Google+ Introduces new UI Changes Toward a Simpler, More Beautiful G+ Experience

New G+ User Interface courtesy of Google blog

Google+ launched today new and exciting features that will allow users even customize their profile and thus have their user-experience in Google+ even better than ever!

Among the new features introduced include the new navigation which apps can be drag and drop to arrange them according to your preference,  Hangout with your friends who are currently online, stream are now simpler while photos and videos comes bigger in display,  and new arrangement of user profile picture with banner at the back that looks like the "cover" on Facebook, and many others. Watch the series of videos below to understand these changes.

Indeed, there's more to explore on G+!

For the record, Google+ has reached more than 170 million plus registered users already. Being the fourth social networking site (Google Buzz, Google Friend Connect and Orkut) introduced by Google, it has become, by far, the most successful one.

As of launching of the new interface, it is not yet available on all G+ users across the globe but one thing is for sure: Google is rolling out all of these changes already so better check your profile frequently to see if these changes have already took effect!

Take a sneak peek of the new interface here!

Google Science Fair 2012

The search for young bright minds continues as Google opened its second 'Google Science Fair 2012'. Submission of entries ends on April 1, 2012.

Again, Google is opening new opportunity for everyone to raise questions about something they are curious about and discover through conducting research and experiments to arrive at reasonable solutions answering their question.

The Google Science Fair 2012 is an online competition of every curious mind that always want to seek answers through experimenting on things and achieving practical possibilities from it. The competition is open for teens, ages 13 - 18, individual or as a team of two or three members with the consent of their parents to join in the competition. Everyone from all corners of the globe are allowed to join in the Science Fair.

Participants must register in google science fair site using their google account. Participants must fill out the set up and details form from which their information will be specified and the category their project will fall in. Projects to be submitted must fall in any of the following categories:

• Behavioral & Social
• Sciences
• Biology
• Chemistry
• Computer Science & Math
• Earth & Environmental Studies
• Electricity & Electronics
• Energy & Space
• Fauna & Flora
• Food Science
• Inventions & Innovation
• Physics

After successfully submitting the form, participants are expected to start building their project and published write ups of results to a website created in Google Site.

Project site, which will be using the Google Science Fair template, will allow participants to showcase their submitted project in an easy-to-use, highly interactive website. The template is composed of eleven (11) sections that must be customized by adding information, details and supporting documents including:

• Summary - brief overview of project and an embedded video or summary presentation.


• About Me - Tell the judges a bit about the proponent.


• The Question - the question that interests the proponent about something that they have observed, noticed, or wondered about.


• Hypothesis - Address something that the proponent believe is challenging which they are able to answer in a single experiment.


• Research - Summarize the research that the proponent completed to support and answer the question.


• Experiment - Design, execute, and summarize an experiment that tests the hypothesis.


• Data - Report on all of the data, numbers, outputs, or outcomes from the experiment.


• Observations - Show an understanding of what the proponent saw happening during the experiment.


• Conclusions - Explain how the experiment supported or contradicted the original hypothesis.


• References - Provide references for sources of information that have consulted.
• Acknowledgements - Detail any help and support received in completing the project.

Judging of the submitted projects will be based on criteria including film or presentation, the project website, and the project goal of making the world a better place. Life- changing prices awaits for the grand winner such as a National Geographic expedition, scholarship from Google, a hands-on experience with LEGO, CERN and Google, and Chromebooks for their classroom.

Google Docs for Android Updates Released!

There are new and improved ways to increase overall productivity over your documents on-the-go as Google Docs developers released its updates on  Google Docs for Android today, available now in the Android Market.

Major updates include the enhanced user-interface which now allow users to pinch to zoom and focus on a specific paragraph or see the whole document at a glance and the added rich text formatting so users can do things like creating a quick bullet list, adding color to documents, or just bold something important.

Google Docs for android now also support the collaborative environment functionality, Google Docs users only experience on desktop browsers before  which let every user editing a particular document see updates in real time as others type on their computers, tablets and phones.

Here are the complete functionalites added in Google Docs' latest version

1. Create, view and edit Google documents with new Android editor
2. Rich text formatting (bold, italics, underline, font color, background color)
3. Layout tools (bulleted lists, numbered lists, indentation)
4. Real-time collaboration - see edits from others in seconds
5. Cursor presence and highlighting

Google Docs for Android require version 2.1 and up to run.