​Modern browsers for modern applications

The web has evolved in the last ten years, from simple text pages to rich, interactive applications including video and voice. Unfortunately, very old browsers cannot run many of these new features effectively. So to help ensure your business can use the latest, most advanced web apps, we encourage you to update your browsers as soon as possible. There are many choices:

Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.0+

Mozilla Firefox 3.0+

Google Chrome 4.0+

Safari 3.0+

Many other companies have already stopped supporting older browsers like Internet Explorer 6.0 as well as browsers that are not supported by their own manufacturers. We’re also going to begin phasing out our support, starting with Google Docs and Google Sites. As a result you may find that from March 1 key functionality within these products -- as well as new Docs and Sites features -- won’t work properly in older browsers.

2010 is going to be a great year for Google Apps and we want to ensure that everyone can make the most of what we are developing. Please take the time to switch your organization to the most up-to-date browsers available.

Posted by Rajen Sheth, Google Apps Senior Product Manager


Official Google Enterprise Blog: ​Modern browsers for modern applications

Upload your files and access them anywhere with Google Docs

Over the next few weeks, we’re rolling out the ability to upload all file types to the cloud through Google Docs, giving you one place where you can upload and access your key files online. Because Google Docs now supports files up to 250 MB in size, which is larger than the attachment limit on most email applications, you’ll be able to backup large graphics files, RAW photos, ZIP archives and much more to the cloud. More importantly, instead of carrying a USB drive, you can now use Google Docs as a more convenient option for accessing your files on different computers.

This feature can also help you work with teams to organize and collaborate on information online. For example, an architect can share large schematic files with her construction firm, while a P.T.A. member can share large graphic files for posters with other members. You can even add these files to the same shared project folder your team has already been using to collaborate on documents and spreadsheets.

In addition to uploading any file into Google Docs, our Google Apps Premier Edition customers will be able to seamlessly upload many files at once and sync them with their desktop in real time using third party applications. You can read more about how the ability to upload any file will help businesses on theGoogle Enterprise blog.

This feature will be enabled for your account over the next couple of weeks — look for the bubble notification when you sign in to Google Docs. For more information, check out our post on the Google Docs blog.

Official Google Blog: Upload your files and access them anywhere with Google Docs

Google Voice returns to iPhone, thanks to VoiceCentral

Ever since Apple rejected Google Voice from the App Store, Google, as well as Voice users have been steaming. Sure, you can place a call or send a text via the Google Voice website, but in mobile Safari is not exactly the iPhone experience that users are accustomed to. Google Voice's website does not allow for a seamless and easy to use experience via a mobile browser.

TechCrunch is reporting that VoiceCentral, whose third-party Google Voice app was also removed from the App Store, will bring Google Voice back to the iPhone. Interestingly though, it will do it via the browser, completely bypassing Apple's app restrictions and revenue sharing. The experience will look and feel exactly as it would were it a normal app (swiping and all). Black Swan, as they're calling it, will feature everything you'd expect, with the only exception being your contacts. You will first need to import your contacts into your Google account before being able to use them.

Another slight annoyance, according to VoiceCentral, is that when you listen to voicemails, the audio will come from the speakers, and not the earpiece. This is due to the iPhone's way of routing audio from websites (using headphones will avoid this problem). Other than that, the app should look and feel like any other iPhone app. It even has offline support, allowing access to previously received transcriptions and texts. Black Swan is coming in early 2010. You can sign up for the limited beta at their website.

Here what it can do:

* Place calls through Google Voice™
* Browse your recent call history
* Listen to your voicemails
* Read and send SMS messages
* Import Google Voice™ contacts for easy dialing/SMS
* Review your billing and transaction history
* It can even be used offline to browse your contacts, call history, voicemails, and SMS messages. (Note: listening to voicemails still requires a connection just like the native app.)

Read full story...

Google Goggles, Mobile Visual Search

Google revealed some details about an upcoming mobile application that lets you upload photos and returns relevant information.

Google is working on Google Visual Search, a mobile application that lets users take a picture of a location from their Android-powered smartphone and trigger a Google search that pulls up information associated with the image.

