Tag: google

Is Google Changing The Way We Remember Things?

We’ve all been in a situation where we needed to remember a certain factoid about our town/city, our cars, a new concert or movie in town but for the life of us, we just can’t remember. So what do all of us do? We take out our smart phones or goto a computer and open up Google. We search for what we want, supply that information to our peers and promptly forget it again. So what exactly is happening here?

Researchers from Columbia University, in a study titled “Google Effects on Memory”, conducted a crucial experiment in which participants were asked to type in some trivia into the computer. Half the group was told that the data would be safe and stored in multiple folders, while the other half was told that the data would be erased. Surprisingly, the group that thought the data would be deleted had a better retention of the trivia they entered. Even more surprisingly, the other group did not remember the trivia as well as it remembered exactly where the trivia was stored. Does this resemble a Google keywordish effect to you?

The study has come to the conclusion that the Internet is acting like a collective Super Long Term Memory for the entire human race. In ancient times, people used to memorize entire histories and texts aided by mnemonic codes like rhymes and metre. Once printing was invented, mankind was liberated from having to perform such tasks. Now that we have the Internet, the effect is much larger. All we have to do is search for what we want and we find it. It seems that our brains are being reprogrammed to remember keywords or tags that would provide the information that we should have remembered in the first place, resembling search engines in their own right. Touché Google, touché.

July 18, 2011
Need a Google Plus ( + ) invite , Tell Us!

Its been almost 2 weeks since the inception of Google + and a lot of people are still struggling for invitations to the G+ ecosystem.

iGyaan can Help!

Update: Due to the overwhelming response we have changed the terms a little bit.

First Like us on Facebook

Second Subscribe on Youtube

Now, just use the contact link on top of our website and send us your name and email address.

We will Invite you into the new world of Social Networking.

Successful Invites : 2344 and counting

Once you have your invitation : Go here to know how to get started on Google Plus

Click here for a tutorial on how to import your Facebook contacts into Google Plus

July 16, 2011
Qualcomm launches Vellamo browser benchmark for Android devices

The mastermind behind a flurry of chipsets for Mobile phones, also responsible for graphic benchmarks like Neocore. Qualcomm has just launched the Vellamo Benchmark for Android devices. This benchmark if for mobile browser lagging tests. Vellamo is essentially a suite of 11 tests designed to gauge browser performance on Android phones and tablets.

To operate it requires any Android Device over OS 2.0

July 15, 2011
Paypal throws a hook, Launches Mobile to Mobile NFC Payments

Paypal usually not preferred by Sellers has announced a new Mobile-Mobile NFC payment system at the Mobile Beat 2011. NFC equipped Device owners, majorly Nexus S, can accept transactions from other NFC equipped devices.

Currently the functionality is limited – there is only the Nexus S which is supported- and only specific type of transfer requests can be made. Paypal promises its working hard to roll out the system more commercially. Also to note – Inter-Mobile transactions will be free of cost especially if you are using a tied bank account or Paypal credit.

The app will be available for free in the Android Marketplace in the coming months. Check out the video demo below

July 14, 2011
Google Updates Android Market to add Movies and Books tabs

Google is updating the marketplace app in their Android OS to include a easy tab for Books and Movies being sold and rented on the Android Marketplace. At movie titles starting at just US$ 1.99 or IN Rs. 84/- it makes it a highly worthwhile option for Android device owners who had to earlier toss around looking to download rich media content to their devices. The Update is said to roll out within the coming weeks but a pre-release build is already doing the rounds and can be found here(download )

Watch the video below to get a quick overview of the design.

[Google Mobile Blog]

July 13, 2011
Apple Files second Patent Infringement Complaint against HTC – Shares Drop

Its only been a couple of months and Apple has slammed HTC with the second patent infringement case. The US International Trade Commission is reporting that HTC is being accused and is being asked to stop the import of “personal electronic devices”. Last year, Apple filed a separate action against HTC with the U.S. International Trade Commission, where HTC then leveled its own patent infringement claims against Apple. Preliminary rulings for those cases are expected this week.

Shares in the world’s No.5 handset maker, HTC Corp (2498.TW), tumbled more than 4 percent on Tuesday, after Apple Inc (AAPL.O) sued the company in a fresh complaint with a U.S. trade panel.

HTC said its net profit doubled in the second quarter, beating market expectations. But analysts suggested that because the operating income tracked forecasts, they expected shares of HTC would consolidate before the investor conference at the end of this month, when the company gives guidance for the third quarter. There are rumours out there that HTC would need to pay Apple T$20 billion ($693.64 million) in compensation.

That would lower down profit expectations considerably.

July 12, 2011
iRiver Story HD – Google’s New E-Book Reader

Google had launched an e-bookstore in December but the store never really took off as using it with an e-book reader was quite a pain. You had to download stuff to your PC and sync it across to your device. Now, a new e-book reader is all set to change that process and challenge the likes of the Kindle and the Nook.

