Google

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As noted on the Official Google Blog, Google has now reached 20 million students using its Google Apps for Education products; and in celebration of World Teachers’ Day on Friday, the company posted some stats to highlight the product’s success. It is also highlighting amazing teachers on its Google in Education Google+ page. The first video (above) features Ms. Kornowski. She is “a science teacher at Kettle-Moraine High School in Wales, WI, who is using Google Forms to bring her students together.”

Some of the highlights of Google Apps for Education over the last year:

• 400+ universities are posting lectures and/or full courses online using YouTube Edu
• 600,000 staff from the Philippines Department of Education will now be using Google Apps
• Universities across the continents are signing up for Apps, including schools inPoland, Spain, the Netherlands and Africa
• More than 500 schools and districts went back to school with Chromebooks this fall
• Seven of the eight Ivy League universities and 72 of this year’s top 100 U.S. universities (as determined by 2013 U.S. News and World Report’s ranking)have gone Google with Google Apps for Education

Theocratic countries have blocked Google’s products left and right, but a new report from Reuters today indicated Iran is lifting its one-week-old block on Gmail due to a flurry of official complaints.

According to Reuters:

Iranian authorities have reopened access to Google Inc’s email service a week after blocking it, a government official and Iranians said on Monday.

Iran maintains one of the world’s largest Internet filters, blocking access to tens of thousands of websites on the grounds that they are criminal or immoral, but the block on Gmail had even prompted complaints in parliament.

Gmail reportedly went live again for Iranians Sunday night, after an official announced on Sept. 23 that Iran would block YouTube throughout the country “until further notice.” Committee Member Mohammad Reza Aghamiri told the Mehr news agency that Gmail’s ban was an ” unintended consequence” of trying to block YouTube. Various local news agencies attributed the banning of YouTube to a controversial anti-Islam film posted on Google’s video-sharing platform.

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Google announced on the Google Commerce blog today that it is finally bringing the previously tablet-only Google Catalogs shopping experience to the web. The catalogs will now be available to browse through any web browser as part of Google Shopping, and they will feature the same collection of issues from partners such as Eddie Bauer, J.Crew, and Williams Sonoma. To visit Google Catalogs on the web, go to www.google.com/shopping/catalogs

Once you find a catalog you like, click on the issue to open the catalog viewer where you can flip through catalog pages and zoom in to see products up close. To view information about specific products, roll your mouse over the page and click the tag for the product you’re interested in. This opens a box with more information, additional views, and price. Clicking ‘View Details’ takes you directly to the retailer’s site to learn more or make a purchase.

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YouTube is continuing its dominance in the online video space today by announcing plans to live stream the 2012 Presidential and Vice Presidential debates and launch AOL’s entire original video content library through 22 curated channels.

Woah. Google launched the YouTube Elections Hub in August as a complete video resource for all-things political until the U.S. Election Day on Nov. 6. The Hub features videos from politicians, parties, and well-known media, as well as shared coverage with live and on-demand content from ABC News, Al Jazeera English, BuzzFeed, Larry King, The New York Times, Phil DeFranco, Univision, and the Wall Street Journal.

Now, according to the official YouTube blog, Google announced the Hub would broadcast the four general election debates starting Oct. 3 at 9 p.m. EST:

Throughout the month of October, President Barack Obama and Republican Presidential nominee Mitt Romney will go head-to-head in a series of highly-anticipated general election debates. This year, for the first time, you can watch the debates live and in full on the YouTube Elections Hub, via our partners at ABC News, who will be live streaming all four debates on the ABC News YouTube channel. No matter where you are in the world or how you’ll be accessing the internet, you’ll be able to watch the most important events of the 2012 election on YouTube.

YouTube will also post highlight clips at YouTube.com/politics after the debate for the busy folks unable to tune-in live.

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Google’s Market cap passed Microsoft this morning for the first time, as first noted by a Bloomberg news tweet.

