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Google originally launched App Indexing for Android users back in December before rolling it out globally in English for a number of apps back in April. As pictured above, the feature allows content from Android apps to show up in search results with a button for users to quickly launch the app. Today the company announced it’s expanding the feature once again and launching it for apps in several languages other than English. It’s also added some other English results in the U.S. including the Walmart, Tapatalk, and Fancy apps. 
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Following a ruling by a European court that users have the “right to be forgotten” online, Google has launched a new web page that allows some users seeking a bit of privacy to have certain links removed from the company’s search results. The Mountain View search giant says it has already gotten thousands of takedown requests—and that’s before the form was even public (via Re/code).

The system isn’t automated, and Google says it will need to consider each request on a case-by-case basis to decide whether a certain link should be removed or left intact in the interest of public information. If that sounds a bit inefficient, that might be because it is. An introductory statement on the page calls it “an initial effort” which will undoubtedly be improved on over time:

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Earlier this week, Google rolled out Panda 4.0 and Pay Day 2.0. These updates to the search algorithm were touted as being designed to further reduce the ranking of low-quality and spammy content. According to analysis by Searchmetrics, Panda and Pay Day did just this, with websites that offer undifferentiated content suffering in terms of overall ranking.

However, Panda did not just punish websites: various major websites actually increased their rank in Google Search as a result of the change in algorithm. From the study:
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Google has made two notable changes to its search algorithm in the past 24 hours, both of which continue Google’s crusade to keep its search results relevant. The 4.0 release of the Google Panda algorithm is intended to make it more difficult for websites with poor quality to rank highly in search results (via SearchEngineLand).

Payday Loan Algorithm 2.0 was also released yesterday, and it targets “very spammy queries,” and is unrelated to Panda’s rollout:
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Over the past few weeks we’ve seen rumor after rumor regarding new features for Android, as well as interface tweaks. And with Google I/O 2014 right around the corner, we don’t expect them to slow down at all. Android Police this evening published a new report detailing some more design changes coming to Android, as well as a new big feature.

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Jony Ive and Marissa Mayer (right) eat pizza with other industry executives

Re/code reports that Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer is planning an attempt at persuading Apple to switch its default iOS search engine from Google to her company’s own offering. According to Re/code’s sources, Mayer has built what she hopes will be a convincing arguement in favor of the change.

Yahoo! current powers the weather and stocks apps and Notification Center widgets found in iOS 7 as well as a few Siri functions, such as sports, but lost out on the chance to power Siri’s web search to Microsoft’s Bing. Both Yahoo! and Bing are included as optional search engines in the Safari browser, but the default selection is Google.

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Google is considering giving higher search rankings to websites that use security encryption, according to The Wall Street Journal. If true, this could force more websites to adopt a secure setup, possibly making it harder for cyber criminals to spy on web users. This new idea was recently mentioned at a conference by Matt Cutts, the head of Google’s Webspam team. Still under consideration, if Google decides to move forward with this process, a change reportedly won’t happen for quite a while. 

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Just a couple of weeks ago we reported that Google Now would soon add the ability to remind you when to pay your bills. Now, Android Police has discovered hints at yet another new feature potentially on its way to Google Now. According to the report, Google Now will soon be able to remember where you parked your car and help you locate it. The feature will recognize when you stop your car and get out, save the location, and present you with a Card showing you exactly where your car is.

The Card will be able to navigate you back to the location of your car, and should Google give you an incorrect location, there is a button below the map that offers the ability to correct Google. Based on the information available Android Police created the above mock-up, which shows how far away your car is, when you parked it, and of course, where you parked. In addition to information obtained from other sources, there are several hints that corroborate this report in the code of the most recent Google Search.

The report gives this rumor an 8/10 as a confidence rating, with it losing points due to “the unpredictable nature of pre-release features, and the fact that while there is teardown-based evidence for this, it is rather scant.” Nevertheless, it does seem likely that this feature is currently being developed by Google and does exist.

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Registration for Google’s I/O developer’s conference, originally due to open today, has been pushed back by a week, now opening on 15th April.

