Android Ice Cream Sandwich

Google and Samsung launched Galaxy Nexus, the third Nexus Smartphone, and Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS), the new Android edition that brings many of the Honeycomb features to smartphones. Ice Cream Sandwich is the first Android version that will work on smartphones, tablets and TVs, but today's launch only focused on smartphones.

Android 4.0 brings a polished border that's more visual, more consistent and more interactive. Hardware buttons are replaced by virtual buttons in phones like Galaxy Nexus and Android 4.0 supports this change, while also allowing users to momentarily hide the buttons. Contextual menus are now displayed consistently at the top of the screen, so it's easier to find them. The menu button has been replaced by a fresh apps button that lets you switch to an app you've used recently. This feature was already accessible in Android, but the new interface uses thumbnails and it looks much better.

Just like in iOS, you can now create folders by dragging one app onto another app. You can also uninstall apps or disable pre-installed apps from the launcher. That's a good news for users because many carriers bundle applications that aren't very helpful.

Widgets are now resizable and can comprise more features, just like a regular app. The standard widgets are more powerful and you'll most likely use them more often instead of opening the corresponding apps.

You no longer have to unlock a phone to check the newest notifications, see the album art of the song that's at present playing or open the camera app. You can now react to incoming calls using text message templates and dismiss individual notifications. There's also Face Unlock, a simple way to unlock a device using facial recognition.

The soft keyboard has been enhanced and it offers better suggestions. There's a new spell-checker that underlines errors and suggests how you might fix them.

Android's voice input engine lets you say a text without having to pause. "Users can speak continously for a extended time, even pausing for intervals if needed, and dictate punctuation to create correct sentences. As the voice input engine enters text, it underlines credible dictation errors in gray."

There's a new People app that integrates with Google+ and other social services, an updated calendar app that allows other applications to add events, visual voicemail in the phone app, a camera app that supports continuous focus, zero shutter lag exposure, stabilized image zoom, focus detection and single-motion panorama. The redesigned Gallery app focuses on functionality instead of eye-candy and makes it easier to edit photos and sort albums by time, location, people and tags.

Android lastly allows users to take screenshots without installing additional apps. The browser syncs bookmarks with Google Chrome, lets you save pages for offline reading and has an alternative to change the user agent of the browser so you can go to the desktop description of a page. Android's browser includes V8's Crankshaft update which improves JavaScript performance. "In benchmarks run on a Nexus S device, the Android 4.0 browser showed an improvement of almost 220% over the Android 2.3 browser in the V8 Benchmark Suite and more than 35% in the Sun Spider 9.1 JavaScript Benchmark." The tabs share the border used for switching to a recent app.

The email app brings better contact auto-completion, templates, and integrated menu for accounts and labels, nested subfolders and searching across folders on the server. NFC is now used in Android Beam, a simple way to split contacts, apps, videos with compatible devices. "It's extremely simple and convenient to use — there's no menu to open, application to launch, or pairing needed. Just touch one Android-powered phone to another, then tap to send."

The reference device for Android 4.0 is Galaxy Nexus, a Samsung smartphone that uses a 4.65" Contour Display (HD Super AMOLED) with a 1280 x 720 declaration, a dual core 1.2GHz processor and has support for LTE or HSPA+, depending on the carrier. The phone will be launched next month in the US, Canada, Europe and Asia. Obviously, you shouldn't wait for to be able to update Nexus S or other Android devices to ICS before the Galaxy Nexus launch.

Here's a video that showcases most of the Android ICS features, followed by a Galaxy Nexus ad:

How to Find Visited Pages in Google Search

I'm not sure if this is a new quality, but it's pretty useful. Like most websites, Google's search engine changes the color of visited links from blue to purple. All browsers grip links this way by default, but websites can alter the colors using some CSS code.

If you're logged in using your Google Account and Web History is enabled, Google saves all the search results you visit to your Web History. When you're using a different browser or a different computer and you're logged in using the similar account, Google changes the color of the visited links from blue to purple, irrespective of the browser or computer you've used to visit them. For example, I searched for [haploid] using Chrome, I clicked on one of the results, then I tried the same query in Internet Explorer and the page I've visited in Chrome previously had a purple link.

