Google+ Gets Big, New Upgrades for Hangouts and Photos

Business owners who count Google+ among their top social networks for marketing purposes have some new goodies to play with. At an event today, Google unveiled several updated features for Google+ that are meant to improve Hangouts as well as photos and videos.
Hangouts, which are used to privately or publicly video chat between friends or colleagues, are getting a number of upgrades:

• Location sharing and SMS support for Android. Users can now send a map of their current location instead of having to find and type an address. Also new is the ability to send and receive SMS (text messages) instead of having to switching between apps.
• Ability to schedule Hangouts On Air. These are the video conversations that are broadcast publicly. Now users can schedule a Hangout On Air, then promote it with a dedicated watch page.
• Full-screen video. Conversations now happen full screen across mobile and desktop devices. Additionally, Hangouts can automatically fix and enhance webcam lighting. So, no more looking like you're broadcasting from a dark cave.

The Android app and video calling features will be available in a few days, Google says. The On Air improvements should roll out over the next few weeks.
Photo editing functions on Google+ are also getting an upgrade with enhanced auto enhancement features as well as new filters. What's more, users can take advantage of smart searching, meaning Google+ can better recognize search terms for different objects within images. Search for that crazy awesome "snowman" you made last winter and, voilà, it should appear.
Apple iOS users can now back up and sync full-size pictures. So, you can save and back up images on-the-go as you take them.
Google+ is also rolling out new features for its "Auto Awesome" photo editing tool, including:

• Action, which creates images with a strobe effect.
• Eraser, which can take a sequence of photos and erase blurry objects, creating a cleaner image.
• Movie, which automatically produces highlight reels from your photos and videos -- complete with effects, transitions and an audio soundtrack.

The photo and video improvements will be available this week, Google says. The Auto Awesome features work on certain devices with Android 4.3.

Will the New Patent Law Kill the Garage Inventor and Startup?

What do Walt Disney Studios, Apple and Harley-Davidson all have in common?
They were all born in a garage.
The “garage inventor” has achieved iconic status on the American business landscape.
The image of a lone inventor toiling away late at night in his garage in the hope of discovering the next game-changing invention has become symbolic of American innovation and entrepreneurship. From Mattel toys and Yankee Candle to countless high-tech startups, the garage has been the laboratory and incubator for some of the world’s most recognizable brands and innovative ideas – so much so, that the Palo Alto, Calif., garage where Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard first began tinkering in 1938 has been officially designated as the “Birthplace of Silicon Valley.”
But the days of the garage inventor may soon be coming to an end – and with them, America’s status as the global leader in innovation. Recent changes in U.S. patent law have led to a steady erosion in the rights of the individual in favor of large and foreign corporations, putting today’s garage inventors at a distinct competitive disadvantage.

Related: Why Filing a Patent Just Got More Complicated For Startups

Unlike other patent systems around the world – which favor the rights of the corporation or the state over the individual inventor – the U.S. patent system was designed from the start to encourage the individual ingenuity that would help spark the growth of a new nation.

Recognizing that giving individuals exclusive rights to their inventions for a limited time would incentivize them to share their ideas, the Founding Fathers established the patent system in the U.S. Constitution. And for more than 200 years, this system – designed expressly to foster individual innovation and entrepreneurship – fueled America’s growth and prosperity.

In particular, the U.S.’s “first-to-invent” system was especially beneficial for both the individual inventor and small startups. Under first-to-invent, a garage inventor could secure a patent on an invention even if a large and well-financed corporation had already filed for a patent on the same invention – provided the individual could prove he invented it first. In this way, the first-to-invent system leveled the playing field for small inventors who lacked the staff, capital or other resources needed to pursue patent applications with the speed and agility of big business.

In 2011, however, at the behest of Congress and the president – and amid pressure from lobbyists representing large corporations tired of fighting patent-infringement lawsuits from garage inventors – the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office embarked on a campaign to “harmonize” U.S. patent law with patent systems around the world. “As innovators seek to tap into global markets, it is imperative that the international patent system provide consistent, cost-effective avenues to obtain reliable patent rights in multiple jurisdictions,” the USPTO website states.

Instead of helping other countries adopt the clearly successful elements of U.S. patent law, Congress took the opposite tack, choosing to dumb down U.S. law by aligning it with foreign patent systems, many of which are little more than registration systems that favor the interests of the state or company over the individual inventor.