"Imagine you're a tourist and you arrive at this place and you would like to know more about it, all you will have to do is take a shot of the [Santa Monica pier] sign and you see we recognized this as the Santa Monica pier," [Google Product Manager Hartmut] Neven said.

However, the technology, known internally as Google Goggles, didn't pass muster when Google tested it with a focus group in August. The company's engineers are working out the bugs and building out the immense database required to propel the technology.



Neven Vision, a company acquired by Google in 2006, had several patents on mobile visual search and object recognition, including a patent for an "image-based search engine for mobile phones with camera".

Source:
http://googlesystem.blogspot.com

Push mail for iPhone and Windows Mobile: the choice is yours

We believe that our customers should be able to access their information on the mobile device of their choice, using the applications of their choice. That's why we're excited today to announce support for push mail on iPhone and Windows Mobile devices. Google Apps now offers a complete mobile sync solution for businesses.

Apps customers who love native mobile applications can now get push mail, contacts and calendar across the major corporate devices: Blackberry, iPhone, Windows Mobile and of course, Android. With the over-the-air, always-on push connections, emails and changes to calendar events and contacts are reflected very quickly on their phones. And for those who prefer the mobile web, we also offer web applications for a rich experience, like threaded conversations and search across the entire inbox.

Google Sync is free to all Google Apps customers, and can be enabled by domain administrators in the US English version of the administrative control panel. If you're already using Google Sync for contacts and calendar, push mail is automatically enabled. iPhone and Windows Mobile users can set up Google Sync in a few easy steps directly from their phones, and those already syncing Calendar and Contacts can simply enable Mail sync on their phones. Google Sync is also available for people with personal Gmail and Google Calendar accounts.

You can read more about Google Sync here, and learn about our solutions for all devices, like Google Apps Connector for BlackBerry Enterprise Server, on Google Apps mobile access page.

Official Google Enterprise Blog: Push mail for iPhone and Windows Mobile: the choice is yours

Google Apps and Government

Everyone benefits from cloud computing, though few stand to benefit more than government. The cloud helps agencies at all levels increase productivity, cut costs, keep pace with technology innovation, and become more open and transparent with their citizens.

That's why we were pleased to join other industry leaders today at NASA's Ames Research Center to hear Vivek Kundra, the CIO of the US Federal Government, announce the launch of Apps.gov. Apps.gov is an online storefront that makes it easy for federal agencies to browse and purchase cloud-based IT services from a variety of service providers, including Google. The cloud is coming of age, and we applaud the Obama Administration's efforts to ensure our government realizes its many advantages.

We also want to do our part to make it easier for government to transition to cloud computing. We recognize that government agencies have unique regulatory and compliance requirements for IT systems, and cloud computing is no exception. So we've invested a lot of time in understanding government's needs and how they relate to cloud computing. To help meet those requirements we're taking two important steps:

• FISMA certification for Google Apps. In July, we announced our intent to secure certification for Google Apps to demonstrate compliance with the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA), the law defining security requirements that must be met by all US Federal government information systems. Our FISMA process is nearing completion. We will submit a Certification and Accreditation (C&A) package to the U.S. Government before the end of this year. Upon review and approval of the Google Apps C&A package, agencies will be able to deploy Google Apps knowing that it is authorized to operate under FISMA.
  
  
• Dedicated Google cloud for government customers in the US. Today, we're excited to announce our intent to create a government cloud, which we expect to become operational in 2010. Offering the same services and features as our existing commercial cloud (such as Google Apps), this dedicated environment within existing Google facilities in the US will serve the unique needs of US federal, state, and local governments. It is similar to a "Community Cloud" as defined by the National Institute for Science and Technology. The government cloud will allow Google to manage and meet additional government policy requirements beyond FISMA.

We look forward to working with governments across the country on these exciting initiatives in the months ahead.


