Google has a new favicon that looks like the icon from Google's mobile search apps for Android and iOS. The same icon was also used for the Google Search app from the Chrome Web Store.
Most likely, Google wanted to use the same icon irrespective of the platform so that it becomes instantly recognizable.
Here's the new favicon:
... and the old favicon, which was launched back in 2009:
This screenshot shows the first three Google favicons. As you can see, the new favicon has a lot in common with the second favicon used by Google. "We felt the small 'g' had many of the characteristics that best represent our brand: it's simple, playful, and unique. We will be looking to improve and enhance this icon as we move forward," said Google back in 2008, when it changed the favicon for the first time.
If you don't see the new favicon when you visit google.com, try clearing your browser's cache.
Many people noticed the Google search interface experiment I've mentioned back in June. Google tests multiple versions of the interface, but they have one thing in common: the left sidebar is replaced with a horizontal navigation bar.
The new horizontal bar includes Google's specialized search engines and a "search tools" link that displays the advanced search options. The bar is either aligned with the search box or it's aligned with the black bar, depending on the experiment.
It's obvious that Google wants to get rid of the sidebar and make search options more visible, but the new bar might confuse users and the left padding makes the page look unbalanced.
Google's mobile search site has a new feature: handwriting recognition. Instead of using your mobile device's virtual keyboard to type the query, you can just write the letters with your finger.
This feature is disabled by default, but you can enable it on your mobile phone or tablet, by visiting the settings page, tapping "enable" in the "handwrite" section and then saving the settings.
"Say you're standing on a busy street corner, in a bumpy taxi ride, talking with a friend, or sitting on the couch with your tablet. Handwrite enables you to search by just writing letters with your finger most anywhere on your device's screen — there's no keyboard that covers half of the screen and no need for hunt-and-peck typing," suggests Google.
While this feature could be useful for short queries or popular queries that only require entering a few letters and using Google's suggestions, it's more efficient to use the virtual keyboard instead of writing each letter.
Google's Handwrite feature works for iOS5+ devices, Android 2.3+ phones and Android 4.0+ tablets and it's available for 27 languages.
Google shows a new annotation next to some web search results and image search results: "actively discussed on Google+". If you click "show", Google displays a recent Google+ post that includes the URL.
The feature is potentially useful, but it needs some fine-tuning because the Google+ posts aren't necessarily popular, while some search results don't need special annotations.
It's interesting to notice that Google+ popularity is a ranking factor for Google's search engine even when you're not logged in.
Just type a query like [73-45] in the search box and you'll get more than just the result. Google also displays a mini-calculator with real buttons for digits, parentheses, arithmetic operations, trigonometric functions, exponential and logarithmic functions.
It's certainly more efficient to just type the expression you want to calculate, but some people might prefer the traditional buttons. They can search for [calculator] and use the new Google Calculator interface.
It's worth noting that Google's calculator doesn't mimic a standard pocket calculator: you can enter a long expression with multiple operations and Google doesn't display the result until you press the "=" button. This way, you can enter "3+3*3" and still get the proper result. Another thing to keep in mind is that you can't press the "1" button and then the "sin" button to compute sin(1), you should press the "sin" button first and then enter the argument of the function. There's no persistent "clear" button, but you can long-press the "delete" button.
Google tests a new feature of the knowledge sidebar: a link that invites you to "explore more". The Knowledge Graph section doesn't allow Google to show more than 5 related people, books, albums, movies, so the experiment displays more of them below the search box.
For example, when you search for a movie and click "explore more", Google shows more cast members. You can use the arrow icons to switch to a different category.
Google has a new tablet interface for the weather OneBox. It now looks more like an application and it includes more information: precipitation, humidity, wind speed, hourly weather forecast, 10-day forecast. The OneBox is interactive and you can select an hour or a day to see the forecast.
"When you type [weather] into Google on your tablet, you'll see the current weather and you can scroll through the hourly and ten-day forecast. You can also toggle the Precipitation and Wind buttons to check out the percent chance of precipitation and wind direction/speed, respectively," informs Google. It should work for iPad and Android tablets.
Ironically, the desktop weather OneBox has less information than the mobile OneBox (both the smartphone interface and the tablet interface). The smartphone UI was more colorful, but now it looks just like the tablet OneBox. Sure, it's more likely that you'll need weather information when you use a mobile device, but the desktop interface used to be richer and more comprehensive.
Google tests a new "share" link for search results pages. The link lets you share a search result on Google+ and it replaces the "+1" button, which only added a page to the "+1" section of your public profile.
