Over time brands have become verbs such as “hoover”; “Velcro” and “superglue”. Google has become the verb for people wishing to search for something online; the phrase “just Google it” is thrown about in almost any context. The search engine giant really has taken the search world by storm but what other aspects of our lives are impacted by Google?
For most of us, Google Maps has become a firm favourite on our mobile device. The days of carrying around a map book or even a GPS device are long gone and now a mobile device, along with Google maps, acts as a sophisticated navigation tool. A cool new feature to Google maps is the Popular Times tool which scans through location data to find when certain locations such as the local gym or coffee shop are at their busiest. The idea behind this is that hopefully people can avoid having to queue and make better plans when arranging their tasks or chores.
Google Earth is also a firm favourite amongst Google users. This product recently turned 10 years old and to celebrate the team expanded the Earth View collection to 1,500 landscapes and some wallpaper downloads. For all those travellers out there, Street View and 3D cities can highlight a city or town that you plan to visit with unbelievable detail.
Whilst on the subject of travelling; The Google translate app is seriously cool. Through a mobile phone app, you can take a picture of a street sign or notice and you will get an instant translation. In the last week an additional 20 languages have been added to the map, bringing the total to 27 instant visual translations.
As for Google+; don’t be disregarding this just yet with some serious changes afoot with trying to make a more focused and useful tool. Google+ Collections is a new feature that has been launched and offers both businesses and personal profiles an opportunity to share posts organized by a topic. For example; businesses who offer more than one service can streamline the user experience by housing each service within its own “collection”. Most of the features from Google+ photos will move to the Google Photos App. The popular “hangouts” functionality is set to stay but with some improvements heading its way such as location sharing.
Some might call it creepy and some people might call it cool, but whatever your thoughts are about Google and the amount of influence they have in our everyday lives, they are here to stay. In the not so distant future we could be sitting in our Google driverless car, navigated by Google satellites and using Google search to find the next hot spot to visit. The world of technology is changing rapidly and Google just seems to be at the forefront of it all!