Official Google Enterprise Blog: Google Apps and Government

Composing a message? Try the contact chooser

When composing messages, you probably rely pretty heavily on auto-complete to add recipients. Auto-complete is convenient and fast, and usually does the trick. But sometimes seeing your list of contacts can help you remember all the people you want to include on your email. So, we've added a contact chooser to Gmail. Click the "To:" link (or Cc:/Bcc:) when composing a message and you'll see something like this:


You can click on the contacts you want to add or search for others.

If you use contact groups, your groups will appear in a drop-down menu in the contact chooser, so you can select contacts from the groups you've already created. And if you happen to use Gmail in Chinese, Japanese or Korean, being able to pick from your list of contacts should be particularly useful since auto-complete doesn't offer the same search as you type experience that it does in other languages.


Official Gmail Blog: Composing a message? Try the contact chooser

Knowledge speaks but wisdom listens

Today we're pleased to announce a new Google Labs application for Android-powered devices in the US called, Listen. Listen quickly finds podcasts and web audio relevant to your searches, lets you stream over-the-air or download for later, and subscribe to fresh content from your favorite feeds and searches. In short, Listen helps organize the world of audio information and makes it easily accessible anytime, anywhere. And if you agree with the Jimi Hendrix quote that is the title of this post, then Listen may actually make you wiser, too.

Listen lets you stay informed even while engaged in other activities. Our colleagues use Listen as a personal audio-magazine while exercising, commuting, gardening, cleaning, dressing, cooking, and more*.



Source Images:googlemobile.blogspot.com

Official Google Mobile Blog: "Knowledge speaks but wisdom listens."

Google Voice Apps For Android And Blackberry Are Here

Google Voice is now more useful for BlackBerry and Android users. It has released apps for both platforms that provide access to the service’s features. With Google Voice mobile app for Blackberry and Android, users can now make calls and send SMS messages with their Google Voice number directly from their mobile phone. The app is fully integrated with each phone’s contacts, so they can call via Google Voice straight from the address book.

The main function of the apps is to make it easier to use your Google Voice phone number by automatically routing outbound calls through Google and to the recipient. Google Voice users get a phone number that should be the only number that they give out to people.

You route calls to mobile, home and other phones based on who’s calling and when. But there’s always been a nagging problem with the service - when you call out from your phones, people don’t see your Google Voice number on caller ID. They just see whatever phone number you are calling from. That means your friends have to store another phone number for you, or they don’t know who’s calling.

The Apps also allow users to access the core features of Google Voice. Listen to/read voice-mails and text messages (all voice-mails are automatically transcribed as well), access call history, send SMS and place international calls at low rates.

If you use more than one mobile, Google voice enables you to use one number for all of them, along with the ability to make outgoing text messages and calls, and international rates that start from US2c per minute.

Google Voice now seamless integrates with your phone’s address book, and when you call or text someone they see your Google Voice number rather than your mobile number.

You can also view your call history and, via the transcription feature, read your voice-mail – yes you read that right.

Google engineering manager David Singleton and product manager Marcus Foster assured that they were working on an iPhone app as well, and said it’s possible to use many Google Voice features via the mobile website.

Unsubscribing made easy

We believe you should only get the mail you want to get. Some of you already use the "Report Spam" button on all kinds of unwanted email, and for that we're very thankful: the more spam you mark, the better our system gets at weeding out junk mail.

Unsubscribing from mailing lists and newsletters you subscribed to a while back but no longer want to receive should be just as easy. Searching through individual messages for little unsubscribe links is too big a pain —you should be able to unsubscribe with a single click.



So we just launched something that makes this all work better, both for Gmail users and big email senders. Now, when you report spam on a legitimate newsletter or mailing list, we'll help you unsubscribe. After clicking report spam, you'll see a little dialog like this

Official Gmail Blog: Unsubscribing made easy

Faster & Easier Version iGoogle for Android and iPhone

Google rolled out a new version of its iGoogle page ,for the Android and iPhone platforms. New features include the ability to access more of your tabs and improved gadget support for interacting with your content. After killing the special version of the iGoogle personalized home page for the iPhone and Android devices wayback in January, it created quite a bit of furore. Google at that time explained that they are looking forward to provide a consistent experience across all devices. For the last five months iPhone and Android users navigating to iGoogle.com saw the generic mobile version of iGoogle, a bare bones implementation that has the virtue of running on your old RAZR, but which unfortunately gave iPhone or G1 users an old RAZR like user experience.