Google also has a search filter that lets you limit the results to visited pages. Just click "More search tools" in the sidebar and select "Visited pages". For pages you're visiting regularly, Google shows an explanation below the snippet: "You've visited this page X times. Last visit: ...". When you mouse over the snippet, Google suggests to +1 the link: "You've visited this page X times. +1 to suggest it on Google search!".

"Google+ Is Google Itself"

If you thought that Google+ is just a divide service you can effortlessly disregard if you don't want to use it, you were wrong. In an interview with Steven Levy, Bradley Horowitz - Google's VP of products - says that Google+ is really Google itself.

Until now, every single Google property acted like a split company. Due to the way we grew, through various acquisitions and the fierce independence of each separation within Google, each product sort of veered off in its own direction. That was dizzying. But Google+ is Google itself. We're extending it across all that we do — search, ads, Chrome, Android, Maps, YouTube — so that each of those services contributes to our accepting of who you are.

Redesigning all Google services to match the Google+ interface is not just about constancy, it's also a way to show that they're part of the same super-service, an surrounding layer that makes them work together.

Google+ made Android's camera app put together with Picasa Web Albums, Google Talk put together with YouTube and Google Docs. It's probable that Google+ will make Google services more useful by combining their strengths. That's almost certainly the reason why you'll use Google+ even when you're not going it to Google+ and you'll end up joining Google+ even if you don't like communal networks.

Music Rich Snippets in Google Search

Last week, Google announced a new taste of rich snippets, this time for music pages. At that time, I couldn't see the new snippets, but now they ought to be obtainable for everyone.

"With this new feature, site owners can mark up their pages using the newly shaped music markup spec on schema.org, and search results for that site may start displaying song information in the snatch so that users know that there are songs or samples there for them to listen to. Several early partners have implemented the music markup on their sites, counting MySpace, Rhapsody and Reverb Nation," explained Google.

The new rich snippets comprise links to music pages that could be establish by visiting the search result, but it's faster to bypass the search result and start to play a song. It's important to talk about that the songs aren't played on Google's results pages, so you still need to go to a different page. You'll only see the music rich snippets when your inquiry includes the name of an artist, a song or an album.

Google also shows rich snippets for events, profile pages, recipes, videos, reviews and products. "With rich snippets, webmasters with sites containing structured content—such as review sites or business listings—can label their satisfied to make it clear that each labeled piece of text represents a certain type of data: for example, a restaurant name, an address, or a rating."

At some point, Google will make structured data searchable and it will be a lot easier to purify results. Recipe search previously lets you do that and it's pretty useful.

Google Music Lyrics

Google Music Lyrics is a Grease monkey script that adds a lyrics panel to Google Music. It only facility in Firefox and there's a single lyrics provider: SongLyrics.com.

The lyrics are cached so that they're displayed right away the next time you play the same song. You can also edit the lyrics and the changes are saved using HTML5 local storage. To hide the panel, click the title.

Chris Hendry, who urbanized the script, plans to add other lyrics providers, allow users to import and export lyrics and to make the script work in Google Chrome.

Google Adds Voice Search, Visual Search and Results Prerendering

Two of the most significant Google mobile services: voice search and visual search will now be obtainable from your computer.

Voice search, a feature that's built into Android, also works in Google Chrome and allows you to search using your voice. Chrome additional support for the Speech Input API back in April and it's the only browser that implemented the API. Right now, Chrome's speech input feature is only accessible for English.

"We first offered speech credit on mobile search, but you should have that power no matter where you are. You should never have to stop and ask yourself, 'Can I speak for this?' — it should be ever-present and intuitive. So we've further speech recognition into search on desktop for Chrome users. If you're using Chrome, you'll start to see a little microphone in every Google search box. Simply click the microphone, and you can speak your search," explains Google. The feature is steadily rolled out, so you may not see it yet.

Google Goggles is a full-fledged visual search engine that's attentive in a mobile application. But why do you have to buy a smartphone to use Google Goggles when you could just upload an image to Google and find related pages and images on the Web? "Search by Image" does more than TinEye, the "reverse image search engine" that lets you find an image on the Web.

