Gmail now recognizes email addresses from non-Latin alphabets
Since the beginning of time — or at least since email was invented — most email services have required the use of non-accented characters from the Latin alphabet for each individual’s address. It’s inconvenient for those who don’t natively use that alphabet, which means that more than half of the world’s population have been frustrated. Here comes Google to the rescue: Gmail (and soon to be Calendar, we’re told) now recognizes email addresses that have accented characters or use non-Latin alphabets, so you’ll be able to send and receive correspondence to these types of addresses as much as you want, and soon Gmail will let you create non-Latin accounts to call your own.
It’s all thanks to an email standard established by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) two years ago. Now it’s simply up to each individual email service to officially support that standard. Gmail isn’t the first email service to give it a shot. A provider in Taiwan is currently conducting a public trial, and Chinese email addresses began surfacing as early as 2003. But with the standard now set, we’ll likely start seeing more providers follow Google’s footsteps.
[Image credit: Getty Images, Google]
Filed under: Misc, Software, Google
Source: Google Blog
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Google pulls Gaza-themed Android app from Play Store following outcry
Google regularly screens Android apps in the Play Store, but it’s usually focused on blocking malware and scams rather than the substance of the apps themselves. Today, though, it took the rare step of policing content by removing Bomb Gaza, a game that made light of the current conflict between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas. A spokesman would only tell Reuters that it pulls apps which “violate [the company’s] policies,” but the forced exit came not long after outrage from Play Store users who felt that the game trivialized very real casualties. Most likely, Google took the title down due to terms of service that forbid hate speech and abusive material; users can flag apps they find offensive, so it wouldn’t have taken much to prompt action. While the move isn’t completely surprising as a result, it’s a reminder that Google will clamp down when software is virtually tailor-made for antagonizing entire cultures.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Google
Source: Reuters
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WhatsApp for Android Wear will have you talking to your wrist
With over 500 million active users, WhatsApp probably has more than a few customers sporting Android Wear. Starting today, those folks will be able to read and reply to messages directly from their wrist. The new features are launching somewhat quietly though — the App’s Google Play listing hasn’t been updated yet, and the direct link on WhatsApp’s website makes no mention of the smartwatch features — but users who update manually will find a new app installed on their Google Wear device. It’s more than a simple notification push, too: users can read stacked conversation messages and even reply to them using voice. The update will probably hit Google’s servers soon, but if you can’t wait you can grab the official download right here.
Filed under: Wearables, Google
Source: WhatsApp, 9to5Google
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Android Wear app tries to squeeze Wikipedia onto your wrist
Android Wear will soon be buzzing our wrists numb with notifications, but what else can you do on such tiny screens? An app called Attopedia is testing those limits by letting you browse Wikipedia on your smartwatch. The logic is that mobile phone screens weren’t great for browsing either until sites were designed for them, so why not take it down even further? After loading a page, the grid interface lets you use your watch’s tactile screen to scroll up or down to access menus and left or right to see more detail. We’re not sure it’s the best way to view a content-saturated site like Wikipedia, but it’s a pretty good test for Android Wear — it’ll have to be more than a one-trick pony to take off. Grab it here if you’ve got an Android Wear device, you early adopter you.
Filed under: Wearables, Internet, Software
Source: Attopedia
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Google’s Venn diagram doodle is where logic and whimsy intersect
Venn diagrams are a high-school math right-of-passage, teaching us (to hate) the logical relations between sets. Google has now honored their creator, John Venn, with his own Google Doodle. Mountain View said it was going for “sound logic and silliness” by letting you pick between five objects in two sets to see what they have in common. For instance, the relationship between “Transport” and “Thrives in Cold” as shown above is “Zamboni,” the ice-rink vehicle honored in a previous Doodle. You can try the other 24 permutations yourself today at Google.com, or check some of the better ones from the past here.
Filed under: Internet, Software, Google
Source: Google
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Google email scan helps police arrest a sex offender
Google has long used automatic image scanning to fight online child exploitation, but it’s now clear that this monitoring applies to email, too. Houston police have arrested a registered sex offender after Google tipped them off to illegal photos of children in his Gmail account. The notice only led to a warrant at first, but it helped the cops discover locally stored images that they wouldn’t have found otherwise.
The bust is notable in that there were no public clues to the offender’s activity, such as a website; besides the people he contacted, only Google would have known what he was doing online. That will undoubtedly raise concerns for some, since it wasn’t immediately apparent that Mountain View’s servers were checking Gmail images. However, the activity isn’t a complete surprise. Google’s terms of service already indicate that the company is analyzing Gmail for both targeted ads and security — while illegal pornography isn’t explicitly mentioned in the terms, it only makes sense that this content would be considered as well.
