Set Home & Work Address as Default In Google Map App For Android

Setting Your Home and Work address in Google Map application on Android can be little annoying, Especially if you don't know how to do it. Problem is the method is hidden very deep inside the application.

It would have been much easier for regular users if Google had an option to set default Home and Work address somewhere when we launch the application for the first time.

This post is going to be short, as solution is very easy.

Step By Step Guide on How to set your Home & Work Address as Default In Google Maps Apllication for Android

1. Launch the Google Maps Application 
2. Go to My Places by tapping tab on the left top corner 
3. You will See "Home" and "Work" tabs 
4. Press and hold the tab to edit the address for Home and Work! Hope this helps!

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Google+ Photo Search With Image Recognition

Last year, Google Drive added an advanced image search feature powered by Goggles that recognizes objects and uses OCR technology to extract text. The same feature is now available in Google+: search for [sunflower], click "More", restrict the results to "Photos" and select "Most recent". You'll find sunflower images from Google+ posts that don't even include "sunflower", not even in the image filename.

This also works for the images you've uploaded to Picasa Web Albums/Google+ Photos or the images uploaded by your circles.

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Google Trends Charts

Google Trends has a new section that shows monthly popularity charts for topics like scientists, cars, movies, songs, people, animals, chemical elements and more. Charts are limited to the US for now and they show the most popular things, not the "movers and shakers". Google uses the Knowledge Graph to restrict the charts to real-world things and "measures interest in a broader topic, so it might also count different searches with the same meaning".

"Top Charts are lists of real-world people, places and things ranked by search interest. They show information similar to our Year-End Zeitgeist, but updated monthly and going back to 2004. To check them out, go to Google Trends and click 'Top Charts' on the left-hand side," informs Google.

Google Trends shows information from Wikipedia, links to Google+ or other top search results, the number of months in chart and the previous month's rank.

Google also added a Metro-inspired page that lets you visualize hot searches in full screen. Mouse over the top-left icon to show multiple searches at the same time and click the country name at the bottom of the page to switch to a different country.

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Google Cross-Language Search, No Longer Available

Google removed yet another advanced search tool: cross-language search. It was available in the "Search tools" menu as "translated foreign pages" and it allowed you to find pages written in other languages.

Google automatically suggested a few languages for your query, but you could manually add other languages. Your query was translated into all these languages, Google performed multiple searches for the translations, compiled a list of results and translated titles and snippets into your language.

Here's a screenshot from 2009, when Google Search added this feature:

"If you're traveling and want to find hotels, restaurants, activities or reviews written from a local perspective, or if you're just curious to find what's being written about a company, product or topic in another language, give Translated search in the Search Options panel a try," suggested Google at that time.

The feature was first available in 2007 as part of Google Translate, but the initial version supported a single destination language. "Now, you can search for something in your own language (for example, English) and search the web in another language (for example, French). If you're looking for wine tasting events in Bordeaux while on vacation in France, just type 'wine tasting events in Bordeaux' into the search box on the 'Search results' tab on Google Translate. You'll then get French search results and a (machine) translation of these search results into English," informed Google.

It's sad to see this feature disappear because it was very powerful and difficult to replace. It integrated Google Translate and Google Search, so Google performed multiple translations and searches just to shows you 10 cross-language search results.

Why was it removed? "The translate foreign pages feature is no longer offered. Removing features always involves tough choices, but we do think very hard about each decision and its implications for our users. You can still translate entire pages in Chrome. Streamlining enables us to focus on creating beautiful technology that will improve people's lives," explained Google. Most likely, not many people used this feature.

I assume that most "search tools" features are rarely used and the same thing is true for other features for power users: advanced search, operators. They're not obvious, they're difficult to use and few people need them. As Google focuses more on answering questions, I expect to see fewer and fewer advanced search features and that's disappointing.

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Create Google Now Reminders in Google Search

Reminders are a new feature in the latest version of the Google Search app for Android. You can create reminders using voice search and Google Now will show notifications.

