Google has just added a useful button to its  mobile homepage – tagged “near me now”, this feature lets you search by using your location as the query.  Currently available for iPhone and Android phone users in the U.S., “Near me now” utilizes GPS for determining your whereabouts and then searches for results near your location.

The new Google mobile homepage feature lets you easily search for popular categories of nearby places. Just by clicking or tapping on the “Near me now” link right on the Google mobile homepage, you will find categories of places. And if you want more you can just select the “browse more categories” link.

You can also explore the whereabouts of specific locations including reviews or rants of other people about a specific restaurants and their menus and services.

To use this feature, make sure that the location feature of your iPhone, Nexus One or other Android phones is activated. Then visit google.com your phone’s browser and you can easily spot the “Near me now” tab.

 

The Google Model Your Town Competition is running full-steam ahead with over 400 pins in the world map representing teams from six continents. From places like Cauquenes, Chile to Cape Town, South Africa to Suva City, Fiji to Alirajpur, Madhya Pradesh, India to Aberdeen, Scotland to Tallin, Estonia and Burlington, Iowa people have taken on the challenge of representing their communities.

Folks in Iowa, Colorado, and British Columbia are motivating community members by building their own websites, garnering local press, tweeting, and soliciting help in online forums. Some are offering training on how to model to anyone interested. Iowa is asking middle and high school educators to form and advise teams of students.

There are still many people looking for team members. Visit the official group to meet folks in your area, or to post your own questions, ideas, or comments about the competition. The deadline for entering is March 1st of this year. Start the entry process by adding a pin to the map on our Get Started page and follow us on Twitter @modelyourtown.

Posted by Allyson McDuffie, Model Your Town Competition Team

Google Reader users might salute the release of version 0.5 of Speed Reader, a Google Reader client for Windows Mobile Professional 5 and above, .NET Compact Framework v3.5 enabled.
Quote from the release notes:
V0.5 - May 17, 2009
-Implemented Mirabyte Touch UI for finger friendly lists and scrolling
-Fixed bug where Google API token would expire preventing the application from marking articles as read after some time
-Fixed crashes where no network/internet access exist
-Fixed bug where an article marked as read on the home tab wasn’t marked read in the Tag tab
-Fixed issue with screen layout/sizing problems on devices with lower screen resolutions
-Fixed backwards scroll when scrolling through lists

Popout

seems that the Where 2.0 Conference is full of pleasant surprises. Today, Yahoo announced its Placemaker platform, and Google also announced the release of their Maps Data API (our Maps Data API Profile) as the newest Google Data API.

The new API allows client applications to view, store and update map data in the form of Google Data API feeds. According to the post on the Google Geo Developers Blog:

The Google Maps Data API is built on the following principles:

• Storage should scale simply with usage. You shouldn’t have to worry about maintaining a data store to build a cool Google Maps mashup. Focus on building the client, and we’ll provide hosting and bandwidth for free.
• Geodata should be accessible across platforms and devices. With many client libraries and clients, accessing stored geodata should be possible from anywhere, whether it’s on the web, a mobile phone, a 3D application, or even a command line.
• Realtime geodata requires realtime indexing. For a lot of geographic content, freshness is important. Geodata from the Google Maps Data API can be instantly indexed and made searchable in Google Maps.
• Rendering geodata is better and faster with the right tools. Through JavaScript, Flash, 3D, static images and more, we’ll continue to provide better ways to render your content to meet platform and latency demands.

The API is intended to store various types of geospatial data for geo-enabled applications that work with specific activities like planning and sharing trips, collaboratively mapping hiking trails, or saving a list of favorite restaurants. One nice bonus is that geo data associated with a Google account is automatically available on Google My Maps.

Some existing applications are already making use of the API, including MyTracks and Platial.

 

Google Maps and its Street View project have pulled out one of the most basic of all forms of transport to bring the most detailed mapping and filming of storefronts, houses, people and streets … the tricycle.

In order to get to those public places which cars cannot, like busy tourist areas and small alleyway style roads in Europe and Japan, Google has enlisted a fleet of tricycles, the Google Street View Trikes.

Google Maps do not display latitude and longitude values, but there is an easy trick to get these numbers. This technique will provide the latitude and longitude coordinates of the center of the map displayed by Google Maps.

Looking up an address in Google Maps will center the map on that address if it was found. Because this trick provides the latitude and longitude of the center of the map, moving the map around manually after that will change the center position and this technique will not work accurately.

When the location you want is in the center of the map, copy and paste this code into the location bar of your browser and press enter:

javascript:void(prompt('',gApplication.getMap().getCenter()));

A little dialog box will pop up displaying the coordinates which can be copied and pasted for use elsewhere. This code can be bookmarked and then used in the future by selecting the bookmark.

