Google today announced the release of a Google Buzz widget for Android phones that lets you post text and photos with a single tap. Like other mobile access points for Google Buzz, the widget lets you choose to tag your post with the location or place from which it was posted. You can post buzz about a great meal you had and share photos of the new restaurant. To save time, your posts will upload in the background, letting you get back to your scrumptious dessert without a wait.
The widget is initially available in English for Android phones running v1.6 and later. Search for 'Google Buzz' in the Android Market to download it now. Once installed, you can add it to your home screen: tap "Menu" while on the home screen and select "Add > Widgets > Google Buzz".
Google has introduced a few features for Google Maps for mobile 4.1 that makes sorting through search results or seeing Maps info easier.
For Google Maps, Google has eliminated the tabs to give you all the information on one page. Now you just tap the new buttons to see the place on the map, get directions, call it, or see it with Street View. Now you can swipe pages with our finger (left or right) to see the next or last results.
The updated Maps 4.1 will allow you to have a couple different ways to put Maps up close and personal on your phone. Add the Latitude widget to a home screen panel to see your nearest Latitude friends by pressing the “Menu” button from the home screen and selecting Add > Widgets > Latitude. On Android 2.1+ phones, you can also turn your home screen into one big, updating map using the Maps live wallpaper. Press the “Menu” button from your home screen and select Wallpaper > Live wallpapers > Maps. Now you can see nearby friends or a map each time you open your home screen.
Opera Software today launched the newest beta version of the world's most popular browser for mobile phones, Opera Mini 5, on the Android platform. Opera Mini 5 beta for Android brings a fast and cost-efficient Web experience to any handset built on the Android platform.
Opera Mini, with more than 50 million users worldwide, enables Web browsing on almost any handset by compressing data by up to 90 percent before sending content to the phone, resulting in significantly improved page loading and speed. With a simple, easy-to-use interface, Opera Mini offers a desktop-like Web browsing experience on a mobile phone, with favorite features such as Speed Dial, tabbed browsing, password manager and bookmarks. With Opera Mini optimized for Android, more people will be able to get a PC-like browsing experience on their mobile handsets. Download
Download Opera Mini directly to your Android phone. To download, simply visit m.opera.com/next with the Android browser or search for Opera Mini 5 in the Android Market. For more information, visit http://www.opera.com/mini/next/.
If you’re one of the 57 million Americans who ride a bike, mapping your daily commute, exploring new trails, and planning recreational rides just became a little bit easier. Google is announcing that we have added biking directions in the U.S. to Google Maps. This has been the most requested addition to Google Maps, and we’re delighted to be unveiling this new feature at the National Bike Summit in Washington, DC.
Adobe Systems Incorporated today announced that third-party application developers now have access to the Photoshop.com Mobile for Android 1.1 editor, allowing them to easily make it a part of their applications. In addition, Photoshop.com Mobile for Android 1.1 is available, providing users of the Google Mobile operating system with quick and easy photo-editing and sharing capabilities. Photoshop.com Mobile for Android 1.1 enhances the camera-phone experience by providing a collection of new editing effects.
Google announced today Gesture Search, a new Google Labs app for Android-powered devices running Android 2.0 or above in the US. Gesture Search lets you quickly find a contact, an installed application, a bookmark or a music track from hundreds or thousands of items, by simply drawing alphabet gestures on the touch screen.
For example, if you want to call your friend Anne, open Gesture Search and draw letter “A”, and Gesture Search returns a list of items that have words starting with “A” even if your handwriting isn't clear. If the "A" you draw looks a bit like an "H", as shown to the left, "H" results will be brought up as well. If needed, you can also erase a query by crossing it horizontally: left to right erases the entire query, and right to left removes the last letter or space in the query. Now you can either scroll down the list to find Anne or write more letters to refine the search.
Google recently announced a new feature that allows advertisers to add a clickable phone number (see announcement with video) to their mobile ads, making it easy for customers to connect with the local business they're looking for directly by phone. This week Google expanded click-to-call phone numbers for national advertisers. Advertisers can now add a national phone number to the last line of ad text for any existing or new campaigns, making it easy for customers to connect with the business by phone directly from the ad, regardless of their location.
This can be especially helpful when you're trying to connect with the business call center rather than a specific business location. After searching for a travel services, for example, you might want to call to discuss trip planning with an agent. Or after searching for car insurance, you might want to call for a quote. Now, if you're using an iPhone, Android device, or Palm Pre, you can just click the phone number to call the business without needing to navigate to a new page. To learn more about how to add a clickable phone number to your mobile ads visit http://adwords.blogspot.com.
Google announced today that Google Earth is now available for Android which is the fastest mobile version of Google Earth yet, with a smooth framerate and a beautiful 800 x 480 screen.
With the release of Google Earth for Android, Google also introduced the Roads layer, a very popular feature of the desktop version of Google Earth. Now you can get a better sense of where you are with road labels drawn on top of the satellite imagery.
