Just for fun, let me give you this exercise. Type in something that you want to search today. Use an experimental search engine like Million Short which removes the first million or so Google results from a regular search engine result page. It’s a neat search engine built on top of Google Search you can use to specify how much you want to remove. I bet you will still get quite a few results, and hopefully fresh ones. Making these serendipitous discoveries is the fun part of a search. Though quite often, the incredibly intelligent Google algorithm loses out to SEO practices that push unneeded websites and search results on top.

The Web is a maze and you need more than a few standard operators to wade through it. To come out successfully on the other end, you need to power search. Your weapon of choice – Google Advanced Search. The homepage itself has a lot of Google Search tools which we don’t use much, but if you want to get your hands dirty, you need to know the secrets of Google Advanced Search. Here are a few places where you can learn all about the inner workings of advanced search.

Google Inside Search

Google Inside Search is the land of all search related knowledge. This is your launch pad if you want to teach someone the basics of Google Search. As the name indicates, it is a journey into the heart and soul of search, and thus it is meant to be a warm, friendly place which tries to give the impression that search is fun. And it succeeds because you just have to browse to the page with the search stories to see how people are using it daily. For instance, the story of Morgan is inspiring in how she uses search for education and learning independence above anything else; or, Caroline who discovered a supernova (one of the youngest people to do so) with the help of search. Very promotional on the part of Google, but it also reveals the potential of applying the right search methods for the right ends.

Teaching someone the basic of how search works on the web is easier with the interactive How Search Works. If you are a teacher, you can browse through the lesson plans which Google has designed for the classroom. All lessons are leveled as – Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced. All lessons are available under a Creative Commons CC-BY license.

Power Searching With Google

We started out with talk of advanced searching and to learn all the skills we head to a corner of the Inside Search site. The Advanced Power Searching course is a follow up to the Power Searching course, that’s available from the adjacent link on the same page. Both are self-paced courses you can learn on your own time. These are some of the best and condensed ways to become a power searcher in a relatively short time. The Advanced Power Searching course whets your curiosity a sample challenge – a video of a historic location on the rim of The Pacific. Your clues are a famous bridge (not revealed) and a park. Your job is to find that location using just Google Search.

Master searcher Daniel Russell takes you through the challenge, breaking it down into logical steps and using multiple Google Services to solve it. A major takeaway – don’t leap into search. Start broadly and then narrow down. It is beautifully explained and I can’t recommend it highly enough. Learn here and then take on the other challenges, graded from Easy to Hard. For instance, how about this one:

SearchResearch

 

We meet Daniel Russell again on his own personal blog. The self-described “anthropologist of search” works for Google and his insights on how to search with advanced search is as exciting as any “whodunit”. I first bumped into his blog when I came across an article where he described a perplexing situation (as shown in the above screenshot) and then explained the solution. I know I wouldn’t have got it on my own. It alone was a master-class in search tactics. His blog is filled with search challenges like these (how do you discover a book you don’t know the name of?) and little nuggets of information (e.g. how to open a YouTube video with a little URL modifier?).

Google Search Forum

Google Search Forum is the corner shop where everyone who is interested comes to jive over operators, weird results, and everything else. Coffee isn’t served, but you will get more than your share of brain bytes. You will find people asking questions on search personalization, how to avoid biased results, how to search patents by images etc. There is lots of information here if you care to dig. The search engine on top is the thing to use if you want to avoid all that labor.

A Google A Day

All that reading needs a bit of practice, and if you aren’t doing it with anything else, do it here and have a bit of fun. A Google A Day is part of the Inside Search Playground and its here you can test your search skills with daily riddles. Log in with Google+ and start playing. Solve the trivia questions, cheat openly with Google Search, and rack up the points. To get to the answer in the shortest time possible, you have to make efficient use of search operators, and this is where your skill will be tested. Google+ has retired its games, but you can go from one question to the next across the categories and rack up the points.

 

Learn about a simple search command that will let you use Google as an online timer to help you remind of any upcoming tasks.

With Google unveiling a completely revamped Maps, now available to all, creating your own maps has become easier than ever. You can create private and public maps, share the maps with specific individuals, add descriptions to locations, and choose from several map styles and appearances.

The new Google Maps features makes map creation easier than ever, and with Google’s solid sharing settings, you have complete control over who sees the maps, who can add items to the maps, or if you prefer, you can simply keep the maps completely private.

