Replace Gmail Attachments With Google Drive Files

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I was complaining in a recent post that Gmail doesn't properly integrate with Google Drive and doesn't let you upload files to Google Drive instead of sending attachments. The new compose interface added this feature and you can now click "insert files using Drive", upload a file or select an existing one.


It's still not a seamless experience, you have to click a separate button and deal with permission issues, but it encourages users to upload files to Google Drive and use the Google Drive apps. Gmail tries to solve permission issues by prompting with the option to change sharing settings.

Why would you upload files to Google Drive instead of using attachments? You can send bigger files (10 GB files vs 25 MB attachments), you can edit documents collaboratively, write comments, upload new versions of the files and manage revisions, you can delete the file or change permissions.

Unfortunately, when you send links to Google Drive files, it's more difficult to download the files and you can no longer download them with one click.

There's another problem: Gmail offers 10 GB of free storage, while Google Drive offers 5 GB of free storage, excluding Google Docs/Sheets/Slides files. More free storage would make GDrive more attractive.

Google says that GDrive integration is "rolling out over the next few days and is only available with Gmail's new compose experience".

{ via Gmail Blog }

Google Shows Flight Notifications

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Back in August, Google released an experiment that integrated Google Search with Gmail. Besides returning results from Gmail, Google also detects flight-related confirmation messages so that it can show additional information for your upcoming flights. You can try this feature by searching for [my flights], as documented here.


What Google doesn't mention is that it also shows flight notifications. They look just like the Google+ birthday reminders.


Flight notifications aren't a new feature (someone spotted it in September), but I thought it's worth mentioning it. There's a lot of valuable information that can be obtained from Gmail messages, as you can see from the latest Google Now update, which shows cards for flights, packages, hotel reservations, event bookings and more. Maybe Google Now will have a desktop interface and it will replace some of the iGoogle features.

{ Thanks, Matt. }

YouTube's New Interface, Closer to Launch

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YouTube continues to test new user interfaces, but it looks like one of these versions will be finally rolled out to everyone.

There's a new message on the experimental homepage that welcomes users to the new YouTube and explains one of the new features: "What to watch shows you new activity from your subscriptions, recommendations based on videos you've watched and your taste in videos, plus the most popular videos on YouTube". YouTube also links to a page that was used the last time when YouTube was redesigned. You can see the old page in Google's cache, but now the page returns a 404 error message.


YouTube has constantly tested new versions of the sidebar from video pages. This time there's a new sidebar section that shows other related videos. You can "get the search results, feeds, and channel videos you were just looking at". For example, you can perform a search, click one of the results and see the list of results by clicking "more results" in the sidebar, instead of going back to the search results page.

The sidebar is the most important thing about the new YouTube interface because it's always there: on the homepage, the settings page, the search results page and can be expanded when you watch videos.


To try the new YouTube interface, check the instructions from this post.

The results are in—Zagat’s America's Top Restaurants revealed

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To help people find the best places to eat in 46 U.S. cities and regions, we’re revealing the results of our 2013 America’s Top Restaurants Survey covering 1,822 of the nation’s top-rated restaurants. From Boston to Portland and Chicago to Miami, the results of this year’s Zagat Survey are based on millions of reviews from everyday diners who shared their experiences through their favorite Google products.

Winners include perennial favorites like the “exceptional” American Gary Danko (San Francisco), Eric Ripert’s French “seafood shrine” Le Bernardin (New York), and the “flawless” New American Bacchanalia (Atlanta), as well as top spots like Alinea (Chicago), Urasawa (Los Angeles) and Joël Robuchon (Las Vegas).

While many of the top restaurants break out the china and crystal, a number of standouts included in the guide are casual gourmet places like pizzerias: Settebello (Vegas and Salt Lake City), Supino Pizzeria (Detroit’s No.1 restaurant), Serious Pie (Seattle) and Dough (San Antonio); sandwich specialists: Bäco Mercat (LA), Cochon Butcher (New Orleans) and Melt Bar & Grilled (Cleveland); burger specialists: B Spot (Cleveland), Flip Burger Boutique (Atlanta) and Sketch (Philadelphia); and BBQs: Union Woodshop, Slows Bar BQ and Zingerman’s Roadhouse (Detroit).

