Better Know Your Mobile: Using Shortcut Keys and BlackBerry Convenience Keys for Google Maps

Posted by Chris Nguyen and Tom Dimopoulos, Mobile Product Specialists, Google mobile team

Have we mentioned that we like doing things faster? In the spirit of speed and helping you to Better Know Your Mobile, the next couple of videos in our series will show you how to use all the great features, and even open Maps for mobile at the push of a button.

Last time we explained how to get My Location [0] and Traffic [7] with the help of some of your phone's shortcut keys. We've got a new video that shows all the most common numeric shortcut keys in one place. And you may have seen Steve and Mark's duel video setting "convenience keys" for speedy access to your favorite apps on BlackBerry, Blackjack, and Nokia N95 devices. Now we've added a shorter video about the convenience key settings on BlackBerry devices. Time to stop fishing around in menus and start impressing your friends with fast-as-lightning mapping!

As always, we'd love to get your ideas for more features you'd like to learn about, so give us a shout on the blog or video comments. To see all our videos in one place, check out the Google Mobile Help channel. You can always subscribe to it to get the latest videos on using Google Mobile.

Now available: orkut on your mobile phone

Posted by Hazel Mary, Software Engineer

Have you ever wanted to check if your buddy responded to your scrap about this evening's plans, but not been close to a computer? Do you wish you could pass the time on your long commute home by browsing through your friends' profiles?

Fret no more -- if you have a web-enabled phone and a data plan, just point your mobile web browser to m.orkut.com, and stay connected to your friends anytime, anywhere.

We understand that often your phone's data network isn't as fast as your computer's, so in designing orkut for mobile we focused on offering the features that are most useful when you're on the move, instead of replicating all the desktop features. For example, we've made it easy to send, receive, and respond to scraps on our mobile interface so that you can step away from your computer and have conversations on the go. From your phone, simply click the new "Reply" link to respond directly to a scrap from your friend. You can also read recent updates from your friends, view upcoming birthdays, look up and add friends, and accept friend requests.

After you try out orkut for mobile, we'd love to hear what you think. From the m.orkut.com homepage, click on the "help" link at the bottom of the screen to send us your feedback.

Happy mobile orkuting!

Do you have nomophobia?

Posted by Lawrence Chang, Product Marketing Manager, Google mobile team

A recent article in the Evening Standard introduced a "new, peculiarly 21st century affliction" called nomophobia or "no mobile phobia," which is exactly what it sounds like - the fear of being out of mobile phone contact. Besides citing research that claims up to 53% of mobile phone users feel great anxiety when their phones run out of battery life or have no network coverage, the article also suggests ways to avoid nomophobia, such as carrying a charger at all times or remembering your most important phone numbers.

So are you a nomophobe? If you are, you're not alone. I suspect that many of us on the Google mobile team are nomophobes too!

Better Know Your Mobile: Using My Location and Traffic features on Google Maps

Posted by Chris Nguyen and Tom Dimopoulos, Mobile Product Specialists, Google mobile team

We've found that a lot of you that use our services like Google Maps for mobile haven't yet tried some of the great features that are available. Well, those days are hopefully coming to an end. Today we're launching a new video series to help you Better Know Your Mobile by showing you some cool tips and tricks for getting information on the go.

If you've ever wondered how to get the most out of Maps for mobile, then this post is for you. These first two videos highlight the My Location and Traffic view features of Maps for mobile. Stuck in terra incognita? Check out the My Location video to learn how you can quickly find yourself on the map. Once you know your approximate location, you can also figure out whether there's traffic nearby using the Traffic feature. We'll even show you exactly what the different traffic colors actually mean.

If there are any features you'd like to learn more about, give us a shout on the blog or video comments - we'll be rolling out more videos in the near future. To browse all of our videos, hop over to the Google mobile help channel. While you're at it, bookmark that channel to catch new videos about using Google mobile.

Android's First Five Months

Posted by Sung Hu Kim, Product Marketing Manager for Android, Google mobile team

As some of you may have heard, Wireless Week has chosen the Open Handset Alliance and Android for its Emerging Technology Award, noting that "Android's potential promises openness and innovation, perhaps changing not only the mobile Internet but the Internet itself."

We at Google would like to congratulate all the members of the Open Handset Alliance and the fantastic Android developer community for this well-deserved recognition. Android's growing momentum is the result of an amazing effort and collaboration among many different people.

Coincidentally, this week marks five months since the Open Handset Alliance and Android first went public. A lot has happened in this short period of time. Among the things of note:

• We released an early look at the Android software development kit (SDK), allowing anyone to learn and start creating apps for the platform.
• Feedback from developers has contributed to numerous fixes, improvements, new tools, and major updates to the SDK, the latest version of which you can find here.
• Google announced the Android Developer Challenge, which will provide $10 million in total awards for the best Android apps -- and the first phase has nearly wrapped up. (Be sure to get your submissions in by April 14!)
• Several companies gave the first working demonstrations of Android in February.

These have been an exciting first five months, and we look forward to making the coming months even better.

Picasa Web Albums for Windows Mobile

Posted by Zak Cohen, Software Engineer, Google mobile team

When Joe Walnes showed off the shiny AJAX interface on the iPhone version of Picasa Web Albums I started thinking - can we make an AJAX interface work on new Windows Mobile devices? After all, Internet Explorer Mobile supports many of the advanced browser features that we used to build the iPhone version. Joe and I wanted to give it a try so we got to work. Today we're pleased to tell owners of Windows Mobile 6 touchscreen devices that you can now enjoy a much faster and slicker way of browsing Picasa Web Albums on your phone.



Working with Windows Mobile also meant that we could add some cool features using the newly announced Google Gears for mobile, which gives web applications the ability to work even when there is no internet connection available. This means that you can view albums of your choice offline. Gears also lets you add a Picasa icon to your Program Files folder so you can have faster access to your favorite photos. If you'd like to learn more about how we leveraged Google Gears for mobile, watch Dion Almaer's interview with Joe.

To try out Picasa Web Albums on your WinMo 6 touchscreen phone, just go to picasaweb.google.com on your Internet Explorer Mobile browser. Let us know what you think!