This enhanced faster and easier version of its iGoogle page is a worthy replacement for the old iPhone/Android specific iGoogle with support for all desktop iGoogle widgets except those that are Flash based. Each widget appears as a large button initially, which when tapped expands to reveal its content. The new iGoogle is not the default, it’s offered as a “Try the new Mobile iGoogle!” option to iPhone and Android users (only) visiting iGoogle.com.

Everyone loves iGoogle because of the availability of the interesting information all day long. You can read a little bit of news here and there, glance at finance portfolios, take a look at the weather forecast, and then do a Google search. It doesn't require a big commitment of time and energy — it's simply there for us whenever we need it. This kind of availability is even more important on a phone, where it can take a long time to surf. That's why iGoogle is so convenient on mobile devices. When you're waiting in line, you can check iGoogle on your phone for a quick "info snack" — even in areas with mediocre network coverage. iGoogle now supports more gadgets, though Google is sure to point out that those gadgets requiring Flash still won't work.

This new version is faster and easier to use. It supports tabs as well as more of your favorite gadgets, including those built by third-party developers. There are a lot of powerful JavaScript capable browsers on devices other than the iPhone and Android that could possibly handle this richer iGoogle Mobile.

Next in the line is the new tabbed view. This lines up your content in a way that is easy to rifle through quickly to find exactly what you want.

For feed-based gadgets, this version has an in-line display of articles. Users can thus read their article summaries without having to leave the page. In addition to this, users can also rearrange their gadget order or choose to keep their favorite gadgets open in the browser. This will allow them to easily access the gadgets on their next visit.

The best part, Google claims is that none of these changes will alter the layout of gadgets on users’ desktop computer. They can now play around and tune their mobile experience. This new version of iGoogle for mobile is available in 38 languages. Users can visit the iGoogle website in their mobile browser and tap ‘Try the new Mobile iGoogle’ to use this tool.

Google launches push services on BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES)

Google Apps Connector for BES is a piece of software developed by Google that sits on the BES and pushes your Google services to your BlackBerry. The software allows users to access Gmail, Google Calendar and Contacts using the built-in BlackBerry applications they already know and love.

This latest news from Google is intended to help small to medium sized businesses save costs on email services, while improving the overall BES email experience. Users can now instantly receive Gmail messages within the built-in email client on their Blackberry and they can continue to use the same shortcuts to manage their BlackBerry messages.

Although the calendar currently only supports 1-way syncing, 2-way syncing is on the way. This represents the Google mentality of launching a product early, as soon as it is functional for a large group of people. Research found that only power-users are looking for 2-way sync, and that the majority of BlackBerry users use their device for read only functionality.

Users can also access the email addresses and phone numbers of their co-workers using a company wide Global Address List. Both personal and business contacts saved on Google Apps are automatically synchronized over the air to users’ BlackBerry devices and integrated into the native Blackberry applications.

It was important for Google to make the transition for IT administrators easy. Admins are given full control of the solution and can continue to manage BlackBerry devices using the BES. Google Apps Connector installs on the BES, connecting it to the Google Apps cloud and synchronizing email, calendar and contacts for all users.

Google Apps Connector for BES is currently in beta testing with select companies and universities, and will be available free of charge to all Premier and Education Edition customers this July. Those of you who enjoy the Gmail experience with conversations, labels and full search capabilities can continue to use Gmail for Mobile.

More:http://www.blackberrycool.com

Google Apps Engine now has a paid model

 

• $0.10 per CPU core hour of computing
• $0.10 per GB of inbound traffic and $0.12 per GB of outbound traffic
• $0.15 per GB of data stored by the application
• $0.0001 per email sent by the application

Full Details are here: http://googleappengine.blogspot.com/ 

A longer write up on google apps engine  and how google can make it useful  is at: http://gigaom.com/2008/12/03/chromes-extensions-the-missing-piece-for-google-apps/