTube's watch history is really useful because it shows all the videos you've watched from any device, as long as you are logged in. Unfortunately, YouTube doesn't provide a search feature, so you have scroll until you find the right video. YouTube's watch history is the most important source for YouTube's recommendations, so you should delete some of the videos if you see unpleasant recommendations. Google also uses video history to improve ads, but you can opt out of interest-based Google ads.

YouTube's search history is used to show search suggestions and to improve recommendations. The first two suggestions from the screenshot below are from my search history:

Google search history is used to show search suggestions, to restrict results to pages you've visited, to personalize search results, to improve ads and to provide data for some Google Now cards. There's an important distinction between YouTube search history and Google search history: YouTube only saves your queries and the watch history is saved separately, while Google search history includes both your queries and the search results you've clicked on.

Location History started as a Google Latitude feature, but it's still available, even if Google Latitude was discontinued. To understand Location History, you need to know what Location Reporting is.

"Location Reporting allows Google to periodically store and use your device's most recent location data in connection with your Google Account. Location History allows Google to store a history of your location data from all devices where you are logged into your Google Account and have enabled Location Reporting."

Both features are related to mobile devices and they're used by Android/iOS apps like Google Maps, Google Search and Google+. Location History requires Location Reporting, but you can use Location Reporting while disabling Location History. Google uses your data to improve Google Maps search results based on the places that you've been, to show some Google Now cards and to show your data on a map. Here are some ways to disable Location History and Location Reporting from an Android device.

{ Thanks, Herin Maru. }

Google Home IQ

Christopher Bettig, Art Director at Google, posted some images from a Google mobile app called Google Home IQ.

"These are some illustrations and some screens of exploratory UI for a mobile app for Android and iOS, which is now a deprecated project. The app was to control a smart thermostat and had a very visual UI which needed to account and meet accessibility standards while also illustrating four main states and varying weather conditions outside the home. Each state was given a unique shape and a corresponding unique shaped UI icon for use in the app. Each of the four states (awake, away, home, and sleep) is illustrated with all the variable weather conditions."

Google now owns Nest, so that's probably one of the reasons why this app wasn't released. EnergySense was rumored to be the name of a Google service that lets you monitor and adjust energy use.

{ Thanks, Francisco Marujo. }

New Google Apps Mobile Management features for Android

The Device Policy mobile app for Android has been updated to provide several new features to assist organizations with meeting the challenge of both helping employees be more productive and protecting corporate data.

The new features include inactive account wipe, support for EAP-based WiFi networks, compromised device detection, and additional reporting fields to help admins better understand the devices their employees use and to troubleshoot issues.

Release Track:

Rapid release and Scheduled release

For more information:

http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2014/05/new-google-apps-mobile-management.html

https://support.google.com/a/answer/1734200

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Mobile Interface for Chrome Web Store

One of the most annoying things about Chrome Web Store was that it didn't work if you used a mobile phone or a tablet. Google only displayed a message that allowed you to send a reminder to download the app or extension from the desktop Chrome.

Chrome Web Store now has a mobile interface, but only for individual apps and extensions. The homepage, category pages and the search feature still aren't available. If you find a link to a Chrome app or extension, you can now open it in your favorite mobile browsers, read the description, check the screenshots and some other details. You can't read or write reviews, install extensions remotely, find related extensions, go to the homepage or to a category.

{ via François Beaufort }

Google's Voice Command for Playing Music

Google's voice search feature still has a long way to go. If you say "play music" or "play some music" in the Google Search app for Android, Google starts the Play Music app and opens the "I'm Feeling Lucky" radio, which is based on your listening history. I think it makes more sense to continue playing your music and use the current queue instead of creating a new playlist.

Google still doesn't support basic voice actions like "next song", "skip", "pause" or "stop the music". If you say "next song", Google only shows the search results and a list of songs from Next, an American R&B musical group.

You can say "play Alicia Keys" and Google will shuffle Alicia's songs:

You can also say "play blues" and Google will start the Blues radio. If you say "play hip hop", Google Play Music will show a list of search results for "hip hop".

That's what happens if Play Music is the default app that handles music voice actions. You can change it by saying "play Coldplay" or something similar, quickly tapping the icon next to the app's name, picking one of the music apps and tapping the selected app (I could choose between Google Play, Google Play Music, TuneIn Radio and Poweramp, but your list will be different, depending on the apps you've installed). The next time when you use a music-related voice action, the app you've picked will handle it. Most apps will show a list of search results or start playing music.

{ via +Google }

YouTube Tests New Mobile Site UI

YouTube tests a new interface of the mobile site. It's closer to the mobile app UI, it shows the description and the number of likes and dislikes, a red "subscribe" button and action buttons are placed below the video.

There are other changes: the new YouTube logo, the "hamburger" menu, bigger thumbnails, new font, gray background.

{ Thanks, Nedas. }