Mobile tips

Sometimes, the expressions on a person's face can mean much more than what they say. To help you stay in touch with your friends and family, we�re launching Google Talk with video and voice chat for Android phones. You can now video or voice chat with your friends, family and colleagues right from your Android phone, whether they�re on their compatible Android tablet or phone, or using Gmail with Google Talk on their computer. You can make calls over a 3G or 4G data network (if your carrier supports it) or over Wi-Fi.    In your Google Talk friends list, a video or voice chat button will appear next to your contacts and you can simply touch the button to connect with them. Any text chats from the person you�re talking with will be overlaid on your phone�s screen so you can read them without having to leave the video. And, if you need to check something else, the video pauses automatically so you can go back to your phone�s home screen or another app. The audio will keep going...

(Cross posted on the Google Docs Blog , and Google Enterprise Blog ) Increasingly, people are using mobile phones to access information -- from email to web browsing to editing documents . Part of getting work done on the go is being able to easily access, edit and share content, which is why we�re happy to announce the new Google Docs app for Android . With this new app it�s easy to filter and search for your content across any Google account, then jump straight into editing docs using the online mobile editors. The app also allows you to easily share items with contacts on your phone, right from within the app. The Docs app also allows you to upload content from your phone and open documents directly from Gmail. You can also add a widget to your home screen for easy access to three core tasks: jumping to your starred documents, taking a photo to upload, or creating a new document with one tap. And my favorite feature: Using the app and your phone�s camera, you can turn photos with te...

79% of smartphone consumers use their phones to help with shopping, from comparing prices and finding more product info to locating a retailer, 72% use their smartphones while consuming other media, and 88% of those who look for local information on their smartphones take action within a day. These are some of the key findings from �The Mobile Movement: Understanding Smartphone Users,� a study from Google and conducted by Ipsos OTX, an independent market research firm, among 5,013 US adult smartphone Internet users at the end of 2010. Check out our post on the Google Mobile Ads blog for more of the study�s findings, or join us in tomorrow�s webinar where we�ll present the full research findings. In the meantime, enjoy this research highlights video. Posted by Dai Pham, Google Mobile Ads Marketing Team

Sometimes when I�m using Gmail on my phone, I delete a message by mistake or label it incorrectly. Sure I can fish the message out of my Trash or remove the label and apply the correct one, but that takes several steps. Even just a few seconds is usually enough time to catch those annoying mistakes. Now when you use the Gmail mobile web app, you�ll have a small window of opportunity to undo four key actions: archive, delete, add or remove a label, or move a message/conversation. When you take one of these actions, Gmail displays a yellow bar that recaps what you just did and allows you to undo it: This bar stays in position even if you move to another screen (e.g. moving to �Menu� from �Inbox�). If you don�t happen to catch your mistake in time, not to worry: all four actions can still be undone through other means (e.g. you can move a message from Trash back into your Inbox). Try it out at gmail.com in the browser of your Android or iOS device. Update: 9:09am Pacific time 4/19/1...

(Cross-posted on the Google Translate blog ) Today we launched an update to Google Translate for Android that allows you to listen to translations in several more languages. We�ve dramatically improved the quality of our spoken translations in over 15 languages, including Russian, Chinese and Portuguese, and added the ability to listen to three new languages: Japanese, Arabic and Korean. Text-to-speech is one of the most popular features of this mobile interface. Whether you�re learning how to say a foreign phrase, or trying to share information with someone in their language, simply tap the Speaker icon after doing a translation and you�ll hear the difference. With today�s launch, Google Translate for Android supports translation between 58 languages and can speak translations in 24 languages. The application works on phones and tablets running Android 2.1 and above. To download Google Translate for Android, scan the QR code below, or visit us on the Android Market . Posted by Awanee...

cross-posted from the Google News blog While the Google News team has been hard at work redesigning our service for smartphones, we�ve also been thinking about our milllions of users around the world who access the web not from a smartphone, but from a feature phone, using Opera Mini as their browser. So we have rolled out a redesigned Google News for Opera Mini in all 29 languages and 70 editions of Google News. This includes an enhanced homepage featuring richer snippets, thumbnail images, links to videos and section content without explicit navigation, a convenient search bar, comfortably spaced links and the ability to access your desktop personalization on your phone. We hope that this will improve the news browsing experience for Opera Mini users around the world, including millions of people using a feature phone as the primary point of access for the web. See it here in the Indian Hindi and Nigerian English versions.   So, pick up your feature phone and point your Opera M...

Today, we�re happy to announce Google Maps 5.3 for Android , which lets you see your Google Location History dashboard, check in at �home,� and add your own aspects for places when rating them. Location History dashboard If you�ve enabled Location History for Google Latitude , you�ve been able to visualize interesting trends in your location history with a personal dashboard at google.com/latitude on your computer. Now, you can also see your dashboard on your phone by tapping View location history from your Latitude profile. You�ll be able to see right on your phone how far you�ve travelled as well as an estimate of how much time you�ve spent at home, at work, or out. If you haven�t yet, you can enable Location History from your computer or from Latitude�s Settings menu on your phone. Location History is 100% opt-in and is private to you and nobody else. You can always delete any of your location history from the Manage History tab or correct the estimated work and home locations...

Search using your location is extremely helpful while on the go. Today, we�re excited to announce Meow Me Now, a new feature that lets you find the kittens that are near you. You can find kittens either by searching for [kittens] on google.com on your Android or iOS device, or by using the Near Me Now drop-down feature on the Google homepage. Voice search to locate nearby kittens will also work on Android devices, and iOS devices with the Google Search App, so try meowing into your phone to find the kittens near you. Posted by Yusuke Tabata, cat herder