Star Google Contacts

Google announced a new starring feature for contacts. Now you can star contacts and they'll be added to the Starred group.

"Just like how you can star important messages in your inbox, you can now star individuals in your Google Contacts list. (...) For those of you who use Android, your Starred contacts will stay in sync with your Android Favorites. Starring a contact on desktop will star that same person in your Android contacts, and vice-versa, so you can see and manage your contacts seamlessly wherever you may be."

Until now, Google used the "Starred in Android" group for favorite contacts, but this was more like a workaround. Now it's a native Gmail feature.

I don't see the new feature in the desktop Gmail interface, so this will probably be gradually added in the coming days.

{ Thanks, Matt Carney. }

Quickly Find Creative Commons Images Using Google

Now you no longer have to open the advanced search page to restrict the Google Image Search results to Creative Commons pics or public domain images. Just click "search tools" below the search box, then click "usage rights" and pick one of the options: "labeled for reuse", "labeled for commercial reuse", "labeled for reuse with modification" or "labeled for commercial reuse with modification". You'll find many pictures from Flickr and Wikipedia.

Visit the page, find the license and make sure it's right for you. You should always link to the page, mention the author and the source. "Before reusing content that you've found, you should verify that its license is legitimate and check the exact terms of reuse stated in the license. For example, most licenses require that you give credit to the image creator when reusing an image. Google has no way of knowing whether the license is legitimate, so we aren't making any representation that the content is actually or lawfully licensed," informs Google.

Google should replace the message "Images may be subject to copyright" with the Creative Commons license.

{ via Search Engine Land }

No More Schemer

Google confirmed the news that Schemer will be discontinued.

The time has come for Schemer to power down.

Schemer launched in beta over a year ago to help inspire and motivate people to do more awesome stuff, and though it's shutting down, the adventures will continue. You can use the "Explore" section on Google Maps for Android and iOS to find interesting things to do around you, or Field Trip to uncover hidden or unique things in your city, among others.

All your schemes are available for download until February 7, 2014, after which all data will be permanently deleted. Before then, we recommend you use the button below to get a copy of your schemes for download.

In the meantime, stay curious, ambitious, daring, and above all, stay adventurous; thank you for all your support on this journey!

-The Schemer Team

Go to schemer.com to export your schemes. Since it was a small experimental project, you'll only get your data by email.

Schemer was one of the few Google projects with a distinct user interface. It started as an invitation-only service, it required a Google+ account and it lived in its own cocoon far away from other Google services. Google didn't promote the service, didn't integrate it with other services and eventually stopped updating it.

"Whether it's exploring a new city, checking out a friend's movie recommendation, or just finding new activities for your weekends, Schemer lets you discover new things to do, share schemes with friends, and make the most of your day. We started out as a scrappy team of Google engineers who wanted to help people do fun stuff in the real world. So we went ahead and built Schemer! We hope you like it," informs the About page.

Circular Profile Pictures in Google's Navigation Bar

Google no longer shows the square profile image in the navigation bar. Now it shows a round image, just like in Google+.

The new version looks nice and makes the Google bar more consistent. Some Google services still use the old version: YouTube, Blogger.

{ Thanks, Florian K. }

Send Email to Your Google+ Circles

Usually, if you want to send someone an email, you are supposed to know the email address, but that's not always the case. Many sites use contact forms and now it's very easy to create one using Google Drive. A few years ago, Google Profiles added a contact form, but it was disabled by default. Google+ made it easy to send someone a message: just add "+", mention his name and he will probably receive a notification, depending on his notification settings.

Now you can send email to the people from your Google+ circles even if you don't have their email addresses. Gmail will show suggestions from your Google+ circles when you compose an email and will send your email without showing you the address. "Your email address isn't visible to a Google+ connection unless you send that person an email, and likewise, that person's email address isn't visible to you unless they send you an email."

Suggestions from Google+ are placed at the bottom of the list, below the suggestions from your address book. As you can see, email addresses aren't included. Google will only show suggestions from your circles, but you can add anyone to your circles.

What happens when you send an email to someone? If you are in his circles, the message will be placed in the Personal inbox tab. Otherwise, it will be added to the Social tab and you won't be able to send another message until the person responds or adds you to his circles.

