One of my favourite feature on Facebook pages is that it allows users to schedule posts. This allows a page owner to post an update for maximum visibility. It also means the posts can be spaced out and not spam someones timeline. Google+ Pages are also popular with bloggers to share their posts online but unfortunately there seem to be no option to schedule posts. This feature itself is completely missing on Google+.
This allows users to hook up their Google+ page to Buffer and schedule posts at separate times and dates.
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Some Limitations!
There are restrictions on the number of posts you can schedule and also the number of accounts you can use with Buffer with the free package.
I was a little disappointed with BufferApp not supporting posting to Google+ profiles but it seems to be an issue on Google’s side. Google has not released a Read/Write version of its Google+ Profile API. This means we are not going to see 3rd party apps being able to schedule and post on Google+ profiles anytime soon.
Try out BufferApp for Google+ pages. Do let me know about your views and any similar services in your comments.
Google Keep is a service that was launched as a Evernote competitor. Basically, it is a note taking and list making service that users Google Drive. Google Drive allows Google Keep to sync these notes and lists across devices and platforms.
Google Keep has not seen many updates since it was launched except yesterday, it got a very useful update to add time reminders and also locations on notes and lists.
Now with every note there are two options. One is to add a time based reminder and the other is to add a location.
Add reminders and location to notes and lists on Google Keep
The new options will work great with your mobile phone. A updated Google Keep app will show with a ‘remind me’ button. Google Keep has also been integrated with Google Now. This helps with those update cards and will help remind users on important meetings and deadlines.
Google Keep could get really interesting if it allows users to share their notes and lists with other Google account users.
Google today started rolling out a new by invite-only service called ‘Helpouts‘. The service will leverage video Hangouts to experts who can help people out via video chat. Google has not launched the service publicly and has just put up landing page. We can sign up as user or even experts. I guess they will send in a invitation code at some point of time.
What’s the plan behind Google Helpouts?
Helpouts by Google might have not shown any part of what the service is about but it’s help pages gives a good idea. The service will leverage video conference using Google+ Hangouts. Users will either be registered as experts or just users. Basically experts get to help people over video conferencing.
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The experts will get the option of either offering their help to other free or charging users. The money transaction will be done though Google Wallet.
I am not sure how well this service will do. But lately, it is increasingly clear that Google is diversifying their revenue stream from being Advertisement only to other avenues. This is partly being done because making money from advertising from mobile platform will become increasingly difficult and the world is moving away from PC slowly but surely.
Google has announced a new feature that showcases In-depth articles on it’s search results page. This in-depth articles are long-form stories which help users learn about topics in a deeper way.
For example users are searching for “censorship” then some very in-depth articles on censorship will be highlighted as seen in the image below.
So why are In-Depth articles important?
The problem sometimes with search in the era of breaking news and developing stories is that in-depth and well researched articles hardly show up in search results at the top.
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Most well researched and long articles usually get traction on social media more than Google search results unless they are very specific like tutorials and guides.
Google will pick up signals like the reputation of the website and also the author thanks to “Google Authorship” meta data that can be added to the articles. The in-depth article results will be ranked algorithmically.
Google will be churning out this feature over a few days, so you might see these in-depth articles in search results over the next few days.
Google bought Motorola over a year and half ago. Today, Motorola has unveiled the new Moto X phone. The phone as Motorola’s premier phone will probably compete with Samsung Galaxy S IV, HTC One and Apple iPhone 5. Moto X as a phone is not exactly great on hardware specs and that is not it’s focus. It main focus is on customization options and also some very unique features.
Moto X Basic Specs
Display: 4.7 inch 720p AMOLED display.
Processor: Qualcomm’s Snapdragon s4P processor. 1.7 GHz Dual-Core CPU and Quad-Core GPU.
Battery Time: Full 24 hours battery time.
Memory: 2GB RAM
Storage: Two versions being 16GB and 32 GB
Camera: Front Camera 2 MP and 10 MP camera.