Thanks to those of you who share your restaurant adventures with us, we also have a snapshot of what dining out in America looks like. Based on surveyors in 10 major cities, we have found that the average number of meals cooked at home (7.0 per week) outpaces the average number of meals they eat/take out (6.1)—a trend that has been building since the Great Recession. We also know that diners in Houston eat out the most (4.1 times per week vs. the 3.2 national average), and that at 19.6 percent, the City of Brotherly Love is also the city of most generous tippers.


Zagat ratings and reviews for tens of thousands of restaurants at every price point and cuisine are available via the Google products you use every day, like search, Google+, Maps and mobile.

Congratulations to this year’s winners and bon appétit!

Posted by Bernardo Hernandez, Managing Director, Zagat

Meet Google’s Top Contributors, a community of help

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If you’ve ever asked a question in the Google Help Forums, there’s a pretty good chance you’ve met a Google Top Contributor. Last September, we told you a little bit about the Top Contributors when we hosted our 2011 Top Contributor Summit. Since then, Top Contributors continue to help millions of people get the most out of Google’s products by answering questions in Google’s Help Forums.

They also continue to give important feedback to Google. Top Contributors have advocated for features and improvements like custom colors in Google Calendar, more locations for offline Google Maps on Android devices, and protected ranges in Google Sheets. In short, they help Google build better products.

Starting today, you can find out more about Top Contributors on our new website for the program. You can learn about Google Help Forums, meet a few of the Top Contributors, and get a better understanding of what these incredible folks do to impact people’s lives in the forums every day.



We hope that the website brings the world of Google Help Forums to light and shows our thanks for the dedication Top Contributors show each day. To meet a Top Contributor or get some help, just stop by a forum and say hello. And let us know if you want more information on joining the Top Contributor Program!

Posted by Adrienne Ludwick, Top Contributor Program Manager

YouTube's New Interface, Closer to Launch

To contact us Click HERE
YouTube continues to test new user interfaces, but it looks like one of these versions will be finally rolled out to everyone.

There's a new message on the experimental homepage that welcomes users to the new YouTube and explains one of the new features: "What to watch shows you new activity from your subscriptions, recommendations based on videos you've watched and your taste in videos, plus the most popular videos on YouTube". YouTube also links to a page that was used the last time when YouTube was redesigned. You can see the old page in Google's cache, but now the page returns a 404 error message.


YouTube has constantly tested new versions of the sidebar from video pages. This time there's a new sidebar section that shows other related videos. You can "get the search results, feeds, and channel videos you were just looking at". For example, you can perform a search, click one of the results and see the list of results by clicking "more results" in the sidebar, instead of going back to the search results page.

The sidebar is the most important thing about the new YouTube interface because it's always there: on the homepage, the settings page, the search results page and can be expanded when you watch videos.


To try the new YouTube interface, check the instructions from this post.

The results are in—Zagat’s America's Top Restaurants revealed

To contact us Click HERE
To help people find the best places to eat in 46 U.S. cities and regions, we’re revealing the results of our 2013 America’s Top Restaurants Survey covering 1,822 of the nation’s top-rated restaurants. From Boston to Portland and Chicago to Miami, the results of this year’s Zagat Survey are based on millions of reviews from everyday diners who shared their experiences through their favorite Google products.

Winners include perennial favorites like the “exceptional” American Gary Danko (San Francisco), Eric Ripert’s French “seafood shrine” Le Bernardin (New York), and the “flawless” New American Bacchanalia (Atlanta), as well as top spots like Alinea (Chicago), Urasawa (Los Angeles) and Joël Robuchon (Las Vegas).

While many of the top restaurants break out the china and crystal, a number of standouts included in the guide are casual gourmet places like pizzerias: Settebello (Vegas and Salt Lake City), Supino Pizzeria (Detroit’s No.1 restaurant), Serious Pie (Seattle) and Dough (San Antonio); sandwich specialists: Bäco Mercat (LA), Cochon Butcher (New Orleans) and Melt Bar & Grilled (Cleveland); burger specialists: B Spot (Cleveland), Flip Burger Boutique (Atlanta) and Sketch (Philadelphia); and BBQs: Union Woodshop, Slows Bar BQ and Zingerman’s Roadhouse (Detroit).

Thanks to those of you who share your restaurant adventures with us, we also have a snapshot of what dining out in America looks like. Based on surveyors in 10 major cities, we have found that the average number of meals cooked at home (7.0 per week) outpaces the average number of meals they eat/take out (6.1)—a trend that has been building since the Great Recession. We also know that diners in Houston eat out the most (4.1 times per week vs. the 3.2 national average), and that at 19.6 percent, the City of Brotherly Love is also the city of most generous tippers.


