YouTube App for Helio Ocean

The Google Mobile blog talks about the custom-built YouTube app from Helio which lets you watch, record, upload, and share YouTube videos on your Helio Ocean phone:

You can even let everyone know where you shot a video by attaching a "geo-tag," which includes the GPS coordinates for the location where you shot the video.

You can also personalize your YouTube experience on the Helio Ocean by customizing your video feeds like My Subscriptions, My Favorites, My Playlists, My Videos and Received Videos. Of course, you can always view traditional YouTube categories like Most Viewed, Most Recent, Top Rated and Recently Featured.

Note that this YouTube app is from Helio and not from Google. It would be nice if Google released a similar app for mobile phones. Right now, YouTube has a mobile version of its website.

Links: GTalk translator bots, CallFreq Android app, Google's speech recognition training, UK spectrum auction, Google Mobile in Africa & India

• Translation bots available for Google Talk - Just add a bot as a GTalk contact, send a message to it in one language and it will echo the message back in another language. For example, if you add en2es@bot.talk.google.com as a GTalk contact and send it a message in English, it will echo the same message back to you in Spanish. Check the link for a list of other language-pair bots available from Google right now.
  Tip: If you have an IM app on your mobile phone which can communicate with your GTalk contacts, this could be used as a handy pocket translator. Be warned though, translations by these bots are not very accurate.


• New Android App: CallFreq - Described as a "new generation of a phone dialer", which "intelligently analyzes the calling patterns of an Android communicator user and provide you only with the contacts that you currently need most". The current release sorts your contacts into those you call most frequently.


• Google's speech recognition software is being trained by GOOG-411 phone service users. We can expect this training to be put to good use in future targetted mobile advertising algorithms as well.


• Might Google be interested in bidding for the broadcast spectrum in UK? For those of you who might not know, UK is also planning on auctioning off the spectrum that is/was by analog TV service there. A spokesman for Google UK said that FCC restrictions meant that the company was not allowed to comment on its plans in this area anywhere in the world.


• Google partners with Safaricom in South Africa to offer Google services on mobile phones there. Interestingly, it sounds like these services are being offered through the Google Apps route. Safaricom customers will have email addresses which are their mobile numbers followed by @safaricom.com and those who cannot access Google services such as Gmail through their mobile phones can access it via Safaricom's website. Sure sounds like Google Apps to me. Good move there by Google - offering Apps to Safaricom and in turn extending its reach to their customers' cell phones.


• Search Engine wars on mobile phones are sure heating up in India. There are seven times more mobile phone users in India than PC-owners. So, it is natural for Google, MSN and Yahoo! to fight it out for mobile users in India.

Google gives Calendar love for BlackBerry & Picasa love for iPhone

The Official Google Mobile blog announced some calendar love for BlackBerry & Picasa love for iPhone.

Google Sync for BlackBerry
You can now use the Google Sync for mobile to sync-up your Google Calendar with your BlackBerry's native calendar. Just point your BlackBerry's browser to http://m.google.com/sync and download Google Sync. From then on, any changes to your Google Calendar will appear on your BlackBerry calendar, and vice-versa.

Google Sync will two-way synchronise your BlackBerry with the default calendar associated with your Google account. You have the option of selecting other calendars to download, but you cannot update them from your BlackBerry. You have automatic or manual synchronization options. The automatic sync option checks for updates every two hours. You can also decide how far into the future you want to sync your BlackBerry and Google calendars. You can set the option to sync from 4 to 24 weeks.

Warning: If you use Reset Sync on the Options menu of Google Sync, it will delete all events on your BlackBerry calendar. Not just the ones inserted by Google Sync.

Picasa for iPhone
After Google's main page (as opposed to the iGoogle homepage) got a special version for the iPhone, it is now Picasa's turn. From the Google Mobile blog:

Today, I'm happy to tell you that we've just released this new iPhone interface for Picasa. After you go to Picasa on your iPhone and log in, you can quickly see all your albums that you've uploaded to Picasa Web. If you click on any of the albums, you can get a full view of your picture with comments from your friends. Or you can click on Slideshow, sit back and watch the pictures scroll. You can also search for photos in your album or through community photos. Finally, with one of my favorite features, you can view your friends' albums through favorites.

What are you waiting for? If you have an iPhone or iPod Touch go to http://picasaweb.google.com and check it out.

Compared to any other mobile browser, the only extra feature for Picasaweb on the iPhone seems to be the slideshow feature. And I am sure the pictures look much better on the iPhone, of course.

It is worth noting that Google is targetting recent features and updates to the BlackBerry, the most popular phone in the enterprise space, and to the iPhone, the most [insert iPhone/Apple fanboy adjective here] phone in the consumer space. This is a sure sign that Google wants to play on the mobile phones of both the business users and the non-business users.


[via Official Google Mobile blog]

Google Mobile Updater for BlackBerry

Google has released a one-click app to update all the Google Mobile products on your BlackBerry.

This might seem a little pointless right now. Google has only two phone-installed mobile apps (as opposed to web apps) which may need updates to be installed on your phone. These apps are of course, GMail and Google Maps. Almost all other Google mobile apps are web-based, always loading their latest version on your phone's browser.

So, what does the Google Mobile Updater do? Apart from updating GMail and Google Maps apps on your phone, it puts handy short-cuts to the other web-based mobile apps. Creating short-cuts right there on the phone might seem like a small change, but it could lead to a huge surge in the usage of these apps due to the ease of access. In the absence of these short-cuts, users had to type in the URL of the apps on their phone's browser.

When I installed the Mobile Updater on my BlackBerry, I chose to install all the products it would install. Apart from installing the Mobile Updater itself, it updated my GMail and Google Maps apps, and created shortcuts for only the following mobile apps/services: Search, Picasa, Docs and News. Whenever there is an update to be installed, the Mobile Updater icon on the phone will change to show a green arrow:


You can get the Mobile Updater by visiting mobile.google.com on the BlackBerry's web browser. The Mobile Updater is only available for BlackBerry right now. No doubt, there will be versions available for other phones soon enough.


[via Official Google Mobile Blog]
[Image courtesy: Official Google Mobile Blog]


Related: Google Mobile: Products and Countries Lists