Google takes over 200 factors into account before delivering you the best results to any query in a fraction of a second.
The company owns a bunch of domains that are common misspellings of Google, like Gooogle.com, Gogle.com, Googlr.com and more. Google also owns 466453.com too.
There are more than 2 million Google searches per second.
Google takes on moonshots projects that could change the world for millions of people. However, it also takes on important projects that only matter to a small number of people: In 2012, Google introduced the Cherokee language in Gmail.
Larry Page and Sergey Brin made the first Google Doodle in August 1998. They were heading to Burning Man in the Nevada desert, and wanted people to know where the Google crew would be for a few days, so they added the festival's logo.
Google's search index is more than 100 million gigabytes in size. It would take 100,000 one-terabyte personal drives to contain the same amount of data.
Google might be the only company with the explicit goal to reduce the amount of time people spend on its site.
Google has photographed more than 5 million miles of road for its Street View maps.
Google has acquired 24 companies this year alone — that's about three companies a month.
Over 6 billion hours of video are watched each month on YouTube — that's almost an hour for every person on Earth.
1. Wake up to news, updates and information... without even touching the device
One of the biggest appeals of Android is the use of off-screen hand gestures. Simply move your hand across the screen to perform tasks and dismiss notifications. Of course, the voice control is also incredibly useful and Senti Wayk helps put both of those to great use.
It acts as an alarm clock and lets you activate the snoose mode by either saying the word "snoose" or just waving your hand across the screen. Its biggest advantage is delivering reports as soon as you wake up, reading out weather reports, meetings and appointments you have planned and even news items from your RSS feeds.
If one ever needed a wireless personal assistant, this is it.
2. Automate everything at will
Another highly under-utilised feature of Android is the ability to automate and execute tasks when certain conditions are met.
Suppose you want your smartphone to text someone as soon as you reach a new area, or even play songs as soon as you plug in your headphones. How about cutting off Wi-Fi and 3G usage when data usage gets to a certain limit or when your battery runs out?
Android features a lot of these tasking abilities but the Tasker app perhaps exceeds them all. The sheer amount of customisation makes it so that you can do anything and everything automatically. And like a lot of useful functions with Android, it's free.
3. Control your PC using your smartphone
Most people who use a smartphone do so to access their mail and other documents. However, wouldn't it be great if you could access your computer itself?
Apps like Virtual Network Computing do this, allowing you to remotely connect to your system and view your entire desktop on your smartphone display. You can perform functions such as converting files, mailing and much more.
Another interesting app is VLC Direct Pro Free which stream media to your smartphone. You can use this to watch media from your PC on your smartphone. Imagine travelling to work and being able to watch a movie sitting on your PC via remote streaming.
4. Add contacts to your home screen
Some functions of Android are incredibly complex and powerful. This one is incredibly simple but under-stated in its importance. If you press and hold on an empty space on your Android smartphone's home screen, you'll get a pop-up menu.
From there, select "Shortcuts" and then "Contact".
From there, you scroll through your contacts and decide whom to add. For Jelly Bean, you need to press the Menu button, select Widgets (located in the top right corner) and then slide over one page to select Contact.
From there, you can choose the contact you wish to add a shortcut for.
5. Taking measurements using your smartphone
Suppose you don't have any measuring tape on you. Using Smart Measure Pro, you can convert your camera's lens into a highly accurate measuring device. It features a long range of measurements and conversions so you can properly discern things.
It may seem a bit confusing at first, since you need to aim at the ground rather than the object in question to measure. For example, when measuring the distance from someone, you need to take a picture of his or her feet. But it supports a range of features such as Portrait Mode, measuring width and area, and much more.
6. Gesture mode for visually impaired users
External apps are fun and all for utilising wave gestures. However, what if you're visually impaired and need to use the entire smartphone?
This is where Google's new Gesture Mode comes into play.
Available with Jelly Bean, Gesture Mode uses voice output, gestures and even inputs via Braille to help properly guide users through the interface. There is even output available via USB and Bluetooth devices.
7. The knowledge graph
Google pushed this new update through for PC-based search. Now, it's available on Android as well. When conducting searches on specific topics, such as people, places, books, movies and more, Google will look for data relevant to the search.
