From the recent Google apps update blog, it is also possible to disable the chat via Gmail settings.

Disable chat setting: A new option to disable chat in “Settings” and this action can also be done via a screen reader.

Couple of days ago, clicking on the chat icon would toggle between the invite box and the chat box. But as of now, clicking on the chat icon, simply hides the chat window – which is a fantastic thing If you ask us!

Thanks Labnol!

Hi there,

We’re writing to let you know that Apture has been acquired by Google.

Since day one, we’ve been working on getting the Apture experience into as much of the web as possible. While we’re proud of having helped thousands of publishers enhance their websites, we think now is the best time to expand our efforts by joining Google’s Chrome team to help build the next generation user experience directly into the web.

On December 20 we will discontinue Apture’s product and services. When this happens, users will no longer be able to highlight and search terms with Apture on your web pages. Your website will continue to work as normal even after our service is suspended; however, you are free to remove the Apture code from your site as well.

We want to thank you personally for your support and positive feedback over the years, and we hope you’ll stay tuned for some amazing new Chrome experiences coming your way.

You can view the announcement here on our homepage, or check the FAQ below.

Sincerely,
The Apture Team

We at GoogleWatchBlog used apture sometime ago and can commend that the team would do fantastically well at Google!

All the best guys and we wait to see something new with Google Chrome!!

Throughout the design process, Google conducted user interviews to help identify how to make Blogger even easier and more enjoyable to use. Google also watched users trying out new Blogger interface and made many refinements based on the user’s feedback.

After introducing the new Blogger Interface, the next phase of the Blogger updates that was released is seven new ways to display Blogger blog, called Dynamic Views.

Dynamic Views is much more than just new templates. With just a couple clicks, you’ll get endless scrolling thus putting an end to “Older posts” link, images that load as you browse, integrated search, sorting by date, label and author, light box-style posts for easy viewing, keyboard shortcuts for quickly flipping through posts, and one-click sharing to Google+ and other social sites on every post.

7 Dynamic Views available on Blogger are Classic, Flipcard, Magazine, Mosaic, Sidebar, Snapshot and Timeslide.

If there are lots of photos on your blog, you may prefer Flipcard or Snapshot view. If your blog has more of text then Classic, Sidebar or Timeslide dynamic view may be preferable.

Adding a Dynamic View to blogger blog is as easy as changing your template. Log in to Blogger account –> click on the Template tab present on the dashboard –> Select the view whichever you want to set as your default –> Click on the button “Apply to Blog” to save the view. Take a look at the Blogging Movies Blog, to view how different Dynamic view of Blogger blog work or looks like.

Note that readers can still choose to navigate your blog in a different view by selecting from the pulldown in the upper left of the screen.

Several other official Google blogs will be featuring Dynamic Views through the weeks and months ahead, including the Gmail Blog, LatLong Blog and Docs Blog. Google is happy to bring Dynamic Views into the fold and it is looking at how to incorporate this new technology across Google’s blog network in the long term.

Finally, Google Earth Pro users can also upgrade to the 6.1 version. Major updates include the following: 

All in all, it’s a solid update.. Thus update seems to be lots of little enhancements to make the Google Earth experience better for every user.

If you don’t have Google Earth yet, download Google Earth 6.1 to get started. And as always, if you notice any other changes, please do leave a comment and let us know.

Via GLatlong blog. Thanks Anurag for the image.

The Motorola’s handset division was acquired by search giant last month for $ 12.5 billion – 100 times more than the supposed amount paid by Zagat.

This new siny Google toy(Zagat) is supposedly going to help Google Expand its local offers verymuch.

The slide was bought two years ago for about >$200 million, and was used by Google to develop apps for various games and social networks. According to information from specialized blogs in the daily Google’s Slide was closed at the request of Larry Page, CEO of the company. He would be cutting costs and eliminating the departments that do not make money or develop tools that, somehow, bring prestige.

Another reason: the Slide would also be competing internally with other teams Google+, the company’s new social network. And that would not have pleased the Google board team.

Google announced the closing of the slide last Thursday. Among the products developed by the company are the SuperPoke! Photovine and a photo app for the iPhone. Data from these programs will be migrated to other services, said the slide in a statement. The company’s employees, about 100, will be transferred to other Google products, such as YouTube and Picasa.

Slide The company was founded by Max Levchin, a few years ago he helped PayPal and With Google’s move, Max Levchin left Google.

The first handset that will come after this purchase will be the Droid Bionic, a next-generation smartphones with technical features that put it in top smartphone at the current market. Here are some of the features, LTE (4G), dual-core processor OMAP 4430 1 GHz with 1 Gb of RAM. The screen is not far behind with 4.3-inch diagonal QHD (960 x 540 pixels), HDMI video output, 8 Megapixel camera with 1080p recording capability and a camera for video conferencing. Moreover capabilities will Webtop. This is the first mobile LTE (Long Term Evolution) with a dual-core processor on the market. The arrival date is rumoured to be in September and obviously runs android Gingerbread or upwards.

Here is a video trailer of MotoDroid bionic:

Stay tuned for more!

For now, Google Plus engineers say that they’re focused on verifying public figures, celebrities, and people who have been added to a large number of Circles, but will expand this feature shortly for more users. See the video by Google Plus Engineer – +Wen-Ai Yu..

Video Transcript
Many celebrities and public figures are joining Google+, and if you’re like me, you want to be sure the person you’re adding to a circle is really who they claim to be.

Today, I’m happy to announce that we’re starting to roll out verification badges on profiles.

When you visit the profile of a celebrity or public figure, you’ll see a verification badge next to their profile name. This will help you easily determine which profiles are owned by real, verified people.

Here’s an example: In my profile on the top right, you’ll see a grey checkmark next to my name. When you mouse over it, you’ll see that this is a “verified name”.

You might be wondering how to verify your own name on Google+. For now, we’re focused on verifying public figures, celebrities, and people who have been added to a large number of Circles…but keep in mind that this is just the beginning. We’re working on expanding this to include more people in the future, so hang tight!

We hope this improvement helps you feel more comfortable adding people to your circles. Thanks for listening, I’ll see you on Google+!

Google reader for Android has now been updated for Android system (earlier versions of the reader only supported the mobile version layout). The latest version 1.0.1 is compatible and just made for tablet PC’s.

The styles of menu items are completely similar as the web version, the screen needs to be tilted to the side and the new simplified tablet-ready screen shows a layout for easier content access.

What’s in this version:

1. New look & feel
2. Optimized for tablets
3. The “Mark Previous as Read” button has moved into the context menu; press and hold on an item to use this feature.

Android community has more screengrabs, if you want a peek

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He made notable contributions to analytic geometry, probability, and optics. He is best known for Fermat’s Last Theorem, which he described in a note at the margin of a copy of Diophantus’ Arithmetica.

Info Via Wikipedia