Google Flights Uses Material Design

Google Flights, one of the most underrated Google services, has a new interface powered by Material Design. There's a new hamburger-style menu that lets you quickly find your saved flights, explore a clever map with potential destinations, change currency and language.

Google shows the best flights at the top of the list of results. "We chose these itineraries to give you the best trade-off between price, duration, number of stops, and sometimes other factors such as amenities and baggage fees," informs Google.

This video from 2014 shows the old interface:

{ Thanks, Emanuele Bartolomucci. }

Classic Google Maps, Replaced by Lite Mode

If you're using the new Google Maps for desktop and you're trying to switch to the old version, Google now sends you to Google Maps Lite Mode. "To make Maps load faster, you can use a version of Google Maps called Lite mode. In Lite mode, some features are turned off so that Maps can run faster." Some examples of missing features: 3D imagery and Earth view, showing your computer's location, setting home and work, searching nearby, measuring distances, coordinates, draggable routes, embedding maps, My Maps integration.

If you're in Lite mode, you'll see a box in the bottom left with a lightning bolt and this message: "You're in Lite mode." You can click: "Switch back to full Maps" if your browser supports it.

The Lite interface uses a hamburger-style menu, just like the mobile apps.

For now, the old Google Maps is still available if you use this link: www.google.com/lochp, but there's a message which says that "this version of Google Maps is updating soon".

New original content from top YouTube creators

At YouTube, we have a core belief: we only succeed if our creators do.

After launching the Creator Hub to help creators get the most out of YouTube from anywhere in the world and opening YouTube Spaces in the U.S., the U.K., Japan and Brazil, we decided to take an even bolder step to invest in ambitious projects from our top creators. Today, we’re announcing partnerships with four top creators to help bring their next big original series to life on YouTube:

• Since launching their first YouTube channel in 2007, the Fine Brothers’ channels have amassed over 17 million subscribers and over 3 billion views as well as earning a Daytime Emmy. They’ll continue the hot streak with their new scripted comedy series that takes a satirical look at the world of singing competition shows, produced in partnership with Mandeville Films.
• For six years, Prank vs. Prank have waged an epic prank war on each other in front of an audience of nearly 14 million subscribers and generated nearly 3 billion views on their two channels. In their forthcoming series, celebrity guests join Jesse and Jeana to pull off their most ambitious pranks yet. 
• Joey Graceffa has built a devoted fan following of over 5 million subscribers, cumed over 600 million views and earned two Teen Choice nominations through his channels’ daily vlogs, scripted series and short films. Now Joey will lead an all-star cast of YouTubers in his all-new murder mystery reality series.
• For a decade, Smosh has entertained a YouTube fanbase of over 35 million subscribers across their channels with comedy sketches that have generated over 7 billion views. In their new comedy series, we’ll see Ian and Anthony working at a theme restaurant where out-of-control kids and crazy parents are all in a day’s work.

We’re also excited to announce a new collaboration between YouTube and AwesomenessTV. Together, we’ll release several feature length films over the next two years, all driven by YouTube stars and developed and produced by AwesomenessTV’s Brian Robbins. The films will all premiere globally on YouTube before they become available elsewhere, setting what we believe will become a new distribution paradigm for years to come. We hope to release our first film this fall, with more details to come soon.

We hope that these new series and feature films, as well as those that follow, give top creators a new way to showcase their talent to fans on YouTube.

Alex Carloss, Head of YouTube Originals recently watched “Me at the zoo.”

Stats for Chrome's Compression Proxy

A few Google engineers wrote an interesting paper (PDF) about Flywheel, Google Chrome's data compression proxy. The paper only talks about the data compression feature from Chrome for Android and iOS and offers a lot of stats.

Flywheel focuses on the mobile web because mobile devices "are fast becoming the dominant mode of Internet access", while "web content is still predominantly designed for desktop browsers" and mobile data is expensive. Google's proxy compresses web content by 58% on average and relies on the SPDY protocol and the WebP image compression formats, which are used by a small percentage of the sites (0.8% of the images use WebP and 0.9% of the sites use SPDY). The most significant data reduction comes from image transcoding, which decreases the sizes of the images by 66.4%, on average.

Data compression is disabled by default and only 9% of the mobile Chrome users enabled it. "Segmented by access network, 78% of page loads are transferred via WiFi, 11% via 3G, 9% via 4G/LTE, and 1% via 2G." Flywheel is not enabled for HTTPS pages and for incognito tabs and it's interesting to notice that only 37% of the bytes downloaded by Chrome users who enabled the proxy are received from Flywheel, while 50% of the total received bytes are from HTTPS and 13% of the bytes are from incognito mode, bypassed URLs and protocols other than HTTP/HTTPS. For example, the proxy bypasses audio/video files and large file downloads.