The "share" link is only displayed when you mouse over the search result, just like the "+1" button. When you click the link, Google shows the standard Google+ dialog for sharing content. Unfortunately, you can't "+1" pages.
I think it's a bad idea to replace the "+1" button with the "share" link. The "+1" button works as a social bookmarking tool: you're not only bookmarking pages, but you also help other people find useful pages (and they help you). When you "+1" a page, your action is not automatically broadcast to everyone that follows you, so you're likely to use it more often. The "share" link creates a Google+ post, so you might only use it to share important things.
It's not clear why Google didn't enhance the "+1" button from search results pages by adding the sharing feature that's already available for the regular "+1" button used by so many sites. This way you could both "+1" a page and share it with other people.
Google Docs and Google Drive don't offer the option to find public files, but you can do that using Google search. Now that the Google Docs robots.txt file allows search engines to index most of the public files, you should be able to find them, assuming that there are some links that point to them.
Search engines only index the files that are "public on the Web". By default, files are private, but you can change the visibility from the "Share" box.
Here are some useful queries that let you find public Google Drive/Docs files (you can append some keywords to the queries):
* [site:docs.google.com/file/d] - find files: images, videos, PDF files, Microsoft Office documents and more (you should click "repeat the search with the omitted results included" since there are many files with similar titles)
Google shows a clever Easter Egg when you're searching for [conway's game of life]. It's a low-key simulation of John Conway's model devised in 1970. "The universe of the Game of Life is an infinite two-dimensional orthogonal grid of square cells, each of which is in one of two possible states, alive or dead. Every cell interacts with its eight neighbours, which are the cells that are horizontally, vertically, or diagonally adjacent," explains Wikipedia.
It's not an actual game because it doesn't require input. There's an initial configuration and all the other configurations are obtained by applying 4 rules:
"Any live cell with fewer than two live neighbours dies, as if caused by under-population. Any live cell with two or three live neighbours lives on to the next generation. Any live cell with more than three live neighbours dies, as if by overcrowding. Any dead cell with exactly three live neighbours becomes a live cell, as if by reproduction."
You can pause Google's simulation and even hide the search results by clicking the maximize button. If you don't like the Easter Egg, click the close button and it disappears. There's also a simplified version of the Easter Egg for smartphones and tablets, but the controls are missing.
Google updated the unit conversion OneBox and this time it's interactive. For example, you can search for [10 pounds in kg], get the result and quickly change the number of pounds or kilograms directly from the OneBox. You can also select a different unit of measurement from the list: metric ton, gram, stone, ounce.
Google's gadget even lets you change the conversion type and switch to a different category: speed, length, temperature, volume, area, fuel consumption, time or digital storage. The gadget is only displayed for common measurement units, so you'll still see the old interface when you search for [10 pascals to Torr] or [2 radians to degrees].
Now you no longer need iGoogle's metric conversion gadget.
Google tests a new search interface that replaces the left sidebar with a horizontal menu. Search tools are hidden by default, just like in the existing interface. It's interesting to notice that the experimental UI is inspired by the tablet UI.
The list of specialized search engines is placed below the search box, so it's likely that more people will notice it.
As previously anticipated, Google introduced Knowledge Graph, a new way to handle queries that replaces keywords with objects. It's like replacing a dictionary with an encyclopedia.
"The Knowledge Graph enables you to search for things, people or places that Google knows about—landmarks, celebrities, cities, sports teams, buildings, geographical features, movies, celestial objects, works of art and more—and instantly get information that's relevant to your query. This is a critical first step towards building the next generation of search, which taps into the collective intelligence of the web and understands the world a bit more like people do," explains Google.
For now, you'll only notice a new info pane in the right sidebar that shows more information about your query. Google's graph has 500 million objects and 3.5 billion facts, so you'll see the new section quite often. Google shows a small thumbnail, a snippet from a Wikipedia article, a few relevant facts and some related queries. It's just like a Wikipedia infobox automatically generated using data from the Web and that's smart enough to only show important facts and hide the things people won't need.
The new info panes will also help users disambiguate queries just like Wikipedia's disambiguation pages help users find the right articles.
Wikipedia's internal links help you find other interesting articles. Google also adds links to all the other objects from the graph.
Some may say that Google borrowed too many ideas from Wikipedia, but that's one step that could help search engines evolve. Understanding the relation between entities and learning their attributes allows Google to answer more complicated questions and get better search results. As Mashable says, "the transition from a word-based index to this knowledge graph is a fundamental shift that will radically increase power and complexity."