Additionally, Google has used the integrated voice recognition capabilities of the Android platform to provide a pocket globe that responds to your every command.
Google demonstrated at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona a prototype version of Google Goggles that showcases the potential of integrating Google's machine translation and image recognition technologies. The video above shows Goggles taking a picture of a German menu and instantly translating the text into English. That is amazing!
Google has announced a new Android app called Google Shopper that lets you find product information quickly by using your phone's camera. Google Shopper recognizes cover art of books, CDs, DVDs, and video games, along with most barcodes. You can also speak the name of the product you're looking for. (Note: This app is similar to Google Googles.) See video above of how Google Shopper works.
HipLogic, Inc. today announced that they will provide a way for operators and mobile handset OEMs to customize the standard Android user interface (UI), leveraging the openness of Google's Android operating system to address some of operators' toughest challenges—meaningful user customization, rising data consumption and limited brand differentiation. HipLogic's cloud-connected interface gives carriers, manufacturers and content providers a flexible system that promotes discovery of operator services all the way up to the home screen in an always-on and data-efficient manner.
HipLogic's Android interface makes it easy for users to customize and enjoy the content they love—integrating updates from social networks like Facebook and Twitter, real-time notifications from popular news, sports and weather content providers, plus access to a variety of gaming applications and branded mash-up experiences.
To keep up with the Winter Olympics you can do a search for the name of each sport to get the latest info which includes:
game results
schedules
medal count
much more
On Android and iPhone devices, Google's Real Time Search feature will also reveal the latest updates related to the games within the same search results. This is the same information that's available via desktop search.
Google announced they are planning to build and test ultra high-speed broadband networks in a small number of trial locations across the United States. This will deliver Internet speeds more than 100 times faster than what most Americans have access to today with 1 gigabit per second, fiber-to-the-home connections. Google plans to offer service at a competitive price to at least 50,000 and potentially up to 500,000 people. (See video above)
According to Engadget Mobile, Navigon has released a significant update for its MobileNavigator iPhone GPS app which includes 3D terrain views, a 3D panorama view ($9.99 extra) and in-app connectivity with Facebook and Twitter.
Now users can broadcast their current position, destination and ETA to social media outlets. The update also includes MyRoutes, which analyzes your driving habits, patterns, location and time / day in order to provide "up to three routes clearly displayed in-map with ETA, distance and driving times for each. MobileNavigator iPhone costs $69.99 and the real-time traffic add-on is 19.99 until February 15th.
ST-Ericsson, a global leader in mobile platforms and semiconductors, has developed a platform that supports Android, which manufacturers could use to produce smartphones with a wholesale price of less than EUR100 (US$138), depending on the final device specification. A highly-integrated and very power-efficient platform, the U6715 promises to significantly broaden the smartphone segment, making these advanced and customizable handsets affordable for the mass-market.
ST-Ericsson anticipates manufacturers will launch the first commercial products based on the U6715 platform in the first half of 2010, meeting growing demand for compact and low-cost smartphones. These handsets will be capable of downloading and running a wide range of applications that enable consumers to customize their phones to access the services that fit their lifestyle.
Google today has announced Google Buzz (for desktop and mobile), a new way to start conversations about the things you find interesting.
Google Buzz is built into Gmail so you don't have to peck out an entirely new set of friends from scratch. According to Google, there's always been a big social network underlying Gmail. Now Google Buzz brings this network to the surface by automatically setting you up to follow the people you email and chat with the most.
Google today introduced "personalized suggestions and synchronized starring" in Google Maps for mobile on Android. Personalized suggestions make it easy to find places users have previously searched for while synchronized starring lets you save places to access them later.
With personalized suggestions, if you are on your computer and find Mario's Bohemian Cigar Store Cafe to have lunch at after reading the review, when you're ready to go and want to get directions, open Google Maps on your phone, start typing "mar," and you'll quickly see a suggestion. This saves you from re-typing a long query and making it easier and faster to be on your way.
Google announced that starting today Nexus One users will begin to receive an over-the-air software update on their phones. This update provides several new features and fixes a few problems that some users might have experienced which include:
Google Goggles will now be available directly on your device by launching it from your All Apps menu. Just use your Nexus One camera to start searching the web
Google Maps has been updated to a new version, Google Maps 3.4, which will include:
Google has announced that users of Google Voice no longer need to send a text message to multiple recipients by copying and pasting the message for each recipient.
Now users can send a single SMS message to multiple recipients by clicking on the SMS button at the top of their Google Voice inbox, enter names or numbers (separated by commas) in the "To" field, write your message and click send.
Replies from each recipient will be threaded into separate conversations, so users can keep track of them in their Google Voice inbox. To prevent spam, Google have set a maximum of five recipients per message. This feature is also available from the Chrome extension and Google will also be adding it to the Google Voice mobile app soon.
Google has announced that calling businesses is now easier thanks to a feature that allows advertisers to add a clickable local phone number to their mobile ads. Users of the iPhone, Android, or other smartphones, can just click the number to call the business. (See video above).
Phone Finder