Via: Business Insider
Source: KHOU
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‘Google Workshop’ may be Google’s Moto Maker for Nexus Devices
When Motorola launched its Moto Maker site, it received a generally good reception; as it turns out, people do like customizing their devices. Other manufacturers have slowly started to roll out services that partially resemble Motorola’s effort to give their customers that little bit more customization, and it looks like everybody’s favourite company, Google, might just be looking to do the same for its Nexus devices with something called ‘Google Workshop‘.
Android Police dropped the exclusive, saying that Workshop in its current state only caters for the Nexus 5, as an experiment, and offers customization options for custom cases and live wallpapers. And apparently, it looks like this:
There appear to be two main options to customize your Nexus 5: MapMe and Moments. MapMe gives you the ability to adorn your custom case and live wallpaper with a chosen location, and can be further customized to incorporate some sentimental info, like your hometown. The colour of the case and wallpaper can be set as well, with the live wallpaper getting further customization options, like receiving weather and social media info for the chosen location. Similarly, Moments allows you to customize your custom case and live wallpaper with uploaded photos and edit them as appropriate (read: filters).
It’s definitely something different from Google, and with their pre-existing colour choices, Nexus 5 owners would have quite a few customization options available to them. The jury’s still out whether this service would extend to Google’s other Nexus devices, and there are no further details on pricing or availability yet.
What do you think about Google Workshop? Is this something you would like to make use of? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
Source: Android Police
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Google explains how it handles Europeans’ requests to be forgotten online
Google has previously offered a little bit of insight into how it handles (and occasionally mishandles) the EU’s “right to be forgotten” (RTBF) requests, but it has largely been a nebulous process. How do you know whether or not you’ll be scrubbed from search results? Well, things just got a little bit clearer: the company has published a letter to the EU explaining how it manages those demands for obscurity. The internet firm says it weighs both the nature of targeted sites and prominence of a person against the “general economic interest” to provide an accurate search engine. It’s likely to remove results for an embarrassing blog post, for example, but it will likely turn you down if you’re trying to hide court rulings or censor less-than-flattering news.
The company also bends over backwards to justify why it tells sites about delisting actions. Google contends that these heads-up notices are important both for transparency and restoring links that shouldn’t have been hidden. It notes that some requests are leveled against the wrong people, or omit ‘inconvenient’ facts (such as relevant news stories) that would lead to rejections. Google already deals with fraudulent copyright takedowns from companies trying to erase their rivals from the web — supposedly, this abuse might get worse if firms could exploit privacy laws.
There are some areas where Google doesn’t have answers, such as the average time it takes to honor submissions. It will be a while before the backlog clears up, the company says. Also, the letter’s publication likely wasn’t just a kind gesture toward users. Google has long been a vocal opponent of censorship and anything else that hurts its data-driven ad business — it may hope that the document pressures the EU into narrowing the scope of its rules. Whatever the motivations, the info should be helpful if you’re wondering just what Google does when you ask to be wiped from its memory.
[Image credit: AP Photo/Virginia Mayo]
Via: TechCrunch
Source: Google Docs
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Google Photos may be spun off from Google+ as a standalone App
Google Photos is a very cool service; just the other day, I rediscovered how good it was when it prompted me to take a look at a few stories it had prepared from my holidays earlier in the year. A downside to Google Photos, that isn’t really an issue for Android users, is that it cannot be used without a Google+ account, but according to Bloomberg, Google might be getting rid of that requirement and spinning off Google Photos as a standalone app that won’t require Google+ logins.
Google Photos is widely considered the most useful part of Google+, and making it available to more people without Google’s requirements makes a lot of sense. This move could even give Google+ a leg up against its social media rival, Facebook, who’s own photo sharing acquisition, Instagram, enjoys a very healthy portion of the social media market itself. This is yet another change to Google+ in the wake of Vic Gundotra’s departure as head of Google+ as the social media giant tries what it can to make more of an impact in the social media space.
What do you think about Google Photos being separated from Google+? Let us know your thoughts.
Source: Bloomberg via The Verge
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Google is reportedly separating its photo service from its social network
Love Google’s services, but not a fan of its social network? Good news: the Mountain View company may be spinning Google+’s photo features into their own product. According to Bloomberg sources, Google is hoping to attract new users by making some of its social network’s best features available to consumers who aren’t interested in Google+. The company has already made Hangouts available sans Plus to some business customers, but wouldn’t confirm or deny if the reported photo spinoff was really happening. “Over here in our darkroom, we’re always developing new ways for people to snap, share and say cheese,” a Google spokesperson told us. Well, that’s certainly cheesy.
Source: Bloomberg
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