[tweet https://twitter.com/BloombergNews/statuses/252764243567464450]

Google trailed Microsoft by $19 billion earlier this year. The Mountain View, Calif.-based company closed the Market cap gap in just 10 months, however, forcing the once-goliath Microsoft to now walk in the footpaths of Google and Apple as the world’s most valuable tech companies.

Check out the fight in realtime: 

• Google Market cap
• Microsoft Market cap

Microsoft currently boasts a $3 billion lead over Google, according to Business Insider, which cited Yahoo Finance, but their points are bound to sway if Google continues to swell.

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Google just combined Trends and Insights for Search into one product.

According to Google Support:

We have launched a new version of Google Trends, bringing the great functionality of both Google Insights and Google Trends into one. Following the release of the revamped of hot trends and the special olympics addition, this release should make it even easier for you to tell stories about search and explore what people are interested in around the world.

As these product are now one, Insights for Search is being deprecated. We are working hard to make sure that any URLs you might have stored for Insights/Trends will be gracefully handled by the new united site.

Google Trends previously detailed how often a particular term is Google searched relative to the total volume of searches conducted across the world; where as Google Insights for Search provided, well, insights into those search terms. Unlike Trends, Insights for Search also provided a visual graph.

Now, both products have been folded and redesigned into a fancy new tool:

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Google has updated its Books app experience on Android, which already features over 4 million books in the United States, Canada, Germany, Australia, Italy, France, Korea, Spain, and Japan. The latest version of the app introduces a number of new features including: highlighting, dictionary, notes, and new “Places” info cards.

In addition to including dictionary definitions when tapping on words, Google highlighted some of the new features in a post on its official Android blog:

Starting today, when you come across an unfamiliar geographic location—a faraway city or distant mountain range—you can tap on the location to learn more about it. You’ll see an info card with a Google Map and the option to get more information by searching on Google or Wikipedia.

Also in the update is the ability to translate words and phrases to a number of currently supported languages. Other features include:

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNhyt107c88]

Update: During a Q&A following the signing of Google’s autonomous car bill today, Sergey Brin was asked how long until the public would be using the vehicles. While noting he plans for a broader subset of employees to test the vehicles in the near future, Brin noted he expects the public to begin using the vehicles within 5 years. Sergey also noted the company has had conversations with many car manufacturers but Google doesn’t currently have plans to build cars itself.

“Self driving cars do not run red lights” -Sergey

In a tweet from the Google Public Policy Twitter account, Google noted today that California Gov. Jerry Brown will be signing its autonomous vehicle bill supporting Google’s effort to bring its self-driving cars to public roads. Google will be streaming the signing at 1pm PT on the Google YouTube Channel (embedded above).

[tweet https://twitter.com/googlepubpolicy/status/250636721073557504]

The Bay Citizen reports Google is now only awaiting approval from Gov. Jerry Brown as its driverless car bill passed 37-0 in the Senate and 74-2 in the Assembly. The bill, which was put together by legislative staffer Howard Posner and sponsored by state Sen. Alex Padilla, would allow Google and other companies to test their driverless cars on public roads and require new laws governing the operation of the vehicles in public:

Padilla’s bill, SB 1298, would allow companies to test self-driven cars on public roads and require the DMV to draft rules governing use of the vehicles by the public. The measure also would define a car’s “operator” as the person sitting in the driver’s seat, or if there’s no one in the driver’s seat, the person who “causes the autonomous technology to engage.”… In its final form, the bill would give the DMV authority to reject the use of driverless cars that did not meet its standards. The measure also would require that owners be notified about what data their car is collecting, but it did not resolve questions of liability.

Google provided a statement to The Bay Citizen in an email:

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoTGW8QMuPA&feature=player_embedded]

Netflix just announced a new user-interface experience for Android smartphones.

“Compared to the previous version, the new Netflix experience on Android phones is much more immersive,” explained Netflix on its official blog. “It is much closer to the Netflix experience on tablets, which got a major upgrade late last year.”

