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Gmail Brings ‘Help Me Write’ Generative AI Features on the Web, But It Is Exclusive to Paid Users

December 12, 2024 No Comments

Gmail is now helping users write their email via generative AI on the web.

Google’s famed generative AI feature for Gmail called “Help me write” has been exclusive to mobile platforms for several months now, but the company is changing this in the latest update to the experience. Starting today, Google is now rolling out this experience to the web version of its Gmail platform, complete with access to shortcuts that will bring up the AI experience directly for users.

Apart from the latest generative AI features from Google, the company is also adding new tools under ‘Help me write’ for users to take advantage of in the browser experience, powered by its renowned models.

Gmail Brings ‘Help me write’ Generative AI to Web

The latest Workspace Updates by Google detailed the arrival of Gemini’s generative AI features to the web experience of Gmail, and it is taking the renowned mobile experience for users who prefer to access via browsers. One of the most iconic features of this experience is ‘Help me write,’ and it has been the famed feature of Gmail that allows users to input prompts and dictate who to address to compose emails.

Users may set the tone, emotion, and formality of how Gemini will write the email that users may choose to edit or send directly after the generative AI’s work. Users will also see the ‘Help me write’ icon appear on an empty draft to help users create their emails if they are having a hard time starting.

It was revealed by Google that ‘Help me write’ will be available to an empty email composition window but not for boxes that already have content.

Gmail’s AI Remains Exclusive to Paid Users

While Help me write is meant for empty spaces, Gmail’s Polish feature, another initially mobile-exclusive AI tool, will be the one to help write an email when users already have 12 or more words on their draft.

Web users may choose to either click on the AI prompt ‘Polish’ that will appear under an unfinished draft, or toggle it directly by pressing ‘Ctrl + H’ for Windows or ‘Option + H’ for Mac.

Gmail’s Help me write suite of tools is exclusively available to Google One AI Premium subscribers or those who choose the Gemini add-on via Workspace.

Google Mail’s Generative AI

The massive jump by Google into generative AI since last year saw significant integrations of its technology to its famed Workspace suite, but more importantly, to one of its most popular services, Gmail. That being said, Gmail saw Bard’s technology helping it deliver AI capabilities until it was replaced by the multimodal model, offering a dedicated Gemini AI button for instant access to the chatbot.

Google was among the first to introduce one of the most significant AI features found on email platforms now, offering users a way to use the technology in summarizing content so users no longer need to browse one by one. Gemini was given the capability to analyze email threads that can go on for a long run, and then offer a simplified summarization that promises to give users the important details without being dragging.

It was a significant transformation for Google since it adopted generative AI and made it its own, with its latest model powering its technology across different kinds of platforms, empowering the Workspace suite including Gmail. Now, the feature enjoyed exclusively on mobiles and apps is coming to the web experience of Gmail, with Help me write, Polish, and more offering an easier way to communicate via emails.

Feature Image Credit: Justin Morgan on Unsplash

By Isaiah Richard

Sourced from TechTimes

In News

Google shows off astonishing vision for how AI will work with Gmail, Photos and more

June 13, 2024 No Comments

By Samantha Murphy Kelly

A day after OpenAI impressed with a startlingly improved ChatGPT AI model, Google showed off an equally stunning vision for how AI will improve the products that billions of people use every day.

The updates, announced at its annual Google I/O developer conference, come as the company is trying to push beyond its core advertising business with new devices and AI-powered tools. Artificial intelligence was so top of mind during the event, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said at the end of the presentation the term “AI” was said 120 times – as counted by none other than its AI platform Gemini.

During the keynote, Google showed how it wants its AI products to become a bigger part of users’ lives, such as by sharing information, interacting with others, finding objects around the house, making schedules, shopping and using an Android device. Google essentially wants its AI to be part of everything you do.

Pichai kicked off the event by highlighting various new features powered by its latest AI model Gemini 1.5 Pro. One new feature, called Ask Photos, allows users to search photos for deeper insights, such as asking when your daughter learned to swim or recall what your license plate number is, by looking through saved pictures.

He also showed how users can ask Gemini 1.5 Pro to summarize all recent emails from your child’s school by analysing attachments, and summarizing key points and spitting out action items.

Meanwhile, Google executives took turns demonstrating other capabilities, such as how the latest model could “read” a textbook and turn it into a kind of AI lecture featuring natural-sounding teachers that answer questions.

Just one day before, OpenAI — one of the tech industry’s leaders in artificial intelligence — unveiled a new AI model that it says will make chatbot ChatGPT smarter and easier to use. GPT-4o aims to turn ChatGPT into a digital personal assistant that can engage in real-time, spoken conversations and interact using text and “vision.” It can view screenshots, photos, documents or charts uploaded by users and have a conversation about them.

Google also showed off Gemini’s latest abilities to take different kinds of input — “multimodal” capabilities to take in text, voice or images — as a direct response to ChatGPT’s efforts. A Google executive also demoed a virtual “teammate” that can help stay on top of to-do lists, organize data and manage workflow.

