Continue reading Ice Cream Sandwich gets a two-minute tour, courtesy of a lucky eBay shopper (video)

Ice Cream Sandwich gets a two-minute tour, courtesy of a lucky eBay shopper (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 28 Sep 2011 17:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Does Gmail’s current look seem chaotic and claustrophobic to you? Are you overwhelmed by the myriad mailing options, labels, and chat windows? We aren’t either, but apparently Google sees things differently, and has an interface overhaul planned that’ll simplify things in your webmail world. It looks like the spacious and simple design language from Google + will carry over to all the web services proffered by the gang in Mountain View. For now, it’s available as a couple of simplistic skins to be tried on in the Themes tab of your Gmail settings, with more permanent changes rolling out in the coming months. Google Calendar is slated for a stripped-down wardrobe in the next few days as well, with El Goog promising more cosmetic and functional changes for both services later this summer. In the meantime, the company’s looking for feedback on its new interface so it can fix any issues folks find. We want your opinions, too, so tell us what you think of Google’s new threads in the comments below.

Google says less is more: Gmail and Google Calendar to sport a more spartan look originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 30 Jun 2011 21:50:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Milestone-maker may not be the first words that come to mind when you think ‘Wyoming,’ but consider this: the state lays claim to the first ever national park (Yellowstone), the first national monument (Devil’s Tower), and to being first for women’s suffrage. Not content to rest on its laurels, Wyoming Governor Matt Mead put on his early adopter hat and marched all ten thousand civil servant soldiers into the Google cloud. It’s a major first for both parties, and might even help Google ease the federal government’s earlier MS-favoring snub. By switching solely to Google Apps for Government, Mead says the move will save his great territory significant coin, not to mention getting everybody under the Gmail umbrella like Los Angeles did back in 2009. Unintended consequence of the move? The inefficiency of, oh, about nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine workers whiling away their days on Gchat. Check below for official video of the address.

Continue reading Wyoming wholly commits to Google apps, adds more flare to state’s firsts

Wyoming wholly commits to Google apps, adds more flare to state’s firsts originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 22 Jun 2011 22:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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HTML5 beckons the world with its dashing logo and also, we suppose, all the clever little things it can do. Desktop notifications in Gmail and folder-dragging in Docs already refuse to work with anything less — and before long that will apply to the entirety of Google Apps. Come August 1st, you will find that Gmail, Calendar, Talk, Docs and Sites are all unsupported unless you’re using either the current or last major release of Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome or Safari. An older browser won’t suddenly stop working with Google Apps, but it will begin a steady descent into oblivion. Hey, being popular means you don’t have to be nice.

Google Apps is moving on, you’ll need an HTML5 browser to go with it originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Jun 2011 22:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Are you quietly proud of the girth of your social circle? Do you think having 146 Facebook buddies is impressive? Snap out of it, saddo. Some Gmail users have thousands upon thousands of contacts in their list — so many, in fact, that they’ve been begging Google to increase its 10,000 limit. The Big G has now obliged these jabbering fiends, yanking the limit up to 25,000 and also boosting available cloud storage to 128KB per contact instead of 32KB. We imagine this could be of some help to business users perhaps, or those nice strangers who send out stock tips. But for the rest of us, the gesture is about as inconsequential as the professionally good-looking.

Gmail now stores up to 25,000 contacts for the insanely popular originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 05 May 2011 06:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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With over 300,000 devices activated per day, Android‘s clearly firing on all cylinders from a consumer standpoint, but much like the famed Cheez-It wheel, some would argue that the OS isn’t quite mature enough for unabashed enterprise use. Being a corporation itself, El Goog’s obviously been toiling around the clock to change that, and it’s taking three major strides today. An updated version of its Google Apps Device Policy enables employees to secure a lost or stolen Android 2.2+ device by locating it on a map, ringing the device, and resetting the device PIN or password remotely via the new My Devices website. Furthermore, Apps admins now have an option in the control panel to “Encrypt Data on Device,” which will now include requiring encrypted storage on Android 3.0 tablets. Finally, Google Apps Lookup is acting as a type of internal blackbook, allowing users to easily sift through colleagues and contact them through one form or another. So… hired?

Google preps Android for its corporate interview, adds new encryption and security measures originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 09 Apr 2011 02:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Read more here:
Google Apps Downtime: Never Again

Google has filed a lawsuit in the US Court of Federal Claims against the US Department of the Interior for being what it claims as “unduly restrictive of competition.” Apparently the DOI wrote up procurement requirements for a hosted email and collaboration solution (it’s currently hobbling along with 13 different platforms for its 88,000 users) that specifically stated the software had to be part of the Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite. Google thinks there should be a competitive procurement process for the $59 million contract, allowing for potential alternatives to Microsoft (like Google Apps, for instance). The DOI says it’s up for open competition on the contract, but it’s “standardized” on Microsoft tech. We’ll have to see how this plays out.

Google suing US Department of the Interior for Google Apps snub originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 02 Nov 2010 10:05:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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