Android 4.4 KitKat lets you say 'OK Google' to activate touchless search

                                  

News:Okay Google." Those Touchless Controls aren't just for the Moto X anymore -- they're now part and parcel of the Nexus 5. With today's unveiling of Google's (terribly leaked) Nexus 5, we're getting a first look at Android 4.4 KitKat on the handset, and that OS update comes with some significant tweaks to Search and Now. For starters, Nexus 5 users will have the ability to set hot keywords as a means of activating or "waking up" Now voice search. So, presumably, this means you'll be able to link any word you'd like to start barking voice commands at Now. Just don't be surprised if Now talks back to you: KitKat also apparently allows for a dialogue of sorts between users and the handset to refine search queries. This could be especially useful when directing Now to access contacts by first name. For example, saying "Text Jennifer" could result in it asking you to specify, "Which Jennifer?" It's smart control made smarter.

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Google Search app for Android updated (update)

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Today's the day for updates to Google's Android apps. The latest to get a revision is the company's main Search app, which sees a slew of new features and minor tweaks. That includes the ability to display a related website based on your current location, as well as offer sports and flight updates in realtime instead of on a 15-minute delay. Beyond that, you'll now be able to set reminders based on things like album or book releases, view event tickets from select websites, and see additional Smart TV cards (which require an actual smart TV) for news and music that's currently on your TV. Another feature that's said to be "rolling out gradually" is the ability to automatically tell others when you've left work. You can find the full rundown of all the new features (and the app itself) in the Google Play store.

Update: We'll have to cool our jets for now -- while there is a fresh APK for Google Search in the Play Store, it appears the features in the changelog are just hanging around from the last update. We'll let you know if anything new and interesting surfaces (with the pace of updates rolling out today, a Google change-tracker dashboard would be nice).

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Source: News in Hindi 

Google Offers now lets you clip coupons without paying in advance

Mountain View wants you to know that Google Offers isn't another Groupon copycat, that's why the service is now taking a different approach. Whereas you've previously had to pay for discount vouchers in advance, you can now clip them for free and then pay for purchases in-store, making Offers more convenient to use. The company's also introducing coupons outside the main Offers app, adding them to Wallet, Maps and Search, as well as programming Google Now to flash a notification whenever you pass by a participating establishment. Here's some even better news for veteran users, though: you can either get a refund for unused offers you've paid for, or get your money back as Google Play credit. If you go the latter route, you'll get extra dollars on top -- enough to jazz up your phone with SwiftKey or Photoshop Touch.

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Source: Hindi News

Bing Boards introduce curated content, alliteration to search results

Bing might not yet have achieved true verb status, but it's definitely making all the right moves to get there. The latest twist on search? Curated content in search results. It's an experimental feature at the moment -- live in the US, but possibly not all territories just yet -- that delivers collections of images, videos or links relating to your query a-la Google's Knowledge Graph, but curated by a person (not an algorithm). Microsoft's testing the waters with a hand-picked selection of food and lifestyle bloggers right now, but hopes to expand this to more topics as the idea grows. Head to the more coverage link if you want to see what these cards might look like, in the meantime, time to dust off that abandoned spreadsheet blog?

Filed under: Internet, Microsoft


Source: Bing

Google’s Real-Time Search Feature Resurrected Through Google+

Search engine giant Google is planning to bring back its Real-Time search feature, which was temporarily discontinued a while back.

Google offered Real-Time search which came with live stream from micro-blogging platform Twitter. Google Search turned into a source of live Twitter messages whenever some world event used to take place.

When Twitter’s deal with Google to provide it with the data came to an end, the two companies were not able to renew it due to certain differences and Google was forced to discontinue the service.

“The value the product was providing was not enough,” Google Fellow Amit Singhal said during a search panel meet, Mashable, reports.

The company is ‘actively working’ on bringing the Real-Time search feature back, Singhal said, adding  that the engineers were trying to integrate data from Google+ and other sources with the Real-Time search feature. Singhal did not elaborate what the ‘other sources’ were.

He also confirmed that Google+ stream will soon be getting its own search engine, a core feature which has remained absent from the platform, which now has more than 25 million users and is expected to surpass Twitter and Linked In in terms of user base within a year.

Read more: http://www.itproportal.com/2011/08/07/googles-real-time-search-feature-resurrected-through-google/#ixzz1URGXb2zn

Google AdWords: Now With Images

Some AdWords ads on Google are now showing associated images — and getting much larger in the space they take up — through a “Show products from” Plus Box implementation that some are seeing now when searching at Google.

For example, try search for bluenile, which brings up a Blue Nile ad. Under the usual ad title and description is a plus symbol (called a Plus Box), followed by the words, “Show products from Blue Nile for bluenile.” If you click on the box, it opens up three product listings from Blue Nile, each listing with an associated image.

The most shocking part of this ad is that how much room it takes up. Here is the ad when it is closed:

When you click to open up the product results, the whole visible part of the page is consumed with this one ad. Here is an image of just the ad, that measures about 370 pixels tall for me:

The ad also shows on the right hand side, as Steve Rubel shows. I was able to replicate Steve’s findings, by searching for diamonds. This implementation is better, in my opinion, because it does not change how the natural/free results are shown but rather only pushes down other ads on the right hand side.

 

Images associated with search ads are not too surprising. We have seen implementations ofvideo ads in AdWords several times. It just seems to me that Google is willing to try anything now when it comes to ads, from video to images to multimedia and who knows what.

Do note that back in November of last year January, I reported that Google was testing product results within AdWords. But those product results seemed to have been powered by Google Base and did not contain product images.

Google has also been testing showing banner ads in image search.

Google Panda Update Officially Goes Global (In English)

Earlier, we reported that webmasters were finding signs indicating the Panda update may have been launched in more countries. Now, Google has addressed it in a post on the Webmaster Central Blog. 

They’ve rolled out the update globally to all English-language Google users. “We will continue testing and refining the change before expanding to additional languages, and we’ll be sure to post an update when we have more to share,” says Google’s Amit Singhal. 

Singhal also says Google has incorporated “new user feedback signals”. 

“In some high-confidence situations, we are beginning to incorporate data about the sites that users block into our algorithms,” he says. “In addition, this change also goes deeper into the ‘long tail’ of low-quality websites to return higher-quality results where the algorithm might not have been able to make an assessment before. The impact of these new signals is smaller in scope than the original change: about 2% of U.S. queries are affected by a reasonable amount, compared with almost 12% of U.S. queries for the original change.”

It would be very interesting to know what constitutes a “high-confidence situation”. Domain blocking as a ranking signal could be a tricky area, in terms of the potential for abuse. The company has said in the past that it would look at making this a ranking signal, and that it would tread lightly. 

“Based on our testing, we’ve found the algorithm is very accurate at detecting site quality,” he says. “If you believe your site is high-quality and has been impacted by this change, we encourage you to evaluate the different aspects of your site extensively.”

Well, that’s exactly what we’ve seen a lot of sites doing. Whether or not it has been working for them remains to be seen. It’s going to be a matter of time. 

Singhal does say webmasters should look at Google’s own quality guidelines. He also suggests posting in the Webmaster Help Forum. “While we aren’t making any manual exceptions, we will consider this feedback as we continue to refine our algorithms,” he says. 

Now the fun really begins. Now we can see how hard some of the sites that were already heavily impacted by the Panda update get hit on a global scale.