Created by iRiver, the company behind a range of MP3 players, the device is called the Story HD and hooks directly into the Google Library. The Story HD will pull books directly from the Google Library without having to use a PC to perform a sync to the device. This means that the device will have access to over three million free titles as well as access to hundreds of thousands of paid books.

There are over 80 devices that currently support Google’s e-book format when synced via a PC including the Kindle and the Nook. None of the readers natively support the e-bookstore however, if you have a smartphone, you could just use the Google Books app to access the store.

The iRiver Story HD will be available for $140 online. The device will have built in WiFi as well as a black and white screen with a QWERTY keyboard. For comparison, the Nook and the Kindle are available for the same price as well.

July 12, 2011
YouTube – Cosmic Panda Interface Now Available

With the beta test of Google+ we’ve seen an across the board redesign of most of Google’s services. Google search got the black bar on top. Gmail got two new themes for users to try out. Now it’s YouTube’s turn.

Google has announced the availability of the Cosmic Panda Interface for users to test. The interface sports a clean and professional look which gives more emphasis to video space. The interface is designed to be quite dark, which might be an effort by Google to reduce electricity consumption across the world.

The first thing that you notice when you use the new interface is the video. It has been brought to the center of the screen and the clutter around it has been removed. It is very easy to switch video sizes from the buttons at the bottom of the interface. The comments section has been placed under the video in a better interface which makes viewing comments easier.

Another feature to note is that Google has increased the size of the related video preview images. This makes it easier to view related videos but the downside is that it requires users to scroll a bit more. One feature we really liked is the redesign of the video player itself. The progress bar has been coloured in such a way that the loaded section is grey and blends into the background. The section that has already been played turns red like the old interface.

The channels interface has gone through an upgrade as well. The video links are now much larger and the latest video player has been removed. Chrome users will benefit from a really cool feature called “Keep Watching” which lets you watch a video and browse a users channel at the same time to queue your next video. The video that is playing gets reduced to a small thumbnail on the top of the screen. You can queue videos and resume watching the currently playing video simply by clicking the thumbnail.

You can test out the new interface and leave your feedback with Google at http://www.youtube.com/cosmicpanda.

July 8, 2011
How To: Move your Facebook Photos to Picasa

With Google+’s popularity on the rise, a lot of users are looking for an easy way to shift their albums from Facebook to Picasa. The aptly named move2picasa.com website allows you to log in with your Facebook id and copy all your photos to Picasa. Please note that the photos would be moved without captions etc.

If you have a lot of photos, it could take you a few hours to transfer them. Apparently, the more photos that you and others try to transfer, the slower the service will be. Despite the wait, this seems to be an adequate solution for most people. One other thing, you either move all your photos or you move none. There is no feature to select or filter which images are copied.

Once your photos are in Picasa, sharing them with your circles is very easy. The web app was built by AmiWorks’ Aman Kumar Jain and Amogh. According to the website, some 300,000 photos have already been moved.

July 7, 2011
Google Chrome eating IE and Firefox’s share of the Pie, Now at 20.7% of Total Market

StatCounter reports suggest, Google’s Chrome web browser now has a 20.7% share of the web browser pie, An increase of seven times over just two years. This also means that highest competition Internet Explorer’s Share is now only 50% of the total pie and Firefox has a 28% share which has come down from 30%.

StatCounter gathers its data from more than 3 million websites with more than 15 billion page views.

July 6, 2011
How much would You pay for a Google+ Invite?

Do you wish that you were a part of Google’s new Social Network Google+? Well your not alone. A lot of people all over the world have the desire to test Google’s new offering and some of those people have seen an opportunity to make some money. Google+ is currently in the testing phase so Google has restricted access to the service.

While joining Google+ will be free, people who are already on the service have started selling invites on E-Bay. A quick search on E-Bay gives a number of results ranging from $0.99 an invite all the way to $99.99 for one.

The downside to a purchase is that you still won’t be able to join the Google+ service. Google announced that the interest in Google+ was so great that the company had decided to stop accepting new users. A Google spoksperson said that they will be accepting new users in periodically as the company readies for its big public debut.

July 6, 2011
Google Releases a Preview of the New Gmail Look (PR)

Google has decided to update its offerings with a new look with the launch of its Google+ service. You would have already noticed the black bar above the Google search page. Adding multiple features over the years has made their Gmail interface more cluttered and complicated to use. They are attempting to clear it up as well as add some more features, however, they have scheduled to do it in phases, so not all features will work at this time. You can check out the new interface by logging into your gmail account and changing your theme. The new interface not only changes the colour scheme of the interface, but also introduces many UI enhancements such as changes in buttons and overall layout. Changes to the Google Calender are also coming soon. Read the Press Release for more info.

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We get a lot of great feedback about how Gmail helps you be more efficient, keep in touch with family and friends, and get work done. We’ve saved you from forgetting attachments and made sure that you got the right Bob. Over the years, adding countless features to Gmail has made it an increasingly powerful communication hub, but along the way the interface has also become more cluttered and complex.

