Category: Google

The Google OnHub, the Wi-Fi access point that has some amazing specs, is hitting shelves today and to mark the occasion, Google has released the Google On for Android app in the Play Store.  The Google On app allows you to configure and control your OnHub right from your Android Phone or tablet and acts as the primary gateway to the device.  Google’s vision for OnHub is to make Wi-Fi less painful at home than it has been in the past.  Part of that vision is a single app that allows for easy access and configuration.  That’s Google On.

Google On for Android – Free – Download Now

As the growth of online gaming has grown, so has the way people learn and consume gameplay.  Twitch has taken off over the past 18 months and now Google is getting into the gameplay watching fray.  Today they launched YouTube Gaming, an app and web portal dedicated to streaming video, videos and live chats to help gamers with over 25,000 different game titles.  YouTube Gaming has a dedicated page for every game, making finding content much easier as you look to watch or chat about a particular game.  The app and the service are both free and it leverages the power of YouTube.

YouTube Gaming for Android – Free – Download Now

Google has released an important update to Gmail for Android that users of Microsoft and Yahoo email accounts will benefit from greatly.  The latest update brings much improved support for email accounts from the companies including support for 2-factor authentication.  The update is version, wait for it…. 5.5.101116392 for those keeping score at home and who like Google version Bingo and it is for both Android phone and tablet devices (the build number for tablets is slightly different).

Gmail for Android – Free – Download Now

The personal assistant wars may be getting, well, personal.  Microsoft has released a public beta of Cortana, the personal assistant found in Windows 10 and Windows 10 Mobile, to the Google Play Store for Android users.  Cortana is aimed to compete against Google Now for your quick search, information and reminders on your phone just like Now does.  For the longest time, Cortana was exclusive to Windows Phone 8.1 and recently made its desktop debut in Windows 10 and both allow you to simply ask your device a question starting with “Hey Cortana” and you can search anything on your PC or the Internet.  Sound familiar?  It should.  If you have used Google Now, you will see the direct competitive nature of this to “OK, Google” that you ask your phone today.

On the official Android blog, Google has announced that they have begun rolling out a new update to Android Wear.  This new 1.3 version for those keeping score is going to be huge with a lot of new interactions and with Google Translate embedded into the release.  What Google has done with it is great and should make it much easier to get help in up to 44 different languages right on your wrist.

How it will work is simple.  You tap on the Google Translate app on you Wear device and speak into it.  When you are done, flick your wrist over and the person you are interacting with can read your question or statement in their own language.  You can do it all on your wrist and there is no need to get your phone from your pocket unless you want spoken translations.

Last week I posted Part 1 of my migration from Microsoft Office to Google Docs.  In that post, I outlined the foundations of why I moved and the process of migrating your files from your PC or other cloud storage to Google Drive, how to setup offline access and the importance and power of Chrome Extensions as part of that offline work.

Read Part 1:  My Migration to Google Docs Part 1 – The Setup

In Part 2 I’m going to cover the ins-and-outs of Google Docs, the document processing app.  I’m going to cover using the app from the perspective of a PC running Chrome, a Chromebook and the Google Docs app on my Android phone (OnePlus One) and tablet (Samsung Galaxy Tab 4).  I’ll cover the pros and cons of Google Docs versus Microsoft Word and some of the things that you will need to keep in mind if you are thinking of switching.  This same methodology will repeat over the course of the next few weeks when I cover Google Sheets and Google Slides.

As a reminder to everyone who is thinking of making this transition, I will repeat what I said in Part 1 of this series:

Take your time.  You will find that the majority of features in Microsoft Office are in the Google apps but they will be in different places.  It may take you a few menu clicks to sort it out.  Be patient.  Give it a chance.  Sure it may turn out that it isn’t right for you and your needs but I would suggest trying the experiment over a week or two before you make a final verdict.  It isn’t as big a migration from say a PC to a Mac but it is similar to moving from Internet Explorer to Chrome in many ways.  Same thing, but bits in different places and this process or that process may be a little different.

Rome wasn’t built in a day and moving from one way of editing your documents to another won’t be done in a day either.  Give it an honest try and take your time.