I love this hack

Google Maps has added a ‘layer’ of over 9000 Webcams so users can get live footage of different areas where they may be driving, working or visiting, as part of a collaborative effort with Webcams.travel

All the webcams from Webcams.travel are now available on the integrated layer of Google Maps. This was made possible within the cooperation of Webcams.travel with Google.

Here’s an example of the White House webcam at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, Washington, DC

Alex Chitu at Google System adds :

If you click on a thumbnail, Google will show “a snapshot of the camera that has been taken in the last 15 minutes”. You’ll need to click on the snapshot twice (first at Google Maps and then at webcams.travel) to get to the source and see the live webcam.

Google Earth has a similar layer for geo-located webcams and there’s an alternative interface at webcams.travel.

The Google team has certainly been busy lately, adding new features to their services and apps on what seems like a daily basis. This morning a new drawing tool became available on Google docs, allowing users to create images in any browser that supports VML and SVG. As mentioned in the Google Docs blog, the tool is based on technology acquired when they purchased Tonic Systems in 2007.
From any document, just click on the insert link and choose drawing. The canvas will appear, and you can then add one of the 100+ shapes (all vector-based), add lines and arrows, add text, or do some freehand drawing. Line color and weight can be changed, as can fill colors. Drawings also support z-order so that you can stack shapes in the order you want.
Shapes can also be rotated and flipped, and you can select multiple shapes to perform changes in bulk. Once you've clicked out of the canvas, your drawing is added to the document. From there, you can quickly scale its contents by clicking and dragging any corner.
While it's obviously not as powerful as a full-blown desktop "visual communication" tool like Visio, the new tool gives Google Docs some basic (but welcome) flow charting and diagramming abilities.

 

It seems not so long ago i was told about this great service that would forward your call around to your different devices. Well long ago turned out to be two years ago and now I only have one number but that being said google voice launches with super cool feature. Voice mail transcription.  A feature taht is killing me on skype.

Most people have never used the service, because Google froze new accounts after the acquisition. The freeze isn’t being lifted yet (and we’ve heard there are tens of thousands of people on the wait list). But starting Thursday existing accounts are being given the option of switching to the new service and gett access to the new features. Over the next several weeks Google will begin to let new people in. Some people, impatient to try out the new service, have been paying as much as $650 on Ebay for an account.

New User Interface:

The primary user interface for Google Voice is through your phone via an audio menu. But users can also log in to the website to administer the account and view activity. This interface has undergone a makeover - It now looks very much like a comprehensive Gmail inbox with tabs for Voicemail, SMS, Recorded calls, Placed calls, Received calls and Missed calls. And the Google Voice is easily integrated into the list of links to Google apps at the top left of each application. All SMS and transcribed voicemails are searchable and taggable, which is very useful and will change the way people interact with these messages. Google also says that full integration with Gmail is coming, but won’t say when. Personally, having all my email, SMS and transcribed voicemails in a single inbox could be life-changing. You can also respond to text messages from the interface and initiate phone calls, which then calls your designated phone and then the recipient.

Conference and International Calls: Google Voice also added a conference calling feature allowing conference calls of up to six participants and recording abilities. International calls can also be made through the system at very reasonable rates. For example, voice calls to France are $0.02 per minute, to France mobile phones $0.15 per minute, and to China $0.02 per minute. These rates are about the same as Skype’s international phone rates.

Voicemail

The automated voicemail transcription feature looks like it will be one of the most useful functions of Google Voice. Transcriptions are fully automated and Google will mark passages in the text where the algorithm was not very confident about the transcription. Transcriptions will automatically appear in your inbox, but Google Voice can also email them to you, or even send you an SMS with the text.

 

Google’s announced today that the have a new feature for its adsense advertising Network, "Bringing the science of search to the art of display".

Google is using the knowledge it has gathered in search, where relevance plays a big part, to take a shot at the display ads market. Google believes there is a lot to be gained in that area.

Google Content Network

Google will be using placement targeting and contextual targeting to help advertisers reach their targeted audience. They will be doing that in the Google Content Network. Everybody (yes everybody!) visiting a site in the Google Content Network will be getting targeted ads based on a cookie Google is placing in your browser.

Not only will Google now target ads at you based on your interest, but it will also let you target yourself. Anyone can go to Google’s Ad Preferences Manager and see exactly how Google is categorizing their interests. (Most people will probably see nothing right now, since this program is only being rolled out on a test basis and will gradually expand). Now, here’s the really smart part: Google lets you add or remove any interest. In effect, it is inviting you to declare what kind of ads you wan to see. You can also opt out of the program completely

Google's Response to Privacy Concerns

This kind of tailored advertising does raise questions about user choice and privacy — questions the whole online ad industry has a responsibility to answer. Many companies already provide interest-based advertising and they address these issues in different ways. For our part, we’re launching interest-based advertising with three important features that demonstrate our commitment to transparency and user choice.