Getting Started

After launching Google Maps, click on the settings icon and click on My Places.

That will open up the sidebar where you can add locations to your maps. In order to create maps with multiple layers, however, you need to click on Get advanced features with Maps Engine Lite. This will open up a new window with a new map.

With the latest Google Maps features, you’ll be able to add locations by searching for them on the map, add lines and shapes to your map, import data from CSV files, and organize and group locations in layers.

Clicking on the New Map button will open up a map where you can create layers, search for locations and more. An untitled layer will have already been created, and you can edit the layer, and rename it to whatever you want.

Add Locations to Your Map

Once you’ve renamed your map, and your untitled layer, search for a location and you can add locations to your layers. When you find the location you want to add, you can view extra details from Google Maps (exact location, phone number, website etc.) and you can add it to your layers by clicking the Add to Map link.

As you add more layers, make sure that you are inside the layer where you want it to be included. In addition to manually adding locations to your map, you can also import them. Imported data should be in a CSV or XLSX file, or you can also import a spreadsheet from your Google Drive.

 

So what kind of information do you need in the spreadsheet in order to actually import locations into your map? All you need are two columns with the addresses and names of the locations. When you import the locations, Google Maps will first ask you which column includes the addresses:

It will then ask you which column includes the names of the locations:

When you need to import the spreadsheet, you will have to enable popups the first time around in order to connect Google Maps to your Google Drive.

In addition to adding locations and personalizing the pins, you can also add lines to your map as well.

The lines can be used to show a specific path between locations. For example, if you want to create a map showing a specific itinerary which takes you from one location to the next. Lines don’t appear to have much in the way of customization options. We’d love to see the option to change colors and possibly even insert arrows which show the direction taken in the map.

Customize Your Map’s Appearance

When it comes to customizing the appearance of your map, you can also add personal touches to each location. You can change the icon and colour of the pins on your map.

At a glance, you can choose the regular map pin, circle, square, diamond and star. Clicking on the ‘More icons’ button will open up a ton of more options:

In addition to customizing pins, you can also change the overall appearance of the map, with nine themes to choose from. These themes are accessible by clicking Base Map.

Sharing Your Map

Once you’ve created your map, there are several ways you can share it. You can keep it entirely private if you’re creating a map for your own personal use. Any maps you create are private by default. If you’d rather share the map, you can share it with specific Google users, or you can share it publicly. Hit the green ‘Share’ button in the top right hand corner of the map:

When you click the “Share” button, you can access the share settings which are identical to share settings on any Google Drive document. You can make the map completely public, accessible only to anyone who has the link,or accessible only to specific Google users you invite to view the map.

Creative Uses

• While the typical tourist spots are easy to find in any city, you can use Google Maps to share tips and places to go with your followers and friends that they might not necessarily think of exploring otherwise.
• You can use Google Maps to create collaborative maps, making it easy for friends to organize a day trip or a holiday, by selecting locations you plan to visit.
• You can also use it for educational purposes – teachers can create maps and share them with students, to give them a visual resource of locations mapped out in Google. For example, a history teacher can use Google Maps to create a visual resource of Amelia Earhart’s final flight. There are some awesome historical Google Maps mashups that can give you a sense of just how much you can do with Google Maps as a history teacher.
• With citizen journalism using social networks, video sharing sites and more, why not add maps into the equation. For example, if you’re covering protests in a specific country, or even around the world, you can map out the locations of the protests on Google Maps.

Want more creative ideas on ways you can use Google Maps? Check out our list of 10 unique Google Maps mashups and the other 7 fascinating Google Maps mashups for a bit of inspiration.

Conclusion

Google Map’s latest revamp is pretty slick and makes creating collaborative and interactive maps easier than ever. There are a few features we’d still love to see – more customization, and adding more to the maps than just lines. But it’s definitely a huge step in the right direction.