The result was the America Invents Act. The most significant change in U.S. patent law in decades, the law replaced the first-to-invent system with the European Union’s “first-to-file” system, which awards a patent to the first person or company to file a patent application on an invention, regardless of who actually invented it first. It was a puzzling move, considering that the EU’s patent system is struggling financially due in part to its excessive regulations that favor big corporations over the individual inventor.

Since various aspects of the America Invents Act have been phased in over the past two years – with some provisions only taking effect in the past few months – it’s difficult to ascertain the immediate impact of this major policy shift away from America’s constitutional preference for the rights of the individual and toward a European system favoring the state and big business.

It’s safe to say, however, that the new law will make it much easier for major international corporations to fend off patent-infringement lawsuits filed by garage inventors, who must now race to patent their inventions before a business behemoth gets wind of their development and beats them to it. That will require individual inventors and startups to devote more time and resources to securing legal and professional representation to protect their inventions and less time to what they do best: inventing the new products and technologies that have made America a global innovator. In this way, the patent-law changes may very well hamper innovation at a time when the U.S. economy needs all the innovation and entrepreneurship it can get to drive the nation’s recovery.

It’s also more than a little ironic that the biggest supporters of the America Invents Act included Apple, Microsoft and Google – all of which were founded by individual inventors in a garage. Whether future entrepreneurs will enjoy the same opportunities as Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Larry Page – without the patent system advantages that helped fuel their success – remains to be seen.

Tell Us: Are Anti-Google T-Shirts a Good Look for Microsoft?

Microsoft isn't playing nice and Google isn't thrilled about it. Though, it doesn't appear to be boiling over with rage, either.
Courtesy of Microsoft, you can now drink your morning coffee out of a mug emblazoned with Google's logo and the fighting words “Keep Calm While We Steal Your Data,” while lounging around in a range of anti-Google t-shirts (or a hoodie, if you're cold).
The move to sell anti-Google merchandise is a brazen continuation of Microsoft's “Scroogled” campaign, which criticizes Google for scanning users' emails in order to serve up personalized ads, among other complaints.
Yesterday, Google responded with a barbed formal statement from its spokespeople: “Microsoft's latest venture comes as no surprise; competition in the wearables space is really heating up." The message was quickly followed by a string of cheeky comments from Google employees.
The responses underscore the idea that while Microsoft is busy organizing attack campaigns, Google is busy, well, being Google and working on innovations like Google Glass.
Meanwhile, Microsoft's campaign has apparently been working. Last month, Ad Age reported that the ads “tarnishing Google's image in the eyes of viewers...putting Microsoft products -- including underdogs such as Bing -- into the consideration set.”
But is Microsoft's new line of merchandise -- which consumers are expected to want enough to pay for -- a smart strategy for dealing with the competition? Most items have already sold out, but does the move make Microsoft seem a little ... desperate? Take our poll below and let us know what you think.

Tell Us: Are Anti-Google T-Shirts a Good Look for Microsoft?

Microsoft isn't playing nice and Google isn't thrilled about it. Though, it doesn't appear to be boiling over with rage, either.
Courtesy of Microsoft, you can now drink your morning coffee out of a mug emblazoned with Google's logo and the fighting words “Keep Calm While We Steal Your Data,” while lounging around in a range of anti-Google t-shirts (or a hoodie, if you're cold).
The move to sell anti-Google merchandise is a brazen continuation of Microsoft's “Scroogled” campaign, which criticizes Google for scanning users' emails in order to serve up personalized ads, among other complaints.
Yesterday, Google responded with a barbed formal statement from its spokespeople: “Microsoft's latest venture comes as no surprise; competition in the wearables space is really heating up." The message was quickly followed by a string of cheeky comments from Google employees.
The responses underscore the idea that while Microsoft is busy organizing attack campaigns, Google is busy, well, being Google and working on innovations like Google Glass.
Meanwhile, Microsoft's campaign has apparently been working. Last month, Ad Age reported that the ads “tarnishing Google's image in the eyes of viewers...putting Microsoft products -- including underdogs such as Bing -- into the consideration set.”
But is Microsoft's new line of merchandise -- which consumers are expected to want enough to pay for -- a smart strategy for dealing with the competition? Most items have already sold out, but does the move make Microsoft seem a little ... desperate? Take our poll below and let us know what you think.