The updated app now shows more titles and galleries, bringing it up to par with the tablet version, and it features a new browse row at the top of the screen that lets users continue watching content previously started. Just tap the browse menu to access genre lists.

The Instant Queue, which is available in select regions, is now on the Home screen under the Top 10 list, and a new experience area further below displays several rows filled with personalized recommendations. Tap on any title to view more information or double-tap to start instant playback.

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Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus is the first smartphone at Verizon to get Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, announced the leading 4G LTE carrier today, with the software upgrade rolling out over Wi-Fi now.

Those interested in getting the latest, buttery-smooth version of Android can go to System Updates under the “About Phone” Setting’s menu. As noted, a Wi-Fi network is required to complete the download. The update comes to Verizon more than three months after Jelly Bean was released on the GSM version of the Galaxy Nexus.

“The interface on Jelly Bean is also the most responsive Android OS to date,” said Verizon in its announcement. “Customers can interact with messages, photos, emails and event details from the notification screen, allowing them to directly access important information without navigating their phone.

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Google announced today on the Google Drive blog that it is updating Google spreadsheets with some new editing options and enhanced charts. The first update is the ability to click directly on any aspect of a chart to edit its colors, labels, legend, etc., without having to open the chart editor. The new quick edit mode (pictured above) will definitely make the app quicker and easier to use by providing the ability to edit the chart title, horizontal or vertical axis, legend, or any data series in just a few or less clicks.

Many chart types allow you to make formatting changes by clicking directly into the chart itself. Clicking anywhere in a line, area, bar, column, pie or candlestick chart, for example, will activate Quick Edit mode. You can then hover and click into specific areas of your chart that you’d like to modify… When you use Quick Edit, two buttons will appear in the top-left corner of your chart: View mode and Quick Edit mode. When you click into a chart, you’ll initially find yourself in Quick Edit mode. When you’re done making changes, click View mode.

You will also now be able to enter a Move and Resize mode that Google explained would allow you to “drag the edges of the chart and move it around to allow things like the legend labels to all fit on one line.” You can access the new resizing option (pictured below) by clicking the background of a chart and a selecting “Move and Resize”.

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Are you ready for the latest breakdown of Android’s performance ahead of Apple’s iPhone 5 event tomorrow afternoon? Android boss Andy Rubin just announced this evening that 500 million Android devices have been activated to date, which follows Eric Schmidt’s announcement of 480,000 devices last week. Rubin reiterated Schmidt’s announcement, claiming 1.3 million Android devices are being activated daily (70,000 of which are tablets). Last week, we calculated Google could hit a whopping 1 billion devices activated in a year’s time at its current growth. Tonight’s announcement was definitely interesting timing.

[tweet https://twitter.com/Arubin/status/245663570812100608]

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The Wall Street Journal published a report with some new information on the interface for the Google Glasses:

In all, the glasses are like a wearable smartphone, allowing the user to take pictures, send messages and perform other functions via voice-activated commands. For instance, say “OK, Glass” into one of the glasses’ two microphones and a menu pops off to the side of your vision showing icons that will let you take a picture, record a video, use Google Maps or make a phone call.

After 10 minutes of playing with the glasses—which the company prefers to call Google Glass, since they don’t have lenses—I could see their long-term potential. The device fit well. It was easy to snap a picture or video without taking my smartphone out of my pocket. It was cool to see the information there in front of my right eye, though a little disorienting. I kept closing my left eye, which was uncomfortable.

Mr. Brin said his favorite feature is the time-lapse capability that lets him snap photos of his kids every 10 seconds when he is playing with them. “I never think about taking out my phone,” he said. “That would really be disruptive to my play time.”

“I have always disliked the feeling that with technology I am spending a lot of my time and attention managing it,” added Mr. Brin, dressed casually in a white T-shirt and jeans. “The notion of seamlessly having access to your digital world without disrupting the real world is very important.”

The reporter used the glasses at the DVF Fashion show in New York City this week (Gallery). It sounds like the interface options are progressing since I wore the headset briefly at Google I/O in June. However, we are still a long way from a usable product.

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