Google Music Lyrics
Google Music Lyrics is a Greasemonkey script that adds a lyrics panel to Google Music. It only works in Firefox and there’s a single lyrics provider: SongLyrics.com.
The lyrics are cached so that they’re displayed instantly the next time you play the same song. You can also edit the lyrics and the changes are saved using HTML5 local storage. To hide the panel, click the title.
Chris Hendry, who developed the script, plans to add other lyrics providers, allow users to import and export lyrics and to make the script work in Google Chrome.
g.co, is now official URL shortcut for Google websites
Google announcing a new URL shortcut that will link only to official Google products and services: g.co.
The shorter a URL, the easier it is to share and remember. The downside is, you often can’t tell what website you’re going to be redirected to. We’ll use g.co to send you only to webpages that are owned by Google, and only we can create g.co shortcuts. That means you can visit a g.co shortcut confident you will always end up at a page for a Google product or service.
There’s no need to fret about the fate of goo.gl; we like it as much as you do, and nothing is changing on that front. It will continue to be our public URL shortener that anybody can use to shorten URLs across the web.
Posted by Gary Briggs, VP Consumer Marketing
Google: Try Blogger’s New Interface
Google promised a new Blogger interface back in March and started a limited test in April. “The new design is not only cleaner and more modern, but it also uses Google Web Toolkit, delivering the latest in web technology.”
The new interface is now available in Blogger in Draft, but it looks quite different. “Over the last couple of months, we’ve made significant improvements to our new user interface. First and foremost, we’ve incorporated your feedback and made numerous fixes based on that feedback. Also, we’ve updated the look and feel of our new design, inspired by Google’s newest design evolutions,” explains Google. Blogger uses Ajax, so all the pages load a lot faster, including the post editor. Unfortunately, Blogger is still very slow when you perform a search and try to display posts or comments.
Blogger’s new UI is cleaner and it offers additional information about your posts: the number of pageviews. Tabs have been replaced by a vertical menu and the list of labels is now a drop-down. The post editor is much better, especially if you use the default view. Blogger’s new editor takes up most of the page and post settings are now included in a sidebar.
There’s a lot of white space in the new interface, buttons aren’t big enough to be readable and Blogger includes too much information that’s not very useful: the total number of published comments and the total number of pageviews. The new interface is a mixed bag: it’s modern, clean, faster and more powerful, but there are many things that need to be changed before replacing the existing interface.
You can try the new UI at draft.blogger.com and you also have the option to make it the default interface.
YouTube Cosmic Panda
YouTube tests a new interface code-named Cosmic Panda. There are many cosmetic changes: videos are centered, player’s controls are now black, video thumbnails are a lot bigger, suggestions are displayed below the video, profile photos are displayed next to the comments, channels and playlists have a completely new layout.
Probably the most interesting thing about the new interface is a Chrome-only feature that lets you play a video in the background while you visit a channel. YouTube is more fluid and I expect to see a similar feature when you perform a search and when you click “view all comments”.
The new interface can be enabled and disabled at youtube.com/cosmicpanda.
{ Thanks, Jason and Greg. }
Google Realtime Search, Temporarily Unavailable
It’s not the most popular Google service, but Google Realtime is useful as an alternative to Twitter’s search engine. The service is no longer available at the moment, the “Realtime” option disappeared from Google’s sidebar and google.com/realtime returns a 404 error. Google says that this is just temporary. “We’ve temporarily disabled google.com/realtime. We’re exploring how to incorporate our recently launched Google+ project into this functionality going forward, so stay tuned.”
Google+ doesn’t offer a search feature for messages yet, but it should be available soon. It’s strange to see that Google had to disable a service to add support for a new site.
Search Engine Land also reports that Google’s Wonder Wheel feature is no longer available. “[Google's] spokesperson said that the search tool was removed due to the ‘initial stage’ of the Google site redesign announced [last] week.”
It’s likely that both Google Realtime and Wonder Wheel had to be redesigned, but Google didn’t want to delay the launch of the new interface until they’re ready. When Google Instant was launched, many of the advanced features were not available, but some of them were added after a few weeks.