Now you can also create reminders from the desktop Google Search. When you search for things like when is bonnaroo 2013?, when is the first day of summer?, halloween day, Google shows a link that says: "Remind me on Google Now". Click that link and "Google Now will remind you 1 week before." For now, notifications are only available in Google Search for Android.

Click the link and "Google Now will remind you 1 week before." For now, notifications are only available if you use the Google Search app for Android, which also lets you manage reminders (delete reminders and set new ones).

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Google Checkout Discontinued

Google likes to discontinue products without waiting until it launches some proper replacements. Lately, Google closed products that were used by millions of people. There's a race to destroy everything that was built by the old Google and build new products that are aligned with the most important features of the new Google: social and mobile.

Google Checkout is one of those old products. It was launched in 2006 as an effort to improve online shopping and to offer more value to AdWords advertisers. "One cool feature of Google Checkout is that you can buy from stores with a single Google login – no more entering the same info each time you buy, and no more having to remember different usernames and passwords for each store. To help you find places to shop, you'll see a little icon on the Google.com ads of stores offering Google Checkout," explained Google at that time. Google Checkout was free for merchants until 2008, then Google started to increase fees until it moved to PayPal's tiered pricing. Then Google Checkout became less attractive.

Back in 2011, Google launched Wallet, a new product focused on mobile payments. It started as an Android app available for Sprint Nexus S phones that used the NFC chip to make credit card payments at physical stores in the US. Since then, the app started to support a few other phones, mostly from Sprint. Google Checkout merged with Google Wallet, but it still remained a distinct product focused on online shopping and available internationally.

Now Google announces that Checkout will be discontinued. "Merchants can continue to accept payments using Google Checkout until November 20, 2013. If you don't have your own payment processing, you will need to transition to a different solution within six months. To make things easier, we've partnered with Braintree, Shopify and Freshbooks to offer you discounted migration options. If you are a U.S. merchant that does have payment processing, you can apply for Google Wallet Instant Buy, which offers a fast buying experience to Google Wallet shoppers."

Instant Buy is a simplified version of Google Checkout that has no fees because Google no longer processes payments. Instead, Google "passes a Virtual OneTime Card, a MasterCard-branded virtual prepaid debit card product that can only be used for the specific purchase for which it was issued. Using this card, merchants can process payments with their existing payment processor." Instant Buy is tied to Google Accounts and it's faster to use than the regular checkout experience, especially on mobile devices. Right now, Instant Buy is only available in the US.

Since Google Wallet is mostly a US-only service, users outside US will be limited to Google Play, other Google services and some web apps. Google has recently announced that Gmail users in the US will be able to send money using a new button from the Gmail interface. There's also Wallet for Digital Goods, an API for in-app payments limited to web apps, and it works outside US.

For now, Wallet remains a product with limited availability and many disjointed features. The virtual wallet that stores information about your credit cards, coupons, loyalty cards, gift cards, tickets and makes payments frictionless is still a work in progress. Google has a huge opportunity to create a successful product for payments: it owns Google Play, it can integrate it with Android and Chrome, not to mention Google Shopping and Google+. Google now has the most popular search engine, online video service, ad network, analytics service, webmail site, the most popular browser and the #1 mobile operating system.

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Transitioning to Google Wallet Merchant Center

A key focus of Google Wallet is to simplify commerce for merchants and shoppers; for over a year now, consumers on Google Play have been using Wallet to make their purchases, to the benefit of the entire ecosystem. Helping merchants benefit from the growing consumer adoption of mobile commerce is where we believe we can make the most impact. And that's why today we're focusing our efforts on the new Google Wallet Merchant Center and retiring Google Checkout over the next six months.