Zagat ratings and reviews for tens of thousands of restaurants at every price point and cuisine are available via the Google products you use every day, like search, Google+, Maps and mobile.

Congratulations to this year’s winners and bon appétit!

Posted by Bernardo Hernandez, Managing Director, Zagat

VetNet: A place for veterans and military spouses to build civilian careers

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For several years now, we’ve been working to help the veteran community through outreach programs and by connecting veterans and their families to useful Google products and services. For example, we’ve built tools like the Veterans Job Bank to connect veterans with employers, today populated with more than a million jobs. And we created a Resume Builder to help job-seekers represent their experience in just a few clicks with Google Docs.

After years of working with the community, we’ve come to realize that it isn’t more tools that are needed, but rather organizing the ones that already exist, and making them easier to find. Perhaps the most complex challenge facing the veteran community today is the sheer volume of resources available to help them transition to civilian life. While this abundance is the measure of a grateful nation, and a tribute to those who served, in the end, the most important result is individuals and families getting the help they need.

With this in mind, we’ve put the powers of Google+ behind a single hub called VetNet. Today, VetNet launches as a partnership with three founding organizations: the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Hiring Our Heroes program, the Institute for Veterans and Military Families (IVMF) and Hire Heroes USA. In the long run, other organizations will be able to offer their services to the veteran community, all in the same easy-to-use place.



Through VetNet, these founding partners offer a full spectrum of employment resources for members of the community. Whether starting a job search from scratch, looking for mentors in a specific industry or starting a business, transitioning service members, veterans and military spouses will be able to connect with career services, job opportunities and each other.

All of the content and resources are organized into three tracks by objective, each hosted on its own Google+ page.

• Basic Training Track (google.com/+VetNetBasic): The place to start. From resumes to interviewing tips to advice from buddies. Dial into our first Resume Workshop today at 3pm EST.
• Career Connections Track (google.com/+VetNetCareer): Walmart, GE and Capital One are just a few of the companies that are participating in VetNet to help veterans and military spouses find civilian careers. Check out today’s Vets In Finance panel at 2pm EST.
• Entrepreneur Track (google.com/+VetNetEntrepreneur): An 8-week college-level course on the fundamentals of starting a business, starting next week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

To stay abreast of the most exciting events happening across all tracks, follow +VetNetHQ on Google+.

We’re proud to join forces with the Chamber, IVMF and Hire Heroes USA—to help them do what they do so well, and to simplify the process of finding and using resources for the veterans community. Our hope is simply to connect help to those who need it. If you’re a member of the community looking any career advice or help, get started at VetNetHQ.com. For those of us who have not served, please do what you can to spread word of VetNet to those who have.

Posted by Andy Berndt, Creative Lab

New Control Panel Features Available in All Languages

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The admin control panel now makes new features available in all languages at the same time. Previously, admins had to choose between viewing the admin control panel in English to receive the very latest features or waiting until new features had been translated into their preferred language. Instead, the control panel will always be displayed in the admin’s preferred language.

Editions included:
Google Apps, Google Apps for Business, Government, and Education

For more information:
How to choose a language for your control panel:  http://support.google.com/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=43212


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Gmail and Drive - a new way to send files

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Posted by Phil Sharp, Product Manager

Since Google Drive launched in April, millions of people have started using Drive to keep, create and share files. Starting today, it’s even easier to share with others: you can insert files from Drive directly into an email without leaving your Gmail.
Have you ever tried to attach a file to an email only to find out it's too large to send? Now with Drive, you can insert files up to 10GB -- 400 times larger than what you can send as a traditional attachment. Also, because you’re sending a file stored in the cloud, all your recipients will have access to the same, most-up-to-date version.

Like a smart assistant, Gmail will also double-check that your recipients all have access to any files you’re sending. This works like Gmail’s forgotten attachment detector: whenever you send a file from Drive that isn’t shared with everyone, you’ll be prompted with the option to change the file’s sharing settings without leaving your email. It’ll even work with Drive links pasted directly into emails.
So whether it’s photos from your recent camping trip, video footage from your brother’s wedding, or a presentation to your boss, all your stuff is easy to find and easy to share with Drive and Gmail. To get started, just click on the Drive icon while you're composing a message. Note that this feature is rolling out over the next few days and is only available with Gmail's new compose experience, so you'll need to opt-in if you haven't already.

