Email is more than just messages going back and forth — it’s also about the people sending them. That’s why today we’re introducing changes that continue to bring people front and center in Gmail, just as we did with profile photos in conversation view, the people widget and last year’s integrations with Google+. Today’s changes include quick access to contact details when viewing past conversations as well as improved integration with Google+ circles.

Quick access to contact details
When you search for an email address, the search results will now show you contact details in addition to that person’s profile photo and the emails sent from and to them. From here, you can start a chat, call their phone and more. Plus, if your contacts have a Google+ profile, this information will stay up to date automatically.

You can get to these same results in a variety of ways including from the people widget, contacts and the chat list search menu.

Improved circle integration and circle search
In addition to adding contact details to search results, we’ve made some improvements to the circles integration announced in December. When you select a circle, you’ll now see profile photos of people in that circle at the top right of the page. Plus, when you click on these images you’ll be taken directly to search results with contact details.

Circles are also now supported in search and filters. Find messages from a specific circle by typing circle:[circle name] in the search box. You can also find mail from any of your circled contacts by searching with has:circle. You can refine your search even further with other criteria and create filters based on circles. This means you can now view all the unread emails from your ‘Friends’ circle or automatically star every message that comes from your ‘VIP’ circle.

These updates are helping us to provide a more consistent, beautiful experience across all of our products. Quick access to contact details will be rolling out to everyone today. To take advantage of circles and more in Gmail, you’ll need to join Google+.

The research pane taps into Google Search directly from Google documents, so whether you want to add a cool destination to your itinerary for an upcoming trip to India or you’re looking for the perfect presidential quote for a political science paper, you don’t even have to open a new tab.

You can access the research pane from the Tools menu by right clicking on a selected word that you want to learn more about, or by pressing Ctrl+Alt+R on Windows or Cmd+Alt+R on Mac. From the research pane, you can search for whatever info you need to help you write your document. With just a couple clicks you can look up maps, quotes, images, and much more.

If you find something you like, you can add it by clicking the insert button or, for images, by dragging them directly into your document. If appropriate we’ll automatically add a footnote citation so there’s a record of where you found the info.

Hopefully bringing knowledge from the web to Google documents will make your writing process just a little bit more efficient.

Posted by Sarveshwar Duddu, Software Engineer

- Sites: Keyboard shortcuts in Sites editor
- Docs: Migration of documents to the newer documents editor
- Drive: The rollout of the “opt-in” phase of Google Drive to scheduled track domains. The “opt-in” phase consists of the following:

• Users can visit drive.google.com where they can opt-in to Drive. 
• As part of opting in, they will be shown an interstitial which includes this video. 
• If an opted in user visits docs.google.com, the user will be redirected to drive.google.com. 
• The “Documents” navigation item will change to “Drive.” 

The following features are intended for release to these domains on May 22nd:

- Docs: Comments and discussions available to Government domains.
- Gmail: Graduation of three labs: Message translation, Smart Mute and Title Tweaks.

Release track:

Scheduled*

Editions included:

Google Apps, Google Apps for Business, Government and Education

*Scheduled Release track: Domains with ‘Scheduled Release’ option enabled in the administrator control panel. Learn more.

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Release track:

Rapid

Editions included:

Google Apps, Google Apps for Business, Government and Education

Languages included:

All languages supported by Google Docs

How to access what’s new:

Access the research pane from the ‘Tools’ menu by right clicking on a selected word that you want to learn more about, or by pressing Ctrl+Alt+R on Windows or Cmd+Alt+R on Mac.

For more information:

http://googledocs.blogspot.com/2012/05/find-facts-and-do-research-inside.html

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If you’re anything like me, you send and receive a lot of emails every day. But have you ever wondered where your message goes after you hit “send?” How does an email travel from your computer to your friend’s smartphone across the country or around the world?

We’re answering those questions with Story of Send, a new site that gives you a behind-the-scenes look into how all that virtual information makes its journey through the real world—from your Internet service provider to our data centers and beyond. Along the way, you’ll discover everything from where we filter for spam and scan for viruses to how we’re minimizing our impact on the environment through energy efficiency and renewable power.

We’ve included videos and photos throughout the journey so you can explore certain areas more deeply. For example, if you’re curious what data center servers look like, we’ve included some photos. Or you can watch a video to learn about how we purchase clean energy from wind farms near our data centers. And because technology doesn’t always have to be serious, you might find a vampire or two lurking around or uncover other surprises on the journey.

