I am not a native English speaker but I am happily willing to go an extra mile to learn new phrases, definitions and idioms. Whenever I come across an unknown word, I look it up using Google‘s Definition feature using the ‘define:‘ keyword. Lately, to my surprise, I noticed that the definitions provided by Google are much more detailed and informative.

You will notice that apart from the definition, it clearly shows whether the word is an adjective, adverb or a noun and shows its meaning relative to each of them. What’s more awesome is that, Google even shows synonyms of the word. All this right within the search results, properly formatted! Also, if you are trying to figure out how to pronounce a word, simply click the small speaker icon or read the phonetic. Of course, links to popular online dictionaries are there as usual.

I am sure this feature is now available in other languages as well. It is one of those small features that makes our lives easy.

It seems like more and more of our lives today are conducted on or with the aid or our mobile phones. Many people have completely disconnected their land lines and stopped using their GPS devices, favoring instead the multi-function utility of most cell phones.

Given this trend, it isn’t so surprising—though it is still impressive and just plain cool—that Google is releasing an application for Google devices that transforms your phone into a wallet, appropriately named Google Wallet.

Google Wallet allows users to make purchases simply by swiping their phone near a payment station. Those with a Citi Mastercard can charge purchases directly to their account, and anyone else can start a Google prepaid card which can be replenished anytime (even while you’re on the go, thanks to your phone’s internet browsing capabilities).

Using your phone as a wallet might seem unusual at first, but it has several advantages over carrying a physical wallet. First, it is safer. If you don’t carry cash, it can’t be stolen. It is also very secure, and is protected by several measures, both in the phone and by Google. Furthermore, Google Wallet makes saving easy—you can save coupons on your phone and immediately apply them when you shop.

Google Wallet is also more convenient for shoppers, as you won’t have to carry so much with you while shopping. Chances are you already take your phone with you everywhere—now you can pay for your purchases with it too!

As the app gains popularity it will probably spread to other platforms, but for now it is limited to Sprint Google devices.

Mariana Ashley is a freelance writer who particularly enjoys writing about online colleges. She loves receiving reader feedback, which can be directed to mariana.ashley031@gmail.com.

Yes, I was in a hiatus for a few days and I hope you missed our posts. ;) But I am back online to rock n roll. It’s not so surprising that the Google+ fever has not yet subsided. People are actively signing up on the new social network and are having a really positive opinion about it. Google finally did social the right way.

Now the developers at Abelssoft made this nifty little Google+ desktop client for windows. You can easily access Google+ in a slick window that sits on your desktop. The UI is clean and intuitive. You can see your G+ feed, +1 posts, comment and share a new post with your circle of friends. It also provides tray notification. It only lacks the ability to upload pictures and videos. But it’s an app worth trying out. Do check it out.

Download G+ client for Windows

If you keep up with the latest tech news, you’d know that Google has recently launched a new social networking service Google+ which emphasizes on privacy and bring about a new dimension to how we interact with our friends and acquaintances online.

Going by the looks of it, it has some serious potential to give a tough fight to the social behemoth – Facebook. Tons of blogs already compared the two services and Google+ is mostly being appreciated all over. In such conditions, you’d least expect Mark Zuckerberg to have a Google+ profile. But, he actually went ahead and created one.

When one of the Google+ users spotted Mark’s profile, it created a stir in the web community regarding whether or not it was an authentic account. To verify, Robert Scobble, asked Mark via a text message to which he replied, “Why are people so surprised that I’d have a Google account?”, revealed Robert in a tweet.

This may be Mark’s way of expressing his (ahem) generosity especially because Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin were reluctant to create their profiles on Facebook in the past. I think the online world and services therein have intermingled with each other to an extent that it’s only foolish not to have a ‘Mark’ even on your competitors services. Good going Zuck.

Google is currently under a massive overhaul. With lots of iterative design changes, the internet giant has revamped Gmail too. You will have to activate the new ‘preview theme’ to experience the new avatar of Gmail, complementing heavily with the new design changes that Google brought about in search and other services. The flavor of the new theme goes along side with the likes of Google’s newest baby – Google+.

This is what the new Preview theme in Gmail looks like:

To activate:

Go to Gmail Options (the small gear button on the top-right) > Mail Settings > Themes tab > Preview

Enjoy the new sleek theme. You can also select the Preview Dense version if you prefer less white-space. I personally loved the theme. It is clean and so much 2011. What do you guys have to say?

