Updates: Google News Adds “Recrawl” Feature

Google News has implemented a recrawl feature that permits the search engine to focus on getting the newest articles. The idea behind recrawling is to insure whichever changes to new articles are captured.

Most changes happen to articles immediately after they are published. To deal with the issue, Google implemented the recrawl feature to capture updates also deceased links.

How does it work?

Once Google News finds new articles, they’ll revisit the article more than a few times the first day to capture any updates. In a few cases, they’ll attempt to recrawl an article they had trouble crawling the first time around. Afterward, Google will visit them less often.

This should help minimize the number of outdated headlines as well as dead links you might find while browsing Google News. For publishers, this is great as you discover typos, mistakes or else add further information.

Updates: Google Docs Adds Thumbnails and Spell-check

Google has made some updates to Google Docs recently that might have a major effect on how you use it. A couple of changes were added today: Thumbnail view has been added to the Document list also spelling correction was added to the search feature.

Thumbnails View and Search Spell-check

The thumbnails view will aid in quick scanning of your documents to find what you want. If you need to switch to this view, just click the Thumbnails button on the top right of your Document list. Every document will become a small preview of the documents content in a grid view. From here, you can still favorite a document, click the thumbnail to open it, and mark it for bulk actions.

Thumbnails view becomes especially of use when you factor in Google’s sort by relevance feature, which wisely augments your search. Execute a search for the document you are looking for and switch to thumbnails view. Switch the sort mode to “Relevance” if it is not already set there and you must be able to easily scan the results and find the exact document you want. The automatic spell check also comes into play here in making it easier to locate your stuff though you spelling-challenged or just fat-fingered.

Upload Any File

A little while ago, Google announced the capability to store any file in Docs. They have now completed the roll-out of this new feature for all users. Initially, you could only upload files up to 250MB but, after getting lots of user feedback, they decided to up this limit to 1GB. Every user starts of with a maximum storage capacity of 1GB. Remember that files that can actually be converted for editing with Google Docs have lesser limits than 1GB and also don’t count in opposition to your storage limit:

Documents (up to 500KB of text)

• HTML files and plain text (.txt).

• Microsoft Word (.doc, .docx), Rich Text (.rtf), OpenDocument Text (.odt) and StarOffice (.sxw).

Presentations (up to 10MB)

• Microsoft PowerPoint (.ppt, .pps).

Spreadsheets (up to 1MB)

• Comma Separated Value (.csv).

• Microsoft Excel (.xls, .xlsx) files and OpenDocument Spreadsheet (.ods).

If you need more than 1GB of storage, you can always buy additional storage for $0.25 for each GB per year, which is pretty reasonable. No more fumbling with a memory stick or trying to email big files. Simply upload to Google Docs and use the existing document sharing feature. Of course, you could also use a service like Dropbox for this, which might lose a few steams given Google’s new feature. The trouble-free fact that Google has integrated their storage in the cloud solution directly with Docs might make it a more attractive solution for business types.

Update: Google updates Chrome with 1,500 new features

Google has released the latest update to the browser Chrome. This renewal promised 1500 additional new features, and faster browser performance along with safety.

Chrome product manager Mr. Nick Baum mentions, the browser is now becoming more stable also 400 times faster than when first released.

“We’re very pleased to be delivering the latest version of Chrome is more stable,” Mr. Nick Baum said in his blog.

“With the current browser, all users of Chrome on the PC can access more than 1,500 system features through our new development,” Nick Baum added.

Development of new tools permits users choose the applications they want to install, and help to regulate how they use it. All that is on the latest version of Chrome will be extremely useful if you find the way through the new features of 1500 provided.

One tool called Bookmark Sync for instance, a tool that is still in beta version allows users to move bookmarks to another machine. While web developers can see a few new HTML5 numbers APIs, LocalStorage including, Database API, also other WebSockets through this tool.

But for now, other than a computer with the OS Chrome, the newest Windows-based computers that can access the new features are. While the update to other OS-based computers will soon follow.

“Those who use Chrome on Linux can run on the beta channel. For Chrome on Mac users, please be patient. We’re working hard so that Chrome could be present for various platforms. Bookmark Sync and other features will be coming soon in beta,” said Nick Baum.

Google Reader Allows to Follow Webpage Updates for sites Without Feeds

RSS Feeds are a good way to sustain with recent updates on blogs or websites. However, there is always a chance that you may come across a site or webpage which does not provide you with RSS Feeds. However, those pages may be updated frequently.

