Google Mobile Roundup: Boost Ads, Cloud Printing & Weather Search
Google’s has announced a trio of noteworthy mobile features for iPhone and Android devices: the arrival of Boost ads, Google Cloud Print, and a new app-like weather slider. Let’s take a brief look at what’s new.
Boost Ads
Google’s Boost ads, launched in October, are now appearing on Google’s search and map results pages.
Boost ads, which are available in all U.S. cities for select business types, help business owners easily create local online ad campaigns. Google uses Google Places listing info to create text ads.
Google Cloud Print
Google Cloud Print for mobile documents and Gmail for mobile is beginning to roll out. This new feature lets you print out Google Docs files from your smartphone by choosing “Print” from the dropdown menu in the top right corner, and can also print certain e-mail attachments (e.g., .pdf or .doc).
This feature will work on most phones that support HTML5. To start, you’ll have to connect your printer to Google Cloud To connect your printer, you need a Windows PC (Linux and Mac support are coming soon). Note: it’s only available for English speaking users in the U.S.
Weather Search
Google has launched a new weather search results snippet that lets you “play” with the results. You can move a new slider to see an hourly breakdown of the changing weather conditions for the next 12 hours in addition to the usual current conditions and forecast.
The background color changes throughout the day. Scroll down to see Google’s regular search results. To check it out, go to google.com and search for [weather]. Note: it’s only available in English.