That’s one of the reasons we’re embarking on a series of interface updates to help strip out unnecessary clutter and make Gmail as beautiful as it is powerful. This is part of a Google-wide effort to bring you an experience that’s more focused, elastic, and effortless across all of our products. The changes are not going to happen all at once. We know that you love and care about Gmail as much as we do, and we’ll be working on these upgrades gradually over the next few months to allow plenty of time to understand and incorporate your feedback into the evolving design.

We’re kicking things off with two new themes for you to try out as a sort of sneak peek at what we’re up to. Starting today, you’ll see the “Preview” and “Preview (Dense)” themes in the Themes tab in Gmail Settings. Why two themes? Our new interface will eventually expand dynamically to accommodate different screen sizes and user preferences, but until then you can pick the information density that you prefer.

Here’s what one of the new themes currently looks like:

And in conversation view:

If you poke around you’ll hopefully find a lot to like and a much cleaner, modern look but also few rough edges. In particular, some Labs features may look a little strange in the new themes. We plan to fix these issues as we roll out changes in the coming months. You can also expect some updated themes that embody the same design principles but are better suited to working in a dark environment, use a different color palette, or include the illustrations that we know many of you love to see around your inbox.

Look out for these and other new features over the next few months. In the meantime, try out the new themes as a preview of the future of Gmail and let us know what you think.

P.S. Like Gmail, Google Calendar is also getting a new look. You’ll see it automatically within the next few days so there’s no need to turn it on, and we’ll also continue to make improvements there in the coming months. Details about the current changes to Calendar can be found in the Calendar help center.

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July 2, 2011
Google+ Blocked in China

China, as a country has banned Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and Foursquare. Its newest target has been the Google+ service, which promises to give a better social networking experience than Facebook. A Chinese Internet Analyst Sage Brennan had this to say:

[quote]This was the quickest blockage I can remember … The speed with which they moved to block Google+ was surprising, but I couldn’t be less surprised to see it blocked.[/quote]

China has discouraged the use of online forums with a political tinge and has been wary of all foreign social networks after growing fears of uprisings in Egypt, Syria, Tunisia and Libya which were fuelled by social networks. Instead of continuing under a Chinese censorship, Google opted to pull out its search engine from mainland China last year. A few weeks ago, there were allegations that Google’s email service, Gmail, was hacked by Chinese hackers.

With the launch of Google+, Google wants to redefine social networking by fixing the alleged imperfections in the Facebook model. They say that the way we connect with people has to be re-worked. Right now, they say that the existing social network model has reduced friends to the status of fast food, where people wrap each other in friend paper. At the moment, we’re bombarded with updates from all of our ‘friends’. But in reality, you share something with your friends, another thing with your parents and a third thing with your boss.

The core of Google+ lies in its ability to define ‘circles’. Circles are basically groups that allow you to define what you are sharing and with who. There are also a host of other services like +Sparks (Strike up a conversation, about pretty much anything), +Hangouts (stop by and say hello), +Mobile (share what’s around), +Location, +Instant Upload, +Huddle and +You.

The service is going through a limited trial at the moment and is scheduled for release soon.

June 30, 2011
Google+ is the Behemoth new Social Networking Attempt from Google

Google has always wanted to be a king of Social Networking, after Orkut and Buzz that failed to catch up and sustain themselves to the competition. Google has today launched the new Google + Social networking engine. In a simple attempt a black bar appears at the top of the google pages with a +you button.

One of the most notable services in the Google+ networking is the Circles. What this basically lets you do, it that it allows you to select your group of friends and assign them into groups (or circles) then when yo post updates you can select who all you want to update.

Hangouts is also an interesting aspect as it allows a multi-person video chat right in your browser. Sparks is a multi interest feed organizer, that lets you remember your likes and keeps you updated on that.

Google has gone all out by launching the mobile app along with the service, which for one has an instant uploads folder which would upload all your images on the Google+ account in a private album and you can share those images with your status.

Google+ is still in a limited trial mode and looks like all their invites are gone, we will have more on this soon !

Check it out at plus.google.com

June 29, 2011
Google’s Nexus Prime will be the first to run ‘Ice Cream Sandwich’

Looks like Google’s dropout with HTC will continue for the coming up proprietary Google Smartphone, Usually dubbed as a developer phone, these devices get the latest versions of Android OS first and also run Stock un modded-roms. This time around the device may be dubbed the ‘Nexus Prime’ and will be manufactured by Samsung, just Like the Nexus S.

According to BGR, the new Nexus Prime will have a “Super AMOLED HD” resolution display which will have a 720p size. There are also reports of the OMAP4460 being used as the main processor in the device.

There are also reports that this time around Google may have a multi device launch for the Ice Cream Sandwich (seriously!) that could include flagship devices from everyone including HTC, Samsung, Motorola and even LG.

[Read]

June 28, 2011