Technology The 'Everything Google that isn't Android' thread

[Casey]

Figured we needed a thread for Google, aside from the Android thread. Keep all Android stuff in that thread please.

Let's start off with a good article I just saw on TechCrunch about Chrome OS, called "Google, Rome and Empire"

2500 years ago, Europe was a filthy mess of dirt roads, battered and cracked by hooves in the summer and rutted by rude wheels in the winter. To travel from the British isles to the tip of the Apennine peninsula would have been the work of months — and messy and rough work at that. Around 450 BC, the Roman Twelve Tables specified (among many other things) the dimensions of roads, and methods borrowed from the Carthaginians standardized their construction to some extent. Mere centuries later, an unprecedented network of trade and communication had been established, some parts of which are still in use today. The Roman roads improved the entire world, and the fact that they were built, managed, and maintained by the Romans was as effective a weapon for Rome as the gladii wielded by the legions who patrolled them. In the year MMIX Google revealed Chrome OS to the world. It was no more remarkable to onlookers than a single stone-paved road might have been to a Roman citizen in 400 BC. A decade or two from now, an historian might look back on the first few years of Google's expansion and think: how similar was that Roman's limited scope of observation to our own! For he saw a road, not the beginnings of an infrastructure which would span continents. And we see a suite of products, vessels for selling ads, not the start of a greater endeavor: a blueprint for connecting humanity in the 21st century. I don't mean to overstate Google's importance. Just as the world was awaiting a Rome to civilize its mountains and valleys and connect their denizens, so now the world has been preparing for a Google to lay down the flagstones of a modern Appian Way.

What Google products do you all use on a regular basis? I use:

Google Chrome Browser
Google Dashboard
Gmail
T-Mobile G1 Android phone
Google Search
Google Goggles (Visual Search)
YouTube
Google Maps
Google Reader (RSS Feeds)
Google Analytics (Website statistics)
Google Talk
Google Alerts
Google Calendar
Google Docs
Google Wave
Google Health
Google Latitude
Google Tasks
Google Notebook (although this is being phased out so I'll just make a miscellaneous notes document in Google Docs and move the info there)
Google Blogsearch
Google Product Search
Google News



I'd like to use Google Voice but unfortunately it's not yet available outside the US.

I'd definitely like to get a netbook running Chrome OS when it officially launches next year.

I've been meaning to try out Picasa but haven't got around to it yet.

 

[Rukas]

Google Maps
Google Search
Gmail
You Tube

That is it for now.

 

[THEV1LL4N]

Picasa is very easy and simple to use, bery intuitive. just about anyone can use it and should be able to with ease (of course if they play around with it a little).

Often:
Google Chrome Browser (On PC mainly, not anywhere else, rarely on laptop if i do make use of it).
Gmail
T-Mobile G1 Android phone
Google Search
Google Images
Google Scholar
Google Books
Google Blogsearch
Google News

Occassionally:
Google Goggles (Visual Search)
YouTube
Google Maps
Google Talk
Google Calendar
Google Docs
Google Wave
Picasa
Blogger
Google Translate
Google Product Search

 

[THEV1LL4N]

Google Chrome OS netbook has specs possibly leaked

Google Chrome OS netbook has specs possibly leaked

The IBTimes, a small UK tech site, is reporting today that the Google Chrome OS netbook has had its specs leaked, however it may just be another rumor based on some facts and a probability game.

According to the site, the highly anticipated (but unofficial) netbook will include the following specs (via Crunch):

* NVIDIA Tegra platform with ARM CPU
* 10.1-inch TFT HD-ready multi-touch display
* 64GB solid state drive
* 2GB of RAM
* Wi-Fi, 3G, Bluetooth, Ethernet, USB ports, webcam, card reader
* Subsidized at less than $300, sold directly to consumers by Google

The RAM, the processor and the standard goodies (3G, Wi-Fi, etc) are more than likely but the pricing, the SSD and the screen are still likely rumor, especially since there is no chance that a multi-touch display could sell for under $300, unless the wireless carrier subsidy is very heavy.

 

[Casey]

Been using Picasa 3.6 (with the new Face recognition tools) for a couple of days now. It's freakin' awesome. Moved all the photos off my phone onto it, synced them with web albums and tagged all the faces.

Also, peep this about Google City Tours, it sounds awesome

http://www.psfk.com/2009/12/digital-travel-guide-google-simplifies-trip-planning.html

 

[THEV1LL4N]

Chrome surpasses Safari in market share

Chrome surpasses Safari in market share

Google's Chrome browser has surpassed Apple's Safari in market share for the first time ever, according to the latest NetApplications stats, seeing large growth to move to 4.63 percent, just ahead of Safari's 4.46 percent. Overall, Chrome moved 18 percent from 3.93 in November.

Firefox declined to 24.61 percent, and Internet Explorer continued its long term downtrend, falling to 62.29 percent.

Chrome's big jump can mainly be attributed to the release of Chrome for Mac (beta) and the addition of official extensions for Windows users and continued delays by the Mozilla team.

 

[Casey]

Awesome. Next target - Firefox.

 

[THEV1LL4N]

google already stated that they were aiming to be the 3rd most popular browser by the end of the year. target achieved!

now they want to push on and get 10% MS.

i will seriously consider switching over permanently to chrome when they release a stable version running extensions and add-ons. firefox is important to me at the moment because of the imlented add-ons i use.


i was happy the other day because my brother randomly asks me "what's all this google chrome business?" and so i told him and he seems happy to check it out. so will install it on his laptop.

