We’re all busy and getting busier, which doesn’t fit well with a list of unread email that refuses to stop growing. Now, though, a team of researchers has developed a crowd-sourced email valet system—but would you share your inbox to streamline your life? More »
Google has been making improvements to its Gmail web client over the past few months by allowing its users to compose their messages with a new pop-up method, boosting its search engine and other improvements and it looks like 2013 will be no different as they’re announcing some other improvements available today.
If you’re in the process of composing a message and you’d like to add a label or a star to it, in the past, you needed to first send the message to then go into your Sent folder to access the message you just sent, open it, and then add a label or a star to the message. Seeing as that’s probably a thirty-seven step process, Google has now made it possible for you to add a star or a label to your message while you’re in the process of composing it. The way to do this is by clicking the “more options” menu located towards the bottom right of the pop-out compose screen.
So there you have it, people who absolutely need to keep everything managed in their life. Now you have a simple process to label and star your messages before they’re sent out. Hopefully you use this knowledge for good rather than labeling all of your messages to your friends and family by ranking them from who you hate the most to least.
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Anonymous Launches Petition To Make DDoS Attacks A Legal Form Of Protest, Hotel Offers ‘Dedicated’ Social Media Butler To Post On Your Behalf,
You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours — all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
It may be an expected holiday gift, but it’s still a nice one: Google’s VoIP service in Gmail will remain free of charge for calls within the United States and Canada in 2013. A note on the Gmail Blog announced as much today; the news ushers in a thrilling third year of free Google Voice service for US and Canadian customers, right through the standard Gmail interface. Of course, we prefer the retro-inspired phone booth that Google showed off back in 2010 when the service was first announced, but free is free. Now, what to get for the megacorporation that has everything. We’re thinking … Furby? Probably a Furby.
Filed under: Cellphones, Internet, Software, Mobile, Google
Source: Google
Google has announced today that its extending its free Gmail voice call promotion into 2013 in the US and Canada. This means you’ll be able to make domestic calls right from Gmail at no cost at all. Furthermore, you can still make international calls from Gmail at “insanely low rates”, starting at just a penny per minute for calls to most countries.
It seems that Google is turning this into a yearly holiday trend. Last year around this time, they announced an extension of free voice calling in Gmail that was initially launched in 2010. If history serves us well, Google will most likely make the same announcement next December when they’ll extend free calling through 2014.
The company introduced voice calls from Gmail in August 2010 after introducing Gmail’s voice and video chat feature in 2008. When the service first launched, Google said that it would make it free for the first year. Since then, though, the company has always extended the promotion since, resulting in free phone calls from Gmail the past several years.
The Gmail calling service is based off of Google Voice, which is Google’s own voice-calling and text-messaging service that offers free calling and text messaging provided that you have some sort of internet connection. However, besides Google+ contacts integration and the launch of an updated Android app, Google Voice has remained pretty quiet lately.
Google extends free calling in Gmail through 2013 is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
The day of Christmas itself might be over for everyone, but this does not mean that goodwill should no longer be extended to folks around you. The good people over at Google must be looking forward to the loot that Santa has in store for them next year by being nice to millions of people living in the US and Canada, as Google has just announced that they will continue to allow you to perform free domestic calls through the year of 2013 within the US and the Great White North, making it a snap to connect with friends and family scattered all over.
Apart from that, in most of the countries where this calling service is supported by Google, the Internet search giant claims that they will still continue to provide insanely low rates. It is nice to hear good news once in a while, especially when our media is flooded with all manner of depressing information. What do you think of this prolonged offer from Google, and how are you going to best take advantage of it?
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Google Releases Happy Holiday Cards, Wishes Everyone Happy Holidays, FCC Asks FAA To Allow The Use Of Electronic Devices During Flights,
Google announced today that they’re doing some “winter cleaning” by getting rid of some of their services and features that they think weren’t getting a lot of use. One of the biggest services they’re getting rid of is Google Sync, which was designed to allow access to GMail, Calendar, and Contacts via the Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync protocol, but the company is recommending that users move to alternatives.
As a replacement, Google is recommending CalDAV for calendar, CardDAV for contacts, and IMAP for email, but iPhone owners will also likely use the new Gmail app for email anyway. The company says that Google Sync will no longer be available on new accounts beginning January 30, 2013, but it will still work for users who already have it set up.
Google Sync will also be fully supported for people who have paid for a Google Apps account for business, government, or education purposes. Of course, this shouldn’t affect a lot users, since most mobile operating systems, including iOS, support CardDAV and CalDAV, but it’ll definitely take some getting used to as far setting up Google Sync differently than before.
Also as a part of the company’s winter cleaning, Google discontinued some of their “less popular” Calendar features, such as appointment slots and Smart Rescheduler. They’re also shutting down their Issue Tracker API in Google Code, and will also be discontinuing their Punchd Android and iOS app, which was an app that could store loyalty cards from various stores.
Google ousting Sync support on January 30 is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
This morning the folks at Gmail have reported that they are, indeed, experiencing some difficulties – it’s not just you. This is one of those rare instances where it’s not just a localized problem in the Gmail universe, there’s a real global problem that Google is indeed working on right this minute. As early as 11:30 AM this morning (PST) the Gmail team has had reports of downtime, though at this time it appears that not everyone across the board is seeing the same results.
Google’s report on the situation appears to be covering both mobile and web browser iterations of Gmail, the problem being in the system – at the source – rather than in the app for any given device. The service outage appears to have been taking place en-masse over the period of 11:30 until 12:10, but may still be affecting users across the board here and now.
“The problem with Google Mail should be resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience and continued support. Please rest assured that system reliability is a top priority at Google, and we are making continuous improvements to make our systems better.” – Google, 12:10 PM PST
“We’re investigating reports of an issue with Google Mail. We will provide more information shortly.” – Google, 11:30 AM PST
This event was colored orange – that meaning for Google that it was a Service Distruption rather than a Service Outage as such. It’s rare that you’ll ever find Google’s mail servers experiencing any sort of trouble, much less an amount worthy of a disruption note like we’re seeing today. That is to say: Google’s got pretty fabulous servers and a team that works harder than Thor’s hammer to keep Gmail available 24 hours a day, all year long.
Have a peek at the Gmail timeline below to gain greater insight on what Gmail has been up to over the past few weeks and what they’ll be working on in the near future.
[via Google]
Gmail is down, it’s not just you is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
If you’re a regular reader of Ubergizmo, then we could safely assume you are a user of some Google services, including Gmail and maybe even Chrome. That also means you were probably extremely annoyed earlier today as Google experienced some outages in its Gmail services, with problems extending to its Chrome browser as well.
At 12:30 P.M. ET, Google took notice of the service disruption an informed the public with the following message:
“We’re investigating reports of an issue with Google Mail. We will provide more information shortly.”
Nearly an hour later, at 1:10 P.M., Google updated the status of its disruption giving Google Mail users the all clear:
“The problem with Google Mail should be resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience and continued support. Please rest assured that system reliability is a top priority at Google, and we are making continuous improvements to make our systems better.”
In addition to the Google Mail outage, users were reporting Google Chrome quitting unexpectedly on a regular basis via Twitter, making those who use both services extremely frustrated for the duration of the disruption.
Were you affected by today’s outage? Were you so frustrated you actually thought about taking your business to a competing web email service like Outlook? Be sure to share your stories of survival in the comments section below.
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Twitter Rolls Out New Profile Updates To All Users On December 12 , Bing Launches ‘People’, ‘Landmarks’ Categories To Snapshot,
You might say the week is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workweek, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Weekly Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 7 days — all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
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