17 May 2013

The New Google Maps, Now Available



By now, you've probably received the invitation to try the new Google Maps. It's not available without an invitation and it's likely that it won't replace the classic Google Maps very soon.






Depending on your computer and the browser you're using, you may not see the Google Earth view and other 3D features. WebGL features require Windows Vista/7/8, Mac OS 10.8.3+, Chrome OS, the latest versions of Chrome, Firefox and up-to-date graphics drivers. This page explains what's the lite mode and provides links for the lite mode and the full 3D mode.



Probably the most impressive feature in the new interface is the Google Earth integration that doesn't require a plugin. It looks great, even if it doesn't includes all the features of the desktop software. Earth view replaces the old satellite view, which is only available in the lite mode.



If you want to find "how Google Maps went from a flat map where Greenland looks bigger than Africa to a beautifully realistic 3D globe", Evan Parker from Google shares the story. From the Google Earth plugin to MapsGL and the new Earth view, it took almost 7 years to make Google Earth work smoothly in your browser.






Another impressive feature is the "Explore" box at the bottom of the page that combines Street View, panoramas and static photos. It's the best way to find interesting places and explore them from your armchair.






Standard maps look better, colors are softer, labels are easier to read. Google Maps finally has permalinks that automatically update in the address bar, so it's easier to share pages and bookmark them (permalinks only work in the new Google Maps, but you can also use the URLs generated by the old Google Maps).



You can no longer find a contextual menu when you right-click, so features like "directions to/from here", "zoom in/out", "center map here" are missing. Now you can click any place on the map and you'll get a small info pane below the search box that shows the address and lets you get directions and go to Street View. Double click to zoom in, use the mouse wheel or the "+"/"-" buttons.



The new Google Maps simplified navigation and removed many useful features like the zoom level bar, panning, "show my location" and the Street View Pegman. Layers like Wikipedia, weather, webcams, photos, videos, previous searches are no longer available, while transit, traffic and bicycling can be found in the "getting around" box.






"My Places" is not part of the new Google Maps interface. Click the "options" icon in the black navigation bar, select "My Places" and you'll go back to the old interface. It's a trick that lets you temporarily switch to the old interface. You can also click "classic maps".



The new full-screen interface places all the navigation controls on top of the map and invites you to explore the map. To get directions, mouse over the search box and click "directions". To find a place, use the search box. The transitions are smooth and Google Maps uses a simplified version of Google Instant: you're automatically sent to the place you've selected without having to press Enter. You can even find your contacts on the map.



You can restrict the results to places from top reviewers or your Google+ circles. Google emphasizes the reviews from your Google+ circles, so search results are personalized. Results are placed on the map and this is disconcerting: you don't know which one to click. Mouse over the results to get some information, click them to get even more information. It's a strange way to display search results, since you don't know which one is better. Google used to rank the results and ranking was an important component of local search. You can click "go to list of top results", but you're sent to a different page that includes other results and the list isn't comprehensive.






I don't like the new interface for directions because the step-by-step directions are no longer displayed automatically. You need to click "step-by-step" and you're sent to a different page. Switching between the suggested routes is more intuitive because all of them are displayed on them map and you can compare them. Google also includes transit directions, which have a simplified interface that summarizes information. There's also a new button for flight search, but it's limited to a few countries (United States, United Kingdom, France, Italy, Spain, and the Netherlands). Printing directions requires an additional click and you can no longer hide the map or include maps for all steps.






The new Google Maps requires a lot more resources, especially more RAM, so it's not a great idea to use it if you have an old computer. Earth View and Street View use a lot of memory, so don't be surprised if you see this:






The new Google Maps builds on the MapGL experiment, does away with plugins and has a cleaner interface that's better suited for mobile devices. Unfortunately, it's a memory hog and basic features like local search and directions are cumbersome.


How To Import Outlook.Com Contacts To Gmail



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Back in July 2012, Microsoft launched Outlook.com webmail service with an intention to replace its Hotmail with a modern email service. The fresh UI, best in class anti-spam engine, and smart options to organize the inbox easily make Outlook.com the best Microsoft webmail service yet. The team behind Outlook.com has been adding new features to [...]

What Is HTML5, And How Does It Change The Way I Browse? [MakeUseOf Explains]



Over the past few years, you may have heard the term HTML5 every once in a while. Whether you know anything about web development or not, the concept can be somewhat nebulous and confusing. Obviously, it’s the next step in the line of HTML, but what exactly does it do? Why is there so much excitement around it? And why does it matter for you?


HTML, or HyperText Markup Language, is the most important element of the World Wide Web. It’s the language used to describe what a webpage should look like. However, HTML on its own is pretty boring because it can only deliver static pages; in order to meet the growing demand for more impressive web features, HTML has been coupled with plugins like CSS, Flash, Java, Silverlight, etc.


It has become something of a bloated mess and different browsers implement those features in their own ways. HTML5 is meant to solve HTML’s big problems for a cleaner and more efficient web.


HTML: An Overview


HTML as we know it today is called HTML4 and it was first published way back in 1997. Yes, that means we’ve been running on HTML4 for over 15 years now which is an eternity in tech time. Around 2000, a parallel markup language called XHTML started development and that’s been in use as well over the years, mostly due to the stricter standards that it imposes. In general, though, the two are pretty similar.



The problem with HTML4 is its limited functionality. It must be extended through plugins, like Flash, to provide more than simple text and images. Many video players, for example, were created and maintained on the Flash platform and embedded into HTML pages. Many web apps were developed using Java and embedded as well.


