This week proved to be a busy one for the G-Men who’ve been hard at work making new and exciting things for us to play with on our desktops and mobile devices. There’s much to discuss, so let’s dive right in.
Hotpot: Google calls Hotpot “a local recommendation engine powered by you and your friends.” It’s essentially Google’s version of Yelp. You can search the over 50 million places Google has data about and rate the places you’ve visited using a five-star system. When you give a location a positive review, Hotpot will recommend other places to you that are similar to place you visited. For example, if you give a seafood restaurant a five-star rating, Hotpot will show you other similarly themed restaurants in your city that you’ll likely enjoy. You can also share your places rating with friends and see the places they’ve recommended using Hotpot. Using a Google account you can access the Hotpot rating app to get started. You can rate places, invite friends to the service, and view their recommendation on the desktop in Google Maps using that app, and you can rate on-the-go using the Maps app on Android devices.
Boutiques: The team at Like.com are now Google employees, and together with the search giant they have created Boutiques.com, “a personalized shopping experience that lets you find and discover fashion goods.” An odd niche website for Google to invent but hey–they’re Google and they can do what they want. Though the algorithms behind the site are likely complex, the way it works is pretty simple. You can build your own personalized boutique and get recommendations of products that match your taste, or you can browse through curated boutiques and take style cues from celebrities, stylists, designers, and fashion bloggers. The site layout is fresh and simplistic, and advanced search filters are present to help you sort though everything from shoes to clothes and handbags. There’s even iPad app available to access Boutiques in tablet form. Ladies, have at it.
Docs: You’ve been able to access Google Docs on various mobile platforms for some time now, but today Google announced that users will have the ability to edit their documents on a mobile device. Head over to docs.google.com on a supported phone (these include Android with Froyo (2.2) and iOS devices with v3.0 or higher, including the iPad) to begin a mobile edit session. You’ll notice a new “edit” button in the top right corner. Edits appear in “near realtime” between mobile devices and the desktop. And if you’ve got an Android-powered phone, you can enter text using your voice. Google’s rolling out this new feature to English-language users “in the next few days” so look out for it! Video demo here.
Voice: A native Google Voice app is finally available for iPhone users. In addition to all the GV features you already know about, the new app brings push notifications (the app will alert you instantly when you receive a new voicemail or text message) and speedy phone call connections. If you’ve got an iPhone running iOS 3.1 or later, click here to download the app. For now, this is a U.S.-only offering.