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Google has unveiled its low cost laptop computer which is run on the Google Chrome Web browser operating system in 

San Francisco for the $249 (or £229, for those in the UK and Rs. 13,355 for India)  and is being made in a partnership with Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.  This laptop doesn't have a hard drive. 

Pre-orders start today at Amazon and PC World, and the laptop includes Google Now integration using Google Drive as a transport and comes with 100GB of free storage for two years. Google hopes to begin accepting online orders at its Play store by this weekend. Also The lower-priced model will go on sale early next week in more than 500 Best Buy stores in the US.

Google has launched 'Free SMS Chat' service for its free email service Gmail and paid email service Google Apps customers in India along with 51 other countries in Asia, Africa and North America. This feature allows users to send SMS to mobile phones from gmail chat windows from 10, October. Users just need to add friend's mobile numbers of their contacts in the email address book.

The service starts with free 50 SMS credits for each user and every sent SMS costs one credit. Every reply received adds on 5 credits subject to the maximum level being 50 SMS at any given time. If no replies are received to any of the sent 50 text messages and the credit balance come down to zero, then Google will add one credit after 24 hours. This credit limit was intended for preventing misuse of this service or spamming.

The Gmail Free SMS service is now available on eight Indian Mobile operators Aircel, Idea, Loop Mobile, MTS, Reliance, Tata DoCoMo, Tata indicom and Vodafone. BSNL, MTNL and Airtel are not supported yet.

The SMSes sent from Gmail chat are delivered to mobile phones while replies from the mobile phone come into the chat window. For the mobile phone user, the reply is charged at local SMS rate as per her/his normal billing plan.

If you want to block SMSes from GChat from a particular contact, you can just reply to the message with 'BLOCK', later if you wish to continue receiving messages have the option of sending 'UNBLOCK'.

Gmail Indian users can totally block this service, if they don't wish text messages from any Gmail user, just by sending 'STOP' SMS to +918082801060 and to reactivate the service they can SMS 'START' to the same number.

To know more click here.

Google has just released an update for their Google Drive for Android app with so many new features along with minor updates of its Google Wallet and Play Music. With Google Drive, you can store all your files in one place, so you can access them from anywhere and share them with others.

Download new version of Google Drive for Android from the Google Play Store for free.

Source - themobileindian

Google's Motorola Mobility, today confirmed that it had acquired the facial technology recognition firm Viewdle. According to report in CNET a Motorola spokesperson said,

"Motorola Mobility today announced that it has acquired Viewdle, a leading imaging & gesture recognition company. Motorola and Viewdle have an existing commercial agreement and have been collaborating for some time. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed."

Viewdle, which is based in Silicon Valley, creates apps which helps users tag photos automatically on their smartphones on Google Plus, and other Android apps and also use their smartphones cameras for augmented reality.

Earlier in June this year, Facebook had acquired, Face.com, a facial-recognition site. Motorola Mobility was acquired by Google for nearly $12.5 billion last year. The terms of the Viewdle deal have not been disclosed.

via - firstpost

This isn't exactly the launch of Google Maps for iOS, but Google just updated Gmail for iOS, which now supports the iPhone 5's elongated 4-inch display. Instead of seeing black bars at the top and bottom of the app, iPhone 5 users will now be able to see a bit more of their inboxes on their phones now.

Gmail is obviously an application that greatly benefits from the extra screen estate. Nevertheless, it took Google a while to update the app, even though the company had already released updates for both its Chrome browser and Google Drive. It's worth noting, though, that the Gmail app had a few other issues on iOS 6, the only version of iOS that runs on the iPhone 5. Google probably wanted to fix these bugs before releasing this new version.

When Google first launched Gmail for iOS, the launch was somewhat of a disaster, as the app didn't actually work. Since then, though, Google has offered regular updates and slowly added a few more features to the app, including, for example, the ability to open links in Chrome for iOS. What's still missing, though, is support for multiple accounts, something users have been asking for ever since the app first launched.

