Sometimes even if you are a very large company with billions of dollars in the bank, you need to cut out some fun and popular services to concentrate on something that is becoming popular and possibly profitable. Google released a lot of nice but still in beta products in Google Labs.
These services are different form the labs sections of Google Reader or Gmail and might not be finding as many takers. So Google has decided to shut down Google Labs.
Last week we explained that we’re prioritizing our product efforts. As part of that process, we’ve decided to wind down Google Labs.
Disappointing decision!
Personally I liked looking up various services on Google Labs. Some of Labs products like Google Transliteration were quite useful. Hopefully Google will find a way to keep these services in a different format. This is not something new for Google who have in the past even done away with the much fancied Google Wave when it did not make any waves.
Do you like the idea of Google shutting down Labs project so they can concentrate on Google Plus ? I find it disappointing but probably a good move considering how Google+ is growing. Do drop in your comments.
I am a Google lover, and most of you out there may share this feeling with me! Though most of us must have seen a lot of Google Labs (especially while using Gmail), I am listing 10 interesting Google Lab experiments here, have a look.
Image Swirl: It presents image results for your search in a different but exciting way, dividing them into groups and sub-groups. It links similar results and display them in a format where you feel like exploring them.
Fast Flip: I found this nice as it gives you a complete visual scrolling list for many newspapers, blogs and magazines. You can even search for a particular topic and it will display all relevant visual. A must watch for news lovers.
Google Listen: Download, subscribe and stream to podcasts and web-audio and you can watch fresh content all time on your Android device.
Google Goggles: Most of the Android lovers must be already aware of this app, those who are not, let me tell you that Goggles is a real great addition to Android which lets you search anything like books, products etc directly by taking a picture. You can even retrieve the text from any picture directly to be used as SMS text or you can even save phone contacts directly. This is now even available for iPhone. See the video for more information.
Google Goggles video
Chrome Experiments: This is a space for users on the web to find some of the most creative JavaScript experiments on browsers. Users can even submit their creativity and get recognition on the Web. What’s more interesting is that I could even see Flattr buttons on the experiments page, get-set-go!
Google Chrome experiments video
Do post your comments and suggestions! Always waiting for your suggestions guys!
It has been 4 years since I have been living in Pune, but I am still pretty unaware about the bus routes the city has. Out of need, I asked a friend today, which Bus should I board to reach Koregaon Park (an area in Pune) and I was not amazed when he said “Google it!”. Everywhere we see, its Google which rules the Information World today, however Google has not limited itself to boundaries of technology. It has started programs which are much beyond the technical World and hence we see an example of a Lab feature it has been working on. The name is “Google Scribe”.
Let Google type for you!
Google Scribe helps you type by providing you real-time text completion service. It provides you suggestions for words, phrases and even complete sentences based on common findings and popularity. The Google Chrome extension for Scribe enables almost every text field including the email compose box to subscribe automatically to the service. However, the extension options lets you complete modify any setting based on your preferences.
Personal Advice: Enable the third option – “Enable Space for choosing suggestion” as pressing the Enter and Tab keys to select a Scribe suggested word would not be comfortable typing for you.
Google has recently introduced a website on which just about anyone can create a Android application. No, I am not talking about Android being open source and hence any programmer can create a app. Anyone means anybody, even people with no programming abilities.
The great thing about Android App builder is that it allows us to get just simply used predefined drag and drop boxed into the interface and create new applications. This basically can be quite revolutionary where in we could create simple customized applications for various things we might need on our phone.
The idea by Google is not really to create Android app makers out of all of us. What Google hopes is that it can get more developers started and familiarize themselves with Android. More the number of developers getting interested in making Android Apps will only end up helping Android.
At the moment we can only sign up for this App builder and wait for access. Sign up but visiting the Android App Builder landing page.
Look at this video demo to see how Android App builder can be used.
Google has released a tool which is still a beta product but very interesting and might be useful for people trying to dig into Twitter. What is does is allows you to search for interesting people on Twitter if you enter the Twitter ID of someone you are following and find interesting. This tool is called Follow Finder.
