Search from YouTube's Player

At the end of a video, YouTube's embedded player displays a list of related videos. If they're not very relevant or you have a specific video in mind that you want to see, use the new search box and type a query. To see more results, click on the right arrow.

Unfortunately, you can't go back to the list of results after selecting a video and the related videos displayed at the bottom aren't updated, but this is yet another step towards a more interactive player.


Here's a video where you can see the new feature in action (wait until the video ends or click on the up arrow button and select the only option that's available):


In other YouTube news, the homepage is more customizable: you can select how many videos are displayed in each module and change the layout to list view or grid. There are two new modules that show statistical information about your uploaded videos: Insight Map and Insight Chart.

{ Thanks, Phil. }

Android Market Fees

Last month, Google said that Android Market is a key component for all mobile phones that run Android. "We made a strategic decision not to revenue share with the developers. We will basically pass through any revenue to the carrier or the developer."

Android Market is now live, but developers can't upload their applications until next Monday. For now, developers can only upload free apps and they're required to pay $25 before registering. "We charge this fee to encourage higher quality products on the market (e.g. less spammy products)," explains Google.

From next year, developers will be able to distribute paid applications. Google opted for a similar revenue sharing model like Apple (70/30), except that 30% of the revenue will go to carriers. "Developers will get 70% of the revenue from each purchase; the remaining amount goes to carriers and billing settlement fees — Google does not take a percentage. We believe this revenue model creates a fair and positive experience for users, developers, and carriers," notes Eric Chu.

Although applications are one of the most exciting things about Android-powered mobile phones, Google didn't manage to provide an auto-update mechanism for applications and you can only install applications on the phone's internal memory.

Gmail Emoticons :-)

Here's a Gmail feature I wouldn't have noticed without a post from Gmail's blog: emoticons. If you use the rich-text mode when composing messages, you can now include small images that reflect your intentions.

"The black and white days of text-based emails have had their day. Following the evolutionary path blazed by colored labels, we present, in all their technicolor glory, emoticons in your mail," says Darren Lewis from Google.


Google also added a new set of emoticons in Gmail Chat and it's strange to see that you can add much more emoticons in an email than in an IM conversation.

Gmail Mobile App 2.0

Google released version 2.0 of Gmail's mobile application for Java-enabled phones. The new version has been initially released for Blackberry phones, but you can now use it on any phone that supports Java.

What's great about Gmail Mobile 2.0? It works offline: you can preload messages from the inbox and from all your labels to read them when you are offline. You can also compose messages when you don't have an Internet connection and Gmail sends them when you are online.

The application notifies you when there is new mail in the inbox, so you don't have to constantly click on Refresh. It's now possible to save the credentials for more than one Gmail account and switch between the accounts directly from the menu. What's more, Gmail Mobile 2.0 supports Google Apps accounts, which previously required a separate application.

Some cool things to try:
* scroll using the left or the right key of your phone
* the updated interface for contacts which has more powerful search

To install the new version, go to m.google.com/mail from your mobile phone's browser. From what I noticed, this version is less responsive than Gmail Mobile 1.5 and it uses more data.

G1 Promoted on Google's Homepage

Is this the first time when Google promotes on the homepage a gadget? Some users from the US spotted an interesting line below Google's search box: "New! G1 is available now. Learn about the phone."


The landing page links to t-mobileg1.com and features Google's homepage on Android's WebKit-based browser and a Street View image from New York.


G1 is more than just the first Android-powered phone, it's a true Google phone. It comes preloaded with everything that's necessary to enjoy Google's services on a mobile phone: it's easy to search on the web using Google, YouTube and Google Maps are ubiquitous, your contacts, emails and calendar events are synchronized to a Google account.

Ten years after making the web searchable, Google brings the web into your pocket. A web that's more personal and more relevant to your life.

Related:
G1 launch event in San Francisco

Gmail Autoresponder

If you've ever sent an email to Google's support addresses, most likely you received an automatic reply vaguely related to your message. Using a new feature from Gmail Labs, you can create your own canned messages and use them as automatic replies.

"If you're sick of typing out the same reply every time someone emails you with a common question, now you can compose your reply once and save the message text with the "Canned responses" button. Later, you can open that same message and send it again and again," explains Chad Perry.

After enabling "Canned Responses" in the settings page for Gmail Labs, you'll see a new drop-down when composing a message. The "canned responses" option can be used to save a new message or to load an existing autoreply. It's interesting that Gmail saves the messages as hidden drafts: you can find them if you search for label:drafts, but they're not visible in the Drafts view.



The best thing about the new feature is that Gmail added a new action for filters: "send canned response". If you receive many messages about the same issue and you have a standard response, create a filter that includes some relevant keywords and select an existing canned response. This should come in handy if iGoogle users continue to ask how to go back to the previous version of Google's personalized homepage.


{ Thanks, {roody}. }

Android Is Now Open Source

One day before T-Mobile G1 goes on sale and one year after the first Android announcement, Google open sources Android.

Android is not the first open source mobile OS, but it claims to be "the first free, open source, and fully customizable mobile platform. Android offers a full stack: an operating system, middleware, and key mobile applications. It also contains a rich set of APIs that allows third-party developers to develop great applications."

The source has about 2.1GB, but you need to use Linux or Mac if you want to build it. Alternatively, you can inspect the code online.

Android comes with a list of applications that provide basic features: a phone application, a web browser, a media player, but all of them can be replaced. Even if T-Mobile G1 has a lot of strange limitations, like the requirement to have a Gmail account or the limit of maximum 5 additional email accounts, it's important to remember that G1 is the first, but not the only Android phone and these issues could be solved by third-party applications and future mobile phones.


{ Image licensed as Creative Commons by jugglerpm. }