In such cases, users usually have to go back to the site regularly to check for updates. However, if you are a Google Reader user, here is some good news which will help you keep up with the updates through RSS for sites which do not provide them.

Google has introduced a new feature called "Custom feed" will permit users to track changes on pages that don’t have their own feed. For instance, if you want to track the updates on http://www.google.org/products.html just copy the URL and then click the "Add a subscription" button to add it as a feed.

To add a site without RSS feeds, use the "Create a feed" option and enter the URL of the site. Once the feed has been created, Google Reader will periodically visit the site and check for any updates on it.

Google Reader will just display short snippets of the actual changes to assist you decide if the page is worth revisiting. This feature will surely come in handy for people who are looking to get updates from sites without feeds the easier way. However, in addition to allowing users to make RSS feeds for sites which don’t support them, Google also has an alternative for site owners to opt-out of the feature.

Updates: Google updates the way it show ads in Gmail

Google has revealed that they are updating the way ads are displayed and emails in Gmail.

Gmail in general display ads that are relevant to the content of the message being viewed in the inbox.

Google said that for mails that don’t have any relevant content for possible ads, they’re now going to exhibit ads related to a recently viewed message.

Google said that they would select a random email message from the inbox in case there are no recently viewed mails.

The aim is to deliver ads pertinent to the content in your inbox to make them useful for the user.

Updates: Google Earth Updates Winter Olympics Venue Imagery

The Google Boulder office has been functioning hard on developing models of venues for the upcoming Winter Olympics in Vancouver this February. At present, you get to see the fruits of their labor.

Previously, only eight out of the nine venues were released. Now, those 8 have been updated with high resolution imagery, plus the ninth venue, bobsledding, has been additional to the mix.

You can view them through the "3D Buildings" layer in Google Earth or by visiting the collection in the online 3D Warehouse.

Five Bing Updates To Know And Love: Data Retention, Autosuggest, Maps, And Apps

Five updates they've released in the past two days are any indication; they are on track to do just that.

First up, they notified the Article 29 Working Party in Europe that they are reducing the amount of time they store IP addresses to just 6 months. Up until now, they have held on to the info for 18 months.

Secondly, they added current and trending news topics to their Autosuggest feature.
The last 3 updates are related to Bing Maps.

Bing Maps has removed the "beta" label! With the elimination comes the switch to the Silverlight maps for all US users. The switch will take up to about a week. And with the removal of the "beta" label comes the launch of 2 Maps Apps, which brings us to our last 2 Bing updates for this post.

The Local Events app helps you find stuff to do in your area. You can also find events by location and/or date and time.

Destination Maps is a sweet way to help out people originating from varying locations finds directions to a common location. For instance, if you have ever thrown a party, you know it's a pain to try and give specific directions to your home to all guests. So, you generally give the address and inform people to look it up online or GPS, right? With this application, you set the destination and then outline with a box the area including your guests' various locations and then the application gets down to the serious business of making certain your guests get there to your party (fashionably late, of course).

So there are five Bing updates that have been announced in the past 2 days. Go have fun with them.

Updates: Google Updates Local Business Place Pages

Google have released an update to their local business called ‘Place Pages’ which gives business owners the capability to post short updates to their pages. Google says these can be used to promote a new product, event or coupon.

Here is an example of what the new feature looks like on a business listing:

This feature is especially useful for restaurants that will get lots of traffic to their place page and could use this to promote daily specials to customers looking online.

Google have also introduced badges for place pages that have been claimed as well as verified by the owner of the business. This helps to show clientele that the business information is very accurate as it is been updated by the business owner directly.

Here is an example of the new badges:

Local search and business place pages seem to be a growing area of importance for Google, so make sure you have got a Google local business listing!

Google offers local searches on mobiles

Wish you had an easy way to find out whether there is a coffee shop or an Apple store close by?

Well, if you are using an iPhone or an Android cell phone, now you can open up a google.com window in the browser to find out.

Google Inc. late yesterday announced Near Me Now, a local mobile app that can exhibit search results on mobile phones that show the locations of close by businesses.

