Sneak Preview in Google Calendar

I got invited to try out a new feature in Google Calendar called Sneak Preview that allows you to simultaneously preview your friend's calendars while creating an event. Currently in Labs, the "Free or busy" gadget already allows you to check the present availability of your friends but when scheduling an event, you would still need to go to a future date, cross check your friend's calendar to make sure that all of your guests are free during a particular time before creating the event.

With Sneak Preview, you would be able to preview your friend's calendar on a new mini-calendar in the Create Event screen. This makes scheduling events much easier by allowing you to see when people are free and if the proposed time would conflict with existing events. Here's a screenshot of Sneak Preview in action:

The proposed event time is highlighted with a translucent shaded box (which is also drag-able). As you add guests to your event, their calendar would show up and you can see their events along side your own calendar. Roll over to their events and details would pop up.

This feature, however, might not be as useful to users who own several personal calenders (e.g. one for work and one for personal) as it currently only shows your default calendar.

If you're invited to test the new feature, you should see a link in your Create Event page:

Do you think this feature would make creating events easier?

Help Center Restructures

Google has been restructuring its Help Centers for Gmail, Google Calender and Google Docs according to usability and user feedbacks. All of them have (updated) Known Issues pages which lists out common but unsolved problems. Users can view the detailed description of the issue and report it if they are experiencing it. This is Gmail's Known Issues page:
The similar voting system is used for feature suggestions where Google determines which feature to develop next:
Another improvement is that Google attempts to show relevant problems that users might also have when searching for a particular topic: Given the huge amount of users, to answer all emails received from users might take up to years. Therefore, for common "How-tos" and "Know-hows", Google is (more strictly) directing its users to official user groups or Help Center by hiding the Contact Us link or by using directories to divert users to appropriate sections. Google only provides (limited) email support to users who have gone through the entire Troubleshooter and find no answers.
I suppose more updates would be expected as Google continues to collect feedback from its users with this box appearing in most Help Centers:

Google Calendar in iPhone

The Google Calendar Team has developed a tailor-made interface for iPhone users. The 'What's New' page says: Google Calendar now works (and looks) better on your iPhone. Enhanced 'touch-screen' buttons and color-coded events make keeping track of your schedule - and viewing others' calendars - even easier while you're on the go.

News Summary

Google Calendar Gallery
Just like the gallery for iGoogle gadgets, Google has made a gallery for public calendars in Google Calendar.

Related: Visit Gallery | Official Google Blog

Buy 'Green' Products in Google Store
The Official Google Store is going green! Now most of the things you can buy from the Google Store are environmental friendly. Every time you see these green icons on the items, you know they are eco-friendly.
[Via Googlified]

Related: Visit Campaign Homepage

CIC Joins Google's Library Project
Committee on Institutional Collaboration (CIC) agrees to let Google digitize select collections across all its libraries, up to 10 million volumes. As part of the agreement, CIC libraries will create a shared digital repository allowing any scholar regardless of geographic location to access out-of-copyright books.

Related: Press Release | Inside Google Book Search

News Summary

Bigger Attachments in Gmail
You can now send emails with attachment up to 20MB. You have to be aware, however, that this is also restricted by the recipient's attachment size limit (e.g. standard Yahoo Mail and Hotmail accounts only allows attachments under 10MB).

Related: Official Google Blog | Gmail Help Center

New Google Talk Smileys
You can now choose from a wider range of emoticons in the Google Talk gadget, the Flash-based gadget launchable in a new browser window, or embeddable on iGoogle and elsewhere. Switch between different smileys by clicking the smiley picker at the bottom right of the Google Talk gadget (there’s 35 smileys and icons all in all, from devil to broken heart to crying and shock). Google offers three basic sets: animated yellow round smileys , animated yellow square smileys and static black & white smileys.

Related: Official Google Talk Blog | Launch Google Talk Gadget

Google Calendar in Mobile Devices
Just visit calendar.google.com from your phone, and you'll see your agenda of upcoming events, complete with details like date, time, location, description, and guest list.

Related: Official Google Blog

Google Cross Language Search
Now, you can search for something in your own language (for example, English) and search the web in another language (for example, French). Currently, it only supports 12 languages including Arabic, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish. This tool is designed for majority of Internet users out there who are non English speakers to the obtain the gist of information in a language you might otherwise be unable to access majority of the content on the internet which is still in English.

Related: Official Google Blog| Google Translate

Search for Faces or News only
Google Image now allows users to restrict search results to faces-related or news-related images. You can search for faces by adding &imgtype=face behind the search results URL and Google uses face detection technology to select only images that contain faces. If restricted to news related images, it will include only images posted to news sites like BBC or New York Times. Here is what you get if you search for "Google" but restricted to face-related images:

Try it yourself. Enter keywords below:

AllFacesNews

Final List of New Feature in Google Calendar

gSpy has reported that Google Calendar adds in more advanced reminder function. Now that Google has official updated its 'New Features!' page and there are actually two more exciting features added:

Share calendars with friends
Click on the arrow next to a public calendar of events that you would like to send to a group of friends, select "Send to a friend" and type in the email addresses of people with whom you would like to share it and keep anyone up to date on upcoming events that you find on Google Calendar.
Your not-so-digital calendar
For those of you who prefer having a printed agenda to PDAs, Google added some features to make it easier for you to have a physical copy of your calendar. You can change font size, orientation and choose colour or black and white mode.

Add Reminder in Google Calendar

Google Calendar has been a bit quite since it was launched in April last year and had only a few minor updates such as the searching public events, moon phase and Google doodle calendar. It seems that Google has added one more subtle yet useful feature to called as 'Add Reminder'. A reminder in Google Calendar could be a pop-up if you are opening Google Calendar in your browser, SMS to your mobile phone or a email notification. Before, you could only have one reminder for each event and is typically inadequate for forgetful people like me. Now, you could add in more reminders to every event:
I have been longed for this feature yet would also like to see other improvement concerning the usefulness of Google Calendar. The top-wanted item would be full integration with Gmail. I have to admit Yahoo Mail is doing a good job in integrate the two and that Google might have already come up with a even innovative design.

Update: It seems that Google has taken this new feature down and it disappeared from my account. Anyone else experiencing the same problem?

Google Calendar gaining auidience

Many people worry that Google is expanding too fast and creating loads of products but doesn't really have users. But this might change your thought: According to Hitwise, Google Calendar's market share has increased 333% since its launch.

Graph from Hitwise.

I am quite happy about this growth as a large market share means Google will have to put more efforts into this product and further develop it (but not close it down like Google Answers). I have been loving Google Calendar since it was first launched and until recently, I rely heavily on it as the SMS function just prevents my brain memory cells from active. Overall, Google Calendar (especially the Gmail integration) has provided users with a easy-to-use yet ads free interface to organize their events. Some features like the invitations and the sharing makes it even more user considerate. Yet, there are still more to improve like:

• Saving locations so that I don't have to type in places I often go every time I have a meeting there
• Much easier way to pick contacts to invite (which I know they are working on right now)
• Improving the AI which Gmail uses to flags events hidden in emails
• Higher degree of customization when publishing my calendar on websites.
• Further integrating Google Calendar with Gmail so that I can view my events without loading a new window (a Google Personal Organizer is a good name for the combination of Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Notebook and Froogle wish list and maybe Google Docs & Spreadsheet)

Anyway, Google has clear indicator that it will focus more on product integration rather than product invention.