"For most users and most page loads, Flywheel increases page load time. For the majority of page loads, the increase is modest: the median value increases by 6%. Flywheel improves page load time only when pages are large and users are close to a Google data center."

The paper mentions that the Opera Turbo feature provides comparable data reduction, while the old Opera Mini proxy uses more aggressive optimizations, but breaks pages that rely on JavaScript or modern web platform features. "Maintaining an alternative execution environment to support whole-page transcoding is not feasible for Flywheel given our design goal of remaining fully compatible with the modern mobile web."

{ via Hacker News }

Egyptian Museum

                      Egyptian Museum                   

       

The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, known commonly as the Egyptian Museum or Museum of Cairo, in Cairo Egypt, is home to an extensive collection of Ancient Egyptian antiquities. It has 120,000 items, with a representative amount on display, the remainder in storerooms. As of April 2015, it is open to the public, albeit with heavy security, x-ray machines, and metal detectors. Men may be subjected to a short but invasive pat-down scan as an additional security measure.

The Egyptian Museum of Antiquities contains many important pieces of ancient Egyptian history. It houses the world’s largest collection of Pharaonic antiquities. The Egyptian government established the museum, built in 1835 near the Ezbekeyah Garden and later to the Cairo Citadel. In 1855 Archduke Maximilian of Austria was given all of the artifacts by the Egyptian government; these are now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

A new museum was established at Boulaq in 1858 in a former warehouse, following the foundation of the new Antiquities Department under the direction of Auguste Mariette. The building lay on the bank of the Nile River, and in 1878 it suffered significant damage in a flood of the Nile River. In 1892, the collections were moved to a former royal palace, in the Giza district of Cairo. They remained there until 1902 when they were moved, for the last time, to the current museum in Tahrir Square.

There are two main floors in the museum, the ground floor and the first floor. On the ground floor there is an extensive collection of papyrus and coins used in the Ancient world. The numerous pieces of papyrus are generally small fragments, due to their decay over the past two millennia. Several languages are found on these pieces, including Greek, Latin, Arabic, and ancient Egyptian. The coins found on this floor are made of many different metals, including gold, silver, and bronze. The coins are not only Egyptian, but also Greek, Roman, and Islamic. This has helped historians research the history of Ancient Egyptian trade.

Also on the ground floor are artifacts from the New Kingdom, the time period between 1550 and 1069 BC. These artifacts are generally larger than items created in earlier centuries. Those items include statues, tables, and coffins (sarcophagi).

On the first floor there are artifacts from the final two dynasties of Egypt, including items from the tombs of the Pharaohs Thutmosis III, Thutmosis IV, Amenophis II, Hatshepsut, and the courtier Maiherpri, as well as many artifacts from the Valley of the Kings, in particular the material from the intact tombs of Tutankhamun and Psusennes II. Two special rooms contain a number of mummies of kings and other royal family members of the New Kingdom.

Android Action Cards in Google Search

Google has a few search cards that let you send some information to an Android phone from your desktop computer. In addition to finding your device, you can send directions, send notes, set alarms and reminders.

Search for [send directions], set a destination and click "Send directions to your phone". When you unlock your phone, Google Maps will automatically open and show your destination.

When you search for [note to self] or [send a note], you can enter some text and you'll get a similar notification on your mobile device. Another option is to add the note to your query and search for things like [note to self buy some milk].

Another action card lets you set an alarm on your phone. Just search for [set an alarm] and enter the right time for your alarm. You can also search for [set an alarm for 9:00] or other similar queries.

"You can connect your Android phone to Google, which lets you send information from your computer to your phone," informs a help center article. To use this feature, you need the latest version of the Google app for Android, Google Now cards and notifications need to be enabled, Web & App Activity has to be enabled in Google Account History. Another requirement is to log in to your Google account.

Tip: if you're not in the US and you don't see the cards when you enter the queries listed above, add &gl=us to the URL. For example: https://www.google.com/search?q=set+an+alarm&gl=us.

{ via +Google }

Google+ Notifications for YouTube Uploads

Ondřej Pokorný, a reader of this blog, noticed a Google+ notification about a video uploaded to one of his YouTube subscribed channels: It's Okay To Be Smart. It's a YouTube notification and it even has a special icon.

I don't remember seeing notifications like this. Google+ shows notifications when your own YouTube videos receive comments and you can disable this in the settings.

Danny Fratella, Top Contributor for the YouTube Help Center, explains that "the notifications that subscribers get in their Google+ Notifications are based on their previous engagement with your videos and your channel. If YouTube's algorithms notice that they're watching a lot of your content, they're more likely to receive notifications when you upload new videos. There isn't anything you can do to force this notification upon your subscribers."

{ Thanks, Ondřej. ]

YouTube Tests Borderless Search Box

YouTube tests a new search box. There are a few changes: YouTube no longer uses a search button, a small icon is placed next to the search box, there's a "Search YouTube" message inside the search box until you type a query and the search box doesn't have a border.