Will the New Patent Law Kill the Garage Inventor and Startup

What do Walt Disney Studios, Apple and Harley-Davidson all have in common?
They were all born in a garage.
The “garage inventor” has achieved iconic status on the American business landscape.
The image of a lone inventor toiling away late at night in his garage in the hope of discovering the next game-changing invention has become symbolic of American innovation and entrepreneurship. From Mattel toys and Yankee Candle to countless high-tech startups, the garage has been the laboratory and incubator for some of the world’s most recognizable brands and innovative ideas – so much so, that the Palo Alto, Calif., garage where Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard first began tinkering in 1938 has been officially designated as the “Birthplace of Silicon Valley.”
But the days of the garage inventor may soon be coming to an end – and with them, America’s status as the global leader in innovation. Recent changes in U.S. patent law have led to a steady erosion in the rights of the individual in favor of large and foreign corporations, putting today’s garage inventors at a distinct competitive disadvantage.
Unlike other patent systems around the world – which favor the rights of the corporation or the state over the individual inventor – the U.S. patent system was designed from the start to encourage the individual ingenuity that would help spark the growth of a new nation.
Recognizing that giving individuals exclusive rights to their inventions for a limited time would incentivize them to share their ideas, the Founding Fathers established the patent system in the U.S. Constitution. And for more than 200 years, this system – designed expressly to foster individual innovation and entrepreneurship – fueled America’s growth and prosperity.
In particular, the U.S.’s “first-to-invent” system was especially beneficial for both the individual inventor and small startups. Under first-to-invent, a garage inventor could secure a patent on an invention even if a large and well-financed corporation had already filed for a patent on the same invention – provided the individual could prove he invented it first. In this way, the first-to-invent system leveled the playing field for small inventors who lacked the staff, capital or other resources needed to pursue patent applications with the speed and agility of big business.
In 2011, however, at the behest of Congress and the president – and amid pressure from lobbyists representing large corporations tired of fighting patent-infringement lawsuits from garage inventors – the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office embarked on a campaign to “harmonize” U.S. patent law with patent systems around the world. “As innovators seek to tap into global markets, it is imperative that the international patent system provide consistent, cost-effective avenues to obtain reliable patent rights in multiple jurisdictions,” the USPTO website states.
Instead of helping other countries adopt the clearly successful elements of U.S. patent law, Congress took the opposite tack, choosing to dumb down U.S. law by aligning it with foreign patent systems, many of which are little more than registration systems that favor the interests of the state or company over the individual inventor.
The result was the America Invents Act. The most significant change in U.S. patent law in decades, the law replaced the first-to-invent system with the European Union’s “first-to-file” system, which awards a patent to the first person or company to file a patent application on an invention, regardless of who actually invented it first. It was a puzzling move, considering that the EU’s patent system is struggling financially due in part to its excessive regulations that favor big corporations over the individual inventor.
Since various aspects of the America Invents Act have been phased in over the past two years – with some provisions only taking effect in the past few months – it’s difficult to ascertain the immediate impact of this major policy shift away from America’s constitutional preference for the rights of the individual and toward a European system favoring the state and big business.
It’s safe to say, however, that the new law will make it much easier for major international corporations to fend off patent-infringement lawsuits filed by garage inventors, who must now race to patent their inventions before a business behemoth gets wind of their development and beats them to it. That will require individual inventors and startups to devote more time and resources to securing legal and professional representation to protect their inventions and less time to what they do best: inventing the new products and technologies that have made America a global innovator. In this way, the patent-law changes may very well hamper innovation at a time when the U.S. economy needs all the innovation and entrepreneurship it can get to drive the nation’s recovery.
It’s also more than a little ironic that the biggest supporters of the America Invents Act included Apple, Microsoft and Google – all of which were founded by individual inventors in a garage. Whether future entrepreneurs will enjoy the same opportunities as Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Larry Page – without the patent system advantages that helped fuel their success – remains to be seen.

Google Announces 'Hummingbird,' an Algorithm Change to Handle More Complex Searches