Connectivity: Phone supports Bluetooh 4.0, USB 2.0, WIFI, NFC.
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Always on Microphone
While the hardware is not exactly the best of the best, it will probably help not eat too much of the battery. This is because the microphone of the phone will be always on. It will be able to recognize the voice of the user and not allow others to command the phone.
So the phone would be listening to you all the time. To activate the phone one simply has to say “Okay Google Now”. I use Google Now on my Nexus 4 and its voice activations to reply to an email, set alarms or even search on Google is extremely useful. It it requires me to first activate the microphone. With Moto X, the phone’s interface truly becomes hands free.
The phone will also show displays that allow users to skim through notifications but extending them while the phone is idle. That basically means people can look who the notification is from before opening it.
Motorola’s Allows over 2000 Customization options
Moto X will be sold at $199 with AT&T. This is a sort of subsidized price with a phone contract so the phone without any contracts (like the ones sold in India) will be much costlier. AT&T customers will be able to customize the way their phone looks. Basically on Motorola’s Motomaker website, it allows users to choose from over 18 different colours for the back, different colours for side-mounted buttons and rings around the camera also has mutliple choices.
You can see the customization options in a demo video
Where is Android 4.3?
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Google has bought Motorola, so we could say Moto X is a Google phone. But apparently Google is not so keen on appearing to favour Motorola as a OEM. This means the phone will ship with Android 4.2.2. Though there is not as much bloatware on the phone so Motorola should be able to ship Android 4.3 very soon.
Though some might find it odd that Google cannot ship its own phone with latest Android OS, but that honour seems to be reserved for the Nexus phones.
The phone currently will be sold only in the US and should make it out to other markets. The customization options will in all probability be a US-only feature (rather AT&T only).
Gmail has recently changed the way our Inbox is organized by adding tabbed categories. One of them is “Promotions”, where apparently all the advertisement like emails show up. But Gmail is not just eyeing that “Promotions” tab to organize email for us, they want to sell us stuff. This is why you might start seeing sponsored or Gmail ads in the form of emails like seen in the image below.
This is Google’s attempt at making their advertising more accurate and contextual on Gmail. I think this is not going to be very popular in the beginning but it might be popular if Google does not spam too much. I honestly think if Google is going to send one advertisement email every day, no one might really bother checking it.
But Google does offer a way for users to tweaking their ad settings and opt-out of ad targetting based on your data.
There are two options to opt-out of the interest-based ads on Google and also across the web. Note, this does not mean.
Email Ads are here to stay!
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Even though Gmail might allow users to opt-out of interest based ads, it will not stop sending ads in our Inbox. It only means it will not use our data to target us specifically. I rather allow targeted ads than random ads.
The fact seems, if we want a free service, ads are something we will have to live with.
Are you seeing ads in your Gmail Inbox? Do drop in your comments what you think of them?
Google owned Motorola has finally announced an event where the new phone “Moto X” is expected to be announced. Motorola has been struggling to become profitable over the past few years when Google acquired it. It was expected that someday Motorola will churn out a Google phone now that it is part of Google. The event will be held in New York.
Google does announce Nexus phones which gives the pure Android experience every year but with Nexus phones they are basically working with a company with their own limitations and agendas. With Motorola, Google has complete control of the device so expectations from this phone will be high.
What to expect from “Moto X”?
Just about everything related to Moto X has been secret. Google has done a very good job on keeping things secret (which makes me wonder if phone leaks are done on purpose).
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The phone is expected to have some features like listening to voice command at all times even when the phone is idle or showing icon based notifications when the phone is idle. These features were leaked by Canada based mobile operator Roger Wireless (Check out the leaked video).
Sundar Pichai the man who heads Android and Chrome at Google, is also hosting an event on the 24th July. So we should be expecting a new version of Android very soon. This new version of Android will most probably be shipped with “Moto X”.