Google hasn’t offered any explanation, though its brief statement suggests that a problem in the registration process has been spotted at the last minute … 
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Android Police is reporting that Google is planning a new feature, known as Hera, for the next major version of Android. Hera is reportedly the company’s latest attempt to unify the experience that users have within all major Google services, including Android, Chrome, and Search on Android-powered devices. Hera looks to be based on a special Chromium build that is meant to run on Android and execute certain tasks though the web, as opposed to within an app.

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In December, Google announced a new feature that further integrated Android apps into its Search products by showing links directly to apps in search results. For instance, if you searched for a movie to see, you had the option of opening the results in the IMDB app if you already had it installed on your phone. Basically, if you had an app installed all you had to do was click “Open in app” on the search results page and you’d go right to the relevant app. If a search included relevant apps from inside Google Play, you’d be able to quickly go to the Play Store and download it.

Today, Google has announced that it is further expanding this feature to support even more apps. Starting today, you have the ability to directly from search results into the following apps:

500px, AOL, BigOven, Bleacher Report, Booking.com, Eventbrite, Glassdoor, Goodreads, Huffington Post, Merriam-Webster, Pinterest, Realtor.com, Seeking Alpha, TalkAndroid, TheFreeDictionary, The Journal, TripAdvisor, Tumblr, Urbanspoon, Wattpad, Yellow Pages, Zagat, Zappos and Zillow.

The feature is being updated over the air, meaning that no app update is required and you should start to see changes in these search results very soon.

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Since its release, Google Now has added a plethora of features, such as improved traffic capabilities, voice commands, and much more. According to a new report from Android Police, the service will be receiving yet another new capability in the near-future that will help you remember to pay your bills.

According a person familiar with the matter, Google Now will soon add an interface that will remind you of upcoming bills, including how much they will be for. The feature, which will be integrated into the classic Google Now card interface, will also include a link to easily pay the bill online.

The screenshot below is a mockup of the interface based on the available information. The latest update to the Search app also includes hints at this feature, some of which were used to help make the mockup. As you can see, the card shows the amount due, the minimum payment, and any other information.

Android Police says the source for this feature is very reliable and that their “confidence level” with this report is a 9/10. It’s unclear when this feature will launch, but given that there is already code appearing the Search app, we shouldn’t have to wait too long.

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College Humor is back by popular demand with a yet another look at the far too realistic personification of the search engine in the sequal to its “If Google Was a Guy” video. Certain questions prompt a camera appearance by the ominous NSA. Meanwhile, Microsoft’s Bing makes a guest appearance as a pristine but vacant office employee. The parallels drawn are undeniable. Watch it below:
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Google today rolled out a minor update to its Search app on Android. The update doesn’t add a lot, but does make the voice recognition functionality even better. With the update, you can now assign titles to people in your contacts. For example, you can say “Ok Google, call Mom” and it will either call the number that you have assigned to your mom, or prompt you to choose who you want to be labeled as your mom and remember that option for future use. The funcationaily also works for texting. Simply say “Ok Google, send a text to my wife” and the Search app will pull up the wife contact. Officially, the app supports the following relationships: father / dad, mother / mom, brother, sister, cousin, niece, nephew, aunt, uncle, grandmother / grandma, grandfather / grandpa, wife, husband, girlfriend, and boyfriend.

Want to save time keeping in touch with your loved ones? Or just not drop your phone or your shopping bags whilst you try to find a number to make a call? You can skip scrolling through your contacts and just say to your Android phone “Ok Google, call Mom” or “Ok Google, send a text to my wife.” Starting now, the Google search app on your Android phone will be able to pull up the right contact for you—and if you don’t have Mom saved as “mom,” it’ll help you set that up quickly.

The update appears to be a staged rollout, so it may take a little while to appear on your device. Keep an eye on the Play Store.

Finding a playable music video can sometimes involve a bit of trial-and-error, where the top link might be only a short clip, or indeed something unrelated that was mislabelled. To solve this, Google is now offering prioritised links to the first playable music video in a separate box above the remaining search results … 
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Exploring cities in Google Maps or Google Earth can be a great way to get a sense of a place leading up to a planned trip, as well as a way to enjoy a vicarious visit to places you’re never likely to visit in person. Exploring Tokyo in Google Maps just got a whole lot more interesting thanks to 3D imagery just added by Google … 
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