Invite a friend to Google Voice

(Cross-posted from the Google Voice Blog)

Since the debut of Google Voice, our early users have shared lots of feedback that has led to some exciting new features, like the ability to receive SMS messages via email and the option to change your Google Voice number. But one of the most frequent requests we've received is for the ability to share Google Voice with friends and family.

Starting today, we're beginning to give out invitations to Google Voice users. If you currently use Google Voice, over the next few weeks, you'll see an "Invite a friend" link appear on the left-hand side of your inbox.


We'll be rolling out these invitations gradually, so don't worry if you don't see your invitations immediately. We're initially giving out three invites to each account, but we're planning to provide more invitations in the future.

If you don't have an account yet, you can request a Google Voice invitation at google.com/voiceinvite.

Posted by Craig Walker and Vincent Paquet, Product Managers, Google Voice

Google Docs Adds Shared Folders

A couple of small tweaks add some nice user workflow improvements to Google Docs today.
First, collaboration just got more convenient with the ability to create shared folders. Next up, you now have the ability to upload multiple files at the same time. This could be a real time-saver when you have a group of documents to send to the cloud.

Shared folders have been the most requested Google Docs feature for some time. Happily, they work just like they should, letting you set the same level of permissions to your collaborators for all documents in the folder (including edit and view-only access levels). If you have a group of files you need to share with the same group of people, a shared folder can simplify giving everyone access.


Multiple file uploads is also an easy process. From the upload page, simply use "shift" or "CTRL" to select multiple files in the upload dialogue box, and when ready click "start upload." Progress bars have been added so you can get immediate visual feedback on how the process is going.
Both of these features will be rolling out Monday, and should be completely available to everyone by the end of the day. Let us know what you think of the new changes — will they make it easier for your group to use Google Docs for collaboration?

Getting Gmail on your Mobile Phone

Checking Gmail on your phone isn't reserved for those of us with extra fancy mobile devices -  sure, it's easier to use Gmail when your iPhone has a touchscreen or there's a downloadable app built especially for your BlackBerry, but Gmail is available on almost all mobile devices today. If your phone has a data plan, it can get Gmail. There are three main ways to check your messages on the go:Download Gmail Application
For those phones, which support application download and install for instance J2ME, Sybmian and blackberry phones, simply go to m.google.com/mail and download application. Install it and that's it. You are done, simply run the application to start using Gmail on your Cell Phone
Go to gmail.com in your mobile browser
The easiest way to check Gmail from your phone is to go to gmail.com in your device's mobile browser. That opens a version of Gmail built especially for small screens, where you can see messages grouped into conversations, search through your mail, or flag important messages with stars. On some devices (iPhone and Android), Gmail offers some additional features like the ability to add and remove labels and basic offline support. Text the link to your phone to get started.
Use your phone's built in email application
Many mobile devices come with native mail applications pre-installed. Setting up Gmail to work with them is usually pretty straight-forward and there is often a wizard to help.
If you have an iPhone or Windows Mobile device, you can get push Gmail using Google Sync. Otherwise, you can set things up using IMAP with these step-by-step directions for specific devices. Depending on your particular phone, you may notice features such as search, conversations, and stars missing. On the plus side, these applications tend to start up quickly and work even when you're not connected to the internet.
For more information, check out this beginner's guide.
Via Gmail Blog
Via ProPakistani.PK

eBay Users Auction Google Wave Invites

Ever since Google has announced that they would be sending 100000 invites for Google Wave, there has been a lot of buzz over the 'net — 'Google Wave' finds a pretty place in Twitter's trending topics for some time now. And now, some eBay users have started selling their Wave invites for anything between $0.99 and $89.

This is not the first time that web-application invites are being sold on eBay. Desitorrents, the leading Indian forum, stopped giving invites to its users when someone auctioned an invite.

I think web-applications should be designed in a way so that invites cannot be transferred, i.e. an invite can be used by a certain email address only. Again, Google Wave is a social application. This means Wave is completely useless if your friends and family (or colleagues) are not using it. It's pretty interesting to see people wasting money on a web-application invite, at a time of financial turmoil.

[Via The Wall Street Journal]

Picasa 3.5 Arrives with NameTags

Google's free photo-editing software, Picasa just got better — it can now recognize people's faces. The latest version (v3.5) lets you add name-tags to people's faces for easy grouping and searching. This version also integrates with Google Maps for geo-tagging.

Whenever a photo is collected via Picasa with 'unknown' (i.e. not yet tagged) faces, it creates an album — Unnamed Faces — to which you can add tags later on. You can even search for photos with two people in it (i.e. having two tags). For ease of use, name-tags offer auto-complete so that you can easily select the tags you have already created.

This version is a great step forward enabling desktop apps behave like human minds. It would be great if Picasa can integrate Facebook's facial recognition for the Picasa Facebook Uploader. That would be a lethal combo!
[Via Official Google Blog]

Google Acquires reCaptcha, Vows to Stop Spam

Google has acquired reCaptcha, an open-source application developed by the computer science department of Carnegie Mellon University, to protect pages from spams. The details of the deal are not available although some people are irked about the fact that the project was originally funded by government and the founders are making money out of this.

The official announcement says,

(...) we're excited to welcome the reCAPTCHA team to Google, and we're committed to delivering the same high level of performance that websites using reCAPTCHA have come to expect. Improving the availability and accessibility of all the information on the Internet is really important to us, so we're looking forward to advancing this technology with the reCAPTCHA team.

The acquisition move will certainly improve the way reCaptcha works as we have seen in past that services (like Feedburner, Blogger) got better once they were acquired by Google. It's just a matter of days (or weeks) before reCaptcha gets integrated with Google's platforms.

[Via Official Google blog]

Google Adds Quick View for PDFs to Search Results

PDFs, the file format often used for "official" documents and typically opened with the frustratingly slow Adobe Reader, are starting to get much more manageable, thanks to companies like Scribd and Docstoc, which make them embeddable, and Google, who has built its own web-based PDF viewer into Gmail and Google Docs.
Now, that same functionality has arrived in Google search results. PDFs now include a "quick view" link, which opens up the given file in your web browser. From there, Google has options like zoom, paging, print, and search.

The company says that they've been able to do this for more than half of the PDFs in its index – the ones that haven't yet been converted will still have the "View as HTML" option if you'd like to avoid the download.
This feature has been one of my favorite additions to Gmail, as it eliminates the need to download and then open a PDF on the desktop with Adobe Reader, which can grind system performance to a halt. Now that it's a part of search results too, there aren't too many scenarios in which you'll still need to view PDFs the old fashioned way. And that's a good thing.

What is a browser?

I've been trying to explain to my mom for months what a web browser is, with little luck. After a few rounds of failed attempts, I grew curious about people's general understanding of web browsers. So I decided to conduct a highly-scientific (read: not scientific at all) survey of my friends and got the following results:


As it turns out, my mom's not the only one who is confused about web browsers — even though the browser is one of the most-used programs on computers.

For my mom, my friends and everyone else who may be wondering about web browsers, I created a one minute video to help explain what they're all about about:



I've also created a simple site, WhatBrowser.org, that gives even more information about browsers. On this site, you can see which web browser you're using, explore links to browser diagnostic tests and read some useful tips for getting the most out of your browser.

Lots of our time each day is spent online, and every page on the web is experienced through the browser. Unfortunately, most people don't realize that there are many browsers out there, which differ on features like speed, security and extensibility.

So, the next time you find yourself as the informal tech support for your family and friends, make sure to explain why their browser matters — and of course, what it is!