For example, Google a popular movie and you'll find information to the right of the screen which showcases a short summary, cast of characters -- along with the actors' real names -- and other movies people search for in the process.
It's great for finding something similar to your interests.
8. Access notifications and apps without unlocking your phone
Suppose you're in a hurry and don't want to needlessly unlock your phone.
From the lock screen itself you can slide from the top of the screen to the bottom. This will open the notifications tab and show you any new messages or updates you may have. If you press on a specific item, it will open that app right away. You can also customise your lock screen for numerous shortcuts to different apps.
9. Taking screenshots with the device
A long awaited feature for Jelly Bean has been the ability to take screenshots of whatever is happening on the home screen.
The shortcut for doing so is to hold the power button and volume down key. This will take a screenshot of whatever your home screen currently has displayed. You can then edit, crop and even share the photo among friends.
10. A softer night browsing experience
For those who use their smartphones in the dark, with no external background light, viewing text on screen can be a harsh experience for the eyes.
Google has introduced the means to invert colours on the browser for easier reading. Go to Settings and then Accessibility. Scroll down from there to find "Inverted Rendering". This transforms the browser to showcase white text on a black background.
There are two problems with what happened last week.
First, it’s Gartner, which has a track record of being spectacularly wrong with its predictions. Like the time in 2006 (and no, that is not a typo) when Gartner asserted that Apple’s only path to success was to quit the hardware business completely and license the Mac to Dell. Or the rolling forecasts in 2009 that started with Gartner projecting the “sharpest unit decline in history” and ended up with a report of “the strongest growth rate [in PC shipments] in seven years.”
Now, in fairness to the analysts who wrote this report, I think they have identified some likely trends. Sadly, those genuine insights are getting lost because they’re surrounded by tables full of numbers that are so specific as to be ludicrous.
But even if you take their numbers at face value, you need to actually understand them. With a few exceptions, most of the quick-and-dirty rewrites of Gartner’s press release got the story exactly wrong.
And that’s the second problem. All those reports focused on one shiny thing and ignored everything else in the report. Here, I’ve used my virtual yellow magic marker so you can see Gartner’s data as superficially as all those bloggers did: Right. The market for conventional desktop and notebook PCs is declining, because people increasingly value mobility in the devices they use to perform basic computing tasks. So, Gartner predicts a 20 percent decline in demand for big, desk-bound PCs and conventional notebooks, most of which are heavy devices that remain on a desktop full time.
But what’s that line right below the highlighted one? What’s an Ultramobile?
The good folks at Gartner helpfully defined the term for CNET last summer:
Gartner describes the combination of ultrabooks and the MacBook Air as "ultramobile notebooks." Typically, ultramobile laptops are under 3.5 pounds and less than 0.8-inches thick.
In other words, these are lightweight PCs, typically with keyboards and trackpads, powered by the same operating systems used on those heavier desktop and conventional notebook models. Microsoft’s two-pound Surface Pro is a perfect example of this type of lightweight PC/tablet. So are hybrid Windows 8 devices like HP’s Envy X2, Samsung’s 500T and 700T, and even Dell’s 3.3-pound convertible XPS 12. Ultrabooks and MacBook Airs, which are the equivalent of PCs and MacBook Pros in every dimension except weight and thickness, are counted in that line too. In other words, some PCs are getting considerably lighter, but they’re still PCs.
So let’s redo Gartner’s numbers, this time combining the PC and Ultramobile lines. Wow, that’s a completely different story. Large, heavy, general-purpose PCs are becoming less popular, but demand for lightweight devices that can still function as general-purpose PCs is soaring. If you do the math, you’ll see that the increase is projected to be about 881 percent from 2012 to 2017. That phenomenal growth rate in the Ultramobile category means that overall, the number of shipments of devices running desktop operating systems (like Windows and OS X and even Chrome OS) will probably increase by 5 percent between 2012 and 2017.
At an average of about 340 million devices per year, that means roughly 1.7 billion new PCs (including 250 million or so in the Ultramobile category) will reach the market between 2013 and 2017, also known as the Windows 8 era. Not exactly a dead category.
If you trust the numbers, that is, which is a pretty big if.