The company also highlighted search improvements by allowing users to ask more natural or more focused questions, and providing various versions of the responses, such as in-depth or summarized results. It can also make targeted suggestions, such as recommending kid friendly restaurants in certain locations, or note what might be wrong with a gadget, such as a camera, by taking a video of the issue via Google Lens. The goal is to take the legwork out of searching on Google, the company said.

The company also briefly teased Project Astra, developed by Google’s DeepMind AI lab, which will allow AI assistants to help users’ everyday lives by using phone cameras to interpret information about the real world, such as identifying objects and even finding misplaced items. It also hinted at how it would work on augmented reality glasses.

Google said that later this year it will integrate more AI functions into phones. For example, users will be able to drag and drop images created by AI into Google Messages and Gmail and ask questions about YouTube videos and PDFs on an Android device.

And in a move that will likely appeal to many, a new built-in tool for Android will help detect suspicious activity in the middle of a call, such as a scammer trying to imitate a user’s bank.

According to analyst Jacob Bourne, from market research firm Emarketer, it’s no surprise AI took centre stage at this year’s Google developer conference.

“By showcasing its latest models and how they’ll power existing products with strong consumer reach, Google is demonstrating how it can effectively differentiate itself from rivals,” he said.

He believes the reception of the new tools will be an indicator of how well Google can adapt its search product to meet the demands of the generative AI era.

“To maintain its competitive edge and satisfy investors, Google will need to focus on translating its AI innovations into profitable products and services at scale,” he said.

As the company grows its AI footprint, it said it will introduce more protections to cut down on potential misuse. Google is expanding its existing SynthID feature to detect AI-generated content. Last year, the tool added watermarks to AI-generated images and audio.

Google said it is also partnering with experts and institutions to test and improve the capabilities in its new models.

Although the company has doubled down on artificial intelligence in the past year, it also met significant roadblocks. Last year, shortly after introducing its generative AI tool — then called Bard and since renamed Gemini — Google’s share price dropped after a demo video of the tool showed it producing a factually inaccurate response to a question about the James Webb Space Telescope.

More recently, the company hit pause in February on Gemini’s ability to generate images of people after it was blasted on social media for producing historically inaccurate images that largely showed people of colour in place of White people.

Gemini, like other AI tools such as ChatGPT, is trained on vast troves of online data. Experts have long warned about the shortcomings around AI tools, such as the potential for inaccuracies, biases and the spreading of misinformation. Still, many companies are forging ahead on AI tools or partnerships.

Apple may be interested in licensing and building Google’s Gemini AI engine, which includes chatbots and other AI tools, into upcoming iPhones and its iOS 18 features, Bloomberg reported in March. The company is also reportedly talking to ChatGPT creator OpenAI.

Feature Image Credit: Google. Sundar Pichai speaks about Gemini 1.5 pro during Google I/O developer conference today.

By Samantha Murphy Kelly

Sourced from CNN Business

In News

Google To Delete Inactive Gmail, Drive Accounts

June 28, 2023 No Comments

By Ray Schultz

Some potential customers are going to disappear from Gmail as Google updates its inactive account policy.

“Starting later this year, if a Google Account has not been used or signed into for at least 2 years, we may delete the account and its contents – including content within Google Workspace (Gmail, Docs, Drive, Meet, Calendar) and Google Photos,” Google states in a blog post.

The reason: security. Google feels that if an account hasn’t been used for an extended period of time, it is more likely to be compromised.

“This is because forgotten or unattended accounts often rely on old or re-used passwords that may have been compromised, haven’t had two factor authentication set up, and receive fewer security checks by the user,” Google writes.

Google’s internal analysis shows that “abandoned accounts are at least 10x less likely than active accounts to have 2-step-verification set up,” the blog continues. Once compromised, they can be used “for anything from identity theft to a vector for unwanted or even malicious content, like spam,” it adds.

This may not have an immediate impact on email marketers. If a consumer has not signed into Gmail for two years, it is likely that the person is inactive in ecommerce accounts, too.

However, they could be using another email service.

Google points out that the policy “only applies to personal Google Accounts, and will not affect accounts for organizations like schools or businesses.”

In any event, Google will not start deleting accounts until December 2023.

Consumers can maintain their accounts by taking one of these actions:

Reading or sending an email
Using Google Drive
Watching a YouTube video
Downloading an app on the Google Play Store
Using Google Search
Using Sign in with Google to sign in to a third-party app or service.

By Ray Schultz

Sourced from MediaPost

In News

How to delete all promotions in Gmail

May 18, 2023 No Comments

By Jacob Estep

Filter out those pesky marketing emails with these tricks.

As email has become the de facto mailbox of the web, junk mail has adapted. Almost every site asks for an email address, making quick visits haunt your inbox for weeks. Those useless marketing emails, much like the junk mail that arrives at your front door, take up a lot of space and chip away at your Google Drive storage.