What creative uses for Google Maps can you think of? Let us know in the comments

 

Sure, Mountain View slowly infused Maps with Zagat content after acquiring the brand, but now it's revamped the outfit's mobile apps on Android and iOS, along with its website, to boot. As you'd expect, users can wield the apps and website to find venues with searches and map-based browsing, and catch up on news and videos from the service's editors. In this fresh incarnation, Google's lifted a registration requirement that was previously necessary to peruse reviews online. Schmidt and Co.'s redesigned experience only covers restaurants and nightlife in nine cities, but will include hotels, shopping and other points of interest in a total of 50 US cities over the coming months. In the meantime, Zagat promises its existing ratings and reviews for spots in those markets will soon be available on the web. Hit the bordering source links below to grab the reimagined applications.

 

 

Telenav's Scout GPS Navigation & Traffic borrows a bit from Waze and Trapster's books with the addition of crowdsourced incident reporting in the newest versions of its mobile apps.

On Scout's map screen, there now appears a new "Report" button that, when tapped, presents four large buttons to report Traffic, Police, Hazards, or Accidents with a single tap. When you report these incidents, you're sharing potential delays with other nearby Scout users and helping them to avoid congestion. For your trouble, you'll benefit from the driving experiences of your fellow Scouters and Scout's millions of users worldwide.

At time of publication, the iOS version of the app (version 1.11.x) has this new feature, but I didn't see the Report button in the current version of the Android app (1.5.x), but it's coming.

Additionally, both versions (iOS and Android) have been updated with new "Things to do" event listings. This can be found below the standard destination categories that help users find events, landmarks, nightlife, and things to do from the app.

Once a destination has been chosen, a new checkbox option on the Route Planning confirmation screen for Share ETA allows drivers ... [Read more]

Google has quietly launched a new feature: search for blogs on any topic. The company announced the new type of search in a weekly round-up of search updates last week, and respected SEO blogger Bill Slawski argues that the launch may be related to a new Google patent.

This has the potential to be a wildly useful service. How many of you have had professional or personal reasons to seek a list of the top blogs on a new topic? I know I, and many people I talk to, find themselves in such need frequently. How do you access the new search? How well does it work? Read on.

The Google Blogsearch service has for a long time surfaced a small number of blogs related to any search query, above the list of results from a search of blog posts, or entries. This new search is different, though, and surfaces different results.

Do a search on the general web search interface, google.com. Then, click on the "more" link in the left-hand sidebar if "blogs" doesn't already appear as an option. Once you're looking at blogs from this perspective, then a new option will appear in the sidebar: search for posts or blog home pages related to your query.

I searched for ceramics blogs, semantic web blogs, cloud blogs, social media blogs and more. All those searches brought up pages and pages of clearly topical sources. I imagine that different searches may have different degrees of success, but this is Google - so it ought to work well.

The search results in this new search by blog feature look pretty good to me. The ranking of those results, however, seems questionable. The more closely tied the title of the blog is to your search query, the higher the blog shows up in search results. That's not the best indicator of quality or authority.

That said, in as much as I know about the topics I searched for, the top blogs in those fields definitely peppered the search results, to greater or lesser degrees.

What would I do with these search results? To be honest, I'd ask our fabulous staff developer (whom you may not steal from us) to whip up some scripts that pulled down the first 300 search results (or more) from any query I searched for, grab the RSS feeds from those sites using another script and autodiscovery, turn the feeds into an OPML file, upload them to Postrank, sort them by degrees of reader engagement, then chop off the top number from that list as suits your needs. Your mileage may vary, of course. I'd likely then use some other processes to make sure I wasn't missing too many obvious sites or including too many false positives. (And then I'd do some other stuff with it too.)

Now that the sun has set of the Technorati blog directory, and no one has done as good a job in its place as it once did, it's great to see a new option at all. The fact that full-text search is the method employed here, along with some patented analysis of the sites, is great. The patent that Slawski points to, (Indexing and retrieval of blogs, filed September 2005), "describes how it may create a 'hybrid document' about a blog out of information from both XML feeds, blog posts, and pages linked to from those feeds and posts such as profile pages," he writes.

That great. Add some ranking, some OPML export, and then we're really talking.

Long live blog search!

In my online work, I spend a lot of time examining what people are searching for on the Internet. I’m not the only one. We’ve always been into Google search here at MUO. We’ve offered everything from a cheat sheet of Google search shortcuts and tips, and help with getting search results for your site to look the way you want them to.

We’ve also closely watched the value of search results as Google has continually attempted to upgrade its algorithm. In 2012, Yaara felt that search results were much cleaner, while Justin offered up tips on how to extract links out of search results without all of the garbage in the URL string. There’s a lot about Google search results we like, and there’s a lot we still don’t like.

