Tag: Google

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Google Finally Merging Google Voice with Hangouts, Offers Free Voice Calling

hangouts1It’s about damn time!

Ahem…

Having lived in limbo for a while now, Google is finally updating Google Voice by making it a part of the Hangouts service. Google Voice allows users to send phone calls to multiple phone numbers, and manage text messages and voice mail from a web browser or app.

An update to Hangouts, rolling out over the next couple days will now absorb those Google Voice features, allowing you to make calls and send texts through your Google Voice number, and you’ll be able to make free voice and video calls through the app.

Google’s full PR is below.

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Glass Explorer Edition Now Available in Google Play Store

google glass in google play storeGlass is taking another step towards being a commercial product. Google is now offering the Explorer Edition in the Google Play store.

They’re slowly walking away from the previous invite system, and they’ve flirted with selling Glass at events and kiosks, and recently had a limited time open invitation for new Explorers. Now anyone who wants to jump on board can grab Google’s wearable eye-level computer. They are also selling frames and earbud accessories alongside Glass.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t come with any pricing breaks, and you’ll still drop $1500 to own a Glass of your very own. Still, we can consider this progress, and some small sign that Google still has faith in the project while we wait out a more reasonably priced consumer edition.

Google Glass in the Google Play Store.

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Youtube Uploading Currently Broken for Many Content Producers

youtube failingStarting some time during the day August 8th 2014, Google’s servers stopped processing new videos. Even my channel has been affected as I’ve had three video uploads utterly fail to process. There are few things more frustrating than writing out a description, and filling a video full of tags (which can’t be copied out of their tag section) only to have the video bork, and have all of that writing lost.

This issue comes only a day or so off of significant changes to how Google organizes tags. One might wonder if that has anything to do with the current processing error.

We totally understand that these can happen, no system can have 100% up time, but some notification to producers that you’re aware of the issue and working on a fix might be nice Youtube? Also, when a video fails, maybe give us the ability to open the video description notes and tags as plain text for us to copy, so we don’t have to re-write all of that content manually.

We’ll keep you posted on when it’s safe to try re-uploading your cat vids and vlogs. Stay strong. Stay safe. We will persevere…

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Google Voice Now Allows for Calls Through Hangouts

google voice hangoutsProgress has been painfully slow, but eventually Google Voice and Hangouts will merge into one super app of calling and communication. Recently we’ve been looking for changes to the Hangouts app, but Google has just announced an update to Voice that shows they are walking these two services together.

Alex Wiesen, a Manager at Google, posted this to G+ yesterday:

When I’m travelling I like to call my family from the Google Voice website on my laptop, but without a phone handy, it’s a little hard to use. To make things easier, we’ve just added Hangouts as an option when making calls from the web. It works even if you aren’t using Hangouts in Gmail, and doesn’t require a Google+ account. Try it the next time you place a call from the Google Voice website — I think it’s a much easier way to keep in touch with people.

You can check out the update now logging into Google Voice on a desktop browser. Hopefully this means we’ll eventually see updates to the mobile apps for these services soon.

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Chromecast Turns 1 – Offers up Three Free Months of Play Music All Access to Celebrate!

google chromecast tv hdmi dongle somegadgetguyHappy Birthday Chromecast!

Google’s little, inexpensive, wunder-streaming HDMI stick is now a one year old, and no birthday should ever pass without celebrating it with presents. Google’s gift to Chromecast users is a free three month trial of Play Music All Access. The caveat is you can’t already be signed up for the All Access service, so those of us all ready paying for it aren’t invited to the party.

If you do have a Chromecast, head over to chromecast.com/offers to sign up!

 

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Mirror your Android Screen on Your TV Through Chromecast

One of the most requested features asked of Chromecast was the ability to broadcast our phone or tablet’s screen on our TV. Looks like that’ll be finally coming our way!

Announced on the Chrome Blog today, there will be a new menu setting in the Chromecast app allowing you to broadcast what’s on your screen. Through other apps we could send videos, photos, and music, but now we’ll be able to cast a game or even just a home screen if we want to show off on a larger TV screen.

The 1.7 update of the Chromecast app will be rolling out soon supporting popular handsets from LG, HTC, Samsung and more. Nexus devices will of course be able to jump in on the fun too.  Full PR below.

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Pre-Cut “Oculus Thrift” Google Cardboard VR Headset Kit Available on Amazon

google cardboardDuring Google I/O this year, one of the biggest hits actually came by way of an inexpensive cardboard shell. Like when you buy a kid an expensive toy and they’d rather play with the packaging…

Google Cardboard is designed for developers to start inexpensively developing apps for 3D and VR. A cardboard shell sets up like an old Viewmaster toy, and it uses your phone screen as the display. It might look a bit silly, but what was demonstrated at I/O was actually quite sophisticated, with magnets for orientation and NFC tags inside to launch the special split-screen mode for your phone.

Now you can also buy a pre-cut kit from a company called Smart Exhibits on Amazon. If you don’t want to bother with all that cardboard slicing, they have you covered for $10. Though you’ll have to supply your own magnets, lenses, and NFC tags…

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Google Retiring QuickOffice, Migrating all Features to Docs, Sheets, and Slides Apps

google pulling quickoffice from play storeDuring Google I/O we heard about native Office document support, and we were pretty sure that was built on the QuickOffice platform.

It looks like after Google Docs receives the updates to natively edit Office files, Google will be properly retiring QuickOffice from the Play store.  From the Google Apps Update blog:

With the integration of Quickoffice into the Google Docs, Sheets and Slides apps, the Quickoffice app will be unpublished from Google Play and the App Store in the coming weeks. Existing users with the app can continue to use it, but no features will be added and new users will not be able to install the app.

Short and sweet. Google acquired and retired in around two years. Fret not though as Drive and Docs will be getting much better soon…

 

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