In another experiment from Google that may or may not (but more than likely will) eventually kill off, the search engine is reportedly building a new service for their Gmail Pony Express. The service is being called “Pony Express‘, which will let Gmail users pay bills, as well as split the costs of items with fellow Gmail users.
Google Maps for iOS has been updated today to version 4.4.0 for devices on iOS 7 and above with the usual bug fixes as well as a couple new features that were highly requested in the Popular Navigation app’s ratings comments.
Miss the glory days of YouTube? I sympathize with you. One thing that I hate about YouTube is Ads. But not more than I hate ads. If you’ve used the web version or even on a mobile application, you’ve endured both. YouTube announced today they will be getting rid of both, somewhat.
If I had to break down my online presence by companies, I’d say I’m split between Microsoft and Google. Microsoft Onedrive is my main backup, and OneNote is just awesome, while Google handles my email, calendar and contacts. My jump from Windows Phone to Android was easy, but as Clinton Fitch points out, it’s because of Microsoft and not Google.
Siri (or Cortana, or Ok Google) often get dismissed as gimmicks, or something you use for driving or otherwise using your phone hands free. My wife Sarah, however, can attest to a situation where Siri was an absolute hero for our family — Sarah used Siri to call Poison Control during an emergency!
When I first started storing backups of photos and key files online, I signed up for Dropbox and free 2GB of storage. It became quickly apparent that was far too small, but I was too cheap to pay $100 to jump to the next level. Instead, I started using Microsoft Skydrive, now OneDrive; as of yesterday I have 121GB free!
This post about the Toshiba Chromebook 2 has been a long time coming. It isn’t because I don’t like the machine. I do. Rather, it has taken time because I tried to see how it might fit into my workflow. I’ve come away from the experience impressed by what Google and Toshiba have done. Still, I need to come clean…
Google today announced their widely anticipated Nexus 6 Android flagship smartphone. They unveiled two additional devices – one a Nexus 9 – a 8.9″ IPS screened tablet sporting 8MP rear camera, 1.6MP front camera. The other a Nexus Player featuring apps, games and more for your TV. Both the tablet and smartphone will run the latest version of Android 5.0 – now known as Lollipop.
Google’s swing at a social network – Google+ – has just made a big about-face in their much despised real name policy. When the network went live in June 2011 there was a major struggle with users wanting to choose whatever name they wanted and Google insisting on real names only.
Google’s popular multi-player online game Ingress was finally released this weekend for iOS. The game began as a beta on November 15, 2012, and until now it had been limited to Android smartphones. Ingress is basically an electronic game of capture the flag (aka portals) between two sides (aka factions) – Enlightened (green) and Resistance (blue).
I love Google Hangouts. I think Hangouts is the best free group messaging service I’ll never convince most of my family and friends to use. Until today I had one major problem with Google Hangouts when used inside Gmail; because I also use Google Voice, every incoming call would ring in my Gmail Hangouts. A new update has fixed that.
When the option to purchase the Google Glass Explorer Edition was made available to me, I jumped in with both feet — completely disregarding the fact that I was paying $1500 to be a beta tester of roughly $80 worth of electronics (as it turns out). Dan bought in, too, and then we both decided Glass wasn’t for us.
Today, Audrey Hepburn would have been 85 years old; to commemorate, Google has released a doodle in her image. A gifted actress, international style icon, humanitarian, and one of the most beautiful women ever, Audrey’s life was cut short by appendiceal cancer at 63. What better way to celebrate her life than to do something kind for a needy child?
I requested a Google Wallet card recently. As you may know, this is Google’s second major push to get you to adopt their payment service which now operates both through a card and your Android phone. The first attempt focused heavily on paying by phone (aka tap-to-pay). That failed due to not enough capable terminals and carriers blocking the feature.
Google announced it has reduced pricing for supplemental storage for its Google Drive (As well as Gmail and Google+ Photos which both draw from the same storage bucket). Whereas the monthly fee for 100 GB used to be $4.99, the new price is $1.99/mo.
Google’s ubiquitous social network Google+ gets a picture editing update which allows for adding high dynamic range (HDR) effects to a single image, with a single click. HDR Scape is currently available in the Snapseed apps for Android and iOS and today you can use it in Google+ by editing a photo and clicking HDR SCAPE in the right corner.
An article this morning mentions a service which blocks annoying robocalls. These calls are mostly illegal and advertise dubious services. I regularly receive robocalls to create or enhance a web site that I could have done myself for free. Why hasn’t Google Voice implemented a solution blocking these? Is it because Google Voice is (all but) dead?
Today we got confirmation that Google sold its money-losing Motorola handset business for about $3 billion to Lenovo. Google bought Motorola for $12.5 billion a couple of years ago, then sold off the set-top box unit and now the handset division. With the sale Google retains many of the valuable Motorola patents it sought initially.
If any company wants to go right for the jugular with Google, they should focus on the poor experience of using multiple Google accounts. Google has struggled since inception to get this right. Multiple accounts kinda work — but only intermittently and awkwardly; add the desperate prompt to create a Google+ account for every email, and it’s chaos.
There’s been a lot of discussion about a recent decision to allow Google+ users to send Gmail directly to another Google+ user via their online profile. This new feature allows strangers to send a single email to any Google+ user (provided they have not disabled the option) without knowing that user’s email address.
If someone suggested to me a year ago we would be looking back at data showing that more than 21% of laptops sold last year were Chromebooks … I would have laughed heartily in their face. I mean, to me these were pretty much netbooks that only run a browser. Yet that is the reality at the end of 2013.