Getting Indonesian universities connected

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Posted by Raden Arief Setiawan, Brawijaya University

Editors note: Today’s guest blogger is Raden Arief Setiawan, Head of Information and Technology Assessment and Development at Brawijaya University in Indonesia.

The world has been paying more attention to Indonesia these days to see how the world's fourth most populous nation moves into the digital century. While we're excited about our progress so far, there is still much work to do. Being a member of the G20, Indonesia has lots to offer the global economy in terms of both growing markets and a young workforce. This puts particular pressure on national universities to better prepare the next generation of leaders to enter the competitive worlds of science and business.

Despite the advances of information technology, many state universities face challenges in getting the latest systems in place. Despite having an internal email system for all its faculty and students, Brawijaya University faced numerous challenges of maintaining the infrastructure. The email system, along with server hardware, consumed a significant portion of the IT budget, and managing the email system alone took hundreds of man-hours.

Students and faculty members had to be resourceful, at times sharing single email accounts to transfer files and download the latest class notes. This was far from an ideal solution, but a solution nevertheless, considering the situation.

Now, with the help of the free and cloud-based Google Apps for Education system, 45,000 Brawijaya students and teachers have access to a whole new way of doing things: an updated, secure email system bearing the proud institution’s name; collaboration tools in the form of Google Docs and Groups, as well as access to the world wide web from various access points around the campus. For the administrators, Google Apps for Education was an easy choice due to the system’s openness, ease of access, and the way it can be connected to existing systems without having to buy new licenses and hardware.

We are proud to join other educational institutions around the world by fully embracing technology to change the way our university community will communicate, collaborate and learn. This will help develop a culture that simulates the ever-competitive global working environment, providing the nation’s best minds for the future.

Gmail and Drive - a new way to send files

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Posted by Phil Sharp, Product Manager, Gmail

(Cross-posted from the Gmail blog.)

Since Google Drive launched in April, millions of people have started using Drive to keep, create and share files. Starting today, it’s even easier to share with others: you can insert files from Drive directly into an email without leaving your Gmail.


Have you ever tried to attach a file to an email only to find out it's too large to send? Now with Drive, you can insert files up to 10GB -- 400 times larger than what you can send as a traditional attachment. Also, because you’re sending a file stored in the cloud, all your recipients will have access to the same, most-up-to-date version.

Like a smart assistant, Gmail will also double-check that your recipients all have access to any files you’re sending. This works like Gmail’s forgotten attachment detector: whenever you send a file from Drive that isn’t shared with everyone, you’ll be prompted with the option to change the file’s sharing settings without leaving your email. It’ll even work with Drive links pasted directly into emails.


So whether it’s photos from your recent camping trip, video footage from your brother’s wedding, or a presentation to your boss, all your stuff is easy to find and easy to share with Drive and Gmail. To get started, just click on the Drive icon while you're composing a message. Note that this feature is rolling out over the next few days and is only available with Gmail's new compose experience, so you'll need to opt-in if you haven't already.

Launching admin features to all supported languages at the same time

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Posted by Luis D. Maya, Google Apps Team

Today, we're improving the Google Apps administrator control panel for international and multi-lingual administrators. Now, the control panel will always be displayed in the user’s preferred language.

New administrator settings for Google+, displayed in Japanese
Previously, administrators had to choose between viewing the administrator control panel in English to receive the very latest features or wait until new features had been translated into their preferred language. Now, the administrator control panel makes new features available in all supported languages at the same time.

This change is rolling out to customers over the course of the day.

The results are in—Zagat’s America's Top Restaurants revealed

To contact us Click HERE
To help people find the best places to eat in 46 U.S. cities and regions, we’re revealing the results of our 2013 America’s Top Restaurants Survey covering 1,822 of the nation’s top-rated restaurants. From Boston to Portland and Chicago to Miami, the results of this year’s Zagat Survey are based on millions of reviews from everyday diners who shared their experiences through their favorite Google products.

Winners include perennial favorites like the “exceptional” American Gary Danko (San Francisco), Eric Ripert’s French “seafood shrine” Le Bernardin (New York), and the “flawless” New American Bacchanalia (Atlanta), as well as top spots like Alinea (Chicago), Urasawa (Los Angeles) and Joël Robuchon (Las Vegas).