By default, anyone who circles you can send you an email message in Gmail. If you have many followers, the default setting will limit the messages to your circles. You can alway edit the scope of this feature in Gmail's settings. Find the "Email via Google+" section and choose from "Anyone on Google+", "Extended circles", "Circles" and "No one". Pick "No one" to completely disable this feature.

The feature is gradually rolled out. You'll receive a message from Google with the following subject: "Gmail update: Reach more people you know". It starts like this: "Ever wanted to email someone you know, but haven't yet exchanged email addresses? Starting this week, when you're composing a new email, Gmail will suggest your Google+ connections as recipients, even if you haven't exchanged email addresses yet." Even if you receive the message, you might still have to wait until the feature is enabled. "You can only send emails to your Google+ connections with the desktop version of Gmail," informs the Gmail help center.

Gmail is now even more integrated with Google+. Gmail shows your circles in the sidebar, loads Google+ notifications and allows you to reply from the Gmail interface and now it lets you send email to Google+ users without knowing their addresses.

The new feature makes Gmail more useful because it unlocks the power of circles, but it can also lead to more spam. Since anyone who adds you to a circle can send you an email, you'll have to deal with that. If you have many followers, Google already limits this feature to your circles. You can also receive spam messages in Google+, so that's not something new.

It's interesting that the default setting for most people is "anyone". The default setting for notifications and the contact form is "extended circles", which include your circles and your circles' circles. The contact form from the profile is even disabled by default.

{ Thanks, Chaim. }

Google Answers And Comparisons

Back in 2009, when HTC HD2 was released, many people complained that it had a huge screen: a 4.3-inch display. Now it seems quite small. Even iPhone's 3.5-inch display seemed very big back in 2007. As you can see, context matters and it puts things into perspective.

When searching Google for [Saturn size], you used to get an answer that was useful, but not that revealing. So the radius is 58,232 km (36,184 miles). It's obviously very large, but how does it compare to other planets? Now Google shows other planets and their size below the answer.

Search for [Earth mass] and Google shows that Venus has almost the same mass, while Jupiter's mass is 317.8 times bigger.

The instant answer for [Earth surface area] confirms that Earth and Venus are close in size.

What about gravity? Pretty close.

"The solar system is a pretty big place. To get a quick refresh on astronomy, you can ask Google 'What is the surface area of Earth?' and find out that it's 196.9 million square miles. But how BIG is that? Clearly not as large as some of our waistlines post-holidays—but is it larger or smaller than Jupiter? The size of Earth makes more sense when considered relative to the surface area of other planets; Earth is similar in size to Venus but more than 100 times smaller than Jupiter! Google now provides these comparisons, helping you understand the world (or solar system) around you," informs Google.

For now, this feature is only available for astronomy-related questions. You can find some similar comparisons when you search for things like [China GDP] or [India population].

No More Location History Dashboard

Google had a cool feature as part of Location History: a dashboard that displayed how you spend your time, how much do you spend at work or at home, the places you've visited, when you visited each country, your flights, the distance you've traveled (including the number of additional miles to the Moon). This feature, which was launched in 2010 as part of Google Latitude and was still in beta, is gone and the dashboard redirects to the Location History homepage.

Google confirmed that the feature was removed last month: "You can continue to view and manage your Location History information by going to https://maps.google.com/locationhistory/, but we've removed the Location History dashboard (the part of the Location History website that provided a summary of your locations, including total miles traveled and trip information). We are not removing Location History entirely or deleting any raw Location History information. We're continuing to explore more useful and relevant ways for you to engage with and view location history."

Here are some screenshots from Bogdan Bele and guao.hk:

And here are the remaining features:

For some people, the dashboard was one of the main reasons to enable Location History. "I thought the dashboard was a nice record of my travels, and it was the only reason I activated location reporting on my Android phone. If the dashboard has permanently disappeared, then it means that Google is tracking my location for their own purposes, and not giving me anything in return," says Rob Fuller, a reader of this blog.

Location History is actually used by some Google Now cards. "Google Now uses your Location History, which may include locations saved from your use of other Google products, to monitor traffic on your commute route and more," informs Google. There's even a card that shows a summary of your activity. Google Maps also uses it to personalize search results.

{ Thanks, Rob. }