"Google uses computer visualization techniques to match your image to other images in the Google Images index and additional image collections. From those matches, we try to produce an accurate 'best guess' text description of your image, as well as find other images that have the same pleased as your search image. Your search results page can show results for that text description as well as linked images," mentions Google.

You can drag and drop an image to the search box, paste an image URL in the search box or click the camera icon and upload an image. Google generates a hybrid results page that shows both linked images and Web search results for the corresponding text query.

Google also a urbanized two extensions for Chrome and Firefox that let you right-click on an image and use it as a query. "With these extensions, you can begin a search on Google using pictures on the web. You can find out photos of places, learn more about art pieces, identify landmarks, and more."

While voice search and visual search are useful, the most inspiring search feature launched by Google today is Instant Pages. The new feature only works in Chrome 13+ (available in Canary/Dev Channel and soon in beta), but it will thoroughly improve your search experience. Chrome prerenders the top search result if it's likely that you will select it, so you no longer have to remain for the page to load. You might remember a feature called "prefetching" that was first supported by Firefox. Prerendering is a lot more influential than prefetching.

According to a Chrome developer, "prefetch is Firefox style prefetching of resources particular (just populating the cache). In Chrome, with prerender, we don't just download the URL specified, but render the whole page counting running all the JavaScript and downloading and rendering all the embedded resources."

For most users, Instant Pages will look like magic. They'll search for [nytimes] or [amazon], click the first result and be astonished to see that the page loads instantly. Google says that this feature saves 2-5 seconds on a characteristic search.

But Chrome's prerendering is not imperfect to Google searches. Any Web developer can use it by inserting a link element with a special value for the "rel" attribute. "Sometimes a site may be able to predict with sensible accuracy which link the user is most likely to click on next -- for example, the 'next page' link in a multi-page news article. In those cases, it would be faster and better for the user if the browser could get a head start loading the next page so that when the user clicks the page is already well on its way to being overloaded," suggests Google.

No More Offline Gmail in Google Chrome

Chrome 12, the upcoming version of Google's browser which is likely to be free today, removes a useful feature: the built-in Gears plugin. While most Google services dropped support for Gears and detached offline way in, Gears is still being used in Gmail. Google no longer maintains Gears, which is now legacy software, and focuses on implementing offline hold up using HTML5.

But why remove Gears hold up without implementing the features using HTML5 first? Google says that you'll only need to wait for a few weeks or you can still older versions of Firefox, Internet Explorer and mail client such as Thunderbird or Outlook.

"The new Gmail Offline ability is targeted for delivery as a Chrome browser web app this summer. As we move the Gmail Offline capability to a Chrome web app, we will denounce the Google Gears-based Gmail Offline. This coincides with the version 12 release of the Google Chrome browser which no longer supports Gears. As a result, Google Gears-based Gmail Offline will no longer work with the Chrome browser as of Tuesday May 24, 2011. Google Gears-based Gmail Offline will carry on to work in Internet Explorer 8 and Mozilla Firefox 3.6," explains Google.

It's not the best thing to do after believable users to switch to Chrome and use Web apps, but it's just a temporary issue. If the HTML5 offline Gmail wasn't ready to be free, removing Gears from Chrome could have been delayed.

Chromebooks

Fast, simple, secure, built for the Web, doesn't need administration. It's a Chromebook, a Chrome OS notebook that will be obtainable starting from next month.

"Chromebooks will be accessible online June 15 in the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Netherlands, Italy and Spain. More countries will follow in the coming months. In the U.S., Chromebooks will be obtainable from Amazon and Best Buy and internationally from most important retailers," informs Google.

Google's simplified computing model puts the browser at the core and creates an operating system that revolves around Google Chrome. Samsung and Acer are the launch partners. Samsung's notebooks have 12.1" displays, Atom Dual-Core processors, 16 GB solid state drives, weigh 1.48 kg and get 8.5 hours of unremitting usage. They're similar to the Acer notebooks, which have 11.6" displays, a higher resolution, but only get 6 hours of usage. Some of the notebooks include 3G support, while other notebooks are Wi-Fi only. "The Samsung Chromebook will cost $429 in the U.S. for the Wi-Fi only account and $499 for the 3G version. Acer's Wi-Fi only Chromebook will cost $349," reports CNet.

