Changing the User Agent, a New Google Chrome Feature

Changing the user agent of a browser is sometimes helpful if you're visiting a site that doesn't work well in your browser or if you're a developer and you want to test a site. Until lately, changing the user agent required installing an addition, opening about: config or adding a command-line parameter.

Now that browsers started to comprise powerful developer tools and even Internet Explorer has a built-in user agent editor, Chrome added a similar feature. It's only obtainable in Chrome 17 (Dev Channel / Canary) right now.

Here's how to alter the user agent:

1. Open the Developer Tools (Ctrl+Shift+I on Windows/Linux, Command - Option - I on Mac OS X)

2. Click the "settings" icon at the bottom of the window

3. Check "override user agent" and select one of the options (Internet Explorer 7/8/9, Firefox 4/7 for Windows/Mac, iPhone, iPad and Nexus S running Android 2.3). You can also choose "other" and enter a custom user agent.

Google Goggles Makes Your Phone's Camera Smarter

Google Goggles is an request that's sometimes useful, but it's not good enough to use it every time you want to find something about an object. The Android app has a new characteristic that integrates it with the Camera app, uploads all the photos you're taking to Google's servers and shows notifications in the status bar if Goggles found something useful. It may sound spooky, but it makes your phone's camera smarter.

"With this new opt-in feature in Goggles, you can just photograph an image using your phone's camera, and Goggles will work in the background to examine your image. If your photo contains items that Goggles can distinguish, the app will notify you," explains Google. The feature is disabled by default, but you can facilitate it from the settings page by choosing "Search from Camera".

It's almost certainly a good idea to only enable this option when you're on vacation or when you're planning to photograph barcodes for products you want to buy. It's also helpful if you're in a bookstore and you want to "bookmark" some books.

Google Mobile's help center informs that "each Goggles query consumes about 100 KB of data" and you can limit the amount of data that's inspired by selecting "Search on WiFi networks only" under "Mobile Connection".

"Search from Camera" is one of the features that won't be obtainable in the Google app for iPhone because iOS' background APIs aren't that powerful. If you have an Android device, install Google Goggles 1.6 from the Android Market.

Introducing the Google Translate app for iPhone

Back in August 2008, we launched a Google interpret HTML5 web app for iPhone users. Today, the official Google Translate for iPhone app is obtainable for download from the App Store. The new app has all of the features of the web app, plus some significant new trappings designed to improve your overall translation experience.

Speak to translate

The new app accepts voice input for 15 languages, and—just like the web app—you can convert a word or phrase into one of more than 50 languages. For voice input, just press the microphone icon next to the text box and say what you want to transform.

Listen to your translations

You can also listen to your translations vocal out loud in one of 23 different languages. This feature uses the same new speech synthesizer voices as the desktop account of Google Translate we introduced last month.

Full-screen mode

Another feature that strength come in handy is the ability to easily increase the translated text to full-screen size. This way, it’s much easier to read the text on the screen, or show the translation to the person you are communicating with. Just tap on the zoom icon to rapidly zoom in.

And the app also includes all of the major features of the web app, counting the ability to view dictionary results for single words, access your starred translations and translation history even when offline, and support romanized wording like Pinyin and Romaji.

You can download Google Translate now as of the App Store globally. The app is obtainable in all iOS supported languages, but you’ll need an iPhone or iPod touch iOS version 3 or later.

Google Places for iPhone

Why build a local explore app for iPhone when the Maps app already lets you find businesses and local attractions? Apple's Maps app doesn't use all the in sequence that's available about businesses, doesn't show photos, reviews and other details. That's one of the reasons why Google determined to build an iPhone app called Google Places.

"We apprehend the importance of finding places you'll love while you're out and about, no matter what mobile device you use. And Places with Hotpot not only helps you find places near where you are, it gives you the best places to go for you by personalizing your search results," explains Google.

The application integrates with Google Hotpot and uses your ratings and your friends' ratings to suggest other places. Google Places encourages users to rate businesses and to post reviews in order to get better search results and that's an interesting proposal. What's missing from the app is a list of business you've formerly rated and the Hotpot feed that's now available on Google Maps.

Geo services are one of the key Google assets and it's very likely that Google will use them to create a furtiveness social network. Google Maps is probably the best mapping service and one of the the majority popular local search engines, so the social layer will have an important user base. Unlike Google Buzz, Hotpot doesn't have privacy issues yet and it doesn't feel like a different app because it's properly integrated with Google Maps.

Google Places for iOS can be installed from the Apple App Store and it's only obtainable in English.

Google Latitude App for iPhone

Google has lastly released a resident iPhone app for Google Latitude. The web app is nice, but you can't use it to update your place in the background. Google Latitude for iPhone uses one of the new features in iOS 4 that allows applications to track your location even if they aren't in the foreground. That's the main cause why it requires an iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 or iPad 3G running iOS 4. (Update: According to Google, "the Google Latitude app will run on the iPhone 3GS; iPhone 4, iPad, and iPod touch (3rd/4th age band). Though, background location updating is only supported on the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, and iPad 3G.")

The native app is better because it shows more in sequence about the locations of your friends and it sends you to the map view when you click on a friend, but the web app is just a layer in Google Maps and this makes a lot of sense. Google Latitude be supposed to not be a standalone app, it should incorporate with Google Maps and Google Contacts, so you can quickly find your friends.

Marissa Mayer, Google's VP of geographic and local services, has recently said that Google Latitude will add explicit check-ins, stimulated by Foursquare. "Latitude is useful for a lesser group of people. Only a handful of people you'll want to be familiar with where you are at all times. There will be new layers upcoming on top of it. It's more useful while more people are on it. And implicit and explicit — yes, the check-in. Maybe that's in freedom or maybe it's in Maps."

view this : last chapter in epic journey

You Can't Search for Android from an Android Phone

This is a really a strange bug. If you use Google to search for the [android], [android market] or [android phone] from an Android phone, you won't get any result. Google only shows ads related to your query and a standard message: "Your search did not match any documents".

It's not clear if this is an Android bug or a Google search bug, but it's certainly not an Easter egg. If you don't have an Android phone, try this page to use the Android-optimized interface.

Update: it seems that the same bug affects Google's iPhone interface and there are many other queries that don't return any result. "When signed into the mobile site, I see some search results, but not for all queries. I'm on a Nexus One. In the classic interface, everything works fine," says a Google user. "I'm having the same issue on an iPhone 4. No results for super common terms, but images and location searches are unaffected," confirms another user.

Google Goggles-Enabled Ads

Google tests a way to monetize Goggles, the mobile application for a visual search. "A year ago, Google introduced a smartphone application that lets users take photos of objects and get search results in return. The company will take that capability into the world of marketing with an experiment allowing five [US] brands to use the application in their promotional materials". Here are the five brands that are part of the experiment: Buick, Delta, Diageo, Disney and T-Mobile.

Android and iPhone users in the US will be able to scan the magazine ads for Buick Regal, T-Mobile G2 and the movie posters for Disney's "Tron: Legacy" to find more information from the official sites.

Michael Slinger, Google's head of mobile search advertising sales in North America, says that "it's a learning experiment for us more than an opportunity to make money," but it could be another reason to use Google Goggles.