More White Space and a Smaller Google Logo

In May, Google started to change the logos used by its services to make them look more consistent. Tony Ruscoe compiled a list of the new logos and it's clear that the service names are more visible.

The updated Google logo is now displayed on Google's search results pages and you'll notice that it's smaller and there's more space at the left of the page. Another change is that the SearchWiki buttons are placed next to the "cached" and "similar" links.


Google constantly runs experiments that test different font sizes, background colors, padding values to determine which one is the best. For example, last year Google tested three versions of the search results pages and the one with the least white space was the most popular.

{ via Google Blogoscoped }

Google Update Always Running in the Background? Not Anymore

Google Open Source Blog informs that Google Update, the software used by Google Chrome and other applications for automatic updates, no longer runs in the background. "Until now, Google Update would always run in the background, functioning primarily as a reliable scheduler performing update checks at periodic time intervals. With today's release, Google Update now uses the Windows Task Scheduler to only run at periodic intervals."

I've checked the Task Scheduler and I've found that Google Update runs every hour. You can change how often it runs and even disable the task, but I'm not sure if other Google applications change your settings. "If this task is disabled or stopped, your Google software will not be kept up to date, meaning security vulnerabilities that may arise cannot be fixed and features may not work. This task uninstalls itself when there is no Google software using it," explains Google.

Since Google Chrome is regularly updated, it's not a good idea to disable the updater, thinking that you'll install the new versions manually.


The first good news is that you'll no longer see googleupdate.exe in the list of processes when you open the Task Manager. The second good news is that Google Update's team listens to users and constantly improves the software: Google Update is now open source and administrators can disable it using the Local Group Policy Editor.

Gmail's Labels Are More Customizable

Gmail's transition to labels-that-look-and-act-like-folders is finished: you can now use drag-and-drop to label messages. Labels no longer live in their own container and they're displayed below the built-in labels: inbox, spam, trash, etc.

To make room for other features, Gmail only displays the most frequently used labels and hides the other labels behind a "more" dropdown. The list of labels is now customizable: you can hide built-in labels and some of your labels, while changing their order. If you rarely check the "spam" label or you don't save drafts, you can hide the system labels from the settings page.

"You now have control over which of your labels show. We've done our best to get you started by automatically showing the labels you use most and hiding the rest. Label hiding is my favorite new feature, since it saves me from having to look through labels I rarely use. If I ever need to reach any of my old labels, I just click the "more" link," says Damian Gajda, from Google.


I don't see the new features in my Gmail accounts, but Google promises that the changes are rolled out today.

Update: Google wants to make labels more visible. If you didn't create labels, Gmail will add four labels for you: Personal, Receipts, Travel and Work. "When I joined the Gmail team, I was surprised to learn that only 29% of Gmail users had created any labels. We realized that if you didn't know about labels, it would be easy to assume Gmail had no way to organize your mail. Not only were "labels" unfamiliar, they were kind of hidden," explains Michael Leggett.


{ Thanks, Niranjan. }

Google Toolbar's Improved Web Page Translation

Google Translate can be used to translate many web pages, but you can't use it for pages that require login and for Ajax-powered web applications. You won't be able to translate a Gmail message, a Google Docs document or a Facebook message without copying the text to Google Translate.

I've mentioned in March that Google Toolbar tests a translation feature that extracts the text from any web page and translates in real-time. The impressive feature is now available in Google Toolbar 6 for Internet Explorer and it works extremely well.

By default, Google detects when a page is not in English (or another preferred language) and it offers the option to translate it. Language detection doesn't send text from the current web page to Google's servers, but you'll need to send the text when you translate the page.

"When you visit a webpage in a different language than your Toolbar, Toolbar will display the translation bar near the top of your browser window and ask you if you'd like to translate the page. Click Translate to translate the page, or click Translate on your Toolbar. Click Show original or the x icon to close the translation bar and view the original webpage. If you change your preferred translation language, Toolbar will remember your language preferences and use them when translating pages in the future," explains Google.

Here's a Gmail message written in French:


... and here's how Google Toolbar replaces the French message with the English translation:


If you open another Gmail message written in French, Google Toolbar will automatically translate the text.

"The new Translate feature is available in all international versions of Toolbar, including English, and the translation service supports 41 different languages: Albanian, Arabic, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Filipino, Finnish, French, Galician, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian and Vietnamese," mentions Google's blog.

Another improvement is that Google Toolbar's word translator is now available in the 41 languages supported by Google Translate.

Google Reader Lite

Google Reader's homepage has been updated and it features a small feed reader with three categories: "news", "sports" and "popular". The iframe points to this page and I think Google Reader should offer a customizable version, so you can embed it in your site.


Google already offers a cool AJAX Feed API that can be used to display the most recent posts from one or more feeds, but Google Reader's interface is more user-friendly and it lets you read the posts without leaving the page.

YouTube as a Medium for Community

Michael Wesch, Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University, gave a talk at the Library of Congress about YouTube and its role in the participatory culture. He explains how one of his videos, Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us, became very popular in just a few days and how this popularity took him by surprise. The video was remixed, translated, it was the starting point for a conversation at a global level.

To find how people communicate on YouTube, Professor Wesch and his students studied YouTube and the way anonymity, interactivity, authenticity and popularity define it as a new medium for community.


{ via YouTube Biz Blog }