Most Google Play apps developers will seamlessly transition to the Google Wallet Merchant Center, which provides new reporting and analytics features and much more. A small number of Google Play developers, however, will see some changes:

• Developers using Google Checkout on their website to sell physical goods or services will no longer be able to use Checkout after November 20, 2013. We have provided some discounted migration options to help with this change. If you are a U.S. merchant selling physical goods and services who does have payment processing, you can apply for Google Wallet Instant Buy, which offers a fast buying experience to Google Wallet shoppers.
• Developers who use the Google Checkout for the Notifications and/or Order Reports API(s) will need to migrate to replacement APIs, made available through Google Play, before November 20, 2013. Watch for announcements on the new APIs soon.

If you sell apps or in-app products in Google Play, you'll soon have access to the new Wallet Merchant Center. Watch for an email notifying you that that it's now available to you. We expect to transition all merchants to the Wallet Merchant Center over the next several weeks.

We invite you to join us for our live merchant webinar on May 23, 2013 at 10AM PDT to learn more and ask any outstanding questions. As always, feel free to contact us at any time during this transition. Finally, be sure to check out the exciting updates launched last week at Google I/O (including Instant Buy and Wallet Objects) and stay tuned for more great developer features coming soon!

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Google+ Hangouts and Phone Numbers

There's an interesting Google Settings page for phone numbers. By default, the page only includes a message that says: "No phone numbers associated with this setting."

A help center page explains that this feature will help your friends find your phone number.

"Help people who have your phone number find you on Google services and connect with you. For example, your friends will be able to start a Hangout with you by typing in your phone number. When this setting is checked, it makes it easier for people who have your phone number to find you on Google services. When this setting is unchecked, people may not be able to look up your name, photo and public Google profile (and other profile information you have shared with them) via that phone number."

It's related to the new Google+ Hangouts service, which asks users to verify their phone numbers so that the people who have their numbers could find them. Google tries to compete with services like iMessage and WhatsApp that replace text messaging.

If you confirm one or more phone numbers, the settings page will include them and you can uncheck some of them.

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Understanding Google+ Hangouts

I'm trying to understand Google+ Hangouts. It's supposed to replace products and features like Google Talk, Google Chat, Google+ Messenger and to become Google's unified messaging service.

Let's start with the name. It includes "Google+", so it looks like a Google+ feature. The product actually borrows the name of Google+'s group video chat feature.

How can you use this product? There are 5 ways: inside Google+ (replaces the Google Chat box), inside Gmail (optionally replaces the Gmail Chat box), using a Chrome extension (has already replaced the Google Chat extension and it requires Google+), an Android app (gradually replacing the built-in Google Talk app) and an iOS app (entirely new, requires Google+).

As you can see, 3 of the 5 ways to use it require Google+. You can refuse to upgrade to Hangouts in Gmail, but the Gmail Chat feature will eventually be discontinued. Probably most Android users will upgrade from Google Talk to Google+ Hangouts. The only other Google Chat clients are the Google Talk app for Windows and the chat boxes from iGoogle and orkut.

Google+ Hangouts doesn't require Google+, but most Google+ Hangouts clients require Google+. Actually there are 2 features that are somehow tied to Google+: sharing photos (they're uploaded to Google+ photos) and group chat. Here's what happens when you try to use them in Gmail, without joining Google+:

Google+ Hangouts has little in common with Google Chat/Talk, it's actually an upgraded Google+ Messenger. Hangouts focuses on conversations, not people, that's why you won't see a long list of buddies. Ideally, Hangouts lets you communicate with anyone you've added to a Google+ circle or anyone else, if you know his email address or phone number. When you open mobile clients for the first time, Google asks you to verify your phone number and that's optional.

Many people complain that Hangouts doesn't show if someone is online. Google's new service does away with busy/away/invisible/offline and has a different way to show if some is "connected": a green bar under the photo if someone can reply immediately. It only shows up if someone actually uses the application.

Hangout's tagline is "conversations come to life". Maybe because there are hundreds of emojis you can add to your messages, maybe because there's video chat, maybe because of the presence signals. "Hangouts inserts tiny little square avatars into the chat history, called 'watermarks.' These watermarks show when somebody else is typing, but they also indicate how far others have read in the conversation," reports The Verge.