{ Thanks, Christian. }
Introducing YouTube.com/create Platform
YouTube.com/create is a platform for third-party applications that enable users to create videos. The idea is simple. The third-party application runs in an HTML iframe on YouTube. The user creates a video with the application, and then the application uploads the video to YouTube for the user to watch and share.
Many different types of applications are already listed at YouTube.com/create. One True Media is a simple video editor. GoAnimate lets you create custom animations. Stupeflix lets you mix pictures, videos, maps, text, and music into a story. Xtranormal lets you turn anything you type into a fully-animated CG movie. Who knows what other developers have in store for YouTube.com/create?
Here’s one example of a company that decided to integrate with YouTube.com/create and experienced a signficant growth in traffic:
To list your application on YouTube.com/create, you’ll need the following:
- The name of your application (max 60 characters).
- A description of your application (max 50 words).
- A 120×120 icon. The icon will display with rounded corners.
- A tutorial video (hosted on YouTube).
The application itself must meet the following requirements:
- It must support Google federated login using OpenID.
- It must post the resulting video to YouTube. The application should upload the video on behalf of the user using OAuth2 or AuthSub.
- It must provide branding within the user interface if the user is required to upload assets (to make it clear that the upload is going to the third-party application, not to YouTube).
- It must not show ads within the iframe. However, the freemium model is acceptable, providing the base level of functionality is useful.
The application must run within the context of a 960px-wide iframe that will display on YouTube. The iframe does not limit the vertical space that your application occupies. For best appearance, your application should have a white background.
When you are ready to submit your application for inclusion on YouTube.com/create, submit it to the YouTube Project Gallery using the hashtag #create, and YouTube will contact you via email.
For more information about integrating with YouTube’s API, check out our developer documentation and join us on our mailing list!
Cheers,
—Shannon -jj Behrens, YouTube API Team
Preview Gmail’s New Interface
Gmail found an interesting way to test the new Google+ interface: using themes. If you go to the Themes page and select “Preview” or “Preview (dense)”, you’ll be able to try the upcoming Gmail interface. “Why two themes? Our new interface will eventually expand dynamically to accommodate different screen sizes and user preferences, but until then you can pick the information density that you prefer,” explains Google.
The new interface uses the same color scheme from Google Maps, Google Calendar and Google Search, the same gray header and blue search button. Since Gmail has two search buttons, Google had to use labels to distinguish between the button that lets you search your message and the Google Search button. The interface is cleaner, since it uses a lot of white space to separate the different sections.
Even if you don’t enable the new themes, you’ll still see some subtle design changes: many links are now buttons (navigation links, “Back to message list”), the “Refresh” button uses a familiar icon, the “More actions” button changed the label to “More” and Gmail’s footer is much cleaner. These are just the first UI updates, so we’ll see many other changes until “Preview” becomes the default theme.
Gmail is a complex application and it’s difficult to simplify the interface and make it more consistent, especially when you consider the numerous Gmail Labs features and themes. “You can expect some updated themes that embody the same design principles but are better suited to working in a dark environment, use a different color palette, or include the illustrations that we know many of you love to see around your inbox,” mentions Gmail’s blog.
It should be obvious right now that Google+ is more than a social network or a social layer, it’s a Google-wide initiative that affects both the form and the functionality of Google’s applications. It’s actually a new Google, a social Google that tries to offer cutting-edge apps and a cohesive experience.
{ Thanks, Maarten, James, Yasar, סמנה, Mushaf, Kai, Anthony, Jason, Kartik, David and Karol. }
Google’s New Interfaces
After many weeks of testing, Google finally updated the homepage and search results pages. The changes aren’t so radical, but they’re still significant: there’s a black navigation bar, two updated buttons for “Google Search” and “I’m Feeling Lucky”, while the corporate links are moved to the bottom of the page.
Google says that this is just a small step from a redesign that will affect many other services. “The new Google experience that we’ve begun working toward is founded on three key design principles: focus, elasticity and effortlessness. (…) With the design changes in the coming weeks and months, we’re bringing forward the stuff that matters to you and getting all the other clutter out of your way. Even simple changes, like using bolder colors for actionable buttons or hiding navigation buttons until they’re actually needed, can help you better focus on only what you need at the moment.”
