Leaked screenshots show redesigned Gmail with ‘Categories’ feature to sort emails by content

Jordan Kahn

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The image above is being passed around by an anonymous tipster this evening that claims to have screenshots alongside some new information about an upcoming version of Gmail for both the web and mobile devices.

According to the tipster, the update Gmail for web will have new Category tabs that organize emails into separate inboxes based on the content within (as pictured above). Examples given include Main (for family, friends and everything that doesn’t belong in another category), ‘Social’ for emails related to social networks, ‘Offers’ for promotional material, ‘Notifications’ for reservations, bills, etc, and ‘Forums’ for mailing lists and forums.

We have no way of verifying the legitimacy of the tip, but it’s an interesting concept nonetheless and it will apparently also be hitting the new Gmail mobile apps when it begins rolling out this Wednesday… Read more

Google Drive Android app updated with ‘scan’ for storing physical docs, improved UI, and more

Jordan Kahn

Google-Drivecollage2-white

Google announced on its Google Drive blog today that it is rolling out an updated Google Drive app for Android that includes a couple notable new features.

The app’s UI has been overhauled and now displays your Drive files in a familiar grid style view:

You can swipe between files to see large previews that let you quickly review and discover the information you’re looking for. And if you want to keep some Drive files on your Android device, you’ll now be able to “download a copy” from the actions menu inside settings.

Google-Drive-Scan-featureAnother big update included in the latest version of Drive for Android is the ability to ‘scan’ and store physical documents as PDFs. The new scan option will allow users to snap photos of documents and save them within Drive as a PDF. Thanks to Optical Character Recognition, you’ll also be able to search for the scanned docs using keywords.

The update includes a number of other improvements as well including the ability to download a copy of your files in Drive your device’s local storage, improvements to editing features in Google Sheets, and much more: Read more

Outlook adds support for Google Talk in appeal to Gmail users

Zac Hall

outlook-text-logo-640x360

Microsoft is rolling out Google Talk integration to its online email service Outlook, which is something that could tempt Gmail users try out the less popular competing service.

Microsoft, which owns its own chat service by way of its Skype purchase, is using Google’s public API to include Google Talk integration on Outlook.com. The timing is interesting as we expect Google to announce its new messaging service at Google I/O this week. Read more

Google combines free storage across Gmail, Drive and +Photos, 15GB for consumers, 30GB for Apps

Seth Weintraub

A nice little pre-I/O surprise today from Google: Everyone who uses Gmail, G+ Photos and Google Drive now gets 15GB of free space across all three platforms instead of the previous 10 GB for Gmail and another 5 GB for Drive and Google+ Photos. That’s a lot of combined space

We’ll also be making updates to the Google Drive storage page, so you can better understand how you’re using storage space. Simply hover over the pie chart to see a breakdown of your storage use across Drive, Gmail, and Google+ Photos. And if you need more storage, this is your place to upgrade, with plans starting at $4.99/month for 100 GB.

Pro tip: This change means you’re no longer limited to a 25 GB upgrade in Gmail—any additional storage you purchase now applies there, too.

These changes to Google Drive storage will roll out over the next couple of weeks. Google Apps users will also be getting shared storage, so visit the enterprise blog to learn more.

Enterprise users get 30GB between the three platforms. Read more

Boston drops Microsoft, switches 20,000 city employees to Google Apps

Jordan Kahn

Google Apps Logo Ring hires

Google has been signing up a lot of Google Apps for Government customers over the last year, including Colorado and the US Naval Academy, and today The Boston Globe reports that Boston is soon making the switch from Microsoft to a Google Apps environment for city employees.

As noted in the report, Boston was previously relying on Microsoft’s Exchange for much of its tasks and making the switch to Google will save the city around $280,000 a year:

It’s not just the gee whiz factor: It’s also a matter of money. It will cost Boston around $800,000 to move over to Gmail, Google Docs for word processing, and Google’s cloud service for storing documents. But by dropping some Microsoft products, the city government will save at least $280,000 a year.

Microsoft responded to the decision in a statement to the Boston Globe, claiming, “Google’s investments in these areas are inadequate, and they lack the proper protections most organizations require.” Read more

New ‘Save to Drive’ code makes it easy for website owners to deliver media to readers’ Google Drive accounts

Seth Weintraub

Google just announced a nice bit of API code that will allow developers to to make it easy for readers of websites to download files to their Google Drive account.

Adding a Save to Drive button on your website is easy. You simply have to include the script and HTML tag below:

<script src="https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js"></script>
<div
 data-filename="My Statement.pdf"
 data-sitename="My Company Name"
 data-src="/path/to/myfile.pdf">
</div>

It isn’t hard to see how this could come in handy.

Read more