Google+ Hangouts lacks many features from Google Chat: voice chat, phone calls, sending SMS, formatting tricks. You can now use keyboard shortcuts, but only for the desktop clients. Hangouts has its own Easter Eggs and they're really funny. Unfortunately, Hangouts drops support for server-to-server XMPP, it can't interact with other XMPP apps/services. It still works with Gmail Chat and Google Talk, though.

So what's Google+ Hangouts, after all? "The single communication app that we want our users to rely on," says Nikhyl Singhal, from Google. "We don't see Hangouts as a messaging product, we see it as a communication product," says product manager Kate Cushing.

Hangouts lets you decide for each Google+ circle if you want to be added to a hangout by its members or if you want them to send a request. Notifications are supposed to be synchronized for all your devices, so you only see them once, but I got multiple notifications.

Google+ is about real-life sharing, so Hangouts is built on top of the original Hangouts and Messenger features. The initial name of Google+ Messenger was Huddle, which means "draw together for an informal, private conversation".

The Talk era was about openness, the Chat era was about ubiquity, the Hangouts era is about Google+, the new Google that's all about social and mobile. From OpenSocial to ClosedSocial, from OpenMessaging to ClosedMessaging, from idealism to realism.

Alex Chitu 18 May, 2013

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New Ways to Optimize Your Business in Google Play

This week at I/O, we were excited to announce some updates to Google Play to help you optimize your business on Google Play: to help you take control of your app publishing, gain insight into your users, and expand your app's success globally.

Play Store's new view: apps designed for tablets

Many of you have invested in making great tablet experiences for your users, and we want to ensure that that work pays off and that users are able to discover great apps for their tablets. This week, the Google Play store began providing a view of our top charts highlighting apps which have been designed for tablets according to our tablet app quality checklist.

Be sure you don't miss out! Check that your app's optimization tips say that your app is designed for tablets, and upload tablet screenshots for 7" and 10" tablets.

Beta testing and staged rollouts

We have introduced support for beta testing and staged rollouts so that you can get feedback on your new app or app update early in its development and make sure your users are happy with the results. You can test two different versions on two different groups at the same time, such as testing a newer version with your employees first, and a more mature version with a group of external testers.

The beta testing is private on Google Play, and you can specify who gets these versions by adding Google Groups and Google+ Communities. Users give you feedback privately rather than through public reviews. When you're satisfied that your new version is ready, you can now do a staged rollout to a percentage of your userbase. To give you more flexibility in light of beta testing and help get your whole team involved in the Developer Console, we will soon launch additional access controls.

Localization improvements

We're collaborating with Google's internationalization team to make translating your app into new languages easier than ever. You can purchase professional translations of your apps from independent providers through the Google Play Developer Console. You can upload the strings you want translated, select the languages you want to translate into, and select your translation vendor based on time and price. If you're interested in translating your apps with this feature, sign up to be a part of the preview in the Developer Console today on the APK page.

The new optimization tips for localization will help you identify new potential opportunities for global expansion based on popular languages for your app's users and category. To fully localize your app into a language, you need to translate the strings in an APK, translate your Google Play store listing, and upload localized graphics. The optimization tips will also let you know if you're missing any of these pieces.

New Analytics and monetization features

Getting better revenue and engagement data has been another key developer request, as developers told us that they check their revenue and stats constantly. New revenue charts in the Developer Console allow you to see your app's daily revenue and summary figures, and you can filter the data by country. Coming soon, Google Play and Google Analytics are teaming up to bring you better insight into your users. Google Analytics will start showing Google Play views and installs for each campaign, while Google Play will show Google Analytics engagement metrics.

For those of you using in-app billing, we've heard your feedback and made some improvements to reduce your development time and costs. Your test accounts will now able to make in-app test purchases without those transactions actually being charged, but everything else works the same as it would for a real user.

