Quantcast
Xbox One / Everything You Need to Know about Microsoft's New Console
More Things Tested

Google Roundup of the Week: Chrome OS Chat Comes to Chrome Browser

By Sam Cook

Want to see what Google's been up to lately? Here's all their recent blog updates in one convenient post.

Ever logged into Gmail, Google Docs, or any other Google product and thought, “Whoa, when did they add that new feature?” Google is constantly making updates to their products, but you’d never know without regularly digging through their many project blogs and Google+ posts. So every week (or two) we like to find out what the company’s been working on, then condense it all into one convenient post. This time around one of the best extensions for Chrome OS has come to regular Chrome, Google Docs for Android added real time collaboration, and Google Map Maker launched a university campus mapping contest.

Here’s all that in detail, plus a quick rundown of some minor posts.

Chrome Chat Extension Drops the “Chromebook Only” Tag

There are lots of ways to access Google’s chat service, from the full desktop client to the web-based versions in Gmail, iGoogle, and Google+, but none are as elegant as the chat found on Chromebooks. The Chrome OS “panel” feature allows Google Talk to run permanently docked in the lower-right corner of the screen no matter what tab is in view—so no switching back to Gmail just to answer a new message. This week Google finally updated their chat extension to work in regular versions of Chrome, so now everyone can enjoy one of the cleanest chat implementations we’ve seen.

The extension is surprisingly full-featured for a first-run Google products. Voice/video chat and file transfer are built in, and there’s a button to quickly launch a Google+ Hangout. The docked chat windows stay up when Chrome is minimized or even closed, so the extension could easily replace the full desktop client. We really like the cleanliness of the panels, but if you prefer your chat windows to be free-floating you can turn them off in the options. We do miss Gmail’s handy SMS feature, but hopefully that will be added in a later update. And since the extension can run without any tabs open, we'd love to see a way to launch it without having to launch the full browser first.

Docs for Android Starts Collaborating

Ever since the dedicated Google Docs app for Android released, the team has been pushing to get it up to speed with the full web product. The latest version adds some big improvements, most notably support for one of Google Docs’ slickest features: real time collaboration that shows updates as they are typed. The update also includes pinch-to-zoom support, which lets users slide out to full document view or down to an individual word, as well as rich text formatting like color, lists, and other commonly used options. Overall the this is a really nice update to the Docs app that makes mobile editing significantly more robust.

Map Your Campus for Prizes

Google Map Maker is the company’s attempt to crowdsource more detail into Maps, and lately they’ve been focusing those efforts on college campuses. Earlier this month they launched the Map Your University 2012 Competiton, which promises prizes like Android tablets/phones, GPS devices, and more to teams that thoroughly and accurately update their campus in Map Maker. The contest runs through March 9, and if you’re interested in getting a team together you can register through the contest website.

Odds and Ends