While many of the top restaurants break out the china and crystal, a number of standouts included in the guide are casual gourmet places like pizzerias: Settebello (Vegas and Salt Lake City), Supino Pizzeria (Detroit’s No.1 restaurant), Serious Pie (Seattle) and Dough (San Antonio); sandwich specialists: Bäco Mercat (LA), Cochon Butcher (New Orleans) and Melt Bar & Grilled (Cleveland); burger specialists: B Spot (Cleveland), Flip Burger Boutique (Atlanta) and Sketch (Philadelphia); and BBQs: Union Woodshop, Slows Bar BQ and Zingerman’s Roadhouse (Detroit).

Thanks to those of you who share your restaurant adventures with us, we also have a snapshot of what dining out in America looks like. Based on surveyors in 10 major cities, we have found that the average number of meals cooked at home (7.0 per week) outpaces the average number of meals they eat/take out (6.1)—a trend that has been building since the Great Recession. We also know that diners in Houston eat out the most (4.1 times per week vs. the 3.2 national average), and that at 19.6 percent, the City of Brotherly Love is also the city of most generous tippers.


Zagat ratings and reviews for tens of thousands of restaurants at every price point and cuisine are available via the Google products you use every day, like search, Google+, Maps and mobile.

Congratulations to this year’s winners and bon appétit!

Posted by Bernardo Hernandez, Managing Director, Zagat

Get ready for winter: Mapping the Canadian Arctic and global ski resorts

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For those of us in the northern hemisphere, the days are getting shorter and the temperatures are dropping. To help prepare for the winter ahead, we’re adding more detail and imagery to the map for a variety of chilly destinations, making them more comprehensive and accurate than ever. Starting today, you can virtually experience the Canadian Arctic through new panoramic Street View images of Cambridge Bay and detailed maps created with the help of local community members. And if you’re planning a winter getaway, you can preview the slopes of more than 90 ski and snow resorts around the world, adding to dozens that are already available via Street View today.

Canada’s Arctic
When we visited Canada’s far north this past August, we worked with the nonprofit group Nunavut Tunngavik and the residents of Cambridge Bay to improve the map of this remote, but culturally rich, Nunavut hamlet. The map this community helped build using Google Map Maker, as well as the 360-degree images we collected using Street View trike and tripod technologies, is now available for all the world to see on Google Maps.



To get a sense of what it’s like to live up in the north, you can walk down Omingmak Street, make your way the bridge (where locals fish for Arctic Char) and head out to the Old Stone Church. Check out some Arctic souvenirs in the Arctic Closet, or visit the Ice Hockey and Curling Arena—it’s uninsulated and freezes over once they flood it in the winter! You can also learn more about Inuit history and culture at the Kitikmeot Heritage Society and the Arctic Coast Visitors Centre.


View Larger Map  Explore the intersection of Omingmak (“musk ox”) Street and Tigiganiak (“fox”) Road
Ski and snow resorts across the globe
You can also view some of the world’s best runs right on Google Maps before you get there. Whether you’re looking to discover a piste you’ve never tried before, or just want to take in some winter wonderland scenery, we’ve added Street View imagery for resorts across Europe (including runs in Switzerland, Austria, Norway, Sweden, Italy and Spain), Canada (including runs in British Columbia, Alberta and Ontorio) and the U.S. (including runs in Utah and Michigan).

For example, take a look at Sölden, a popular ski resort in the Ötztal valley of Tyrol, Austria. It’s not just tourists who flock there every year, but fans of professional skiing—Sölden regularly hosts the giant slalom competition as part of the Alpine World Cup in late October.


View Larger Map
You can also visit Canyons Resort in Park City, Utah. With 19 chairlifts, 4,000 acres of skiable terrain and an average of 355 inches of snow each winter, Canyons is the largest ski and snowboard terrain park in the state.


View Larger Map
Visit the to see some of our favorite images of the Arctic and resorts available on Google Maps. As winter sets in, we encourage you to experience it all from the comfort (and warmth) of your couch—or check it out online, then dig out your thermal underwear and snow boots to hit the slopes!

Posted by Ulf Spitzer, Program Manager, Google Street View

Get your Google back

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If you’ve moved to Windows 8 and are getting acquainted with it, you may be looking for a couple of your favorite Google products that you use every day. To help you get the best experience possible on Google and across the web, we’ve designed and built a new Google Search app and Chrome browser for Windows 8 and created a simple site to help you get your Google back.