As Google celebrates its 15th birthday, the company has announced a major change to its search algorithm called Hummingbird. Instead of matching keywords in queries, its new strategy is to manage more complex queries by attempting to understand the meanings and relationships of words and concepts.
Google makes subtle tweaks to its algorithm all the time, on the order of hundreds of time a year, but the announcement of Hummingbird is a much bigger architectural change. In a blog post, Amit Singhal, senior vice president of Google Search, explained how comparison and filter tools built into Google's "Knowledge Graph" will let users ask questions that don't necessarily have simple answers in a way that feels less like a search and more like a conversation.
"You can pull up your phone and say to Google: 'Tell me about Impressionist artists,'" Singhal explains. "You'll see who the artists are, and you can dive in to learn more about each of them and explore their most famous works. If you want to switch to Abstract artists, you can do that really easily with our new filter tool."
With the comparison tool, a simple query like "butter vs. olive oil" brings up a side-by-side comparison that shows total fat, cholesterol and calories. Google is now able to compare dog breeds, planets and so much more in ways that weren't possible before.
The Hummingbird update also gives Google the ability to answer follow-up questions. If you search for "pictures of Great Danes" for instance, and then "common health problems," Google says it will understand that you're looking for common health problems associated with Great Danes.
Additionally, Singhal says a new Google Search app for iOS will become available in the following weeks that syncs updates across all devices. It's another step toward predictive search. If you verbally ask Google to remind you to pick up kale on your iPad the next time you're at Whole Foods for example, Google will remind you when you take your iPhone into the store.
"Ideally, you wouldn't need to pull out your phone or tap buttons to use Google, Singhal says. "We're not quite there yet, but you can already do a lot with just your voice."
Google's new changes also come with a visual update that places information on cards that Google says is optimized for touch devices.

Here We Go Again: What Entrepreneurs Need to Know About Hummingbird, Google's Latest Update

You might have heard that Google recently released the biggest change to its search algorithm in many years. It's called Hummingbird. It allows Google to handle "conversational search," meaning it can quickly parse entire questions and complex queries. It also means that entrepreneurs will need to make some adjustments to their online publishing strategies.
Since Google's Penguin and Panda algorithm updates had many business owners and webmasters scrambling, you might wonder what kind of change Hummingbird will bring. Here's a brief rundown on what entrepreneurs need to know about this important algorithm update.
What Hummingbird changed: People tend to speak their search queries when they're on-the-go, using mobile devices. As such, Hummingbird is an indication that Google is embracing the rapidly growing number of mobile users, which is predicted to overtake desktop usage within the next two years, according to a report from Morgan Stanley.
Hummingbird also presents a major change from Google's old methods of looking only at individual keywords. Prior to Hummingbird, Google would ignore certain words in search queries. Now Google considers each word in the query to get a better understanding of the intent. The importance of longtail keywords has increased tremendously as a result of Hummingbird.
Google Hummingbird got its name because it's "precise and fast," according to Amit Singhal, senior vice president and software engineer at Google. During an interview with Search Engine Land editor Danny Sullivan, Singhal was reported to have said that there has not been such a major algorithm update since 2001. "Our algorithm had to go through some fundamental rethinking of how we are going to keep our results relevant," Singhal said.
How Hummingbird works: Hummingbird uses Google's Knowledge Graph, which was introduced last year. The Knowledge Graph allows the search engine to better understand the relationship between concepts instead of individual keywords. Using this, Hummingbird was designed to focus on the meaning behind the words instead of just the words themselves. This allows webpages that match the meaning of a query to rank better than a page that matches just a few words.
While the new algorithm was introduced more than a month ago, most casual Google users probably haven't noticed a difference.
According to Singhal via a blog post, by using Hummingbird, Google will be able to answer queries that don't have simple answers. If asked, "Tell me about impressionist artists," Google search will be able to return a "broad set of appropriate facts" when using a mobile device.
The addition of the Knowledge Graph also allows Google to better understand follow-up questions. If you asked the Google search application for "pictures of the Washington Monument" and then offered the follow-up question, "How tall is it?" the search engine will know that you are asking for the height of the Washington Monument.
As Google continues to improve the Hummingbird algorithm, it will be able to answer more complex questions. This capability will become increasingly necessary as users shift toward spoken "natural language" queries that are input via mobile devices.
What business owners and webmasters should do differently: There are at least a couple of things entrepreneurs need to consider.
Be mobile-friendly. First, make sure your website is as mobile-friendly as it can be. Use large fonts (which are easier to read on small screens), attention-grabbing images and videos that are the proper size for mobile. Like all content, your mobile content should have a clear and concise purpose.
Some websites can be improved from a mobile perspective by using responsive web design, which causes your website layout to automatically adjust based on the device with which the reader accesses it. Optimizing the layout based on the device provides a better user experience, making it easier for your users to navigate your website, access your content and purchase your products or services.
Implement a value-focused content strategy. Google Hummingbird shows that Google has improved its ability to understand the meanings of questions instead of individual keywords. Content that answers specific questions will become more important when ranking with Hummingbird.
This means adding more blog entries and pages to your website which help answer questions that your target audience is looking to have answered. Offering high-quality analysis and expertise on a specific topic makes for a great start to a successful content strategy. Engaging content such as trivia, giveaways, and contests help build loyalty, virality, and interest, which can amplify your content marketing efforts.