Google’s homepage has never seen substantial changes since years, excluding of course the occasional doodles. I am sure it must have been cited a countless times as an example of simple, minimalist yet effective web design.

However, Google’s been experimenting heavily on the design elements on many of its products lately. But recently, there has been a significant change in its homepage design. Google added a contrasting black navigation bar at the top to better highlight their services and reduced the size of the logo. According to Google, the new homepage was designed to increase user interactivity and uses HTML5 and WebGL.

I liked the new design. What about you?

In an interview at the D9 conference, when Eric Schmidt, the current Executive Chairman and former CEO of Google Inc. was asked how end-users could be more secure, he made some sharp statements. Firstly (and obviously) he suggested using Google Chrome as their primary browser, use two-factor Gmail authentication and ditch Windows PC and get a Mac instead.

In the conversation with Walt Mossberg of AllThingsD9, he went on to say a lot more about Google Wallet, facial recognition, Google offers and also about Amazon, Apple and Facebook. You can see the exclusive video here.

Earlier we have noted that Google‘s been busy developing a rival to Facebook‘s Like button, called the +1 button. Also we showed you how you can start using them in Google search results. But now, the roll out process is complete. In an official announcement today, Google finally unveiled the +1 button. You can now implement +1 buttons on your websites/blogs.

At the time of this writing, it’s just been an hour since the button is made available and most of the high-profile sites like O’Reilly, The Huffington Post, Best Buy, Reuters, Bloomberg, etc. have already implemented it. Google‘s +1 button aims a similar functionality as that of the Facebook‘s ‘Like’ button albeit on a slightly larger scale. +1 is actually a kind of recommendation given to your connections in your Google circle so the next time they search something similar, they see your recommendations in the search results.

You can implement +1 button on your website by generating the code here: +1 your website

In my personal opinion, I am not too keen on implementing the +1 button right away. The reasons I have explained here. But I’d definitely be having an eye on how +1 actually fares in world where there are more buttons to share than actual content

Google has kicked off imagery collection on the streets in Bangalore for Google Street view. Soon, more cities of the subcontinent will be covered.

Vinay Goel, Country Head, Products, Google, said

Bangalore being the IT capital of India was the obvious choice to start with. The aim is to map India in totality which is a tough job considering two-third streets in India do not have names.

Nrityagram Dance Village in Bangalore is where the Street View imagery collection will begin. Google assures that privacy of the citizens will be respected and hence, the faces of the people and number plates of vehicles will be blurred. The images will then be stitched to form 360 degree panoramic views and will finally be uploaded to Google Maps. 

In the recent past, Google ran into legal problems due to the Street View project in European countries. Intrusion to privacy was the major concern of most of the accusing countries. No such problem has been reported by Indian authorities as of now, but considering the recent beefing up of security measures to protect digital data, it is highly likely that Google might run into some issues.

Update: Google India has reportedly acquired permission from the traffic department of the Bangalore Police for Google Street View.

I have always wondered how awesome it would be if Google Street View was available in India. But then the immediate thought was how hard it would be for Google to properly map the streets of India. Firstly, the streets and the whole road infrastructure in India is way different (and much more complex) than other developed nations. From national highways to village approach roads, the category slots are many and worse, not properly defined. This can be a major headache for the Internet giant to prioritize and include/exclude roads.

The project as a whole, is gigantic and ambitious, especially when the country in question is India.But I assume, Google will pull it off rather well. However, it will definitely take up a considerable time and effort.

Lately, Google‘s been performing extensive experimentations with the search result pages. First the experimental +1 button integration, then the ‘Best Guess’ feature and now two nifty little features in the search results sidebar – Dictionary and Reading Level.

Till now, many people used the define: operator to get the definition of a word. Now with an explicit option ‘Dictionary’, the task is relatively simple for the novices too. Besides, the ‘Dictionary’ feature shows a page full of definitions from different sources which is quite helpful.

The ‘Reading Level’ feature filters results based on the readability level of the pages. You can click the links ‘Basic’, ‘Intermediate’ or ‘Advanced’ to narrow down your search based on the level of sophisticated language.

Reading level can be handy in many situations. Imagine you are making a school project and need some quality information. The ‘Advanced’ option can quickly clean up the rubbish content written in amateurish language. Or suppose your teacher taught you quantum physics today but you didn’t quite get it. Then, the ‘Basic’ option will show you results that explain the topic in a simple, layman language.

Google introduces new features after giving much thought and thus they are extremely versatile and can be used in a variety of different ways.