Sparrow, the popular iOS email client that Google acquired in July, has officially been put into maintenance mode. And even though the app won't get any major feature updates, the developer recently said it will be updated to include support for the iPhone 5's larger screen.

If you use Gmail on the iPhone but prefer Apple's own mail app, by the way, also take a look at yesterday's announcement regarding Google's support for CardDAV, which now makes it a lot easier to sync your Google Contacts with Apple's native iOS Contacts app.

Download latest Gmail app from Apple iTunes Store.

via - techcrunch

Google has updated its YouTube apps for Android to version 4.1.23 that brings new UI for Android 2.2 (Froyo) and Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) devices. Also, You can now add video to YouTube TV queue from the app and pick more channels from the YouTube picks. 

New features in YouTube for Android v4.1.23 -

Download latest version of YouTube for Android from Google Play Store for free.

Google Plus does not offer RSS Feeds but you can easily generate feeds on your own using a new Chrome app developed by Eric Koleda, an engineer working with the Google Apps Script team. Here's a sample Google+ Feed create using this tool.

To get started, open Feed+ inside Chrome and it will request access to some of your Google services. Say yes and you are all set to create RSS feeds from Google Plus. You can generate RSS feeds for individual profiles, business pages and for search results on Google Plus.

The generated RSS feeds are public and thus you, or anyone else, can subscribe to these feeds in any news reader. FeedBurner, for some reason, does not recognize these feeds as valid though I could easily subscribe to them in Google Reader.

And now that you have an RSS Feed for your Google Plus profile, you can easily cross-post updates to Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, LinkedIn and everywhere else using the IFTTT service.

If you are to ever disable a particular Google Plus feed, simple delete it from the Feed+ app inside Chrome. Also, you only need the Chrome app for managing the feeds – the Google Plus to RSS conversion happens in the cloud.

Google Plus APIs do not include details about Circles else it would have been more convenient to have a single RSS feed per Google+ circle rather than having to generate separate feeds for every member of a circle.

via - labnol

Google Inc said today, it will close a once-feted music download service in China from next month due to a disappointing response from users.

The move announced Friday will further reduce Google's presence in the world's most populous Internet market two years after it closed its mainland search engine in a dispute over censorship and computer hacking.

Google launched the music site in 2009 as a legal alternative to Chinese pirate websites. It shared advertising revenue with music companies.

Google Music Search users will be able to use and download their stored playlists until the service closes on October 19, Google said.

"The impact of this product was not as high as we expected, so we decided to divert our resources to other products," Yang Wenluo, Google China's engineering research general manager, wrote on Google China's blog.

Google has just launched an update to Chrome for Android app, that provides the browser with an improved sandbox. Google says the update v18.0.1025308 will help ensure that malicious mobile sites remain contained and can’t impact the entire browser. 

It's worth noting, though, that this enhanced sandbox will only be available to Android 4.1 Jellybean users. All Chrome for Android users (Chrome is only available for Android 4.0+), though, will profit from the additional security fixes and small feature updates in this release. In total, Google paid out $750 to developers who found security issues.

As Google notes, the Chrome sandbox "is made possible by the innovative multi-process architecture in Chrome for Android, in conjunction with Android’s User ID (UID) isolation technology."

Besides these security fixes, this update also makes a few small changes to how YouTube videos work in Chrome. YouTube video controls, Google says, now work in full-screen mode, and video now automatically continues playing after a screen lock/unlock. Google also says that third-party input methods (think SwiftKey or Swype) will now work better with Chrome.

Learn more about the Chrome for Android update here.

According officially Google Blog, its Google Drive apps has been updated for Android, iPhone and iPad. Google Drive is one place where you can create, share and keep all your stuff. The new Google Drive for iPhone and iPad version 1.1.0 update brings Real-time collaboration feature, which was already exist in the Android app.

Download Google Drive for Android from the Google Play Store and for the iPhone and iPad from the Apple iTunes Store. 

via - fonearena

Apple announced last month, that we will be officially dropping the YouTube application out of iOS with the release of iOS 6 beta due to the expiration of their license. Now, Google has released own a separate application of YouTube for iPhone. 