In fact, this year alone there have been multiple updates to the Google algorithm, code named “Panda” and “Penguin”. Cute names, but there’s nothing cute about the updates. Panda is all about ending the rule of content mills over the Internet, and Panda 1.0 did that in a big way in 2011. Penguin on the other hand, includes algorithm changes that were meant to specifically attack the old black hat SEO techniques - things like creating keyword stuffing links, low quality articles unrelated to the core site theme, and using exact match domains.

At this point, there have been over 25 Panda updates, with the latest reportedly occurring on July 18th. Some great websites we all know and love have suffered traffic loss, but at the same time, so have numerous content mills we’ve all grown to dislike. However, have all of these updates done the trick? Are Google search results as high quality as they should be after so many algo tweaks?  In this article, I’m going to take a close look at the results of three common search queries and see just how quality the results really are.

If you have a family, then you know that there are always those weekends that arrive where you haven’t made any plans at all. It’s probably one of the most common things for a family to turn to Google for some ideas of fun things to do. How good is Google’s search advice?

The good news is that the top 4 listings were top-quality sites you would expect to see, like Real Simple with a list of “11 fun things to do on a rainy day”, or The Simple Dollar with “100 things to do during a money free weekend”. They are well written articles that are well-organized and contain thoughtful and valuable ideas.  There were a few misses on the first 10 listings though, in my opinion. For example, “50 Fun Things to Do in an Elevator” on Meyerweb.

Nothing against Eric Meyer mind you. I mean, he’s well known in the web-design industry as a leader for web standards and CSS in particular. However, this particular page just contained nothing at all except 50 lines of ridiculous ideas like “make race car noises when anyone gets on or off”, or “One word: flatulence!”

Funny in a Ren and Stimpy kind of way, but is it honestly useful and valuable enough to be listed 6th in Google results for “fun things to do”?  The only thing the page has going for it is that the title had “Fun Things to Do” in the left-most position, as did the first sentence on the page. But wait, I though the new algorithm updates eradicated the ability for non-valuable pages to rank highly based on a few little page tweaks? Maybe not.

Even worse, the guy that registered “randomthingstodo.com” lists 5th, proving that the domain itself still holds a lot of power in the search algorithm. The site itself is a never ending crowdsourced list of things to do – most of which are completely useless comments like “Go to Petsmart and buy bird seed. Then ask the clerk how long it will take the birds to grow.” Subract 1 from the Google algorithm score.

Meanwhile, the poor family that’s trying to find fun things to do, is left spending most of Saturday morning and afternoon sifting through useless, rambling Google results.  On the upside, in later search listings, it does appear that the majority of results for this query are focused on local websites in different areas that happen to list fun things to do in that region. Score 1 for Google’s algorithm.

The majority of the highly-ranked sites were actually region-focused, which is interesting. It also appears that many of the top listings featured videos or slideshows, proving that it’s true that Google tends to value sites with more multimedia content as more valuable than sites that are text-only. This is usually a pretty safe assumption, most of the time. However, it also allowed a site that generally doesn’t write about topics like this — Bankrate.com, a financial website — to rank highly for this search phrase, because it offers a 10 page slideshow on the topic.

Conclusion for this search test – the bored family is going to struggle to find something to do, unless they log into their Google account so that Google can return region-specific search results based on the user’s actual location. Otherwise, they’ll be searching through useless listings for a long time.

Another topic that was notorious for content-mills to focus on are those evergreen “how-to” topics that people are always searching for online. How to fix a leaky faucet. How to install a bath tub. Things like that.  To test if things have improved over the last couple of years in this regard, I tried searching for something simple – “How to fix a flat tire”.

My thought here was that it would be nice to see the top 10-20 listings as highly-detailed articles or photographic how-to guides showing how you can take a flat tire off a car, locate the hole in the tire, patch it up yourself, and then re-install.  Unfortunately, what I found was that many content-mills still rule the day in the area of how-to topics like this.

In fact, WikiHow ranks first, probably because it has the ideal domain for how-to content, however the article that made it into first place for this search was completely useless.