This tool is meant for people using Twitter for information to dig deeper into their network. So let’s assume that you follow me on Twitter (@adityakane ) and really love my tweets. 😛
Then you can enter my Twitter handle on Follow Finder and it will give you a list of results. They will be rated in two columns.
One column to the left will show you Twitter users you might like following and on the right side it shows twitter accounts having similar followers to my account.
I liked this service as it allows me to search for Twitter users I might not know about or pay attention. Most users I tend to notice after reading a few tweets from them which are important but for that I have to look up their profile and that is frankly a little too tedious.
Basically Follow Finder makes things simple by telling you who you might want to follow based on who is following you. I personally do not like to blindly follow someone as it makes no sense to spam my own twitter time-line. I rather listen to fewer voices but more clearer ones. 🙂
I came across Script Converter which is in Google Labs with Google’s Indian domain. This looked like a great way to write using English alphabets phonetically as if writing the Indian origin language and it would convert the script. Script Converter does not translate pages and is not useful to translate websites or documents. What it does is converts the script retaining the phonetic context rather than keeping is contextual in meaning.
Script Converter supports Bengali, English, Gujarati, Hindi, Marathi, Nepali, Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu. It can convert anything written in HTML. But Script Converter cannot convert text which is not HTML, for example text written with Java Script cannot be converted.
How Script Converter is useful?
It is very useful to write a text in a different language using the English Keyboard by using phonetics. For instance to write a Hindi word you have to spell it out in English and then click on convert with the selected language and you get the word in Hindi. This is great to insert sentences in Indian languages in your messages or texts.
The other useful application of Script Converter is that it is perfect for someone who might know how to speak the language but not necessarily adept at reading that language in its original script. For instance I am very fluent in Marathi when it comes to speaking but I am not very comfortable reading Marathi script as I have not read much of it since school. Script Converter can really help here if I came across a website with content in Marathi. I could change it to English in phonetic terms and continue reading the content.
This is something that is quite unique with India, as most people can speak more languages than just English and might want to access information in that language but find it difficult to read the script.
This is an web application which is still in labs and hence being tested. I did not come across many instances of mistakes and seems to be quite accurate when it converts scripts from one language to another. Go ahead visit Script Converter and try it out, let me know in comments your opinions.
A few days ago I wrote about how Bing Twitter was available for people to use the Bing search engine to look up tweets from Twitter on a particular word. I ended the article say Google cannot be far behind and Google announced through its blog the availability of Social Search within days. It is still in Google Labs and anyone can take part in testing it.
Once you select ‘Join the Experiment‘, you need to search something on Google.
Now if you are India you might be at Google India. Social search does not work with Google India as yet. So click on the link at the bottom which reads as ‘Go to Google.com‘
Google Social Search
After being getting results for the keywords on Google Search, click on ‘Show Options‘ right at the top of all search results. Then select Social. (See image above)
This section shows what your social circle has had to say about the particular keyword. I searched Geocities as it was a recent hot topic on the internet and sure enough I got a host of links to people and their opinions on that keyword.
I could lookup the people in my social circle one by one as they are shown in a list under All people. (see image)
People in the social circle seem to be connected to you through twitter, facebook, gmail, digg and friendfeed at first glance.
There are also indirect references, as in someone shows up connected to me through another friend I might be connected through Gmail. This obviously increases the social circle significantly.
Different from Bing Twitter
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I have read a lot of articles on the internet saying Google Social Search is a competitor to Bing Twitter but I think that notion is misplaced. Both tools are very different and their use also is very different.
If you are searching for what people think about a particular event the Bing Twitter seems to be more useful as it takes all Tweets on Twitter as relevant rather than just lookup without your friends circle.
From a blogger’s point of view Social Search seems to be more interesting as it is a great way to compare and look up what your friends and their friends are writing and commenting about.
