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Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Some updates and info on Google Buzz, Talk Guru and Docs


Google has made some updates and announced some information about three of it's products.


Google Buzz
Google Buzz - Google admits that there were some problems with the Launch of Google Buzz in terms of transparency and user control and they have reached an agreement with the US FTC about these issues. They are looking for user comments before they make changes to Buzz though. They are making improvements and improving privacy and security settings.


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Google Talk Guru - This is a new Google bot that let's you ask simple questions and you get the answers. You can get information about the weather, sports results, definitions and more via chat. It will work on chat applications that support Google Talk. It's free and easy to use.


Get started! Send a chat invitation to guru@googlelabs.com.
Google Talk Guru is an experimental service that allows people to get information like sports results, weather forecasts, definitions etc via chat. It works on many popular chat applications that support Google Talk.
To start using Google Talk Guru:
1. Sign into a chat client that supports Google Talk
2. Send a chat invitation to guru@googlelabs.com or click the link "Sign in and invite myself to chat with Guru" at the bottom of this page.
3. Find guru in your contact list and send chat queries to guru using the examples below:
Sport scores:score arsenal
Weather:weather Nairobi
Calculate:123 * 45
Currency:120 KES to USD
Definition:define laptop
Translation:translate earth to French
Web result:web Mount Kenya
Help:help translate





Google Docs - Google is testing a pagination feature. Currently, to paginate your Google Doc, you have to use print preview which takes time and takes you away from your document. With pagination, you will be able to just go to "View > Document view > Paginated" and it will show you your document as it would print. You will still be able to go back and use the compact view.
No mention of when it will be available.


You can find out what else is new in Google Docs here. http://www.google.com/google-d-s/whatsnew.html