It offered one stock photo near the intro, listed text-only instructions, and those instructions were basically how to install a purchased kit. The first step is “read the directions on the can of sealant you have brought.”  Horrid writing aside, why would a person even bother reading this article if they have a product with directions in front of them? The whole list was clearly written in haste, and only to attract search engine traffic to the site. Little to no value at all.

Fix-a-Flat ranks highly, as well as other sites that show how to use the Fix-a-Flat product. There’s one article from Instructables.com, a site that usually offers pretty good info. However, in this case it made me page through 10 pages (nice trick to bump up pageviews), only to discover the article wasn’t about “fixing” a flat, but about “changing” a flat.

Then there’s eHow, the content-mill we all know and love, listing 8th in the search listings.

As usually, Ehow just offers a stock image near the intro, and then 16 steps of text-only instructions meant to make a certain word count, with stupid steps like, “Apply the hand brake and put the transmission in park or in gear so the car won’t roll.”  Gee…thanks for warning me, or I would have parked my car and left it in Drive. Seriously? Google considers this to be worthy of 8th place on the first page of results?

Paging further down in Google Listings to try to find the actual useful articles on fixing flat tires, I spot Huffington Post. So, now Huffington is an authority on fixing flat tires? Well, not quite. Huffington posted a video titled “How to Fix a Flat Tire in Seven Minutes, From Lauren Fix”.   What was this amazing fix? Nothing more than using a Fix-a-Flat kit to get a flat tire rolling again.

It’s basically a one-and-a-half minute ad for Fix-A-Flat, and apparently Google feels this belongs up on page 3 of its listings.  Where did I finally learn how to fix a flat tire? Well, it was an embedded video on the blog HandyManFixHome.com. This was an 8 minute video that provided every detailed step, including all of the tools needed, to actually fully patch a flat tire using actual tools (not just a Fix-A-Flat spray).

Where was this useful result listed in Google’s search listing? Page 19.  It took me half an hour sifting through Fix-A-Flat ads and content-mill articles to finally find the useful blog and its embedded video, where the expert advised, “don’t rely on Fix-a-Flat, which is unreliable for large punctures”.

So far, my test searches have been very generic. For the next text, I decided to focus on a very fringe topic that few people would be covering, to see how well Google can turn up valuable results for even smaller niches like this.

Instructables and Mother Earth News actually had useful info on how to build a crossbow. Of course, there are the obligatory YouTube videos, now that Google owns YouTube…

I was disgusted to see WikiHow once again in the top listings – both number 5 and 6. However, taking a look at these articles, they were clearly written with a lot of effort and detail, and are definitely worthy of a high listing.

The instructions had great detail and high-quality images with almost every step. Score +1 for the Google algorithm on that one. Unfortunately, there was one listing on the first page of Google search results that was obviously only there because the owner of the site had landed an exact domain for the search, MakeCrossbows.com.

The site has hardly any useful content, very little information inside of the articles, and it’s obviously only there to collect traffic from a semi-popular search term, and the Google algorithm hasn’t been able to recognize the site for the low-quality, traffic-collection tool that it is.  Subtract another point from the Google algorithm.

And then there’s the Squidoo site listed on page two of Google results. Page two!

It’s an extremely amateur-designed site with randomly tossed-on information about crossbows, a bunch of links and videos to external sites about crossbows, and a comment area. Where Google sees the value in this site, I have no idea – but there it is.

I was personally excited to see the first few Panda updates, and the demise of content mills. It was exciting to think that online writers that are diligently working long hours to provide interesting and useful content on the web would finally be rewarded by getting listed higher in Google search results than all of these amateur or mediocre sites with horrid writing that have been gaming the Google search engine for years. However, even after 25 updates, Google still seems to have succeeded at nothing more than hurting the ranking of sites with fantastic and useful content because they are newer, while pushing results of older domains higher in search results regardless of quality or actual value.

That is what I believe the findings above reveal, but I’d love to hear your analysis of these listings and the current state of Google’s search algorithm. Have the recent updates hurt or helped your site? Do you like the direction that Google is headed with each update? Share your input and insights in the comments section below.

Google's new voice search is pretty handy, but it's even better when you can initiate it with a keyboard shortcut so you never have to to touch your mouse.

Read more...

Motorola doesn't officially announce the X until this Thursday, but let's be honest, this has quickly become one of the worst kept secrets in tech. Here we have the clearest shots yet of Motorola and Google's long-awaited collaborative effort.

