17 June 2014

How to Download Auto Awesome Photos



Auto Awesome is one of the best features of Google+ Photos. It's a good reason to upload your photos to Google+ instead of choosing a different service: you get something in return. Auto Awesome photos and videos use your photos and videos to create something new. Some of them improve your photos, others are funny, while some of them would normally require professional software.



Just because they're so nice, I decided to backup my Auto Awesome. Here's how to download them:



1. open this page: http://ift.tt/Jxfozp (or go to Google+ Photos and search for #AutoAwesome)



2. click "show all" below the first photos from that page






3. select the first photo: mouse over the photo and click the tick icon.






4. use your browser's find-in-page feature (Ctrl+F or Command+F on a Mac) and search for from your circles. That's a different section which shows Auto Awesome photos from your circles and that's where your Auto Awesome gallery ends.






5. Shift+click the last photo above the "From your circles" section and you should see a message like "230 selected".






6. click "more" in the navigation bar and select "download".






7. You'll get a Photos.zip archive with both photos and videos. The filename includes the type of AutoAwesome effect. The archive should also include the "year in review" video titled 2013-MOVIE.m4v.





Google Keep's Debug Tools



Google Keep for the desktop shows an interesting feature in the menu: a "debug tools" section with a single item: "show client log".






Google Keep opens a dialog that shows some information about your notes, some details about "upsync", "downsync", preloaded chunks and app init. If you enable "Show user text content", the debug page will also include the text of your notes.






I'm not sure if Google actually intended to show this debugging option in Google Keep's navigation menu. This looks like an internal debugging feature that's used by Google employees. Google Keep's Chrome app and Android app don't include this feature.

Google Account History



Google Settings page has a new section called "account history". The section shows some links that let you manage Google search history, Google location history, YouTube search history and video history (the videos you've watched).






Google also includes "pause" buttons for all the 4 data streams. When you click "pause", Google shows black-and-white pictures and tells you what you'll be missing.



"Pausing Google Search History may limit or disable features such as Google Now, more accurate search results and predictions, and saved searches on mobile devices. Pausing Google Location History will limit the functionality of some Google products over time, such as Google Maps and Google Now. Pausing YouTube Search History does not delete existing history. To view your history, remove individual items, or clear your entire history, go to your YouTube Search History page."






Here's what happens when you pause Google search history, Google location history, YouTube search history and video history: the colorful images are converted to black and white.






YouTube's video history is really useful because it shows all the videos you've watched from any device, as long as you are logged in. Unfortunately, YouTube doesn't provide a search feature, so you have scroll until you find the right video. YouTube's video history is the most important source for YouTube's recommendations, so you should delete some of the videos if you see unpleasant recommendations. Google also uses video history to improve ads, but you can opt out of interest-based Google ads.



YouTube's search history is used to show search suggestions and to improve recommendations:






Google search history is used to show search suggestions, to personalize search results, to improve ads and to provide data for some Google Now cards. There's an important distinction between YouTube search history and Google search history: YouTube only saves your queries and the video history is saved separately, while Google search history includes both your queries and the search results you've clicked on.



Location History started as a Google Latitude feature, but it's still available, even if Google Latitude was discontinued. To understand Location History, you need to know what Location Reporting is.



"Location Reporting allows Google to periodically store and use your device's most recent location data in connection with your Google Account. Location History allows Google to store a history of your location data from all devices where you are logged into your Google Account and have enabled Location Reporting."



Both features are related to mobile devices and they're used by Android/iOS apps like Google Maps, Google Search and Google+. Location History requires Location Reporting, but you can use Location Reporting while disabling Location History. Google uses your data to improve Google Maps search results based on the places that you've been, to show some Google Now cards and to show your data on a map.



{ Thanks, Herin Maru. }