Hasta La Gadget!

Google’s like the gift that keeps on giving. Following earlier news of a Drive for Android update, the team from Mountain View today rolled out a new version of its Chrome browser for mobile devices. This update brings the same features we saw a little over a month ago in the Beta channel, however Google’s now deemed them ready for prime time. That (along with some undisclosed under-the-hood enhancements) includes the pseudo-fullscreen mode that’s triggered by scrolling the page and, for tablets, the ability to view the tab history by way of the browser back button. For those who decided to skip the experimental version, you’ll find the app in its stable form up for download at the Google Play link below.

Update: Google is back with additional news about its mobile Chrome browser, this time for the iOS version. In the coming days, iPhone and iPad users will find a new version of Chrome that allows users to submit voice queries into the Omnibox. The addition will mimic the functionality of Google Search for iOS, which accepts queries such as “How many miles from San Antonio to Dallas?” and “What’s the weather in Rome?” Likewise, the update will introduce the ability to open links in Chrome from other iOS apps, along with quicker reloading of webpages from the browser cache. Hop the break for a quick peek.

Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Software, Google

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Via: TechCrunch

Source: Google Play, Google Chrome Blog

Google’s new “conversational search” feature for Chrome has quietly been enabled, with the new feature appearing in the latest version of Google’s browser. Announced at I/O, the new Voice Search feature builds on the existing ability for Chrome to accept spoken search terms, now listing out your query on screen as you say it, and then able to show the results in Google Now-style cards as well as reading out the answer.

That’s not the only improvement, however. The system also supports semantics across repeated searches; so, for instance, if you ask a follow-up question, Google will automatically understand that the two queries are related.

If you ask “When was Ford founded?” for instance, Google will now read out the answer. You can then ask a follow-up like “Where is its headquarters?” and, even though you did not specify you were still asking about Ford, Google will still understand that it’s the topic of inquiry.

At the heart of this contextual awareness is Google’s Knowledge Graph technology, revealed last year, and integrated with natural language processing. That way, search knows that some queries will be about people – perhaps referred to as “he” or “she” in follow-up questions – while others will be about objects or companies.

More impressive are the compound assumptions that search can now make. Ask Chrome if it will rain tomorrow, and it will tell you the forecast (as well as display it on-screen): automatically figuring out where you are, and that you may want a full forecast.

Still absent is so-called “hotword search” as on Google Glass, which allows you to wake the system with a spoken command – “OK Glass” in the case of the wearable – and then begin asking queries. That seems likely to arrive sometime soon, though, especially given Microsoft has built something similar into Xbox One.

Overall, the technology is further evidence of Google’s greater confidence in its own results, and in showing users what it believes they’re looking for rather than just a list of possibilities. That’s something Matias Duarte, director of Android user experience, described to us as a key part of Google Now back at MWC, an endeavor which has applications across Google’s range: desktop, Chromebook, Android, and Glass.

You’ll need to be running the latest version of Chrome in order to get access to the new voice search functionality, and you may have to be patient, too. Google appears to be suffering some teething problems scaling out the system, and we’re getting a lot of “No internet connection” error messages right now.

VIA Engadget; Search Engine Land

Google Conversational Search turned on in Chrome update is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Samsung’s Exynos 5-based Chromebook may have been available since last October, but how about one equipped with WiMAX radio? Graced with the presence of Google and Samsung reps in Kuala Lumpur (including a video message from Google SVP Sundar Pichai), today Malaysian carrier Yes 4G unveiled this rather special laptop for the local consumers. In fact, we should have seen this coming as Google’s official blog did hint this last month, but we failed to catch that blurred “Yes 4G” logo on the laptop in the blog’s photo.

As Google mentioned, the ultimate goal here is to help transform Malaysia’s education using the Chromebook. And now we know that this ambition will be backed by Yes 4G’s rapidly growing WiMAX network — from the initial 1,200 base stations in 2010 to today’s 4,000, covering 85 percent of the peninsula; and the carrier will expand into the eastern side with 700 more sites by the end of this year. This is especially important for the rural areas, where many schools still lack access to water and electricity. As a partner of the Malaysian Ministry of Education’s 1BestariNet project, Yes 4G’s parent company YTL Communications has so far ensured that 7,000 local state schools are covered by its WiMAX network, with the remaining 3,000 to be connected over the next six months.

Filed under: Laptops, Samsung

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Source: Yes

The beta of Chrome app launcher for Mac OS X has been released. It presents an easy way to launch Chrome web apps from the desktop.

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This week the folks at the development studio known as Instrument have brought a virtual reality demonstration to Google I/O 2013, complete with a multi-display drop from the upper atmosphere down toward the earth in freefall. What this demonstration consisted of was seven 1080p displays, each of them run by their own Ubuntu PC working with a full-screen version of Chrome version 25. A motion tracker works to track the user, their arms, and the angle at which they’re standing – or leaning and falling, as it were.

This system was developed by Instrument to track user input and motion tracking with a custom C++ app built with openNI as well as an ASUS Xtion Pro 3D motion tracking sensor camera. As the motion tracker sees and understands the angle of the human playing the game’s torso and location of each arm, so too will their avatar on the display array move as they fall.

The 3D game content is rendered with WebGL using THREE.js, the WebGL layer being rendered with a totally transparent background. This setup allows the map layer underneath to show through, this map layer being generated by Google Maps.

What the user sees below – the earth they’re plummeting toward – is a completely live HTML Google Map instance. It’s accurate – meaning you could potentially be diving toward your house, a national landmark, or perhaps somewhere that’d be useful for real-world training.

In addition to this setup being live and ready to roll here at Google I/O 2013 as a playable demo, Instrument has created a Dive editor. With this Dive editor, an editor is able to build directly into the control node administrative console, each of these changes reflected instantly – live in the scene.

The editor user interface exists as a Google Map, the person editing it able to use draggable markers that act as game objects. With this interface, developers and savvy users will be able to utilize geocoding to center the map view on locations of their choice – anywhere Google Maps can see. Think of the possibilities!

Google Maps-driven Map Dive 3D-tracking hands-on is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.