Details are still relatively sparse, but the Moto X is said to be sporting a new type of Gorilla Glass called ""Magic Glass."" The new variant is apparently a special concoction that creates a ""continuous surface that wraps around the entire front and edges of the device,"" according to Android and Me. The Moto X will also purportedly be made from laminated aluminum.

What do you think so far?

Google's Nexus 7 was the best small tablet of 2012. Rather than mess with success, Google did something uncharacteristically conservative: It made little improvements here and there and left the rest mostly as is. The result? This year's Nexus 7 is more low rumble than tectonic shift, but it's still our new favorite tablet. For now, at least.

WHAT IS IT?

It's Google's new 7-inch tablet. The hardware was made by Asus, and the operating system is the latest and greatest pure Android experience from Google (Android 4.3 Jelly Bean). It starts at the very easy entry point of $230 for the 16GB Wi-Fi version.

WHO'S IT FOR?

Commuters, travelers. People who want their tablets to be as portable as possible. People who do a lot of reading on their tablets. Gamers. People who want a more capable e-book reader.

DESIGN

This tablet could fit in the rear pocket of a lot of people's jeans, and almost everybody's jacket. That's a huge advantage. It comes in at 7.87 x 4.49 x 0.34 inches, versus 7.81 x 4.72 x 0.41 inches on the 2012 Nexus 7. In other words it got only slightly longer, but noticeably narrower and thinner. It also only weighs 10.5 ounces verses 12 ounces for the last version. The result is a tablet that doesn't feel quite as bulky, which was one of the main knocks against the previous iteration. It has a soft-touch plastic back (non-removable) and sadly no removable battery or expandable storage slot.

Despite that slimming down, the new Nexus 7 got fat with pixels. Its HD IPS screen has a resolution of 1920 x 1200 for a pixel density of 323 pixels per inch (PPI). That's an unprecedented resolution from a tablet this size-or any size (the current-generation iPad has a PPI of 264, while the iPad mini is stuck at a sad 163. (Shown below: 2013 Nexus 7 on Left, 2012 Nexus 7 on right)

There are now two separate speakers-one on each side if you're holding it landscape-to give the tablet actual stereo sound. The whole thing is powered by a 1.5 GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro CPU, an Adreno 320 GPU, and 2GB of RAM (twice last year's). The micro USB port doubles as a SlimPort for mirroring your tablet to your TV (via an adaptor or a cable sold separately), and you can charge the tablet wirelessly via the Qi protocol. Oh, and it has a rear camera now. It's 5MP, but really, who cares?

USING IT

For starters, Android 4.3 is nearly identical to Android 4.2. It's a very incremental update. The most tangible new benefit is that Bluetooth 4.0 Low Energy is now supported. That means you can use it with new heart rate monitors and/or activity trackers like the Fitbit One. I tested it with the Withings Pulse and it worked flawlessly. There are a few other perks, like profiles you can set up to keep your kiddies from making in-game purchases. And there are some yet-to-be-quantified performance enhancements. On the surface that's about it.

In practice, the tablet itself hauls ass. Apps open up lightning-quick, scrolling is smooth, and it auto-rotates quickly, all things which my 2012 Nexus 7 has been failing to do lately. The reduced size makes it once again hands-down the easiest tablet to carry with you. Hand-fatigue, even on long subway rides, is extremely minimal.

Android tablet apps have come a long way over the last year, and while it still doesn't have as many truly optimized tablet apps as iOS, it's very nearly caught up, and most of the ones you care about look just as good on both platforms. Spotify, IMDB, Instagram, Kindle, Evernote, for example, are all solid. This is a different story from just a year ago. The good news is that even apps that aren't optimized don't look so bad when stretched to seven inches, since they're all made to work on phones that are 5.5-inches now anyway.

THE BEST PART

That would have to be the upgraded screen. It is absolutely gorgeous. Not only does text look sharper on it than on any other tablet to date, but it's very bright, and colors are wonderfully accurate. The old Nexus 7's screen had sort of an orange-ish tint to it; this year the whites look white. It blows every other small tablet out of the water. (Above: the new Nexus is on the left, the old Nexus is on the right.)