Here's one of the Samsung Chromebooks:

While Chromebooks don't require management, businesses and schools need a way to manage hundreds or thousands of notebooks, so Google decided to offer a service that includes a cloud management console, support, device warranties and usual hardware refreshes for only $20/user (schools) or $28/user (businesses).

Chromebooks are actually the real netbooks, lightweight and low-priced computers built for simple tasks like browsing the Web. Unfortunately, netbooks are no longer very admired and users replace them with tablets like the iPad, which have better displays, better battery and are easier to use. For now, Chromebooks will contend with Windows netbooks and it won't be easy to induce people to buy a Chrome netbook when they could run Chrome on a regular netbook. The good news is that Chromebooks will force Google to get better its web applications, to offer more advanced features, more free storage and all Google users will advantage even if they don't buy a Chromebook.

Google Chrome Tests numerous Profiles

As previously promised, Google in progress to test multiple profiles for Google Chrome. It's a Chrome OS feature that's now obtainable in Chrome's Canary builds and Chromium. Just enter about:flags in the address bar, enable "Multiple profiles" and click "Re launch browser" at the bottom of the page.

The new feature connections each window with a profile and lets you sync some of the settings with a Google account. Until now, you could create new profiles physically, but you had to use special shortcuts for each profile (Chrome has briefly added support for multiple profiles in the interface back in 2009, but it was quickly dropped). This feature is now available in the interface, even though it's more incomplete and you can only recognize profiles using Google accounts.

"The multiple profiles feature will allow the user to connect a profile with a specific set of browser windows, rather than with an entire running example of Chrome. Allowing different windows to run as different Chrome identities means that a user can have different open windows connected with different Google accounts, and correspondingly different sets of preferences, apps, bookmarks, and so on -- all those elements which are jump to a specific user's identity. Having multiple profiles in the Chrome browser also makes it easy to browse with divide identities without having to log in as separate users at the operating system level," explains a Google Chrome intend document.

Google Toolbar 7—cleaner, fresher and faster

Today we’re bringing the speed of Google immediate to the latest version of Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer. We’re also introducing a fresh, clean look that personalizes Toolbar with the tools you use most.

Toolbar Instant

If you’ve used immediate on google.com or in Chrome, you’ll be right at home with Toolbar Instant. Just start typing in the search box and search predictions and results will emerge instantly as you type, receiving you the results you want faster.

You can also type Alt+G to get to the Toolbar look for box more quickly.

To enable Toolbar Instant, visit Toolbar Options and click “Enable immediate for faster searching and browsing.” Toolbar Instant works on IE8 and IE9; if you’re on an older browser, you can also upgrade your Internet Explorer version or try Instant in Chrome, which includes many of the same tools you’re recognizable with in Toolbar.

Personalized Toolbar

This new version of Toolbar is simpler, cleaner and emphasizes what’s significant to you. The tools that you use most will remain noticeable on the toolbar, while buttons that you haven’t used lately will be moved to the new “More” button.

As you discover and use exacting tools that help your browsing experience, like Share or Translate, they’ll automatically appear on the toolbar, making your most pertinent tools easy to access. This personalization is stored only on your computer, so no information is sent to Google except your usage statistics are enabled. You can learn more concerning this personalization at our Help Center.

Making Toolbar work for you

Some Google Toolbar features, such as PageRank and spell check, need sharing some information with Google in order to function properly. With Google Toolbar 7, we’ve made it easier for you to manage your privacy settings. From a single settings menu, you can decide which of these features you'd like to allow and which ones you'd like to stay off.

We’ve also sustained to improve the performance of Toolbar 7 without slowing down your browser, creation it one of the fastest add-ons you can use in Internet Explorer.

Google Toolbar 7 is available in English on our download page and resolve be coming to our other supported languages over the next week. If you’re already using Toolbar, you’ll automatically be updated to the new description over the next few weeks. You can also find out more about Toolbar on our skin page. 

Google Quick Scroll Integrates with immediate Previews

If you use Quick Scroll for Chrome or Google Toolbar, Google things to see the sections of the page that are the most related to your query. That means you can click on a search effect and quickly find the best matches.

