May

Google Drive Gets A Big Update To v1.2, Brings New Interface, Optical Character Recognition, And More

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Applications, News

Google Drive just got a nice big update out of nowhere, which, first and foremost, brings it up to speed with the card UI – a feature that works really well on an app like Drive. Past that, there's a new "scan" option, which uses your device's camera to grab snapshots of things like receipts, and coverts them to searchable PDFs using OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology. The future is a fantastic place.

Spreadsheet editing also got a little less crappy and a little more feature-rich, as you can now adjust font types and sizes, as well as cell text colors and alignment.

Apr

Google I/O 2013: Google's To-Do List This Year

Posted by Ron Amadeo in Android OS, News

Last Updated: May 3rd, 2013

Google I/O is coming! We'll know about all of Google's new projects in just 2 ~~short~~ agonizingly long weeks. While we desperately count the days until May 15th, we thought it would be a great idea to take stock all of the things we've caught wind of lately.

Calling this an "I/O Preview," sounds a little too certain. I'm not predicting everything here will come out at I/O, this is just a list of everything we know Google is working on - their "To-Do" list. Just like any to-do list, Google could cross something off and release it, or endlessly procrastinate, or completely cancel something.

Mar

Hands-On With Google Keep For Android: Notes, Checklists, Voice Notes, Pictures, Widgets, And Voice Actions Integration

Posted by Ron Amadeo in App Reviews, Applications, News

The Google Keep Android app is out, and it is way more functional than the sparse web site. Allow me to show you around.

There are two different views to Keep, a multi-column view and a single-column view. Multi-column is "pretty typography mode" and single column is all business. You can switch views with the menu button.

There's about a million different ways to take notes: plain text, a checklist, a voice note (which transcribes and saves the audio), or you can take a picture with the camera. Check list items have little draggable handles on them.

Just like Gmail, archiving a note is as easy swiping it away, and, just like Gmail, there's a handy "undo" popup.

Mar

Google Keep, Google's Note-Taking App, Is Live! Again [Update: Android App Too]

Posted by Ron Amadeo in Applications, News

Google Keep has once again popped back into existence. It had previously gone live for about a half hour on St. Patrick's Day before Google took it down. We managed to snag a full set of screenshots before it went down.

Update: Hands-On With Google Keep For Android: Notes, Checklists, Voice Notes, Pictures, Widgets, And Voice Actions Integration

So if you'd like to check out Google's new note-taking app, I suggest you hurry and head on over to https://drive.google.com/keep/. Until we see some kind of official launch post from a Google blog, ~~I don't expect it to be there for long~~.

Mar

Google Keep Is Live! Google Launches A Note-Taking Service [Update: And It's Gone]

Posted by Ron Amadeo in News

Well, that was fast. Earlier today we told you about Google Keep, a note-taking app Google was working on. Now, it seems the desktop version of the site is up and running!

And it's gone. Google Keep is now 404ing. Probably another victim of a spring cleaning. These Google products just don't last as long as they used to!

Well, enjoy the screenshots!

Google Keep works a lot like Google Notebook used to: There's a list of notes, and you can color-code them, save pictures, and make checklists. You can archive notes, which will send them to a section at the bottom of your list.

Mar

'Google Keep' Spotted In Drive Source Code - Is Google Taking Another Shot At A Note-Taking Service?

Posted by Ron Amadeo in News

Earlier this week, Google killed a beloved service of theirs, but now it looks like they might be bringing another one back from the dead in the form of a new note-taking service called "Google Keep." Remember Google Notebook? It's back!

We've got pictures! Google Keep's website went live for a short while and we took a bunch of screenshots. Check them out.

1E100 dug through the Google Drive website's source code and discovered the unreleased app. For starters there's this icon, which was located at www.google.com/images/icons/product/keep-512.png:

It looks like it's a good match with the other Google Drive app icons.

Feb

Google Drive App Updated, Brings Support For Streaming Video Files To Android 3.0+, Bug Fixes, And More

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Applications, News

In the constant effort to make the Drive app better, Google just pushed an update that brings "performance improvements across the whole app," as well as support for video streaming on Honeycomb or higher, pinch to zoom in the presentation viewer, and overall bug fixes.

This marks the first update Drive has seen since mid-December, when the app got a small speed-boost, along with some general bug fixes. Woo.

Of course, built-in streaming video is a pretty major update for the app – after all, Dropbox has had the feature for several months now. The update should be live in the Play Store now – if you're not seeing it just yet, check the mobile Store, you should be able to pull it right away.

Jan

Koush's Latest App Is Carbon (Not That Carbon) - A Free App Backup Solution For Google Drive And More

Posted by Jeremiah Rice in Applications, News, Videos

If you've even dabbled in the Android mod scene, you know Koushik "Koush" Dutta. He's the chap who made ClockworkMod recovery and several other handy tools for advanced users. His latest app is Carbon, which may or may not be sarcastically named after the famously postponed Twitter app. (The app icon is a trollface - we'll leave the interpretation up to you.) The function is simple: back up both your local APKs and their associated app data.

You can select which apps to back up, then choose their destination: Google Drive, your local SD card, or even a connected PC.

Jan

Android: A Look Back To 2012, And A Look Forward To 2013

Posted by Ron Amadeo in Editorials, News, Rumors

Last Updated: January 7th, 2013

Happy New Year! It's that time again; with the new year comes our new annual prediction post. I tackled this last year, and rather than do a bunch of crazy, pulled-from-thin-air predictions, I ended up with a link-filled research-fest for the year. It worked out pretty well, so that's what's on the docket for today. First though, I'll take a look and see just how many of last year's predictions and rumors came true, and provide some updates for the more important topics.

A Look Back To 2012

What a crazy year. 2012 brought us two versions of Jelly Bean: 4.1 and 4.2. We saw a complete transformation of Google Search with the Knowledge Graph, Google Now, voice output, and Google Goggles integration.

Dec

Google Unleashes Massive Wave Of App Updates To Drive, Earth, Shopper, Magazines, Search, And More [Updated]

Posted by Ryan Whitwam in Applications, Apps/Games, News

Google Currents is not the only Android app the company updated today as many first-party apps saw relatively minor updates through the Play Store this afternoon. Basically, the next time you check your app list be prepared to wait on those updates to download.

If you are one of the few still using a Google TV device, the PrimeTime and TV Search apps have been updated. PrimeTime comes with bugfixes and faster access to the channel guide. TV Search should be faster and less prone to crashes. On the phone side of things, Shopper has a shiny new UI and performance enhancements.