Many of us who use Gmail do not keep track of what are the new features available in the Labs section. I decided to try out some which has made my Gmail experience a lot better. Here I am sharing with you some of the cool features available in Labs with Gmail. As you can see in the image below I can go work offline, use Google Calendar, have access to Google Documents and also to avoid clutter by having the Chat box moved to the right.
Google Docs Gadget
Google Docs Gadget is a very efficient feature in Gmail. Usually we open Google Docs and then then click on the document we want to open. Here the documents are all shown in the side. This way with one click from your Gmail interface I can open a document or even create a new one.
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Google Calendar Gadget
Access to Google Calendar is great. I can add events, edit them and also lookup dates using the Google Calendar Gadget. This is particularly handy for leaving reminders without actually visiting Google Calendar. Another cool feature of this gadget is I could change the view of the Calendar to have the month’s calendar show up instead of events. See image below.
Right Side Chat
Once I enabled Google Calendar and Google Docs to show up in Gmail, they all showed up to the left hand side of the interface. This seemed to be over-crowding my Gmail interface. There is feature called Right Side Chat in Labs which when enabled pins the Gtalk box to the right side of the interface.
Gmail in Offline Mode
This feature allows me to access my current emails even when there is no internet connection. The feature downloads all the email messages on my computer for later reference. This is ideal if you have a laptop but no wireless router. 🙂
Do keep in mind that all these features are still in Labs sections under Settings for Gmail. This means it still being tested. In case you cannot access your Gmail account because of the features which have be discontinued or broken you can always access Gmail in a ‘No Labs’ mode.
Just type in the following URL and you can access Gmail without any ‘Labs features’ being active.
Gmail has a new feature still in beta or in Labs which attempts to stop us from sending emails to the wrong person. They call it ‘Got the wrong Bob?’
Many a times we share emails with a group of recipients, and sometimes what happens is you might end up sending an email to the wrong person. For instance I know a lot people who have the first name Rahul and my boss also has his first name as Rahul. Imagine I was sending a joke about my boss to some friends along with a friend called Rahul but ended up sending it to my boss.
‘Got the Wrong Bob?’ tends to help us out here by analyzing how we send group emails and prompting if we have the wrong email id. (see image below)
I often back up some emails and files on different email addresses I have. Above you can see I added an incorrect email address and I was prompted with the words “Did you mean”
Being a beta product I am sure this is in need of many tweaks. This feature works only when sending emails to multiple addresses. It also looks up the groups that you usually send emails to and then compare it with the present group of email ids you are typing in and checks if someone is incorrectly added.
So this actually starts working better with time. If you plan to add Got the right Bob? to your Gmail settings, just click on ‘settings’ and once in the settings section click on ‘Labs’
Within labs you will find a host of features that can be added to your Gmail. Select the “Got the right Bob?” feature and it will be activated. 🙂
Most people who use Google are quite happy to type in keywords and get random information. But how does one get information which is slightly complex in nature and not necessarily a single result. For instance comparing information on India cities.
Using the normal Google search engine I could get links to various websites with information on Indian cities or if I am lucky a link to a website which has compiled various info on Indian cities.
Google labs has a service called Google Squared which basically organizes the search results in a table and shows relevant information along with it. (See image below)
I could save this table by exporting it to Google spreadsheet. 🙂
Google Squared
What Google has said in its blog is that this is still a experimental application and will get better with more and more people using and editing tables.
This seems to be like a combination of Search and Wiki. Search results are arranged in a table and to keep information contextual it will learn from the changes made my people to tables which show up. Essentially its like a search engine which keeps on learning.
Customized columns are quite interesting. Just add a unique column and the Google Squared looks up for the details online by itself and fills them up with relevant information.
I am planning to purchase a Laptop and wanted to look up details of what Dell has to offer. I typed in ‘Dell Notebooks’ and voila I had a neatly arranged list of all laptops with various details. This is a lot less work than looking it up by visiting various websites. (See image above)
By no means is this perfect, but it is quite handy and very useful for generic information which is easy to get but takes a long time to assimilate and organize.