Google Quick Scroll now integrates with immediate Previews, so you can click on a stress from Google's screenshot to be magically full to that part of the page. It's a lot faster to find what you're looking for, particularly if you have to scroll to the bottom of the page.

Google's previews are now obtainable for Microsoft Office documents and presentations. There's also support for Flash, so you'll no longer see a puzzle piece image as a substitute of a Flash object.

Google Translate, Now With Voice Input

Google Chrome 11 additional support for HTML speech input API. "With this API, developers can give web apps the aptitude to transcribe your voice to text. When a web page uses this feature, you simply click on an icon and then speak into your computer's microphone. The recorded audio is sent to language servers for record, after which the text is typed out for you."

Google Translate is the first Google repair that uses this feature. If you use Google Chrome 11 Beta, Google Chrome 12 Dev/Canary or a recent Chromium build and visit Google Translate, you can click the voice contribution icon. Right now, this characteristic only works for English, so you need to select "English" from the list of input languages.

Unfortunately, the results aren't great. I tried to interpret "beautiful sunshine" into French, but the speech-to-text engine didn't work correctly and Google had to translate "wake up beautiful sunshine girl".

Google Chrome's Experimental New Tab Page for Touch Screens

A recent Chromium build added a new alternative to the about:flags page: an experimental new tab page. The efficient new tab page is a work in progress and it's optimized for touch screens. Right now, it only includes the web apps you've before installed, which can be prearranged in multiple home screens.

"The idea with this touch NTP is to focus (for now) on apps, and make it easy

to position them into pages. You can swipe/drag to switch pages, and press

and hold to lift an app and rearrange it," explains Google.

I found an attractive comment in one of Google's JavaScript files: "Note that, while the creation portion of the touch NTP is intended to work just in the latest version of Chrome, this hack attempts to add some support for working in older browsers to enable testing and expression on existing tablet platforms. In particular, this code has been tested to work on Mobile Safari in iOS 4.2. The goal is that the need to support any other browser ought to not leak out of this file - and so we will hack global JS objects as essential here to present the delusion of running on the latest account of Chrome."

Chrome 12 Will Drop Support for Google Gears

While the majority Chrome users have been upgraded to Chrome 10, Google is fitting the bugs from Chrome 11 and working on Chrome 12. A recent Chromium build made a significant change: Gears is no longer incorporated in Google Chrome.

Gears is a browser plugin free by Google back in 2007, The initial goal was to add hold up for offline web apps, but the plugin added many other HTML5 features at a time when HTML5 wasn't a main concern for most browsers. Google discontinued Gears last year to center on "bringing all of the Gears capabilities into web standards like HTML5" and to apply them in Google Chrome. Features like geolocation, notifications, web workers, application caches are previously available in Google Chrome, so it's almost certainly the right time to stop bundling the Gears plugin.

"With all this now available in HTML5, it's lastly time to say goodbye to Gears. There will be no new Gears releases, and newer browsers such as Firefox 4 and Internet Explorer 9 will not be supported. We will also be removing Gears from Chrome in Chrome 12," informs Google.

What's astonishing is that important services like Gmail and Google Calendar still use Gears to work offline. Other services like Google Docs and Google Reader dropped offline support last year. Google promised that they will use HTML5 features implemented in browsers like Chrome or Firefox, but that hasn't materialized yet.

Open Gmail's PDF Attachments in Google Docs Viewer

A recent Gmail update distorted the "View" links for PDF attachments, but only if you use Google Chrome. Instead of gap PDF files using Google Docs Viewer, Gmail now uses the PDF plugin incorporated in Google Chrome. Unfortunately, this makes it more hard to save PDF files to Google Docs.

Here's a simple ploy that lets you open a PDF attachment in Google Docs Viewer. Click "View" next to the addition and edit the URL: replace "view=att" with "view=gvatt" in the address bar. Another alternative is to right-click "View", copy the URL, paste in the address bar and replace "view=att" with "view=gvatt".

Obviously, you can also stop the built-in PDF plugin. Just type about:plugins in the address bar and click "Disable" next to "Chrome PDF Viewer".