 

The Google Search app comes with a clean and recognizable user interface. Our new voice search lets you naturally speak questions. The image search and image previews are built for swiping. And, as usual, you get immediate results as you type with Google Instant. The doodles you enjoy on special occasions will be right there on the homepage and even show up on the Google tile on your start screen.


The Chrome browser is the same Chrome you know and love, with some customizations to optimize for touchscreens, including larger buttons and the ability to keep Chrome open next to your other favorite apps. It delivers the fast, secure web experience you’ve come to expect from Chrome on all your devices.


To get both Google Search and Chrome installed on your Windows 8 machine, head to our site and learn how to get your familiar Google apps back.

Posted by Tamar Yehoshua, Product Management Director, Search

Nexus: The best of Google, now in three sizes

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People increasingly have more than one device, and they switch between them many times a day. Nexus—Google’s hardware line for Android devices—gets rid of the hassle. Just sign in with your Google Account and everything is there ready to go, whatever device you’re using: photos, emails, contacts, bookmarks, even your entertainment on Google Play.

Today, we’re excited to announce three great new Nexus devices … in small, medium and large. And they all run Android 4.2, a new flavor of Jelly Bean—which includes the latest version of Google Now and other great new features.




Nexus 4 with Google Now and Photo Sphere 
Nexus 4 is our latest smartphone, developed together with LG. It has a quad-core processor which means it's super fast, a crisp 4.7" (320 ppi) display that's perfect for looking at photos and watching YouTube, and with wireless charging you just set the phone down on a charging surface to power it up, no wires needed. While Nexus 4 is incredibly powerful under the hood, it also features the latest version of Jelly Bean, Android 4.2—the simplest and smartest version of Android yet. Starting with the camera, we've reinvented the photo experience with Photo Sphere, which lets you capture images that are literally larger than life. Snap shots up, down and in every direction to create stunning 360-degree immersive experiences that you can share on Google+ with friends and family—or you can add your Photo Sphere to Google Maps for the world to see.

Android 4.2 brings other great goodies like Gesture Typing, which lets you glide your finger over the letters you want to type on the keyboard—it makes typing fast, fun and a whole lot simpler. Android 4.2 also adds support for wireless display so you can wirelessly watch movies, YouTube videos and play games right on your Miracast-compatible HDTV.

Learn more about all of the new features of Android 4.2, Jelly Bean, here.

Google Now—even more useful 
We designed Google Now to make life simpler by giving you the right information at just the right time in easy to read cards, before you even ask. And the feedback has been awesome. So today we’re adding more cards that we hope you’ll find useful. Flight information, restaurant reservations, hotel confirmations and shipping details—how often have you found yourself wading through your email to get this information at the last moment? So next time you book a table for dinner, you’ll get a reminder with all the details without ever having to lift a finger. You’ll also get cards for nearby attractions, interesting photo spots, movies times at nearby theaters or concerts by your favorite artists.

Nexus 7: Thin, light and now even more portable
Nexus 7 brings you the best of Google–YouTube, Chrome, Gmail, Maps–and all the great content from Google Play in a slim, portable package that fits perfectly in your hand. To give you more room for all that great content you can now get Nexus 7 with 16GB ($199) or 32GB ($249) of storage. But we also wanted to make this highly portable tablet even more mobile. So we added HSPA+ mobile data. Nexus 7 is now also available with 32GB and HSPA+ mobile ($299), which can operate on more than 200 GSM providers worldwide, including AT&T and T-Mobile in the U.S. 

Nexus 10: Powerful and shareable 
Nexus 10 is the ultimate tablet for watching movies or reading magazines. We wanted to build a premium entertainment device, so we partnered with Samsung to do just that. Nexus 10 is the highest resolution tablet on the planet with a 10.055" display at 2560-by-1600 (300ppi), that's over 4 million pixels right in your hands. It comes with a powerful battery that will get you up to nine hours of video playback and more than 500 hours of standby time. With a set of front-facing stereo speakers, you can watch movies right from your Nexus 10 and they simply sound awesome. But what makes Nexus 10 unique is that it's the first truly shareable tablet. With Android 4.2, you can add multiple users and switch between them instantly right from the lockscreen. We believe that everyone should have quick and easy access to their own stuff -- email, apps, bookmarks, and more. That way, everyone can have their own home screens, their own music, and even their own high scores.