One billion of YouTube's video daily views now occur on mobile devices, said Google. Earlier this year YouTube said it was streaming 4 billion videos every day.

The new YouTube app includes an easier way to browse any channels you've subscribed to just swipe right from the left side of the screen to see a list of them and new options for sharing videos with friends, including Facebook and Google+.

Download the YouTube for iPhone and iPod touch from the Apple iTunes Store for free. Google said, we are also working on a new version of the YouTube app for iPads, which should be available in the coming months.

Google has acquired online Web-based URL scanning tool and service called Virus Total. VirusTotal is a free service that allow you to analyzes suspicious Website and either select a file to scan or paste in a URL. It also available are a Windows desktop application and browser extensions for Chrome, Firefox, and Internet Explorer.

"We're delighted that Google, a long-time partner, has acquired VirusTotal," the company stated. "This is great news for you, and bad news for malware generators, because the quality and power of our malware research tools will keep improving, most likely faster and Google's infrastructure will ensure that our tools are always ready, right when you need them."

The announcement also explained VirusTotal would continue to operate independently and would maintain partnerships with other antivirus companies and security experts.

Source - Virustotal

Google India has come up with a new service called 'Let's Talk Mo', which aims to enable small and medium businesses to reach out to the 70 million mobile users in the country. With the Let's Talk Mo service, Google will help businesses create mobile sites for free.

"With Indian smartphone users spending over 157 mins daily on the mobile web (89 percent of them are searching for information), the user-experience is not optimized for the mobile screen as most Indian websites are still designed for the PC experience," points out Google India in a blog post.

Google India is offering the businesses two options – create a mobile site for free, and test how user friendly your mobile website. For this purpose, Google has launched a dedicated website that gives users all the necessary tools and resources 

Explaining the benefits of Let's Talk Mo service, Google says the GoMoMeter tool allows businesses to check how their site looks on a smartphone. The tool also helps them get personalized recommendations to make their website more user-friendly.

Businesses also get a Do It Yourself tool to create a mobile site. Moreover, businesses will also get information on current mobile trends, best practices, case studies and various other resources.

Read more - http://www.letstalkmo.com/in/d/

via - thinkdigit

Google is upgrading the maps designed for mobile devices running on its Android software as it braces for new competition from Apple.

The improvements in the latest version of mobile maps for Android centre on listings for public transportation options in nearly 500 cities around the world.

The update released Wednesday includes directions and departure times for more than 1 million stations worldwide for the first time.

New technology on the maps will allow users to focus exclusively on directions for specific transportation options, such as the subway, while excluding other alternatives such as the bus.

The changes come as Apple Inc. prepares to replace Google's maps as the automatic navigation service on the iPhone and iPad. Apple is casting aside Google for its own mobile mapping service.

via - thehindubusinessline

Google's product Google+ is now offering custom URLs to profiles and pages, similar to the vanity URLs provided by Facebook and Twitter. A custom URL is a short, easy to remember web address, and will make it easier for people to find a brand or a profile on Google+

Google+'s custom URLs is currently available to a limited number of verified profiles and pages. The service, however, will be soon rolled out to more brands and individuals. Google revealed that few celebrities such as David Beckham and pop singer Britney Spears, along with brands like Toyota, Delta, and fashion brand Hugo Boss have already received the custom URLs. Google says the custom URLs will make it easier to find profiles on Google+.

The new scheme will display the user's name and a '+' sign directly behind the Google.com domain. For example, David Beckham has registered the +DavidBeckham address, changing the football star's Google+ URL to google.com/+DavidBeckham.

It seems some iOS and Android devices having issues for access Google email. A number of users are complaining of an IMAP error occuring when they try to access Gmail through their devices. According to reports, users are receiving a "mail service imap.gmail.com is not responding" error message when trying to access their accounts via IMAP. 

The cause of the problem is currently not clear, but Google said in an email to AllThingsD that it's aware of the problem and working on implementing a fix. In the meantime, Google has posted more details and some workaround advice on its support page under the "Pop, IMAC and Sync" section.