Read More

Planning to treat yourself to an exotic getaway or simply visiting family to end the year? Going on a holiday is so much fun, but planning for it can be a daunting task especially when you need to pick the right flight and hotel from a wide range of options. Today, we’re announcing a set of exciting features and updates to make planning your next trip even easier.

#1 Destinations on Google

Earlier this year, we announced Destinations on Google, which helps you discover and plan your next vacation, right from Google Search across devices.

Search on Google for the continent, country, or city you’d like to travel to and add the word “destination” or “vacation” to see an easy-to-browse collection of options. To find a destination that suits your specific interests, search for a country and something you’d like to do there, like “australia surfing,” “malaysia hiking,” or “thailand beaches”, and we’ll suggest the best spots to do those activities.

Destinations on Google brings together extensive information from across the web about all the places in the world. We combine this deep understanding with Google Flights and hotel search on Google so you can sit back, scroll and see available flight and hotel prices instantly. You can also see suggested itineraries, top sights, recommendations on when to visit, videos and more so you can make the right choice for your next vacation.

In India, Japan and Malaysia, you can also use the "Plan a trip" feature to see trip prices for the selected destination for the next six months, so you can find the right time and price tag for you. Flight prices and hotel rates update instantly as you change your travel details and link you to Google Flights and hotel search on Google where you can continue to plan and book your travel.

#2 Expanding Google Flights and hotel search on Google to more countries in Asia

We’ve launched several features this year across Google Flights and hotel search on Google designed to help price-conscious travelers make the best decision for upcoming trips, stay on top of changing price, and help provide confidence that they’re making the best choice before they book.

When searching for a hotel on Google results now automatically identify Deals when a hotel’s price is lower than historical prices or when a partner has discounted rates compared to the existing market price for the hotel. We have also introduced a Deals filter that allows you to quickly see only hotels that we have identified as having good deals. A new Tips feature uses data-driven insights such as how the hotel is rated in its market or whether changing travel dates could get you a better price.

To stay up to date on changing flight prices, we have launched a feature that allows you to easily track fare changes for a date and route combination, or track specific flights in Google Flights. Simply select “track prices” after searching for a flight to receive updates by email or Google Now cards when prices are expected to increase or when they actually do change significantly. View and manage your tracked flights by selecting “tracked”.   

Hotel search on Google is live across Asia, while Google Flights is available in India, Japan and Malaysia.  We are actively rolling them out to more countries and languages across the region.

 

#3 Announcing Google Trips

Planning and buying your dream holiday is one thing, but what about when you are actually traveling? We’ve built Google Trips to be your reliable travel assistant, right in your pocket. Google Trips makes your vacation simpler by doing things like bundling all your reservations in one place — available offline — saving you from having to dig through your emails at the check-in desk.

A feature called “Day Plans,” recommends places to visit based on items you’ve saved on Google Maps. You can also modify the itinerary based on the weather, who you’re traveling with, and where you’ve already been. In addition, Trips provides details on how to get around, what the etiquette for tipping is and other useful information — all available offline.

Google Trips is currently available globally, in English. You can download it today by visiting the Play Store or the App store.

We are focused on making travelling better, easier and more delightful, and hope to have more to share soon.

Posted by Eric Zimmerman, Director - Product Development, Google

Read More

Most of us are familiar with photo filters that give our photos a vintage look or a warm glow. But recently, a whole new kind of “art filters” have emerged that turn photos into works of art that resemble famous paintings — like “Starry Night” by Van Gogh or “The Scream” by Munch. These so-called filters rely on a process called "style transfer," which uses deep neural networks to look at images, determine what’s the content in one and the style in another, and then synthesizes them together into an image that’s a combination of both.

These so-called filters aren’t filters at all, but a far more complex and interesting process called style transfer. Style transfer apps use deep neural networks (a technique in machine learning) to look at images, determine what’s content in one and style in another, then synthesize them together into an image that’s a combination of both. Watch the video below for more info on how this works:

Posted by Natalie Dennis, Google Creative Labs

Read More

Right now, when you search for directions using Google Maps on your iOS or Android device, we show you a dedicated tab with information for ride services from Ola and Uber in addition to car, transit, or walking. So when you’re heading out to any destination, be it going to work or meeting a friend for dinner, you can easily compare your options to find the fastest way there, without having to open multiple apps.

Today this gets even easier as you’re able to pull up the same menu of ride service options straight from the Google Search app or your mobile search browser. Just ask for directions to a place, and you’ll see a tab for ride services with fare estimates and pick up times if a car is available near you. Or you can say for instance “Taxi to Bangalore airport” or more specifically “Uber to Bangalore airport” or “Ola to Bangalore airport”.  Select a service, and we’ll take you directly to their app to book your ride with one tap. If you don’t have the app installed, we will give you a link to an app store where you can install.

Posted by Sanket Gupta, Program Manager

Read More

Slow loading sites are arguably one of the most frustrating things about the mobile web. Recent Google research shows that 53% of people will leave a site that fails to load in three seconds or less. That’s problematic for users, businesses, publishers, websites and the mobile web as a whole.

Along with many others in the Accelerated Mobile Pages Project, we’ve been working to make the mobile web experience faster. In the year since we launched AMP, we’ve come a pretty long way, with players from across the web embracing this open source format.

In February, we launched AMP in the “Top Stories” section of Google Search, delivering news in a fast and reliable way. In August, we previewed linking to AMPs across the entire mobile search results page. And today we’re excited to be rolling out that faster experience to users in India.

