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Keep From Google Is Getting More Organizational Features

The new Google Keep categorization features were by far the most requested by users.

Google Keep had gone through several amazing improvements ever since 2013 when it was originally launched. The latest improvement to the note-taking app will let users organize their notes by tags, making the view similar to organizing files inside of a folder.

In 2013, soon after its March debut, Google Keep was named one of Google’s Top 50 Apps. It has since then improved considerably and currently boasts a great number of useful integration and organizational features.

Color-coding notes and lists made it easier to discern the different post-its visually. Users, however, could also search easier by organizing and searching by color. Nevertheless, that option to search has proved not to be enough for the almost 50 million Google Keep users.

Keep can now efficiently organize a user’s notes, ordering and classifying similar keywords into an open folder-like view.

Google’s new change to Keep was quite expeditious considering that, a day prior, Evernote announced that it would be increasing its paid monthly subscription service and limiting access to its free accounts.

With Evernote expecting a very soon massive loss in its popularity, it would appear that Google Keep will be the main player in the note taking business for a while.

In addition, Google Keep currently allows users to insert images into their notes. Note reminders either based on location or time are one of the other most used features. The integration of the reminders into other Google apps like Clock, Calendar, or Now is seamless, quick, and flawless.

Finally, Google’s note-taking app allows users to take voice memos. The options are currently available only in the United States and for English speaking users. Nevertheless, the app does automatically transcribe the voice memos and saves them both as audio and text. Finally, Google Keep acts similarly to Google Docs, allowing multiple users to write collaboratively in the same note.

Google Keep is available for no cost on both Android and iOS. Additionally, the app is available on desktop browsers with the exact same functionality. It was one of the first apps that Google took into account for their initial Chrome OS app pack.

Evernote also accumulated most of its popularity through its iOS app. Initially, its Firefox and Chrome extensions saw more popularity than the Android version of the app. Currently, all three mediums are popular for Evernote as well.

Image Courtesy of Flickr.

Evernote Integration of New Google Drive Button

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Evernote logo. Evernote Integration of Google Drive

Google partners up with Evernote.

Evernote has announced they will make a significant new integration into their application. It will integrate a new Google Drive button.

Google has also announced that content in Google Drive will now be available for access with Evernote.

Ahead in the world of mobile note-taking applications is Evernote’s biggest competitor OneNote, of Microsoft. This new integration is the company’s effort to stay in the note-taking market top.

Lately, the company has suffered cutbacks and leadership changes and hopefully this partnership might bring them more stability.

Ironically, Evernote competes with Google Keep, Google’s mobile app for taking notes, but this partnership is viewed as a “natural next step” by Google’s management staff.

Alex Vogenthaler, the product manager of Google Drive, writes on the company’s blog that they want people to have access to their personal content stored in Drive “whenever and wherever they’re trying to get stuff done.”

This partnership announcement comes after a couple of weeks after Google Keep’s updates. Google Drive plans on being integrated with other third-party applications like WhatsApp and Yahoo Mail.

The Evernote-Google Drive collaboration doesn’t stop at the button integration that adds files from Drive; the feature allows multiple users to collaborate, changes are synchronized automatically, and modular notes continue up to date and on multiple versions.

The integration also works with different file types like documents, pictures, sound and video.

A cool new feature added is the preview of the linked content that will add better perspective to the viewing experience.

With more than half of Evernote’s users having Google accounts and millions of them pasting Google Drive links every day, this Evernote integration, and Google collaboration was indeed a “natural next step”. Now their users even have more storage space.

With Google’s 15GB of free storage and 1TB for less than 10$ a month, Evernote will become a threat to storage service providers like Dropbox and OneDrive, which don’t have an Evernote integration.

This new service is currently in beta mode available on Chrome and Google Play store; additional platforms are being in development.

The Evernote integration is the first of many Google partnerships Evernote plans to have with the tech giant. Evernote has over 150 registered users.

Image source: Flickr

Google has Tripled the Bounty Reward for Finding Bugs

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A while back we reported on the news that Google launched new Android apps for Chromebook and now it’s time we took a look at the news that Google has tripled bounty rewards for finding bugs, as well as announcing an experimental muting feature in Google Chrome.

Google Has Tripled Bounty Reward and Added Muting Feature in Chrome

Google has just announced that they are increasing the payouts for people who find bugs in their software. Google’s being the good guy by doing this, paying up to $5,000 to those who manage to find flaws in their software.

Google has been using these bug bounty programs for a while now, in an effort to make their browser and programs as flawless as possible. Up until now, Google was paying around $500 dollars to those who found bugs in their programs, but starting today, Google has triple the bounty reward for bug finding.

They even have a Hall of Fame created for those who have successfully found bugs!

Silencing Automatic Playing

We’ve all been annoyed by automatic playing at one point in our lives, haven’t we? Well, Google has just added an experimental feature to Chrome that silences automatic playing. The clips or sound bites will still play automatically, but Chrome will mute it temporarily for us, so that more tabs don’t play at the same time and make us feel like we’re in a really bad nightmare.

Try it for yourself! Go in your Chrome browser and copy this and press enter. After you do this, you’ll need to hit enable and you’re good to go. Don’t forget to restart your browser, for the feature to take action.

Does it sound like something you would be interested in? Does it sound good that Google has tripled the bounty reward for finding bugs? Drop us a line and tell us what you think about this!

LG trademarks handful of Chrome names pointing at new devices

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It looks like LG will be partnering up with Google for a few Chrome ventures, after Australia got hit with a few trademark requests from LG, including Chromedesk, Chromestation and Chromeone, all three Class 9 trademarks, meaning they are in the electronic devices category.

The trademarks come a few days before the Google Play event on October 24 in New York, where we are likely to see the new version of the Android and the LG Nexus 5, alongside a slew of new Android/Chrome orientated products and some big changes on Google Play.

The three trademarks may amount to nothing or just one device with three possible names, the finger is pointing at the next event after LG pushed the office to declare the trademarks, getting their Taken For Examination status report a few days ago.

With the Chromebook and Chromecast already out in the world, it does beg the question of what the Chromestation and Chromedesk have in store. The Chormedesk sounds like a more powerful PC running Chrome instead of Windows or Mac.

This doesn’t sound like the best idea in our opinion, almost all Chromebooks have light cheap designs to comfort a light web user who doesn’t run applications or play PC games. We cannot see a regular PC user wanting to buy a powerful machine running Chrome OS, with all of its setbacks.

Chromestation seems more about TV and with the Nexus Q now in the grave we may see its revival under a new Chrome name. Google does have the Chromecast for some Internet TV and as an incredible way to watch anything on your TV that can be displayed in a browser.

Perhaps the Chromesation will be the first party Google TV, the one with all the new Google services bundled with the best on demand and Internet content in a viable user interface. We are not sure yet, but it does sound fun, unlike the Chromeone, which sounds odd and confusing.