Google Buzz for mobile now available on more devices
Thursday, May 27, 2010 | 10:25 AM
Labels: android, BlackBerry, buzz for mobile, Mobile Blog, nokia, palm webos, windows mobile
Thursday, May 27, 2010 | 10:25 AM
Labels: android, BlackBerry, buzz for mobile, Mobile Blog, nokia, palm webos, windows mobile
Wednesday, May 26, 2010 | 12:01 PM
When I was young, I used to imagine that there was a string attached to me, and that one day I’d be able to see my whole life’s travels laid out on a globe. Thanks to my phone, Google Latitude, and Google Location History, I’ve been able to pull a virtual string behind me for a few months. Alas, I can’t entertain myself for too long with just a piece of string. Today we’re launching an experimental new view in Beta for Google Location History to visualize your location history in a different -- and hopefully more interesting -- way than just a string of locations.
If you’ve already chosen to enable Location History, the new dashboard view will try to highlight interesting trends from your existing location history, such as trips you’ve taken, places you’ve visited, time spent at home vs. out, and more. Ever wonder how much time you’ve spent at work recently compared to six months ago, or where it was that you stopped on your last road trip? Just check out Location History for some of the answers.
For example, I took a look at my dashboard, and it reminded me that my brother and I watched the Oakland A’s win on the final at-bat on April 17th.
If you’re a road warrior like me, the dashboard can help you remember your trips and where you stopped along the way. Here’s an example of a trip I took to New York to get a little work done and visit some friends just west of Central Park.
Speaking of being a road warrior, sometimes I do wonder how long my string is. I at least know how long it is since I started using Latitude and Location History -- about 21,000 miles or 10% of the distance to the moon!
We’re really excited to make Latitude and your location more useful to you, but we definitely understand that your privacy is important. Just as before, Google Location History is entirely opt-in only and your location history is available privately to you and nobody else. Additionally, you may be asked to periodically re-enter your password when opening any Location History page, even if you’re signed in to your Google Account already (just to make sure you’re really you). Of course, you may always delete any or all of your location history in the Manage History tab or disable Location History at any time.
To try out the new dashboard yourself, enable Google Latitude in the background on your phone, turn on Google Location History, and wait a few days (up to a week) to build up enough history for the dashboard to begin showing information. This is just one interesting way you can do more with your location, but we don’t expect it to be the last. With last week’s launch of the Google Latitude API, we hope to soon see people create even more cool ways for you to choose how to use your location and location history.
The Location History dashboard’s information is still experimental and in Beta so you may notice some initial issues with accuracy around its estimates. We’re working on improving the Location History dashboard and Latitude location updating overall, so you’ll notice improvements for both over time. You may also want to try turning on WiFi or GPS on your phone to improve location history accuracy. Visit our Help Center to learn more or tell us your feedback and questions in our Help Forum. Give us suggestions and vote on other people’s on the Mobile Product Ideas page!
Posted by Andrew Kirmse and Kenny Leftin, Software Engineers, Google Mobile Team
Labels: google latitude, google location history, Mobile Blog
Wednesday, May 19, 2010 | 12:05 PM
Location, location, location. In case you haven’t noticed, we’re really excited about all the ways location can make mobile apps and websites more useful. With Google Latitude, we created a simple way for you to own your location and let you easily share it with whomever you like, display it wherever you like, and even keep a history of it if you want. We wanted to give you even more ways to use your location, so today we’re announcing the Google Latitude API -- an easy and safe way for you to use and reuse your Latitude location with any apps or services that you can imagine!
Since launching Latitude, our team has been talking about all the cool things you could do with your continuously updated Latitude location. While we’ve built some of our ideas, there are simply too many exciting ones for us to do alone. Instead, we wanted to let you safely share your Latitude location with third parties who could create apps that do more with your location. Developers could, for example, build apps or services for:
Labels: google latitude, google location history, latitude api, Mobile Blog
Thursday, May 13, 2010 | 2:08 PM
Labels: Mobile Blog, social
Tuesday, May 11, 2010 | 10:50 AM
Starting today, Google Maps for mobile has a few new ways to help you and your friends quickly get to where you’re going whether you’re on 4 wheels or 2 (or maybe even 3). With Google Maps 4.2 for Android you can now get biking directions on the go, start Navigation from your Home screen, share places with friends, and more.
Biking directions
Since launching biking directions on desktop Google Maps, we’ve wanted to get you biking directions, lanes, and trails on your phone too. Just in time for National Bike Month, select the bike icon when getting directions to get an optimal bicycling route in the U.S. If you’re in the mood for a more scenic ride, you’ll also see the Bicycling layer on the map which shows dedicated bike-only trails (dark green), roads with bike lanes (light green), or roads that are good for biking but lack a dedicated lane (dashed green). You can always turn on this layer from the Layers menu to pick your own route. Add in the Labs’ Terrain layer, and you can decide to either climb or avoid that big hill on the way home!
Labels: android, biking directions, google maps for mobile, google maps navigation, Mobile Blog, sharing
Thursday, May 6, 2010 | 7:59 AM
Traveling to another country can be an amazing experience. The opportunity to immerse yourself in a different culture can give you a new perspective. However, it can be hard to fully enjoy the experience if you do not understand the local language. For example, ordering food from a menu you can not read can be an adventure. Today we are introducing a new feature of Google Goggles that will prove useful to travelers and monoglots everywhere: Goggles translation.
Labels: android, google goggles, google translate, Mobile Blog
Wednesday, May 5, 2010 | 9:08 AM
When it comes to mobile search, we strive to not only give you the same comprehensiveness and relevance as when searching with Google on your computer, but also a consistent look, feel, and overall user experience. So today, as we roll out a new look for Google Search results on your computer, we are happy to announce similar changes to Google Search results for mobile.
When you go to Google.com in the US on your iPhone or Android-powered device, and enter a search, you can now tap on the button to the left of the search box on the results page to see a new search options menu. Then, selecting any item in the menu will refine your search. For example, if you are looking for recent results for "Mother's day gift", simply tap the "Past week" option.
Labels: android, google search, iphone, Mobile Blog, palm webos
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