"Near Me Now was designed to address two user problems," wrote Mr. John Eric Hoffman and Mr. Jussi Myllymaki, members of the Google Mobile Engineering team, in a blog post. "First, we wanted to make it fast and easy to find out more about a place in your immediate vicinity,whether you are standing right in front of a business or if it is just a short walk away. Second, we wanted to make searching for popular categories of close by places really simple. Imagine that you emerge from the subway station and you want to grab a coffee, but you don't see a coffee shop around you. You can simply search for all nearby coffee shops by using “Near Me Now”."

The app also has a feature called Explore Right Here that's designed to allow users expand searches to get more information about a place. As a restaurant comes up in a local search, they might dig down for reviews and menus.

Over the past several months, Google has been doing quite a bit of work on serving users find local hot spots even friends in an area.

Last November, Google announced Google Latitude, an upgrade to Google Maps to find the location of friends' residences. The Google Latitude tool lets users contact friends by SMS, Google Talk or Gmail.

Google Chrome updates its developer build, currently with extensions for Mac

If you are into getting the latest, greatest, most-untested updates to Google's Chrome Browser, the developer channel is the right place for you. New updates to Chrome on all platforms just hit the dev channel, with a bug fix that must solve some problems with HTML5 audio and video. The big news is just for Mac users, though: Chrome Extension support is here!

That means OS X users at present can share in the epic winningness of Download Squad's 10 must-have Chrome extensions, compiled by our own Sebastian, also a collection of 15+ extensions put together by Lee. Or, if you prefer to find extensions on your own then head over it to Google's Chrome Extensions Gallery and start browsing.

This update to Chrome by the dev channel should not be confused with the latest nightly build of Chromium, which is the open source browser that forms the source for Chrome. As Nik pointed out, Chromium nightlies for Mac now have Bookmark Manager enabled by default. You can enable bookmark sync in the dev channel release of Chrome Mac; however a known bug crashes the browser on adding a new folder.

Google Updates: Google Launches 'Nexus One' Phone

Search engine giant Google has unveiled its much-awaited phone, 'Nexus One'.

The phone uses Google's Android 2.1 version, features a touch-screen display, and weighs around 130 grams and 11.5 mm in thickness, the company said in a statement.

The phone comes with a voice-recognition technology that permits users to compose e-mails by speaking, it added.

Google said, Nexus One combines the newest in hardware from HTC Corporation and the new Android software.

"Nexus One represents the unique combination of design and innovation. 2 companies like Google and HTC can have when they collaborate," HTC Corporation CEO Mr. Peter Chou said.

The company said the goal of its new consumer channel is to give efficient ways to connect its online users with select Android phones.

Google.org develops a tool to track deforestation

What can't Google do? The search engines philanthropic arm, Google.org, has developed free home energy monitors, an ocean-exploration tool and now software to observe the world's deforestation.

Google.org's software analyzes a decades-worth of satellite images to gauge how tree cover has changed over a period of time.

Google.org said on its blog that "We hope this technology will help stop the destruction of the world's rapidly-disappearing forests,” adding: Emissions from tropical deforestation are similar to the emissions of all of the European Union, and are greater than those of all cars, trucks, planes, ships and trains worldwide.

The software, unveiled previous month at the climate conference in Copenhagen, aims to assist the United Nation's REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries) program.

Google.org worked with Greg Asner of the Carnegie Institution for Science along with Carlos Souza of Imazon to develop the software, presently used only by a few partners for testing.

"It is not yet available to the general public but we expect to make it more broadly available over the next year," Google.org added. It will be provided as a not-for-profit service.

Google Doodle Greets Happy Centenary to Sir Isaac Newton

Have you noticed something new on Google Search Engines today? Did an apple just falling as you tried searching for anything? Yes? Well, it is one more of Google’s ‘Google Doodles’. Google Doodles are what is more common to us in one more form as logos. Google includes a range of modifications and/or humorous features, such as cartoon modifications, of their logo for use on holidays, birthdays of famous people, also major events, such as the Olympics. A man named Mr. Dennis Hwag was responsible for the Google Doodles.

On this day rather, we saw a Google with a missing ‘o’ replaced by an apple falling from a tree. Google just paid honor to Sir Isaac Newton and Sir Isaac Newton’s birthday is January 4, 1643. Sir Isaac Newton was a Mathematician, English physicist, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist also a theologian. He was well-known for his formulation of the theory of gravitation by watching an apple falling from a tree, and that’s the reason why the Google Doodle shows an apple falling from a tree.

If you have not seen it, just log into www.google.com and search away!