Here's the regular YouTube interface:

How to enable the experimental search box? If you use Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari or Internet Explorer:

1. open youtube.com in a new tab

2. load your browser's developer console:

* Chrome or Opera 15+ - press Ctrl+Shift+J for Windows/Linux/ChromeOS or Command-Option-J for Mac

* Firefox - press Ctrl+Shift+K for Windows/Linux or Command-Option-K for Mac

* Internet Explorer 8+ - press F12 and select the "Console" tab

* Safari 6+ - if you haven't enabled the Develop menu, open Preferences from the Safari menu, go to the Advanced tab and check "Show Develop menu in menu bar". Close Preferences and then press Command-Option-C to show the console.

* Opera 12 - press Ctrl+Shift+I for Windows/Linux or Command-Option-I for Mac, then click "Console".

3. paste the following code which changes a YouTube cookie:

document.cookie="VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE=0pBX9w1K8gk; path=/; domain=.youtube.com";window.location.reload();

4. press Enter and close the console.

To disable the experiment, use the same instructions, but replace the code from step 3 with this one:

document.cookie="VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE=; path=/; domain=.youtube.com";window.location.reload();

{ Thanks, Matthew Bohr. }

Find 360-Degree YouTube Videos

Now you can quickly find 360-degree YouTube videos. Open YouTube's desktop site or YouTube's Android app, type a query, click the Filters button and select 360° from the Features section. Here's an example for [Finland].

In the Android app, tap the Filters button next to the search box and select 360°.

Here are the search results for [beach]:

For now, 360-degree spherical videos are only fully supported in Chrome for desktop and the YouTube app for Android.

Google+ Celebrates Earth Day

Mr. Jingles, the Google+ mascot, has a special look for Earth Day. Just clear all Google+ notifications and you'll see the new Mr. Jingles, which looks like a terrestrial globe. Click the happy face to see the animation.

Here's a bigger version of the animation from Mr. Jingles' Google+ page:

Happy Earth Day!

Export Custom Maps, Helpouts and More

Google Takeout added support for some new services: Google Moderator, Google Groups, My Maps and Google Helpouts.

Google Helpouts has already been discontinued, while Google Moderator is shutting down on June 30. "Unfortunately, Google Moderator has not had the usage we had hoped, so we've made the difficult decision to close down the product," informed Google.

Google Groups and My Maps are still available, but Takeout lets you export your group members and custom maps.

Google's Earth Day Quiz

Google has an unexpected doodle for Earth Day. It's an animated doodle that sends you to a search results page for [earth day quiz].

Google tries to answer the question: "which animal are you?". You are asked 5 questions like "What are you up to on a typical Friday night?" and you can pick between 4 funny options like "alone in my burrow", "rarely seen out", "strutting my stuff" and "following the herd".

Depending on your answers, the results is a honey bee, giant squid, komodo dragon, pangolin, cuttlefish, mantis shrimp, honey badger, woolly mammoth, red-capped manakin, sea otter, whooping crane or coral.

"Earth Day is a great time to search for information on how to celebrate and protect our planet – and it’s now a great time to find out something about yourself too. In a doodle first, clicking on this year's Earth Day logo (or searching for 'Earth Day quiz') presents one of the Internet's favorite pastimes: a goofy quiz. Take the time to answer a few questions and you too can determine, share, and learn more about which animal most closely represents your personality. The quiz works on just about any up-to-date browsers on your mobile or desktop browsers, including the Android and iOS Google Apps. (We assure you it's all 100% accurate and scientific)," explains Google.

Here are the results:

"You're a komodo dragon! You have an appetite for life – as well as the ability to swallow an entire goat."

"You're coral! Your hidden beauty attracts many suitors. Also, did you know you were an animal?!"

"You're a mantis shrimp! Mysterious and beautiful, you’re not afraid to use your powerful claws to attack, stun, and dismember prey."

"You're a red capped manakin! You love to dance and you dance to love–preferably on a branch unobstructed by other vegetation."

"You're a cuttlefish! With the best brain-to-body ratio of all invertebrates AND the ability to camouflage your skin at will, you're the complete package!"

"You're a sea otter! You like holding hands to be romantic as well as to avoid floating away while you nap in the water."

"You're a giant squid! You can achieve anything to which you put your mind and/or your massive tentacles."

"You're a honey badger! Your true friends know they always can call on you to scare away lions or fight a king cobra."

"You're a woolly mammoth! So unique, you're technically extinct, but on the bright side scientists hope to be able to clone you some day!"

"You're a pangolin! The practical sort, you know just when to curl up into a ball to thwart predators."

"You're a whooping crane! Whether mating for life or rebounding from extinction, you're a real team player."

"You're a honey bee! Naturally a hard worker, you still take time to stop and pollinate the flowers."