(A side note from that CNET story: Last July Gartner said it expected about 10.7 million ultramobile units to ship in 2012. Gartner’s final tally for the year was 9.8 million, more than 8 percent lower than its projection just six months earlier. Likewise, last July they projected that the number of ultramobiles shipped in 2013 would be “about 17 million.” Nine months later, they’ve revised that projection upwards to 23.6 million, a change of about 39 percent in just nine months. Think about that before you get too transfixed by the detailed projections for 2014 and 2017.)
And what about that "obsolete,” “irrelevant,” “fading fast” Microsoft?
Well, again, if you trust in Gartner’s numbers enough to write a “Microsoft is doomed” blog post, you really need to look at all the numbers. Here, let me help. [Data from Table 2 in this report, with RIM's tiny numbers added to the much larger "Other" category. I added percentages and trendlines.]
Wait, what? That same Gartner report says that Microsoft will struggle in 2013 and 2014 but then will dramatically increase its share of the overall market by 2017?
Exactly. Here’s what Gartner said in their summary press release:
In the shares of operating systems (OSs) in device sales, the shift to mobile and the fight for the third ecosystem becomes more evident. Android continues to be the dominant OS in the device market, buoyed by strong growth in the smartphone market (see Table 2). Competition for the second spot will be between Apple's iOS/Mac OS and Microsoft Windows.
I think that sounds about right.
Apple isn’t interested in winning market share at any costs. They want the high-margin customers. Microsoft is doing its best to build new-format devices that can work well in corporate environments where management is important. Android and Windows are both fighting aggressively to win share in emerging markets. The real loser is “Other.”
And before you start high-fiving Google over their complete dominance, it’s worth noting that Google’s direct share of the Android ecosystem might be a lot smaller than either of its two rivals. As my colleague Jason Perlow pointed out last week, the open nature of Android is a great blessing and an even greater curse for Google. Samsung, the largest maker of Android devices in the world, “will diverge from Google's OS and become a legitimate fork.” So will Amazon.
ZTE, Lenovo, and Huawei service primarily a domentic market in China, and will run their own weird domestic builds of Android with state-approved social networking software to keep the Chinese government happy...
This leaves us with no less than four, five, or six distinct forks of Android. Google as represented on Nexuses or Google Experience devices; Amazon; Samsung; HTC/Facebook; and whatever weird beast ends up running for domestic Chinese use. And BlackBerry 10's Dalvik implementation.
If you strip away the sensational headlines, the real story is pretty prosaic. The worldwide market for computing devices is changing rapidly, and three ecosystems (one of which is highly fragmented) have excellent prospects of becoming large enough to be taken seriously over the next five years.
Unless things change, which they always do.
Now go ahead and spin a clickbait headline out of that story. I dare you.
Search giant Google is set to kill off passwords and is experimenting with USB keys, mobile phones and even jewelry that can act as a physical 'key' to give users access to their account.
The firm's security experts including an Indian are set to publish their findings next month, the 'Daily Mail' reported.
In the upcoming issue of IEEE Security & Privacy Magazine, Google Vice President of Security Eric Grosse and engineer Mayank Upadhyay will detail what is basically a physical key with a 'smart chip' embedded inside it.
"Along with many in the industry, we feel passwords and simple bearer tokens such as cookies are no longer sufficient to keep users safe," the pair write in their paper, according to Wired.
To log, users simply place the tiny Universal Serial Bus (USB) drive into their computer.
The firm is also believed to be experimenting with wireless chips that are already built into some mobile phones, and can even be built in jewelry.
"We'd like your smartphone or smartcard-embedded finger ring to authorise a new computer via a tap on the computer, even in situations in which your phone might be without cellular connectivity," the team writes.
"One option uses a tiny USB key called a YubiKey. When the user plugs the key into a latop, they are automatically logged into all of their Google accounts - without ever having to type in a password," they explain.
"Another option uses a 'smartcard-embedded finger ring to authorise a new computer via a tap on the computer," they said.
The firm is also believed to be addressing the obvious problem with the system users losing their 'key' and is thought to be developing a simple system to replace them.
However, the pair admit that they will have to rely on websites to support the scheme.
"Others have tried similar approaches but achieved little success in the consumer world," they write.
"Although we recognise that our initiative will likewise remain speculative until we've proven large scale acceptance, we're eager to test it with other websites," they say.