7 Chrome Annoyances and How to attach Them

Google Chrome was free more than two years ago and it's the browser of choice for many people. Despite having won hearts for its speed and grace, Google Chrome does have some slight flaws that you might want to fix. Here are some of them:

1. No confirmation when closing multiple tabs

Google Chrome does't show a caution when you close a window with multiple tabs. If you by chance close Chrome windows, you can install Chrome Toolbox. The next time you close many tabs, you'll at least get a caution.

2. Basic history page

Google Chrome's history page is pretty basic and you can't limit the list to a certain time interval.

The History 2 extension comes to the release by allowing you to sort web pages based on the day/week you visited them. History 2 allows you to delete numerous items from your history page at the click of a button – something that's not probable by default.

3. Missing image properties

There's no way to quickly examine an image when you're in Chrome. Luckily, you can install Image Properties Context Menu, an addition that lets you right-click on an image and find in order about the image size, location, dimensions and more.

4. No support for feeds

Chrome simply doesn't distinguish RSS feeds and all you get is a page with gibberish text. If you install the RSS Subscription addition developed by Google, you can quickly subscribe to any feed using Google Reader, iGoogle, Bloglines or My Yahoo.

5. You can't send a web page by email

While other popular browsers allow you to rapidly send any web page you're viewing by email, such an alternative is nowhere to be found in Google Chrome.

Worry not, because you can make a simple Javascript bookmarklet to open your default email program with the current URL. If Gmail is what you use, you can otherwise install the Send from Gmail extension to send the web page to Gmail.

6. No session manger

Closing Google Chrome and reopening it does not reinstate previously opened tabs. In order to do that, go to the Options dialog and enable Reopen tabs that were open last.

If you want higher session saving options like the ability to create multiple sessions, try the Session Buddy addon for Google Chrome.

7. You can't switch to a tab from the Omnibox

Firefox 4 lets you switch to any open tab by typing applicable words into the address bar. If you'd like to see a similar feature in Chrome, install the Switch To Tab extension.

The next time you contain too many open tabs, just type sw followed by some words from the page. Hitting Enter switches to the tab that's listed as the first match.

Have you ever wanted to switch from Chrome to another browser because of a missing feature? Did you mange to find a workaround or an addition that adds the missing feature?

Gmail Opens PDF Attachments Using Chrome's Viewer

If you use Google Chrome and you haven't disabled the built-in PDF plugin, you can now open PDF attachments from Gmail using your browser's viewer. Just click "View" next to the attachment and you'll notice that the PDF file opens faster and it looks much better.

If you disable the plug-in or you use a dissimilar browser, Gmail continues to open PDF attachments with the Google Docs Viewer. Maybe Gmail ought to also detect Adobe Reader's plugin and use it instead of the online PDF viewer.

Google Apps blog informs that this feature will be obtainable in Google Apps next week. You can get it faster by enabling "pre-release features" in the Administrator Control Panel.

Gmail Desktop Notifications

If you use Google Chrome, you can enable a new Gmail feature that shows desktop notifications for new messages. Go to "Settings", and enable chat notifications and mail notifications to see a small bubble when you get a new message. If you get a lot of messages, it's a good idea to only enable notifications for important messages.

The nice thing is that the notifications are displayed even when you're visiting a different site or the Chrome window is minimized. Gmail's blog mentions an important use case: "you've probably missed an important chat message because you weren't looking at your Gmail window when it came in".

Unfortunately, you'll no longer see the notifications if you close Gmail or Google Chrome, so this isn't a perfect replacement for Gmail Notifier. This issue could be solved by background web apps, a new Chrome feature that allows installed web apps to run in the background.

Right now, desktop notifications are only available in Google Chrome, but this feature has been implemented in WebKit and there's a W3C draft for web notifications. Google Calendar has a similar feature as part of the "Gentle reminders" experiment.

Google Chrome to Drop Support for H.264

Chromium's blog informs that Google Chrome will drop support for H.264 in the coming months and will only support WebM (VP8) and Theora codecs.