The new navigation bar seems to draw unnecessary attention and some find it distracting, so it’s not clear how it helps you “better focus on only what you need at the moment”. Google’s black bar is used in Google+, so it’s likely that it will include other social features in the future.
Google also says that new design is flexible so that it can be used in the desktop interface, the smartphone interface, the tablet interface and even the interface for smart TVs. “The new design will soon allow you to seamlessly transition from one device to another and have a consistent visual experience.” At the moment, I’m seeing a new mobile interface that doesn’t have too much in common with the desktop interface:
While the interface continues to be simple and utilitarian, Google wants to use HTML5, WebGL and other new technologies to make Google’s apps more powerful and better looking. “Our design philosophy is to combine power with simplicity. We want to keep our look simple and clean, but behind the seemingly simple design, use new technologies like HTML5, WebGL and the latest, fastest browsers to make sure you have all the power of the web behind you,” explains Google.
Google promises to improve the user interface in Gmail in the coming months, but I think that many other apps will be redesigned and the main goal is to integrate with Google+. If you want a preview of Google’s new interfaces, take a look at the Google+ project. Here’s, for example, the new Google Maps design:
It’s interesting to see that Google Maps added the label-less blue button from Google+, but Google Search still uses the regular button.
{ Thanks, Nikita. }
More About Google+ Hangouts
Google’s Justin Uberti has more information about Hangouts, the video conferencing app that will be available in Google+.
To support Hangouts, we built an all-new standards-based cloud video conferencing platform. This platform combines high quality, low latency, and strong security with the ease of use of a web application. Through the efficiency of this new platform, we’re able to deliver a leading video conferencing experience at Google scale.
A few noteworthy technical points:
* Fully browser-based/cloud-based
* Client-server: leverages the power of Google’s infrastructure
* Designed for low latency (< 100 ms) and high performance (multicore + hardware acceleration)
* Standards-based: XMPP, Jingle, RTP, ICE, STUN, SRTP
* Fully encrypted (HTTPS + SRTP)
Hangouts require the same plugin that’s currently used for voice and video chat, it’s limited to 10 participants and doesn’t work on mobile devices yet. Another interesting thing is that “hangouts are created by one person, but everyone in the hangout shares the ability to invite others. Each hangout has a specific URL. That URL can be shared as a link to invite others.” You can also use Hangout to watch a YouTube video with your friends.
Hangout looks like a great Google Talk feature and I don’t see why it shouldn’t be added to Gmail and to Google Apps. Video conferencing could make Google Apps a lot more useful.
Google Swiffy Converts Flash to HTML5
Google Labs has a new useful tool for developers: Swiffy. The application allows you to convert Flash SWF files to HTML5, so you can use any supported modern browser to load the content, even if the browser happens to be Mobile Safari. “Swiffy currently supports a subset of SWF 8 and ActionScript 2.0, and the output works in all Webkit browsers such as Chrome and Mobile Safari.”
Google’s gallery includes two ads and two simple games that look pretty well when converted to HTML5, especially when you’re using Chrome.
Swiffy uses some SVG features that are only available in WebKit browsers, so that’s the reason why you can only use it in Chrome and Safari. Android’s browser for smartphones doesn’t support SVG and it’s likely that the Android 3 implementation doesn’t support the required features.
“A SWF file is converted in two phases: the Swiffy compiler (which you can use on this website) processes the SWF file and generates a JSON file. A client-side JavaScript runtime loads that JSON file and renders it using HTML, SVG and CSS. Swiffy supports many common SWF features such as vector graphics, embedded fonts, images and timeline animation. Basic ActionScript 2.0 code is also supported, but don’t expect to convert your favorite Flash game yet. In general, Swiffy supports most of the features in Flash 5, so exporting your file as a Flash 5 will give the best results,” explains Google.
Unfortunately, the code generated by Google is difficult to edit, so you still have to go back to the original Flash file. Adobe has its own tool for converting FLA files to HTML5.
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