Google Answers And Comparisons

Back in 2009, when HTC HD2 was released, many people complained that it had a huge screen: a 4.3-inch display. Now it seems quite small. Even iPhone's 3.5-inch display seemed very big back in 2007. As you can see, context matters and it puts things into perspective.

When searching Google for [Saturn size], you used to get an answer that was useful, but not that revealing. So the radius is 58,232 km (36,184 miles). It's obviously very large, but how does it compare to other planets? Now Google shows other planets and their size below the answer.

Search for [Earth mass] and Google shows that Venus has almost the same mass, while Jupiter's mass is 317.8 times bigger.

The instant answer for [Earth surface area] confirms that Earth and Venus are close in size.

What about gravity? Pretty close.

"The solar system is a pretty big place. To get a quick refresh on astronomy, you can ask Google 'What is the surface area of Earth?' and find out that it's 196.9 million square miles. But how BIG is that? Clearly not as large as some of our waistlines post-holidays—but is it larger or smaller than Jupiter? The size of Earth makes more sense when considered relative to the surface area of other planets; Earth is similar in size to Venus but more than 100 times smaller than Jupiter! Google now provides these comparisons, helping you understand the world (or solar system) around you," informs Google.

For now, this feature is only available for astronomy-related questions. You can find some similar comparisons when you search for things like [China GDP] or [India population].

No More Location History Dashboard

Google had a cool feature as part of Location History: a dashboard that displayed how you spend your time, how much do you spend at work or at home, the places you've visited, when you visited each country, your flights, the distance you've traveled (including the number of additional miles to the Moon). This feature, which was launched in 2010 as part of Google Latitude and was still in beta, is gone and the dashboard redirects to the Location History homepage.

Google confirmed that the feature was removed last month: "You can continue to view and manage your Location History information by going to https://maps.google.com/locationhistory/, but we've removed the Location History dashboard (the part of the Location History website that provided a summary of your locations, including total miles traveled and trip information). We are not removing Location History entirely or deleting any raw Location History information. We're continuing to explore more useful and relevant ways for you to engage with and view location history."

Here are some screenshots from Bogdan Bele and guao.hk:

And here are the remaining features:

For some people, the dashboard was one of the main reasons to enable Location History. "I thought the dashboard was a nice record of my travels, and it was the only reason I activated location reporting on my Android phone. If the dashboard has permanently disappeared, then it means that Google is tracking my location for their own purposes, and not giving me anything in return," says Rob Fuller, a reader of this blog.

Location History is actually used by some Google Now cards. "Google Now uses your Location History, which may include locations saved from your use of other Google products, to monitor traffic on your commute route and more," informs Google. There's even a card that shows a summary of your activity. Google Maps also uses it to personalize search results.

{ Thanks, Rob. }

Happy New Year From Google!

Mr. Jingles, the Google+ mascot, has some special yellow glasses for the New Year's party. It's a joyful way to wish everyone a Happy New Year.

"I'll be up late tonight looking forward to 2014. Have fun and stay safe tonight," says Mr. Jingles.

Click the icon and you should see some fireworks. Here's the animation:

And here's the disco doodle from the Google homepage:

Happy New Year!

Schemer to Be Discontinued

Schemer was launched two years ago as an invite-only service for sharing goals and discussing them with other people. "A scheme is 'a secret or devious plan' (American Heritage Dictionary) and a schemer is a person who is involved in making these secret plans, so Google uses a mustache logo, a mesmerizing animated homepage, the Hitchcock font and catchy messages like 'You're looking diabolical!' or 'Invite your partners in crime'," I wrote at the time.

Since then, Schemer launched mobile apps for Android and iOS, while no longer requiring invitations, but the service failed to catch on. The Android app has somewhere between 100,000 and 500,000 downloads. It was last updated in October 2012.

According to an internal version of the site, Schemer will be discontinued. "Schemer is being shut down soon. Sign in to get your data before it's gone," mentions the site. "We had launched over a year ago to help people to do more awesome stuff, and it has been quite an adventure for us as well! However, we have come to the difficult decision to shut down Schemer." It's not clear when it will be discontinued.

Here's a promotional video: "The beginning of everything worth doing."

{ Thanks, Florian K. }

How to Delete Auto Backup Photos

If you've tried the Auto Backup tool and you want to delete your photos, it won't be easy. You can go to the Auto Backup section of Google+ Photos, mouse over a photo, click the "tick" icon, select photos one by one and click "Delete". You can also select photos by dragging a "lasso", just like in your favorite file manager. You can also select a photo and Shift+click the last photo you want to select or Ctrl-click photos for non-contiguous selection.

That's great if you only have a few photos, but not if you have thousands of photos. Fortunately, there's a better way:

1. go to Google+ Photos, click "More" and pick "Albums"

2. add /camerasync to the URL in the address bar and press Enter. You should get something like:

https://plus.google.com/photos/+YourName/albums/camerasync

3. click "Select" below "Photos from Auto Backup". After a few seconds, Google will select the last 2000 photos uploaded to Auto Backup. If you have less than 2000 photos, all of them will be selected.

4. click "Delete" at the top of the page. This only moves the photos to Trash, so they're not permanently deleted. If you change your mind, click "undo" after they're moved to Trash.

5. you may need to manually refresh the page (press F5) to see the remaining photos. You'll have to go back to step 3 and select the next 2000 photos and then go to the step 4.

6. to permanently delete your photos, go to the Trash, click "Empty trash now" and confirm this action.

Search by Camera in Google+ Photos

Google+ Photos has a sophisticated search feature, but some of the features aren't easy to find. For example, you can search photos by camera. Use queries like #canon, #nikon, #sony, #apple, #panasonic, #samsung, #nokia to find photos taken using a phone or camera from one of these companies. You can also use the name of the phone or camera, but not all of them work. These worked for me: #iphone4s, #iphone5s, #canonpowershots95, #canoneos, #dsc-w150, #k800i.

Google+ Auto Backup for Desktop

The latest version of Picasa for Windows and Mac installs a separate utility called Google+ Auto Backup. It's a simple tool that lets you select the folders that you want to backup automatically and even has support for SD cards. Google+ Auto Backup works in the background, much like Google Music Manager and Google Drive for desktop.

The application uses the new Google Photos icon and, even though it's installed by Picasa, it doesn't have anything to do with Picasa, which has its own syncing feature.

Here's the installer file GPAutoBackup.msi in the Picasa folder:

The application has its own uninstall entry:

When you visit Google+, you'll see this message, which informs you that you can use the search box to find photos and videos from Auto Backup.

By default, Google uploads the original photos and they use your Google Drive storage space. You can enable photo resizing (standard size), so that the uploaded photos don't count against your Google Drive storage quota. Photos are resized so that the longest edge is 2048px or less.

"All photos uploaded through Google+ Auto Backup will default to private in Google+, so you can decide what actions to take once they are backed up to Google+. Once your photos have been uploaded, they will appear along with other Auto Backup photos. We'll arrange them by date in the Highlights section of Google+ Photos, and you can search #desktop in Photos Search to easily find all of the photos that you've backed up through your desktop." (from GooglePlus Helper)

To get Auto Backup for Desktop, you need to install Picasa. If you already have Picasa, make sure you've updated to the latest version (137.69). Go to the Help menu and "check for updates". The release notes include some other changes: new file size limits for uploads: 50 MB or 100 MP, "Edit in Creative Kit" function has been removed, updates to RAW support to include newer cameras.

{ Thanks, Daniel. }