TRAGIC FLAW

The new Nexus features Qualcomm's Snapdragon S4 Pro processor. The HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S4 both use Qualcomm's newer, faster Snapdragon 600 processor, and soon devices will be released in the U.S. with the even fasterer Snapdragon 800 or Nvidia's Tegra 4. It is utterly baffling that Google/Asus would choose to go with an outdated processor. Yes, it's plenty fast now (faster than any tablet, but slower than the HTC One), but so was my 2012 Nexus 7, and now it's slow as hell. This seems like bad future-proofing, even if it did help keep the price down.

THIS IS WEIRD...

You may recall that 2012's Nexus 7 had some Wi-Fi issues. The Wi-Fi radio performed very inconsistently and struggled to deliver a solid connection. The new Wi-Fi radio performs better, but not by very much. We used the app Wi-Fi Analytics Tool from Amped Wireless and started walking down the block with both tablets, slowly getting further from our router. While the newer Nexus was often 10 or 20 dB better than the older one, it wasn't consistent. Sometimes the older one would even pull ahead. This is really the only place were the iPad mini beats the new Nexus 7 handily. Google and Asus had the chance to make this much better, and they didn't do much with it.

TEST NOTES

• The 4,345 mAh battery on the 2012 Nexus 7 actually got smaller, coming in at 3,950 mAh this year. This seems like it would be terrible move in theory. But in practice, battery life has been rock solid on this thing so far. It made it well through the day despite heavy usage, and it really sips power in standby mode, which is great. This is possibly due to improved display technology and/or the smarter processor. Or maybe it's Android 4.3. The jury is still out on why, but suffice to say it's very good.
• The stereo speakers are definitely an improvement. It's especially better when you're watching a movie or playing a game in landscape mode. They are also distinctly clearer, with less distortion. What they aren't, though, is louder. It seems that the old, single-speaker on the N7 actually pumped out more sound. Only by a little, but still, what a world. We definitely prefer the front-facing speakers on Google's 10-inch Nexus 10.
• While the differences from the previous version are subtle, this Nexus 7 feels much classier and more high-end (well, it is $30 more, I suppose). The last one felt thick and a bit clunky, with a slightly dotted plastic finish on the back. This one feels nice and trim, and the dots on the back have been replaced with a brushed, soft-touch plastic. It's smoother and better-looking, but it actually manages to be a little grippier, too. It's really nice.
• The front-facing camera has too narrow of an angle. If you're video chatting while holding the tablet at a comfortable distance, all your caller will see is a big close-up of your face. It's not a great look. HTC has been getting it really right with the wider angle on the front-facing cam. We tried to test the 5MP rear camera but were unable to get a steady shot while constantly punching ourselves in the face. (We kid. It takes fine pictures in bright daylight, but seriously, just use your phone instead unless you already have the tablet in your hands and Sasquatch is running past you.)
• The long-term performance of the previous Nexus 7 doesn't totally inspire confidence. Over time, it really got a lot slower, battery life got a lot worse, and mine still hasn't been updated to Android 4.3 (despite it being one of the first to be released). We want to believe that this tablet will last you at least a couple years, but some healthy skepticism is advised.
• There are a few versions: 16GB Wi-Fi only for $230, 32GB Wi-Fi only for $270, and a version with LTE for $350. T-Mobile has already confirmed that the LTE version will work on its network, so one would assume it will work on AT&T's as well. (You may be able to find the Wi-Fi modelsdiscounted to the tune of $25-$30.)

SHOULD I BUY IT?

Probably, but it's a tougher call than it should be. Google missed an opportunity to really pull ahead in the small tablet battle. Instead, it chose a still-good-but-definitely-outdated processor. This all but guarantees that the Nexus 7 will be surpassed in power and speed sooner rather than later. It's definitely an upgrade, but it's a little more incremental than we'd hoped it would be.

That said, this tablet is absolutely terrific and it's the one we'll be carrying with us for the foreseeable future. The screen is absolutely unsurpassed in the small-tablet category (or arguably any tablet category), and that's a big deal. It's simply a joy to look at, it's effortless to carry, it's extremely fast, and it's very cheap for how good it is. The 2013 Nexus 7 comes in at $230 for the 16GB Wi-Fi version, which is a cool $100 less than the not-nearly-as-good iPad mini with the same setup. Or it's $30 more than the Kindle Fire HD, though the Nexus 7 is better in virtually every way.