Google "begun to gradually roll out this view of the Knowledge Graph to U.S. English users. It's also going to be available on smartphones and tablets". If you don't see the new features yet, check back later.
Google's OneBox for instant answers has a new interface that emphasizes the results. Google now displays the answer on the first line and the font size is bigger.
Last year, Google started to test a new sidebar that offers useful information about your query. As the Wall Street Journal mentioned in a recent article, Google will soon "present more facts and direct answers to queries at the top of the search-results page". There's a large database of entities and each one has a list of relevant attributes.
For example, you could search for [California] and Google displays the capital of the US state, a list of important cities, attractions, the Secretary of State, a map and a snippet from Wikipedia. Google continues to test the info panes, but the interface has been updated, the main thumbnail is smaller and there's more information that's displayed. For singers, Google displays a long list of songs and some important albums.
Google's experimental sidebar is similar to Wikipedia's infobox, "a fixed-format table designed to be added to the top right-hand corner of articles to consistently present a summary of some unifying aspect that the articles share and sometimes to improve navigation to other interrelated articles". It includes structured information about your query, related queries and links to all the topics that are mentioned. Google will look more like an encyclopedia.
Google tests a new search interface that hides the options from the sidebar by default. You need to click a small arrow icon to see the list of specialized search engines and some advanced search options that let you filter results.
Essentially, this experiment hides the sidebar's content, but the sidebar still takes up space. Back in 2009, the sidebar was hidden by default and Google made it more visible one year later.
Now that the navigation bar no longer includes many specialized search engines, it doesn't make sense to hide the sidebar. Another issue is that the sidebar highlights advanced options that are relevant to your query, but few people will find them if the sidebar is collapsed by default.
There's a new service in Google's navigation bar: Google Play. The link replaces Google Music and it's prominently placed next to popular services like Google Maps and YouTube. For now, the link takes you to the Google Play homepage and your query is ignored.
It's interesting to notice that Google's navigation bar changed its purpose from showcasing popular services to promoting new services. Ever since it was launched, Google+ became the first service from the navigation bar, even if Google Search was the most popular service. Then Google added links to services like Google Offers, Google Wallet and a page that lists Google's mobile apps.
Google Play is more than a new name for Android Market, it's Google's attempt to sell digital content across different platforms: from apps to music, from books to movies, from magazine subscriptions to TV shows and more. It makes sense to integrate Google Play with Google Search and maybe include the top results in an OneBox, assuming that they're relevant.
Google has some new geeky Easter eggs. When you search for [binary], [octal] and [hexadecimal], Google writes the number of results using the numeral system from the query.
Make sure that "search plus your world" is disabled to see the Easter eggs. Either click the "hide personal results" button below the search box or sign out.
Google sometimes displays some annotations below search snippets. Showing that one of the people you trust +1'd a page is useful and might help you decide to click a search result.
Now Google also adds a link that lets you send a thank you note to the person that +1'd page: "Your +1 helped me find this. Thank you!". It's a cute idea and this also helps Google find the recommendations that were really useful, but the links clutter Google's results pages. Maybe Google could show the "thank you" link when you +1 the page.
Another issue is that social annotations aren't necessary when it comes to the top result for a navigational query. Most people that search for [Yahoo] want to visit Yahoo's homepage or use services like Yahoo Mail, Yahoo News, so the annotations for these results are unnecessary. It's probably a better idea to show the annotations less often and only for the results that deserve to be highlighted.
For some reason, Google's caching feature is more and more difficult to use. The "cached" link is hidden inside the Instant Preview box and it's no longer available in the mobile interface.
Now the keywords from cached pages aren't highlighted if you are logged in. Search pages use encrypted connections (HTTPS) when you're logged in and this disables referrals, so that's probably the reason why Google no longer includes the query in the cached pages URLs. Google suggests to sign out and you can also use a different browser or the private browsing mode, but there's another way to bring back keyword highlighting:
- click the "similar" link in the Instant Preview box instead of clicking "cached"
- replace "related" with "cache" in the URL and press Enter.
If there's no "similar" link, you can copy the query, go to the cached page and paste the query in the address bar between "+" and "&cd=".
There's also a cool Chrome extension called MultiHighlighter, but you need to copy the query, visit the page, press Ctrl+Shift+A and paste the query. If you use Internet Explorer, Google Toolbar has a cool highlighting feature.