Google Play: More entertainment, more countries
We’ve recently added a ton of great new entertainment to Google Play, such as movies and TV shows from Twentieth Century Fox. Earlier this year we expanded our service beyond movie rentals and now you can purchase movies and build a library of your favorites in Google Play. Today we’re bringing movie purchasing to more countries - Canada, the U.K., France, Spain and Australia.

We’re also excited to announce two new partnerships. We’re now working with Time, Inc. to bring you even more magazines like InStyle, PEOPLE, TIME and others. And we’ve partnered with Warner Music Group who will be adding their full music catalog with new songs coming each day. We’re now working with all of the major record labels globally, and all the major U.S. magazine publishers, as well as many independent labels, artists and publishers.

On November 13, we're bringing music on Google Play to Europe.  Those of you in the U.K, France, Germany, Italy and Spain will be able to purchase music from the Google Play store and add up to 20,000 songs—for free—from your existing collection to the cloud for streaming to your Android devices or web browser. We’re also launching our new matching feature to streamline the process of uploading your personal music to Google Play. We’ll scan your music collection and any song we match against the Google Play catalog will be automatically added to your online library without needing to upload it, saving you time. This will be available in Europe at launch on November 13 and is coming to the U.S. soon after. This will all be for free—free storage of your music, free matching, free syncing across your devices and free listening.

Great value
We’ve always focused on building great devices at great value.  And we think today’s devices offer the very best that money can buy. Here are more details on when and where you can pick up your next Nexus device:

• Nexus 4: 8GB for $299; 16GB for $349; available unlocked and without a contract on 11/13 on the Google Play store in the U.S., U.K., Australia, France, Germany, Spain and Canada. The 16GB version will also be available through T-Mobile for $199, with a 2-year contract (check here for more details).
• Nexus 7: 16GB for $199 and 32GB for $249; available in the U.S., U.K., Australia, France, Germany, Spain, Canada and Japan, and also through our retail partners Gamestop, Office Depot, Office Max, Staples and Walmart.

• Nexus 7 with 32GB and mobile data: $299 and unlocked, on sale 11/13 in the Google Play store in the U.S., U.K., Australia, France, Germany, Spain and  Canada.

• Nexus 10: 16GB for $399; 32GB for $499; available on 11/13 in the Google Play Store in the U.S., U.K., Australia, France, Germany, Spain, Canada and Japan. You'll also be able to purchase the 32GB version in more than 2,000 Walmart stores in the U.S.

A Nexus device is much more than simply a phone or tablet. It’s your connection to the best of Google—all of your stuff and entertainment, everywhere you go with no hassle.  Now you have three new Nexus devices, a new improved version of Jelly Bean and more entertainment than ever before—all available on Google Play. The playground is open.


Posted by Andy Rubin, SVP, Mobile and Digital Content

Update 2:30pm: This post has been updated with the availability of Nexus 10 at Walmart.

New Crisis Response maps feature preparedness information for Hurricane Sandy

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Already responsible for a reported 41 deaths across the Caribbean, late-season Hurricane Sandy is expected to make landfall again early this week on the East Coast of the United States.

Some are calling the hurricane “Frankenstorm” due to its potential mix of both winter and tropical cyclone weather. Regardless of what you call it, we hope that you get the information you need to make preparations and stay safe if you are in the area. It has the potential to be one of the worst storms the area has seen in decades.

The Google Crisis Response team has assembled a Hurricane Sandy map to help you track the storm’s progress and provide updated emergency information.
  View larger map. 
On the map, you’ll find the following emergency preparedness information:

• Location tracking, including the hurricane’s current and forecasted paths, courtesy of the NOAA-National Hurricane Center
• Public alerts, including evacuation notices, storm warnings, and more, via weather.gov and earthquake.usgs.gov
• Radar and cloud imagery from weather.com and the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory
• Evacuation information and routes
• Shelters and recovery centers will appear as they become operational
• Storm footage and storm-related YouTube videos, curated by Storyful

We’ve also launched a map specific to New York City, featuring evacuation zone information from NYC Open Data, open shelters, weather information and live webcams.
View larger map.
You can easily share and embed these maps on your website — just hit the “Share” button at the top of the map to get the HTML code. We’ll continue to update these maps as more information becomes available.
Posted by Ka-Ping Yee, Software Engineer, Google Crisis Response
(Cross-posted on the Google.org blog)

Get Ready to Vote with Google

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Every four years in the United States, people prepare to head to the polls and increasingly search for information about how to register to vote, where to vote and who is on their ballot. Even though it is 2012, important voting information is disorganized and hard to find on the Internet. To help voters research candidates and successfully cast their ballot on Election Day, we’ve launched our new Voter Information Tool.


