Mac

The latest version of Picasa includes an additional bit of software called Google+ Auto Backup, as reported by Google Operating System. The new software can be used to automatically backup photos and videos from user-selected directories to your Google+ account. Interestingly, the app has nothing to do with the Picasa service, even though it ships exclusively with the Picasa app.

The app can save unlimited 2048px photos to your account, or upload full-quality versions at the expense of Google Drive space. It can also intelligently copy media from storage cards and other devices that are attached to the system. Furthermore, the app can be configured to backup all media to a designated location on the local hard drive, putting all of your backed-up media in one convenient place.

You can get the Google+ Auto Backup app by downloading the latest version of Picasa.

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNBBijn4JuY]

Google announced today on Google+ that it’s releasing a new extension for Chrome that will enable hands-free activation of the voice search features it rolled out earlier this year. Google announced the conversational voice search features for Chrome back in May and has been updating it on various platforms since, but previously users had to actually click a microphone icon to activate voice search on the desktop.

Now, like on Android 4.4 devices and within the Google Now mobile apps, using the extension users will be able to simply say “OK Google” to initiate a search:
Expand
Expanding
Close

Last month we reported that Google’s slick new “Google+ Photos” app that launched exclusively on the Chromebook Pixel could possibly be making its way to Mac & PC. The proof came from a newly posted listing on the Chrome Web Store that made references to auto-uploading features specifically for OS X and Windows. Unfortunately, launching the app would give users a “not supported on this platform” error message. While Google has yet to officially launch the Mac and PC versions of the Chrome app, there is a way to bypass the error message and enable the app now.
Expand
Expanding
Close

Google on Tuesday began rolling out Chrome 28 to Windows and Mac users, though the main selling point of the update is only available to the former of those operating systems. With this update, Windows users will begin to see richer notifications than in previous builds. The rich notifications have been available in the beta build of Chrome for Windows for over a month, but only now is it rolling out to all users.

The new notifications offer a way to easily and quickly reply to emails, see calendar alerts, control music, and more. If you miss a handful of alerts, you can open up the new “notification center” to view them all at once.

We’ve designed these notifications to be beautiful, useful and engaging. They can display formatted text and images, and can include actions directly inside the pop-up (so you can respond to that email right away). Missed a bunch of notifications while you were taking a coffee break? No problem — you can open up the notification center to see them all in one place.

During its Google I/O keynote earlier this month, Google announced that it would be bringing conversational, Google-Now like voice search to the desktop. Using a UI similar to voice search and Google Now in its mobile apps, Google would soon allow Chrome users to search and drill down further into results using only their voice.

Today, Google appears to have finally started rolling out the feature for Chrome users on the stable and beta channels of Chrome.

After updating to the latest version 27.0.1453.93 of Chrome, users can navigate to Google.com, click the microphone icon, and choose to allow the new Google Voice search feature to begin listening. Google will only ask for permission to listen once and from then on users can simply speak in order to search. For certain search results such as questions Google will also provide audible results.

Not all of the functionality seems to be available as of yet. For example, when Google first showed off the feature users weren’t required to click at all. Google execs were activating the feature by simply saying “Ok, Google” and were able to continue searching with their voice, hands-free, from on the search results page. The feature as it’s currently implemented now requires users to click the mic icon in order to start a voice search.
Expand
Expanding
Close

Along with the release of the long-awaited Google Drive, Google also released a slick Mac app accompanying the service. However, it looks like the Google Drive for Mac app is causing some issues for some. Over on the Google Products Forums, the amount of users complaining that Drive is causing Finder on OS X to crash is growing. One of our readers, Mike, reported Finder crashing a whopping eight times since he installed Drive earlier this afternoon and has included the crash report to prove it.

Also, in the thread, user robbysibrahim said the issue stopped for him when he paused syncing. This obviously is not a permanent solution, but it should work until Google rolls out an official fix. A Google support member joined the thread in hopes of helping the users, but his suggestions have not provided a fix.

Right now, it is a little unclear why this is happening. However, we have reached out to Google in the hopes of hearing back. This is obviously very frustrating for users who want to try Google Drive on launch day. Are you seeing similar issues? Cheers, Mike!

Expand
Expanding
Close

Google rolled out a nice little update for Google Cloud Print support today. While mentioning a number of new features added to the service such as the ability to control printer access, save to Google Docs, and a new tablet-friendly UI for the management page, they also announced site owners can now add the print button element for smartphones and tablets to their sites.

Other new additions to Google Cloud Print– those using the latest release of Chrome on Mac, Windows, or Linux can print any webpage, and Chromebook users will now have access to print preview. Google also notes they look forward to rolling out the service across products and platforms.

These features continue the rollout of GCP, which has connected more than 6 million printers since launch, and added a number of new supported products from companies like HP, Epson, and Kodak. You can get a full list of supported products here, and check out Chrome extensions and apps that currently have access to the service.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Tab for Google+ is an app available on the Mac App Store that brings Google+’s web functionality to the Mac desktop. The app is available for free and offers just about every feature plus.google.com offers — except Hangouts. Upon logging in via your Google account, you’ll be greeted with the main sections of the app: Streams, Photos, Circles, Profile and Notifications.

The sections follow suit with the functionality of the website. Streams and Photos curates content from the people you’re following. Circles allows you to see your list of circles and the content coming in from each specific one. Lastly, Notifications let’s you know what’s going on with your account.

Of course, this application won’t replace Google+’s website, rather it’s just a nice app that sits in your applications bar to view while you work. Perhaps if the website is more your thing, check out Google+ for Mac which is essentially just a browser window. We’re hearing the developer is working to make it native though. Check out another screenshot after the break:

Download Tab for Google+ — Download Google+ for Mac

Expand
Expanding
Close

Looks like a guy in the above image has a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 hooked up to his MacBook Air. I bet he’s manually dropping some files from the Mac notebook to his brand spanking new tablet, which is easy because Android devices mount as external USB storage.

That’s pretty much everything he can do, though. That is, unless he was using Eltima Software’s SyncMate, an all-around syncing application for the Mac. It’s been around for ages and in most recent version they added support for Android devices. Read on…

Expand
Expanding
Close