Now when you search on your mobile device, you’ll see a label that indicates a page is AMP’d. This doesn’t change Search results but will show you which sites have pages that are ready to load lightning fast.

 

Today, the median time it takes for an AMP page to load from Google Search is less than one second. Beyond just saving you time with fast loading pages, AMP will also save you data -- AMP pages on Search use 10 times less data than the equivalent non-AMP page.

What this means for publishers and websites

Just how is that speed translating for publishers and websites that have AMP’d their content? Among news publishers, the first to get on board with AMP, there are a number of case studies that highlight real benefits when content loads fast. For example, the Washington Post has seen a 23% increase in mobile search users who return within 7 days, and an 88% improvement in load time for AMP content versus traditional mobile web.

To date we have over 600 million AMP documents created by sites such as eBay, Pinterest, Wordpress, and Reddit, and there are many more sites from all over the world and in over 104 languages. These pages cover retail, travel, recipe, general knowledge and entertainment. That’s a lot of fast-loading pages! For example, Zomato has seen great early results since AMPing their pages, with page load times decreasing from 3.8 seconds to well under a second. This is great news for Zomato, who are live with AMP in 23 countries, as they’re now more likely to see site visitors come back more often compared to those accessing non-AMP pages. A few other sites that have created  AMP pages in India are News 18, NDTV and Aaj Tak.

While the first year of the AMP Project has gotten off to a great start, there still remains a lot of work ahead. This roadmap is a good way to stay up to date on what is happening next.  We look forward to returning in a year’s time with even more progress as we work together to make the web great for everyone.  

To find out more about AMP, check out ampproject.org.

Posted by Anuvrat Rao, Strategic Partnerships Development Manager, Google

Read More

Today, we announced for the first time a phone, made by Google inside and out,  that brings people the best of Google through hardware and software made by Google — Pixel.

For those of you who have followed Google closely, that name may sound familiar to you because we've used the Pixel name in the past for consumer hardware products that represented an overall premium Google experience. Many of you may also be familiar with the Nexus program. Since 2010, we’ve partnered closely with mobile handset partners around the world to bring you the best of Android. Through Nexus, the goal was to work with these various partners to push the boundaries of what’s possible with a smartphone. We’ve now decided to take the next step and provide our take on the best Google experience, by bringing hardware and software design together under one roof.

Pixel, Phone by Google

With Pixel, we obsessed over every detail, from the industrial design to the user experience. We carefully sculpted the surfaces of the phone, and rounded the edges to make it easy to grip. We used 2.5D Corning® Gorilla® Glass 4 on the front display and back glass to accent the aerospace grade aluminum body. The glass on the back also features Pixel Imprint, our fingerprint sensor, which is placed on the back of the phone where your finger expects it. You can even swipe it to access your notifications. And no matter what you’re using your phone for, you’ll need a battery that lasts all day and charges fast — up to seven hours in 15 minutes.

Meet your Google Assistant
Pixel is the first phone with the Google Assistant built in. With your Assistant, you can have a natural conversation with Google to find answers or get things done on the go. Say "Ok Google" or touch and hold the Home button and your Assistant is ready to help. Ask it for a brief update on your day or to play a video on YouTube. Look up traffic on the way home from work or when the nearest pharmacy closes. You can even say “show me my hiking  photos with Archana” and it'll instantly display the photos you're looking for. Your Assistant can also offer help with what’s on-screen in any app. So if your friend texts you to meet up at a new restaurant, you can just say “navigate there”.

The best smartphone camera. Ever.

The Pixel camera is not only the best smartphone camera we’ve ever made, it’s the highest* rated smartphone camera anyone has ever made. Our DxOMark Mobile  score of 89 is a great example of what’s possible when great hardware meets great software. Pixel puts cutting-edge computational photography in an ultra-fast and easy-to-use camera.

Pixel has a 12.3MP camera, featuring an f/2.0 aperture and big 1.55 micron pixels to capture lots and lots of light. Our team of photography gurus and image processing experts have spent the last year designing and tirelessly optimizing our entire camera stack.

Pixel’s camera lets you take stunning photos in low light, bright light or any light. Catch action shots as they happen with Smartburst, which takes a rapid-fire sequence of shots and automatically selects the best one. Use Lens Blur to achieve shallow depth of field and bokeh effects, making your subject pop. You can capture dramatic landscapes or make faces glow with new exposure controls.

And as a special bonus for Pixel owners, we’re including free unlimited storage for original quality photos and videos at full resolution in Google Photos.

More to love

Pixel ships with the newest Android operating system, Android 7.1 Nougat. Phones will get software and security updates as soon as they’re available, directly from Google. We’ve also made the update process easier. When a new update is available, it can download and install in the background — no more waiting around for your phone to update.

The Pixel also comes with Google Duo and Allo pre-installed so you can video call and text with all your friends, whether they’re on Android or iOS.

Make it yours

Starting at INR 57,000, Pixel will be available for pre-order in India from October 13th 2016. Pixel will be available in India in two sizes - 5” or 5.5” and two colors - Quite Black and Very Silver with memory configurations of 32GB and 128GB sizes.  

Pixel users will have access to a toll free phone support number along with 54 walk in service centres across 30+ cities in India.
*This information was accurate when published, please see www.dxomark.com for updates

Posted by Brian Rakowski, VP, Product Management