 

[Casey]

I've found nothing unstable about the beta version and I'm using 7 or 8 extensions on it. It works beautifully.

I meant to make a post about this earlier and forgot. I was on the tube in London the other day, and I changed at one of the main stops (I think it was Kings Cross). Anyway - there were MASSIVE adverts for Chrome everywhere. One of them mentioned Android as well so I took a photo of it. I might post it up later or Twitpic it or something.

 

[THEV1LL4N]

it must have seemed like you were in a world that only you could conjure up in your mind lol.

 

[Casey]

I wouldn't go that far.

 

[Casey]

Woot Woot!

Google just added file upload support for all files to Google Docs!
It comes with a 250MB file upload limit, and 1GB of total storage - but additional storage only costs 25cents per gigabyte - so for ONE dollar a year you can have 5GB of free online storage that you can access from anywhere - with a great file permissions system that means you can easily share any file with different people, make certain files or folders public if you want to, etc.

This is the death of USB thumb drives.

Google on Tuesday is making a big move with its Docs service, opening it up to all types of file uploads. This includes photos, movies, music, and ZIP archives, all of which will be stored on Google's servers.

Along with opening up Docs to additional file types, Google is also dramatically increasing the size of individual uploads. Where the company will still limit users to 500KB for Microsoft Word documents, and 10MB for PowerPoint presentations and PDFs, the new limit for all other files that cannot be converted into a Google Docs format is 250MB. This is 10 times the size of what's allowed as an attachment in the company's Web mail service Gmail.

In a post on the company's blog, Google Docs' product manager Vijay Bangaru said that the new size and file type allowances serve to make Docs a replacement for USB drives, allowing users to access their files between computers. The company is also applying the same permissions-based sharing system it has for documents that it hosts, allowing users to share files with one another.

Official statement from Google:

We're happy to announce that over the next few weeks we will be rolling out the ability to upload, store and organize any type of file in Google Docs. With this change, you'll be able to upload and access your files from any computer -- all you need is an Internet connection.

Instead of emailing files to yourself, which is particularly difficult with large files, you can upload to Google Docs any file up to 250 MB. You'll have 1 GB of free storage for files you don't convert into one of the Google Docs formats (i.e. Google documents, spreadsheets, and presentations), and if you need more space, you can buy additional storage for $0.25 per GB per year. This makes it easy to backup more of your key files online, from large graphics and raw photos to unedited home videos taken on your smartphone. You might even be able to replace the USB drive you reserved for those files that are too big to send over email.

Combined with shared folders, you can store, organize, and collaborate on files more easily using Google Docs. For example, if you are in a club or PTA working on large graphic files for posters or a newsletter, you can upload them to a shared folder for collaborators to view, download, and print.

You can also search for document files you've uploaded or that have been shared with you just like you do with your Google documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and PDFs. And you'll be able to view many common document file types with the Google Docs viewer.

To learn how businesses can take advantage of this new functionality, check out the post on the Enterprise Blog.

As always, we’d love your feedback and if you have any questions, please check out our help page. This feature will be enabled for your account over the next couple of weeks — look for the bubble notification when you sign in to Google Docs.

Posted by: Vijay Bangaru, Product Manager, Google Docs

 

[Casey]

Google = awesome

HUGE: Google Considers Pulling Out of China in the Name of Free Speech

 

[masta247]

Google IS awesome really. No other company this big would lose a market like China in an awesome fashion - for the cause. Actually if more companies followed Google that would be pretty epic. Unfortunately business comes first. A huge + goes to Google.

 

[THEV1LL4N]

damn this sounds good. but isnt this like any other online storage site like adrive?

maybe the difference is that its all linked together with one account from either your phone, pc, laptop or any device which is compatible or can access the storage space online.

im currently using Adrive to store all my camera pictures. 50GB for free.

 

[Casey]

Why use other services when you don't have to? I already use Google Docs, so this makes perfect sense.

Not to mention it'll likely be built in natively to Android (perhaps by 3.0) and Chrome OS.

 

[masta247]

My university seems to have a new deal with Google to work on Google Apps functionality. It started out as a project to intruduce our students with Google Apps - there's a closed Google platform for our students which looks like Google apps but offers also some beta features. We have a Google chat app based on an internal university network (to chat with other students) as well as apps allowing us to work on projects together and some more I've not tested yet.
However it says that some new mainstream features are being implemented that should be available for us on 1st march to test.

 

[S O F I]

^That's dope.

 

[masta247]

How do you guys like the Google Chrome OS?
I don't know but personally I expected more. I hope they redesign it until its final release.
Completely useless without net access and has no way to install any new programs except running simple web apps!

 

[Casey]

How do you guys like the Google Chrome OS?
I don't know but personally I expected more. I hope they redesign it until its final release.
Completely useless without net access and has no way to install any new programs except running simple web apps!

It's based on net access. That's the whole point, you sign in with your Google account credentials and much of the information revolves around that.

Also, there are some very complex web apps out there right now. Especially all the new sites taking advantage of HTML5.

Besides which, it's barely even an alpha release right now, and it will most likely be developed on dedicated netbook hardware, like you couldn't really get to grips with Android until you used hardware that released with it, apart from a developer perspective, although if you wanted to you could build the source and flash it onto different devices since it was basically first announced, way before any actual product shipped. I predict a similar thing to happen with Chrome OS.

You'll only really be able to judge it once they officially release to market, with the intended hardware.