In a few weeks, we will launch a new Order Status API, which allows you to verify the status of an in-app order from your servers. We will also be launching a tool for automating downloads of financial reports. Finally, the new Google Wallet Merchant Center is continuing to roll out with enhanced reporting, additional analytics and many other enhancements.

Google Play for Education coming soon

You'll soon be able to offer apps to schools through Google Play for Education, which launches later this year to K-12 schools in the United States. This online destination will allow schools to discover, purchase, and distribute apps to their students. Visit developer.android.com/edu to get started creating or optimizing your apps for schools today.

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The New Google Maps, Now Available

By now, you've probably received the invitation to try the new Google Maps. It's not available without an invitation and it's likely that it won't replace the classic Google Maps very soon.

Depending on your computer and the browser you're using, you may not see the Google Earth view and other 3D features. WebGL features require Windows Vista/7/8, Mac OS 10.8.3+, Chrome OS, the latest versions of Chrome, Firefox and up-to-date graphics drivers. This page explains what's the lite mode and provides links for the lite mode and the full 3D mode.

Probably the most impressive feature in the new interface is the Google Earth integration that doesn't require a plugin. It looks great, even if it doesn't includes all the features of the desktop software.

Another impressive feature is the "Explore" box at the bottom of the page that combines Street View, panoramas and static photos. It's the best way to find interesting places and explore them from your armchair.

Standard maps look better, colors are softer, labels are easier to read. Google Maps finally has permalinks that automatically update in the address bar, so it's easier to share pages and bookmark them (obviously, URLs only work in the new Google Maps).

You can no longer find a contextual menu when you right-click, so features like "directions to/from here", "zoom in/out", "center map here" are missing. Now you can click any place on the map and you'll get a small info pane below the search box that shows the address and lets you get directions and go to Street View. Double click to zoom in, use the mouse wheel or the "+"/"-" buttons.

The new Google Maps simplified navigation and removed many useful features like the zoom level bar, panning, "show my location" and the Street View Pegman. Layers like Wikipedia, weather, webcams, photos, videos, previous searches are no longer available, while transit, traffic and bicycling can be found in the "getting around" box.

"My Places" is not part of the new Google Maps interface. Click the "options" icon in the black navigation bar, click "My Places" and you'll go back to the old interface. It's a trick that lets you temporarily switch to the old interface. You can also click "classic maps".

The new full-screen interface places all the navigation controls on top of the map and invites you to explore the map. To get directions, mouse over the search box and click "directions". To find a place, use the search box. The transitions are smooth and Google Maps uses a simplified version of Google Instant: you're automatically sent to the place you've selected without having to press Enter.

You can restrict the results to places from top reviewers or your Google+ circles. Google emphasizes the reviews from your Google+ circles, so search results are personalized. Results are placed on the map and this is disconcerting: you don't know which one to click. Mouse over the results to get some information, click them to get even more information. It's a strange way to display search results, since you don't know which one is better. Google used to rank the results and ranking was an important component of local search. You can click "go to list of top results" and you're sent to a different page that includes other results and the list isn't comprehensive.

I don't like the new interface for directions because the step-by-step directions are no longer displayed automatically. You need to click "step-by-step" and you're sent to a different page. Switching between the suggested routes is more intuitive because all of them are displayed on them map and you can compare them. Google also includes transit directions, which have a simplified interface that summarizes information. Printing directions requires additional clicks and you can no longer hide the map or include maps for all steps.

The new Google Maps requires a lot more resources, especially more RAM, so it's not a great idea to use it if you have an old computer. Earth View and Street View use a lot of memory, so don't be surprised if you see this:

The new Google Maps builds on the MapGL experiment, does away with plugins and has an interface that's better suited for mobile devices. Unfortunately, it's a memory hog and basic things like local search and directions are cumbersome.

Alex Chitu 18 May, 2013

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