Well, Google I/O 2013 has certainly been eventful so far. Our live blog and resulting traffic knocked the site over but hey, no matter, we’ve seen tonnes of good news.
Google+ is to get a stack of new features – 41 to be exact – including a redesign to the Google+ stream interface. On the desktop this means that photos and videos will appear in several columns. Not only that, but a new feature called “related hashtags” and tags stories based on contextual information from your photos and updates. The Twitter-esque system has the intelligence to “see” a picture of Big Ben and automatically tag it with the appropriate hashtag. Clever.
Store photos on Google+ ? Well hey, I know what it’s like. Digital photos are great but there can be thousands of them and sorting them out can take a lot of time and effort. Now Google+ will sort photos by the landmark in the shot, the people in the shot and more. Photos can also be auto-enhanced with HDR features and an “auto-collage” mode
Hangouts is to be split out, with all your video and online chatting being done in the Google+ Hangouts app. It’s going to be a stand-alone app and will be your one-click into group chats and video conferencing. Google Talk is history, make way for Google Hangouts. Even the updated Google Play listing shows that Google Talk is now dust..
How long will you have to wait for all this? Well, according to Google these changes will start to take place in a matter of hours.