YouTube’s HTML5 Player Gets Better
YouTube’s HTML5 player has improved a lot lately and it’s almost ready to replace the Flash player. You can enable annotations and captions, the contextual menu lets you copy the embedding code and the video’s URL, YouTube now offers 480p and 1080p options for WebM videos and there’s native full-screen support if you use a Firefox nightly build or Chrome’s dev channel.
I’ve also noticed that sometimes embedded videos use the HTML5 player even if you’ve already installed Flash and you haven’t enabled the HTML5 trial.
Gmail’s Hybrid iOS App
Two weeks after the embarrassing launch, Gmail’s app for iPhone and iPad is back in the App Store. Google fixed a bug that broke one of the main features: notifications and that’s the reason why the app has been temporarily removed from the App Store.
Gmail’s “native” app is actually a wrapper for a new version of the Gmail web app, enhanced with a few features that integrate it with the operating system: basic push notifications, image upload and a new navigation menu. It’s interesting that the new interface of the mobile web app is only available if you use the “native” app.
I’ve always thought that Gmail’s mobile web app is much better than the native Android app, so it’s a pleasant surprise to see that Google didn’t develop a completely new app for iOS. This way, you’ll always get the latest features and you don’t have to wait until Google releases a new version.
Regarding notifications, the app only supports badges and sound notifications, so you won’t see the banner notifications introduced in iOS 5. Hopefully, Google will address this issue in a future update.
“To try out the Gmail app today, install it from App Store on any iOS 4+ device. Those who already have the Gmail app released Nov 2 must uninstall or log out of the old app prior to installing the new app,” suggests Google.
Google Music Store
Google Music is out of beta and users can now buy songs, but only in the US. Business Insider reports that the store has 13 million songs from 3 major labels (EMI, Universal, Sony) and other independent labels, self-released artists can upload their own songs and T-Mobile customers can pay for songs on their phone bills.
Google Music Store is available in the Android Market (both the web interface and a new version of the mobile app that will be released soon). A surprising feature is the integration with Google+: “if you use Google+ to share a song or album with someone either privately or through a circle, the person who receives the share will get one free full play of the song or album. If you do a Public share, people in your circles will get one free full play of the shared song or album. Everyone else who sees the share will get a preview.”
Google offers a lot of exclusive songs and albums, but you can’t download the free songs from the store without associating a US credit card to Google Checkout.
Google Music will store the songs you’ve uploaded or bought and now you can also download them. For example, in the web interface, click the arrow icon next to a song and select “Save to computer”. The catch is that “you can only download each purchased track from the web 2 times”. To download all the songs you’ve purchased from Google Music, use the Music Manager app.
“Google Music is about discovering, purchasing, sharing and enjoying digital music in new, innovative and personalized ways. Google Music helps you spend more time listening to your collection and less time managing it. We automatically sync your entire music library — both purchases and uploads — across all your devices so you don’t have to worry about cables, file transfers or running out of storage space,” informs the Google blog.
WordPress: Drag & Drop Media Uploader & Flyout Dashboard Menus
Drag & Drop Uploads
The media uploader now supports drag and drop!
You’ll be able to use the new drag and drop media uploader wherever you need to upload your media files – while writing a Post or Page, or directly in the Media Library. In fact while you’re creating a post, you’ll notice now there’s just one icon to represent all of the different media files you’ll upload called “Add Media“:
After you’ve clicked that, find those image/music/video/other files you need on your computer, drag them over and drop them into the WordPress interface, and watch the magic happen! Learn more about adding images and video with step-by-step tips on Learn.WordPress.com.
Flyout Dashboard Menus
We want you to spend the most time creating content as possible, and that’s why new flyout menus have been introduced. They’ll save you time by allowing you to access any of the dashboard menu items from wherever you are, in just one click!
Simply hover over the menu item and the submenu will fly out, allowing you to navigate directly to Add a New Post right after you activated your new theme, or Invite Users right after you finished moderating comments.
More Room for Content Creation
There’s something else you might have noticed. Your blog title is no longer at the top of the dashboard.
Since clicking on your site’s name in the toolbar will take you to your site’s front page, we reclaimed that space back so you have even more room for editing your content.
So to get to your site’s front page, just click on your site title in the toolbar!
We’re looking forward to the extra content you’ll be able to create with the time you’re saving. Happy Blogging!
For WordPress.org users, these features will be coming to you soon in the upcoming version 3.3.
YouTube Tests a New Interface
YouTube experiments with a new interface that uses a gray background, muted colors, redesigned buttons and new icons for the like/dislike buttons. Most of the features are available in the Cosmic Panda experiment, but the changes are less drastic.