At the very least, though, it's probably worth waiting. While we'd definitely recommend this Nexus 7 over the current competition, keep in mind that the 2013 versions of the iPad mini and the Kindle Fire will probably be coming in the next few months. We'd bet the Nexus 7 will probably still be the best buy, but it doesn't hurt to sit tight.

Basically, we love this thing. We just can't shake the feeling that we'll be falling even harder for something else soon. Ah, l'amour. [Google]

Google Nexus 7 2013 Specs

Display

: 7-inch 1920x1200 (323 PPI) LED-backlit IPS

Networking: Wi-Fi (LTE option)

Display: 1920x1200 (323 PPI) LED-backlit IPS

Processor:1.5GHz quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro Processor

Memory: 2GB

Storage: 16GB/32GB

OS: Android 4.3 (Jelly Bean)

Camera: 5MP rear / 1.2MP Front

Dimensions: 7.87 x 4.49 x 0.34 inches

Weight: 10.5 ounces

Battery: 3,950 mAh Li-Ion

Price: $230-$270 Wi-Fi / $350 Wi-Fi + LTE

 

Though it’s where its fame and fortune first came from, Google has advanced far beyond just being the world’s most popular search engine. You and I both know that Google plays host to many amazing services that we use on an everyday basis. Gmail is a great example. I have Gmail. I bet you too have Gmail! How about the late, great Google Reader? That was a service that so many of us would already love to have back. Why Google, why?

These are just two examples, and you’d be pretty surprised to know how many other goodies Google has floating around out there. Beyond their alerts system and floundering social network, Google has developed a wealth of web applications that just aren’t given enough shine. We’ve done articles in the past that help highlight some of Google’s hidden treasures that don’t get the limelight they deserve, but Google is always changing and pumping out more. In this article, let’s look at another three.

Google Trends

Google Trends is a great place to go when you want to see what is hot on the web. When that sort of content comes to mind, the first thing you might think of are Trending Topics over on Twitter. Trends is to Google what Trending Topics are to Twitter, except without the social aspect. You’re getting what is on the rise in Google Search.

As the above screenshot manages to capture pretty well, what you’re normally going to see on this list are things like national or world news and events, movie releases, sports stories, and things of that nature.

Beneath each result, Google gives a rough estimate of the recent increase in searches for terms related to this subject and an immediate link to a related article to help explain the change in search volume.

Google Trends is a localized list, and you’re able to see results from the US, Canada, Germany, Hong Kong, India, and more.

Google Fonts

Google Fonts is a really quick and simple way to look at hundreds of different font faces through the web browser, offering features that cater more specifically towards webmasters.

This website allows you to view 629 fonts by word, sentence, paragraph, or poster. You’re able to sort this list of fonts by alphabet, when the font was added, by how it’s trending, and more. When you find a font you like, you can add it to your collection of saved fonts for later use.

When you’ve selected the fonts you’re interested in using for your website, simply click the Use button in your collection and you’ll be offered several different ways to import the font to your website.

The best part is these fonts don’t need to be downloaded or anything to be used on your site. You only have to include a single line and a bit of CSS code to your page and you’re able to make use of them, all thanks to the powers of the Google Fonts API. Here is my colleague James taking a look at how you can use Google Fonts in a web project.

Google Sky

While Google Sky is a feature from Google Earth, it does have its own standalone interface on the web.

I don’t need to go on about how awesome Google Earth is, because you’ve surely heard of it by now. How cool is it that we’re able to go practically anywhere on this planet and get an interactive view of the area, all through a website? Google Sky offers this same experience, but the imagery is provided by NASA satellites, the Hubble Telescope, and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey.

Put simply, it is the Google Earth for space exploration. Although the search feature was recently disabled, you’re able to drag and scroll all through the galaxy and zoom in to ridiculous resolutions to see beautiful images of our sky in detail.

Google Sky is a project that was put together by developers during their 20% time, and while it lacks some of the major functionality of services like Google Maps and Google Earth, it’s worth appreciating. If Google keeps up at this pace, we’ll be on track for a Google Universe in the next however-many years!

It’s a short list of services, but a list of very purposeful ones that I can only hope never experience the termination that services like Google Reader and iGoogle are going through. Have you ever used any of these three services before? Which one seems most interesting to you? Leave me a line in the comments below and let me know!