In the past, Gmail fans have shown us how emails connect people across the world. Now we’re providing a glimpse into how those emails go from one place to another. So hit send and start the journey today.

Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog

Editions included:

Google Apps for Business, Government and Education

Languages included:

US English Only

How to access what’s new:

1. Update Google Apps Sync
- If you installed Google App Sync: Updates are checked for and downloaded to your computer automatically.
- If your administrator installed Google Apps Sync: Updates are downloaded to your computer automatically, if your administrator enables automatic updates.

You can also download the latest version at any time from the Google Apps Sync download page.

2. For the update to go into effect:
If you have Windows XP: Restart your computer.
If you have Windows Vista: Restart Microsoft Outlook®.

For more information:

http://support.google.com/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=153463

https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gappssync

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If you are a frequent visitor to the Gmail blog, there’s a good chance you’re already a Gmail ninja. Maybe you use video chat in Gmail to keep in touch with family when you’re on the road. Perhaps you’ve created a superb organizational system with labels and Priority Inbox and even have a colorful theme to say “this inbox is mine.”

Sound familiar? If so, then you’ve seen the benefits of going Google. But we all know someone who hasn’t yet made the switch, and is missing out on the convenience of having email, chat, video, and calling all together in one place.

So, as part of our effort to let users know all the things they can do by going Google, we’ve put together a short video that shows just how easy it is to get things done with Gmail when you are living in the cloud. Take a look and then share it with one of your friends. They might just be the next person to go Google – and they’ll have you to thank!

Notification emails are a great way to keep up with what’s happening in the Google+ stream: whether someone mentions you, comments on your post, or shares with you directly. It’s not always enough to just read these updates, however; sometimes you want to respond right away, right from your inbox. The good news is that starting today, you can reply to Google+ notifications from Gmail.

On the desktop, in addition to adding people to circles, and viewing recent Google+ content in the people widget, we’re now making Google+ notification emails in Gmail completely interactive:

• You can view, comment on, and +1 posts from inside your inbox
• Your comments appear in the Google+ stream in real-time, and
• Responses from others instantly appear in Gmail, as part of the notification message

You can also reply to notifications from your mobile device (and/or POP or IMAP client). Just open the notification email about the post you’re interested in, and look for the new prompt, “Reply to this email.” Tap reply, send your comment, and we’ll automatically add it to the ongoing Google+ conversation. Even if you don’t use Gmail, you can still reply-by-email from many different services.

From left to right: Google+ notification on the phone; replying via email; updated post in the stream
We’re rolling out all of these features over the next week to users who’ve upgraded to Google+. In the meantime, you can adjust which Google+ notification emails you want to receive via your Google+ settings.

We’re always working to create a simpler, more intuitive experience for our users, and with today’s changes, we’re excited to take another step in this important direction.

The following features are intended for release to these domains on or around May 15th:
- Sites: Keyboard shortcuts in Sites editor.
- Docs: New version of Google Documents rolling out on May 16th.
- Drive: On 5/14 we will start the rollout of the “opt-in” phase of Google Drive to scheduled track domains. The “opt-in” phase consists of the following:

• Users can visit drive.google.com where they can opt-in to Drive.
• As part of opting in, they will be shown an interstitial which includes this video.
• If an opted in user visits docs.google.com, the user will be redirected to drive.google.com.
• The “Documents” navigation item will change to “Drive.”

The rollout will start on 5/14 and take 1-2 weeks. Once Drive is fully rolled out to a domain, new users in the domain will be Drive users. Even once a user has opted into Drive, they can revert to the Docs look via a setting in the Drive user-interface (although they will remain on drive.google.com).

Domains can disable both the Drive for Mac/Windows and use of the SDK via the Drive / Docs settings page settings in the Google Apps control panel. Note this is not a forced migration, simply an opportunity for schedule track users to try the product.

Release track:

Scheduled*

Editions included:

Google Apps, Google Apps for Business, Government and Education

*Scheduled Release track: Domains with ‘Scheduled Release’ option enabled in the administrator control panel. Learn more.

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Release track:

Rapid

Editions included:

Google Apps for Business, Government and Education

Languages included:

All supported languages

How to access what’s new:

Beginning May 15, Rapid Release users who navigate to the Google Groups page will see a horizontal blue bar toward the top of the groups page saying, “The old Google Groups will be going away soon. Switch to the new Google Groups.”

Scheduled Release users who navigate to the Google Groups page will simply see a notification that Groups will be changing soon.

*Google Apps domains on the Scheduled Release track will see the old Google Groups but will also see a notification informing users that the old groups will soon be going away.

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