To try the new interface, change the value of the VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE cookie for youtube.com to Eg7GsyKWzk8. For example, in Google Chrome, go to YouTube’s homepage, open the JavaScript console (Ctrl+Shift+J or Menu > Tools > JavaScript Console), paste the following code:
document.cookie=”VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE=Eg7GsyKWzk8″;
Then press Enter, close the console and reload YouTube’s homepage.
You can also use extensions like Edit this cookie (Chrome) or Cookies Manager (Firefox). Opera has a powerful cookie manager, so you don’t need an extension to edit a cookie.
To go back to the old interface, open your browser’s cookie manager, search for youtube.com and delete the VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE cookie.
{ Thanks, Maurice. }
Google’s Barrel Roll Easter Egg
If you use Google to search for [do a barrel roll] in Chrome, Safari or Firefox, you’ll notice that the search results page actually does that. It’s a brilliant Easter Egg that will surprise a lot of Google users.
According to Wikipedia, “a barrel roll is an aerial maneuver in which an airplane makes a complete rotation on its longitudinal axis while following a helical path, approximately maintaining its original direction.”
There are at least four other Google search Easter Eggs: ASCII art, anagram, recursion and tilt.
{ Thanks, Herin. Spotted by Jason Cross. }
Chrome Extension for Google+ Notifications
If you miss Google+ notifications when you’re not visiting a Google page, you can now install a Chrome extension and always get the latest updates.
“Whenever you have a new notification (for example, when someone adds you to a circle or shares a post with you), the extension button will turn red and show you how many updates are waiting for you. Once you click the button, a window will drop down showing you all of your most recent notifications. You can act on notifications right from the extension, whether you’re replying to a comment or adding someone back to your circles. That way you can stay up-to-speed with your circles on Google+ no matter where you are on the web,” informs Google.
There’s also a +1 button for Chrome that lets you +1 a page and share it with your circles.
{ Thanks, Venkat. }
YouTube’s Google+ Player
Google+ added a small YouTube icon that’s always displayed next to the scrollbar. When you mouse over the icon, you’ll see a search box that asks you “what would you like to play?”. Type your query and Google+ opens a pop-up window with 20 search results. It’s actually a playlist and videos start playing automatically.
You can +1 a video you like or share it with your circles. When you share a video, Google also adds a link to a playlist with related videos.
The nice thing is that you can minimize the pop-up window and still be able to pause a video or go to the next video directly from Google+. This is especially useful for music.
“It’s no secret that YouTube is filled with tons of great content (from inspiring speeches to music videos to honey badgers). We wanted to bring YouTube directly into Google+ — as well as make it easier to watch and share your favorites — so we’re launching a YouTube ‘slider’ in the stream,” mentions Google’s Vic Gundotra.
What about a Google Music player?
{ Thanks, Thomas, Benjamin and Herin. }
Having trouble scheduling that event? Suggested times now available in Google Calendar
A ‘Suggested times’ feature is now available in Calendar. If a guest is using Google Calendar and you or users at your domain have access to their calendar, when you click on this new feature, a popup will display times when guests are available.
Release track:
Rapid*
Editions included:
Google Apps, Google Apps for Business, Government and Education
Languages included:
All languages supported by Google Calendar
How to access what’s new:
1. Add a guest to your event and the ‘Suggested times’ link will appear.
2. Click the link to open a popup that will display times when guests are available.
3. Find a time that works and click to select it.
4. The calendar event page will automatically update to reflect your chosen time.
Note:
- If you don’t have access to a guest’s calendar, the popup will still indicate if “All participants can attend” as it only checks those calendars that you have access to, including your own.
- If there isn’t a time when all of your guests are available, the popup will display the error message, “No free times for all participants were found through [day and time range you selected]. Choose a different start time to search again”. This may happen if some guests have all-day events or working hours set.
- The list can also be navigated using the arrow keys and is accessible with a screen reader for accessibility.
For more information:
http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/suggested-times-in-google-calendar.html
Google’s Location-Based Social Annotations
You’ve probably noticed that Google annotates search results with social data, especially from Google+ and Google +1. You’ll sometimes see that a page was mentioned in a Blogger post or a Twitter message by one of your Google+ friends. For other results, Google lists the Google+ friends that +1′d the pages.
If a page has a lot of +1′s, Google occasionally shows the number of +1′s bellow the snippet. To make the annotation more relevant, Google now shows the number of +1′s from your location. For example, “763 people in New York, NY, USA +1′d” Google’s Webmaster Tools page.
I’m not sure that it’s useful to know the number of +1′s for the top results of a navigational query, but this could be useful when you’re trying to find a popular restaurant or an Android game.
{ Thanks, Nick. }
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