We expect even more rapid innovation in the web media platform in the coming year and are focusing our investments in those technologies that are developed and licensed based on open web principles. To that end, we are changing Chrome's HTML5 support to make it consistent with the codecs already supported by the open Chromium project. Specifically, we are supporting the WebM (VP8) and Theora video codecs, and will consider adding support for other high-quality open codecs in the future. Though H.264 plays an important role in video, as our goal is to enable open innovation, support for the codec will be removed and our resources directed towards completely open codec technologies.

Google decided to pick sides, much like Mozilla and Opera, in an effort to encourage developers to use WebM. Right now, the only important website that uses WebM is YouTube, Google's video sharing service. Internet Explorer, Safari and iOS devices are unlikely to support WebM, while hardware acceleration and Flash support are expected later this year.

John Gruber thinks that "this is just going to push publishers toward forcing Chrome users to use Flash for video playback — and that the video that gets sent to Flash Player will be encoded as H.264". He also finds it ironic that Google Chrome bundles Adobe's proprietary Flash plugin, which is a great software for playing H.264 videos.

VP8 has a long way to go before becoming the codec of choice for Web videos and Google decided to make it more popular by dropping support for the competing codec from its browser. Last year, Andy Rubin said that sometimes being open "means not being militant about the things consumer are actually enjoying," but that's not the case here.

Google Apps highlights – 1/7/2011

This is part of a usual series of Google Apps updates that we post every couple of weeks. Look for the label Google Apps highlights and pledge to the series.

It’s a new year, and we have new reasons to rejoice what’s possible with Google Apps. Since our last update, we’ve made it easier to track spreadsheet revisions and work with videos in Google Docs, additional two new security features for organizations using Gmail and introduced new capabilities to make migrate to Google Apps even easier.

Revision history for spreadsheets

A few months ago we added better review history tools for documents in Google Docs, and we just added a similar alteration history tool for spreadsheets. Spreadsheet changes made by each co-author are marked by a different color, and you can easily see all of the changes made to your spreadsheet cell-by-cell.

Video player in the document list

Google Docs lets groups work together concurrently on documents, spreadsheets, presentations and drawings, but you can also use it to upload and share a wide range of file types. Previously, if you uploaded and shared a video file, people you shared with could only download the file. Yesterday we released an update which lets you play many videos right from Google Docs, no file download necessary.

A safer email environment for customers

Organizations using Google Apps typically provide unobstructed email access to their users, but some organizations—like K-12 schools—want to stop outsiders from interacting with a subset of their users over email. On Tuesday, we released a feature enabling an email walled garden, so organizations can meet this requirement. K-12 schools can help defend youngsters, and other types of organizations can provide incomplete email accounts to select employees, like contractors.

DKIM email authentication for improved email delivery

Yesterday we made it probable for customers to easily validate their outgoing email with DKIM digital signatures. DKIM allows many getting email systems to verify whether an incoming message truly originates from the domain in the message sent from field. Spam filters can then use the standing of the sender’s domain to help separate good mail from spam. For customers, using DKIM verification means their outgoing mail is less likely to get caught up in their recipients’ spam filters.


Chrome browser for organizations

Google Chrome is built for speed, security and the ability to run the most complicated web-based applications. Until recently, it was tough for businesses to deploy Chrome as a successor or alternative to traditional browsers, but last month we added capabilities to Chrome so IT administrators can professionally deploy and manage Chrome across their organizations. We’ve also made it likely for businesses to centrally deploy Chrome Frame to get better performance of Internet Explorer.

Improved tools for moving existing data to Google Apps

Customers are already moving data from legacy systems to Google Apps at an astonishing rate, and we’ve just made improvements to our data migration tools. Whether you’re touching from Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Notes or other IMAP-based email systems, it’s now even easier to move email, calendar and contacts data into Google’s cloud.

Who’s gone Google?

Tens of thousands of businesses, schools and other organization took advantage of the holiday break to move over to Google Apps. Some of the notable additions include Compositites One, Broadway Maylan and BI-LO. We also heard some great stories from Traffic Konzept + Film GmbH a team of explorers and filmmakers on a first-ever journey to sail both North Pole passages in a single season. You can learn more about their exploit and how they use Google Apps here:

I hope these product updates and customer stories help you and your organization get even more from Google Apps.