To invoke this feature, Android users will first have to install the necessary application on their devices (Voice Search, Google Search widget and music apps that support this feature). Then, they can invoke the app by either tapping the microphone button on the Google search box on the home screen or by pressing the physical search button on their phone.

Here is a list of the available commands:

So Long, and Thanks for all The Real-Time Goodness

It’s a shame to see Google Wave go. I had high hopes for it when it was first announced (I was actually one of the first journalists to get my hands on it). Clearly, though, it failed to gain enough users to make continued development worthwhile for Google. What is odd, though, is to see how quickly Google killed Wave. After a long beta period, the company only officially launched Wave a little more than two months ago. Ironically, the last post on the Google Wave blog from just about a week ago is called: “STOP! Waving time…”

For a lot of users, seeing others type in real time just wasn’t a good enough reason to abandon email or more traditional collaboration tools. The promised “draft” feature – which turned off the real-time typing mode – never materialized. Over the next few days, we will surely see a lot of analysis about what exactly went wrong. If anything, though, I have to give Google credit for giving Wave a shot.

It’ll be interesting to see what the Australia-based team behind Wave (which also developed the earliest versions of Google Maps) will do next.

The Announcement

Here is the central part of Google’s announcement:

We were equally jazzed about Google Wave internally, even though we weren’t quite sure how users would respond to this radically different kind of communication. The use cases we’ve seen show the power of this technology: sharing images and other media in real time; improving spell-checking by understanding not just an individual word, but also the context of each word; and enabling third-party developers to build new tools like consumer gadgets for travel, or robots to check code.

But despite these wins, and numerous loyal fans, Wave has not seen the user adoption we would have liked. We don’t plan to continue developing Wave as a standalone product, but we will maintain the site at least through the end of the year and extend the technology for use in other Google projects. The central parts of the code, as well as the protocols that have driven many of Wave’s innovations, like drag-and-drop and character-by-character live typing, are already available as open source, so customers and partners can continue the innovation we began. In addition, we will work on tools so that users can easily “liberate” their content from Wave.

Twitter in Real Time – It’s Different Here

Thanks to this, you can now respond to incoming messages in real time, which makes Twitter feel more like an instant messaging service than SMS. If you are a business, for example, you can immediately respond to a tweet about your product, increasing the chance that the person who wrote it is actually still online. here is also something about just seeing this constant stream of information scrolling down your screen that feels a little bit like you are connected to the Matrix. Overall, though, it’s this new immediacy that changes how using Twitter feels, even though it is hard to pinpoint the exact reason for this.

Limitations

For the time being, the real-time stream in TweetDeck only works for your core columns (all friends, mentions, direct messages), old TweetDeck groups and searches. Sadly, it doesn’t work for Twitter lists yet, which is quite a shame, given that there is so much value in these lists.

Get the Beta

If you would like to apply for TweetDeck’s closed beta, click here.

Nice Tech Demo – But Inconsequential for Users

As a technology demo, this is an interesting gimmick. It shows that YouTube is able to handle this kind of material and will be able to support video producers who want to shoot in 4K.

For users, however, this is an inconsequential move for now. On my own fast broadband connection, I was able to easily download 4K videos (you can find a playlist here), but I neither have a screen nor video card that is able to handle this kind of resolution with any grace.

According to Google, the ideal screen size for a 4K movie is about 25 feet – a bit larger than the screens most of us have on our desks and in our living rooms. And – if course – unless you own a Red camera – you can’t actually shoot any 4K video yourself.

So why is Google doing this? Is it just a technology demo to show off at VidCon? With HD, Google was very late to the party, so maybe the company is trying to stay ahead of the curb here.

What’s interesting, too, is that WebM – the open video format Google supports – can’t even display this kind of video.

So if you have any idea why Google is doing this now, let me know in the comments.

Google Chrome for Mac: Ready, beta, now stable!

Chrome for the Mac is finally out of beta. For a while now, Chrome for the Mac has been lagging behind its Windows and Linux brethren, but things are finally looking up for the Mac. A stable version of Chrome now graces every one of the three major operating systems.

Google’s Economic Impact: $54 Billion

Google says that it creates about $54 billion in economic activity thanks to products like AdWords, AdSense and Google Grants to non-profits. Some pun

dits argue that this is nothing more than corpor ate propaganda and a “gimmick” that is meant to make Google look good as it faces increasing pressure from antitrust agencies in the U.S.

Gmail Labs: Move the attachment and other icon column

Icons in Gmail

Gmail users get a little bit more flexibility in how they organize their mail. You can now move your icons column (the one that shows whether an email has an attachment or was generated from Buzz) to the left of the screen.

Greater choice and transparency for Google Analytics

Google Docs gets advances search options

Nothing too fancy on the Google Docs front today. Just some minor tweeks to the document editor interface.

New Version of AdWords API

Includes a bid simulator, phone extension so mobile users can easily call an advertiser, the ability to set a target CPA (click per acquisition) and the ability to target specific carriers and devices.

Bonus: Send Links from Google Chrome to an Android Phone

If you have an Android 2.2 phone, here is a Chrome plugin that allows you to send links from Chrome directly to your Android phone – courtesy of Android’s new Cloud-to-Device Messaging service.

New Categories in the Extensions Gallery

It’s been a long time coming, but now that Chrome sports thousands of extensions, Google is finally taking steps to give the Extensions Gallery a much-needed makeover.

Good Start, but Just the Beginning

Sadly, it’s still rather hard to just browser Chrome extensions, but at least Google now features separate sections for featured blogging, web development, shopping, sports, and “fun” extensions. There is also a section that features Google’s own extensions.

Thanks to this change, I already found a bunch of interesting new extensions, including this one that takes screenshots of complete websites.

• new measurement products designed to gauge the impact of ads on brand awareness or on user interest in the product being advertised
• campaign measurement will take place in near real-time, creating an almost immediate feedback loop
• measurement will become truly dynamic and will feed into the planning process itself
• advertisers will be able to test multiple creatives and media plans, and immediately tweak them to deliver the best-performing ads and reach the optimal sites and audiences as measurement data starts to come in

Throughout the night Oscar®-related searches rose and fell as nominations were introduced and winners announced. Avatar had the most searches before the ceremony, but as The Hurt Locker received more awards, searches for that film exceeded all others and peaked when it won Best Picture. Precious also had a good run throughout the night.