Motorola’s success is important to Google
Google recently has been investing a lot of money into Motorola and also writing off losses. That is sustainable in the short run but for an increasing mobile and tablet world, advertising revenues might soon stagnate for Google. Google needs Motorola to basically pay for itself if not earn it handsome profits. Will it work out? Only time will tell.
Google Maps had last year, much to the delight of iPhone users, released an official app for the phone. Apple had chucked Google Maps for their own Maps service which was less than satisfactory and ended up getting criticized. The criticism even had Apple’s CEO Tim Cook apologize for it. That is old news. Google has moved ahead with a new user-interface for its Maps on Android and has now rolled out the same of iOS users. The big news here is finally it has also released an official iPad version.
I checked out the app on my iPad and came away impressed. The android version on my phone is great for navigation and reviewing places but the iPad version pretty much matches feature to feature. The bigger screen also is much better for navigation purposes.
The search option to find locations and routes displayed are clean and without any information overload. While on the phone version it requires moving down to check alternate routes, because of the bigger screen on iPad, the several options can be viewed at the same time.
Several alternate routes displayed on Google Maps for iPad
The turn-by turn navigation UI is also a lot better with options to view toggle to satellite view. About a year ago, I was not very happy with the navigation mode for Google Maps and found it was not as accurate in India. But it has become extremely accurate over the past few months, especially in cities.
Navigation UI for Google Maps on iPad
Finally one of my favorite features on Google Maps in the new UI, is the ease with which users can review places they visit. Simply click on any of the places you find on Google Maps and it allows users to review the place. I think this is Google’s way of leveraging its Google+ layer on Google Maps.
Review places on Google Maps by simply tapping on it
I think it was about time for Google to release its Maps app officially for iPad. The browser version would work fine but it was tedious. Overall, I think in the maps business, with the acquisition of Waze, Google has more or less taken a unbeatable lead atleast for the foreseeable future.
Try out the new Google Maps app for iPad and drop in your comments.
While the rumour mills work overtime about specs and features on Motorola’s high expected phone “Moto X”, Google has still not really showed off this new phone officially. There was an event expected on the 11th July, but Google had quickly denied it was anything to do with Moto X.
The advert on Moto X (image below) showed that we can expect heavy customization options. But Rogers Wireless, a Canadian telecom company has leaked a advertisement about the new phone with some interesting features.
While Google Now is already baked into Android, it seems Moto X will ship with some features borrowed from Google Glass. It will continuously listen to the users for commands. In other words, to ask Google for a search while the phone is idle, it will only require a hands free voice command to the phone.
Another feature that seems interesting are icons displaying the type of notifications your receive while the phone is idle, which allow you to sort of ignore check the phone for every type of notifications.
Update: It seems the event was not about “Moto X” but the phone is expected soon. You can see a leaked video of Moto X features at this link.
When Google acquired Motorola, it was often argued that Google bought the company only for it’s patents. There have been rumours of a new Android based Google phone being developed at Motorola. Moto X has been announced more or less as around the corner with newspaper ads in the US. Motorola’s official page on Google+ also shared the same advert.
The words suggests the Moto X phone will be highly customizable (hence designed by you) and it will be assembled in the USA. The assembled in USA will basically earn Motorola some political brownie points much like how Apple announced the “Made in America” Mac Pro.
When is Moto X going to be launched?
The official announcement page from Motorola Mobility suggests over 2000 new employees at their Texas facility during the summer, where the Moto X will be assembled. This means the phone should start shipping out in a month or so. Motorola has announced press invite on the 11th of July leading to rumours, that the phone will be announced at the event.The two people diving in the advertisement show an “X” and “I”, which translates to “XI” which is 11 in roman numerals.
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But the press invite is for a select few and that reason is being cited by some experts to suggest the event will not a launch for Moto X.
With all the hype around Moto X, it hopefully will be something innovative and path breaking and not just a lot of hyperbole. Hopefully, Motorola who are the pioneers of mobile technology are also valued for something more than their patent portfolio by Google.
What do you expect from Moto X? Do drop in your comments.