You can enter your address to find information on your polling place, early vote locations, ballot information with links to candidates’ social media sites and voting rules and requirements. The tool is easy to embed on any website and is open source so developers can modify it to create custom versions. We're working with a number of media partners to ensure the tool is accessible across the web, and partners like Foursquare and AT&T are doing great work building apps on our Civic Information API.

We hope this tool will help make getting to the polls and casting your ballot as simple as possible.

Posted by Jesse Mwaura, Google Politics & Elections Team

(Cross-posted on the Politics and Elections blog)

The results are in—Zagat’s America's Top Restaurants revealed

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To help people find the best places to eat in 46 U.S. cities and regions, we’re revealing the results of our 2013 America’s Top Restaurants Survey covering 1,822 of the nation’s top-rated restaurants. From Boston to Portland and Chicago to Miami, the results of this year’s Zagat Survey are based on millions of reviews from everyday diners who shared their experiences through their favorite Google products.

Winners include perennial favorites like the “exceptional” American Gary Danko (San Francisco), Eric Ripert’s French “seafood shrine” Le Bernardin (New York), and the “flawless” New American Bacchanalia (Atlanta), as well as top spots like Alinea (Chicago), Urasawa (Los Angeles) and Joël Robuchon (Las Vegas).

While many of the top restaurants break out the china and crystal, a number of standouts included in the guide are casual gourmet places like pizzerias: Settebello (Vegas and Salt Lake City), Supino Pizzeria (Detroit’s No.1 restaurant), Serious Pie (Seattle) and Dough (San Antonio); sandwich specialists: Bäco Mercat (LA), Cochon Butcher (New Orleans) and Melt Bar & Grilled (Cleveland); burger specialists: B Spot (Cleveland), Flip Burger Boutique (Atlanta) and Sketch (Philadelphia); and BBQs: Union Woodshop, Slows Bar BQ and Zingerman’s Roadhouse (Detroit).

Thanks to those of you who share your restaurant adventures with us, we also have a snapshot of what dining out in America looks like. Based on surveyors in 10 major cities, we have found that the average number of meals cooked at home (7.0 per week) outpaces the average number of meals they eat/take out (6.1)—a trend that has been building since the Great Recession. We also know that diners in Houston eat out the most (4.1 times per week vs. the 3.2 national average), and that at 19.6 percent, the City of Brotherly Love is also the city of most generous tippers.


Zagat ratings and reviews for tens of thousands of restaurants at every price point and cuisine are available via the Google products you use every day, like search, Google+, Maps and mobile.

Congratulations to this year’s winners and bon appétit!

Posted by Bernardo Hernandez, Managing Director, Zagat

Public Alerts on Google Search and Maps for Android for superstorm Sandy preparedness information

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Earlier today we posted about efforts to provide information to those affected by the former hurricane and now superstorm Sandy.

We also want to let you know that Public Alerts are now available on Google Search & Maps in your browser, on Google Maps for Android and also on Google Now for Android devices running Jellybean.

Public Alerts provide warnings for natural disasters and emergency situations. They appear based on targeted Google searches, such as [Superstorm Sandy], or with location-based search queries like [New York]. In addition to the alert, you’ll also see relevant response information, such as evacuation routes, crisis maps or shelter locations.

We were planning on announcing the new features in a few days, but wanted to get them out as soon as possible so they can be helpful to people during this time.

This is part of our continuing mission to bring emergency information to people when and where it is relevant. Public Alerts are primarily available in English for the U.S., but we are working with data providers across the world to expand their reach.

If you are searching for superstorm Sandy, you’ll see content at the top of the Search page specific to this crisis. For other searches, you’ll see public alerts where and when they are live.


Public Alerts on desktop search
Public Alerts on mobile
Desktop search showing content for Sandy-related query

We’re able to gather relevant emergency safety information thanks to a strong network of partners, including NOAA and USGS. Their commitment to open standards like the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) is what makes this all possible. We’ve also developed partnerships to bring you even more relevant alerts in the future, including local emergency data from Nixle.

To learn more about Public Alerts, visit our Public Alerts homepage. If you’re a data provider, and would like to contribute to our efforts, please see our FAQ.

We hope that this information makes it easier for you to stay safe.

Posted by Nigel Snoad, product manager, Google Crisis Response