• Transparency - We already clearly label most of the ads provided by Google on the AdSense partner network and on YouTube. You can click on the labels to get more information about how we serve ads, and the information we use to show you ads. This year we will expand the range of ad formats and publishers that display labels that provide a way to learn more and make choices about Google’s ad serving.

• Choice - We have built a tool called Ads Preferences Manager, which lets you view, delete, or add interest categories associated with your browser so that you can receive ads that are more interesting to you.

• Control - You can always opt out of the advertising cookie for the AdSense partner network here. To make sure that your opt-out decision is respected (and isn’t deleted if you clear the cookies from your browser), we have designed a plug-in for your browser that maintains your opt-out choice.

I seem to remember Facebook trying this with beacon and it having a bad backlash. Of course Beacon took this a step deeper telling your friends your search/buying habits but isn’t that the logical next step for this?

Speaking at the Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona Spain, Google VP of Engineering Vic Gundotra apparently said that Google’s mobile friend finder service Latitude had seen “more than a million” mobile subscribers sign up for the service in the first week since launch on February 4.

That is Pretty Incredible.

Get it on your phone at http://m.google.com from your mobile phone.

The software gives you faster searching on your Windows Mobile device, with easy access to your favorite Google applications from the Today screen.

Following last week’s big news introducing Google Sync for Windows Mobile (and iPhone), Google’s finally decided to loop Windows Mobile users in with their own Google Mobile App, which can be downloaded from your mobile phone at http://m.google.com.

Wow with only 28 million + Sales last year of windows mobile devices why would anyone want to release for WinMo?

Google has just release a new tool called Google Sync, a service that syncs your Google Contacts and Calendar wirelessly to your iPhone, BlackBerry, Symbian, or Windows Mobile phone or any phone that supports the SyncML format with your Google Calendar and Gmail contacts 

Google used a patent from Microsoft to get the sync to work….

Horacio Gutierrez, Deputy General Counsel and VP, Intellectual Property & Licensing, Microsoft:

“Google’s licensing of these Microsoft patents relating to the Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync protocol is a clear acknowledgment of the innovation taking place at Microsoft.  This agreement is also a great example of Microsoft’ s openness to generally license our patents under fair and reasonable terms so long as licensees respect Microsoft intellectual property. This open approach has been part of Microsoft’s IP licensing policy since 2003 and has resulted in over 500 licensing agreements of the last five years.”  

At the same time. The soon to be announced SkyBox, Microsoft’s effort to a server-based cloud technology, is now called My Phone and has its own beta sign-up site. All this is supper good news for everyone in the mobile world.

Mark Mathson of Keenpath noticed an offline access button in his Google Calendar yesterday. As you would expect, the service uses Google Gears, which means you'll need to either install Gears for Firefox or Internet Explorer or use Google Chrome, which has it built in.

To find out whether Google's ready to let you read your calendar offline, loging to your Google Calendar account and click the settings link. If you see a tab that says offline, you can configure your settings and download the data from Google Calendar to your desktop. This will let you view your calendar when you're not connected to the internet

Unfortunately the offline features for Google Calendar are thus far read-only, making them next to useless. Sure, it might occasionally be handy to check your calendar or to-do list without the need for an internet connection, but you won’t be able to add new events, to-do items or other data, nor is there any way to edit existing items.

Google just launched a new location based finding service called dodge ball oops i mean latitude. The new application lets you

Share locations
Location sharing starts only when both you and a friend agree. Invite friends via email or easily add them from your Gmail contacts.
Control privacy
You can share, set, or hide your location - or turn off Google Latitude - from the privacy menu. You can also hide your location or share only a city-level location with certain friends. For more information, see the Privacy FAQs.
Share status
Create a status message and upload your photo within Latitude. It also syncs directly with Google Talk. Check your friends' status messages to see what your friends are up to.
Contact your friends
Quickly contact your friends with an SMS, IM, or phone call. You can also get directions to lead you to your friends.

If you have the GPS feature enabled in Google Maps on your mobile phone, you are probably familiar with the reassuring, pulsating blue dot on the map that represents you wherever you go. Google Latttude is now essentially letting you share that blue dot with anyone you like.

All this while still “Maintaining complete control over your privacy”. Don’t feel like being tracked? Just hide yourself from select “friends,” or manually enter a false location as your current one. You can control how much privacy you want on a very granular, contact-by-contact level.

Latitude works out of the gate in 27 countries on Blackberries, Windows Mobile, and Nokia S60s. Android will begin rolling out over the next week, and an iPhone app is coming soon. In the U.S., there is also an iGoogle gadget that shows everyone’s location and messages.

Enjoy Google Latitude on your phone, PC, or both.

From your mobile phone - View your friends' locations and status messages and share yours with them. (Supported phones)

From your computer - View your friends' locations and status messages on a full screen even without a compatible phone or data plan. Click here to see your friends from your PC.