With all of these plugins, it becomes hard to maintain proper standards. Ideally, every browser should display every page on the web in the same way in order to deliver the same experience to every user. To display the same results on multiple browsers, web developers typically need to implement quick fixes and hacks in various portions of their site to accommodate different rendering processes. This gets cumbersome after a while.


On a more practical note, web pages that require plugins like Flash and Java end up using much more CPU and RAM. Ever wondered why your browser uses so much of your computer’s resources? A lot of it can be attributed to these HTML extensions. This is one reason why Apple has disabled Flash support on their mobile devices (to save on battery life).


What Exactly Is HTML5?


HTML4 has worked well, but it obviously has a number of flaws. The team behind HTML5 has a certain high-level plan for the next step in HTML, which means that HTML5 must be built on the following principles:



  • Less dependence on plugins for functionality.

  • Scripting should be replaced with markup whenever possible.

  • Device independence (i.e., available on all devices and providing the same end experience).

  • Public development process so people can see what’s going on.



More specifically, HTML5 adds a whole bunch of new markup tags:



  • <header> and <footer> tags to help you isolate the tops and bottoms of content blocks. Can be used more than once on a single page.

  • <article> tag which identifies a specific, singular piece of content, e.g., a blog post or a user comment.

  • <nav> tag to specify which sections should be considered navigational blocks.

  • <section> tag that lets you define a generic section of content; similar to the currently existing <div> tag.

  • <audio> and <video> tags to mark the inclusion of audio or video content.

  • <canvas> tag that lets you draw graphics using a separate scripting language.

  • <embed> tag to embed external content or applications into the page.


HTML5 also deprecates some tags: <acronym>, <applet>, <font>, <frame>, <frameset>, <noframes>, and a handful of others.


The full standards specification for HTML5 is planned to be completed by 2014, but HTML5 has made lots of progress already and it can be used to implement site features even today. The full standards specification for HTML5.1 is planned to be completed by 2016.


Why HTML5 Matters For You


As a web user, you will benefit from HTML5 because it fixes the most glaring problems in HTML4. Web sites will have better web standards, which will result in more efficient content and improved performance. As HTML5 is adopted across the board, web pages should start to load faster, less bandwidth should be used, and battery life on mobile devices ought to last longer.


Plus, you won’t have to keep so many plugins like Flash and Java updated. I hate it when I constantly have to update so many addons and plugins across multiple browsers. And what happens when one of them is the wrong version? Sites stop working and frustration ensues. All of that should be dealt away with when HTML5 becomes the main standard.



If you’re just a regular web user and you have no intentions of coding or maintaining your own web site, then you don’t have to do anything to enjoy HTML5’s awesome features. All major browsers today support HTML5 to a large degree and you’ve probably been taking advantage of it already without knowing. Just keep your browser updated and you’ll be good to go.


And if you’re a web developer, HTML5 will make everything simpler and easier for you. If all goes well, you won’t have to deal with edge cases in web design since all browsers will need to adhere to the same standards.


Conclusion


HTML5 is the future of web browsing and it will surely revolutionize the way we surf the Internet. Even under the limited nature of HTML4, developers have created some mind-boggling web sites, so it’ll be interesting to see what sort of neat advancements they’ll make with the functionality of HTML5.


Hopefully now you can see HTML5 in a clearer light and see why it’s been hyped up as much as it has. You can further your learning on these ten websites too that show you what HTML5 is all about. If you have any questions, please ask in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer you.


Image Credits: HTML5 Via Shutterstock, HTML Code Via Shutterstock, HTML5 Tag Cloud Via Shutterstock, Guy On Laptop Via Shutterstock


The post What Is HTML5, And How Does It Change The Way I Browse? [MakeUseOf Explains] appeared first on MakeUseOf.



Google Search Evolution



I found a great paragraph in a Google page about Gmail actions:



"Google Search is evolving from surfacing search results to answering questions. With Voice Search and Natural language queries, users can speak or type questions they have and see highly structured information cards in Search."



That changes how people interact with Google Search, how Google Search pages look, how queries are processed and what people expect from Google. When Google will be able to answer complex questions, to summarize long pages, use inferences to find new information and truly understand human language, you'll no longer need a browser for most searches. A Google search button can be embedded in any smart device from watches, fridges to smart glasses and cars.



In a recent video, Matt Cutts tries to predict the future of Google search: "It ought to be able to go out and take multiple sources of information and figure out how to combine those together and fuse or synthesize that information. And it should really be able to handle difficult syntax. So moving up the chain towards not just data or knowledge, but analysis, towards wisdom."






Gmail Actions



Wouldn't it be nice to deal with an email message without having to read it? Sure, you can read the subject line and archive the message, delete it or flag it as spam, but what happens when you receive notifications for online orders, flights, hotel reservations, reviews?



Gmail introduced quick action buttons that are placed next to the subject line in a list of messages. "These buttons appear next to certain types of messages in your inbox and let you take action on an email without ever having to open it. For example, you can RSVP to your friend's party invitation or rate that restaurant you went to last night all right from the inbox. You'll be checking things off that to-do list in no time."









For flight notifications, Gmail has a special card displayed above the message that includes real-time information about the flight and a "check-in" button.






Google detects the type of message and tries to extract the most important action, but you can help Google by adding schema.org markup to the mail you're sending. Right now, Gmail support 4 quick actions (invitations, reviews, one-click actions and links to other pages) and one interactive card (flights). Now that Google includes Gmail results in Google search (Field Trial) and uses Gmail data to show Google Now notifications, the structured markup is even more useful.



Gmail actions "will roll out over the next few weeks" and I'm sure this will be a very useful addition to Google Apps for Business. What kind of quick actions and interactive cards would you like to see?