Whether you check your Gmail account on the web, on a trusty Chromebook, or via the app, Google makes cleaning up all those unwanted promotional emails easy. Here’s everything you need to know to take control of your Gmail inbox and banish unwanted promotional emails.

Keeping tabs on your Gmail promotions

A screenshot of the original Gmail beta inbox in 2004

Source: Google

When Gmail launched on April 1, 2004, emails were lumped into a single inbox. As email increased in popularity and spam became more common, users found that important emails were buried by marketing emails and newsletters. In May 2013, Google announced an updated Gmail with auto-sorted tabs to reign in this inbox chaos. The newly-released tabbed inbox joined keyboard shortcuts to make Gmail more efficient for power users.

A screenshot showing inbox tabs on the Gmail app for Android in 2013.

Though Google’s tabbed inbox segregates promotional emails into its own tab, those emails still pile up. You can hide the Promotions tab if you prefer to see marketing emails in the Primary Inbox. You can delete those emails to free up some Google Drive storage. Gmail filters can automate this, so you never have to see a promotion again. Every marketing email can be tracked down and handled with a few easy steps.

How to remove the Gmail Promotions tab

Aside from deleting specific emails, you may want to remove the Gmail Promotions tab. Doing so will land those marketing emails in the inbox, giving you a visual of the emails you don’t want. This can be accomplished in a few simple steps.

Remove the Gmail Promotions tab using your web browser

Open Gmail in your web browser.
Open the Gmail Settings menu by tapping the cog icon in the page’s upper-right corner. The Quick settings menu appears.
In the Inbox type section, click the Customize option.
Deselect the checkbox to the left of Promotions in the Select tabs to enable popup menu.
Click the blue Save button in the lower-right corner.

Remove the Gmail Promotions tab using the mobile app

Although we’ve used the Gmail app for Android in this tutorial, the steps are the same in the iOS app.

Tap the hamburger menu icon located in the upper left corer of the Gmail app.
Select Settings and choose the account from which you want to remove the Promotions category.
Tap Inbox categories.

2 Images
Deselect the Promotions checkbox.

How to delete all promotions

Promotions eat into your Google Drive storage space. Gmail makes it easy to get rid of them all at once or even mass delete emails if your inbox has become overwhelming. Here’s how to do the former.

Delete Promotions on Gmail on your browser

In your inbox, click the Categories drop-down menu on the left side of your inbox to view conversations in the Promotions tag.
Click the checkbox that appears above the first email message in the upper-left corner. Clicking the checkbox only selects emails on the current page by default.
If you wish to delete all the emails in the Promotions tab, click the Select all conversations in Promotions link that appears above the first email.
Click the trash icon to delete the selected emails.

Delete Promotions in the Gmail app

The Gmail app doesn’t have a “select all” option. If your inbox needs a good spring cleaning, the desktop site is the easiest way to go. If you must use the app, the process is still simple, taking only a few extra steps.

In the Gmail app, select the hamburger menu in the upper-left corner to see the Gmail All inboxes menu.
Select the Promotions tab.

2 Images
Tap the sender icon (the round icon with a letter or image that appears to the left of the sender name and subject line) to select a message.
Tap the trash can icon in the upper-right corner to delete the selected conversations.

2 Images

How to find hidden promotional emails

Though Gmail’s automatic categorization works well, sometimes a pesky promotional email gets around it. To find these hidden emails, type “unsubscribe” into Gmail’s search box. This simple search finds promotions and newsletters by the unsubscribe link that most of them include.

How to prevent future promotional emails

Deleting the promotions in your inbox is great in the short term, but it’s better not to see them in the first place. There are a few ways to rid yourself of promotions for good.

Filter and auto-delete promotions

Gmail includes a powerful filtering feature. Filters can use multiple attributes of an email to trigger a filter and carry out selected actions on incoming emails that match those triggers. You can also select specific filters Gmail uses to apply to similar messages you receive in the future.

In your inbox, select the emails you want to delete automatically in the future.
Click the overflow menu (three dot) and select Filter messages like these.
This creates a filter that is triggered when an email comes from the same sender address as those selected. Click Create Filter to confirm this filter trigger.
Select Delete it and Also apply filter to matching conversations to delete old messages matching the filter criteria.

The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 requires promotional emails to contain a link to unsubscribe, providing a legally required signature to trigger a filter. As an alternative to filtering by sender, type “unsubscribe” into the Has the words filter trigger field from step 3. Combine this with the default sender-based filter to keep non-promotional emails from the selected senders untouched.

Unsubscribe or block promotional senders

For a more long-term fix to repeat offenders, make sure to unsubscribe, mark emails as spam, or block the sender. On some emails, Gmail shows an unsubscribe button (beside the sender on desktop, in the three-dot menu in the app). On emails where this option isn’t shown, an unsubscribe link is present at the bottom of the email.

Cleaning up your Gmail inbox is a breeze

Though promotional emails are a pain, Gmail makes it easy to clean up your inbox. You can delete promotional emails in your inbox, filter out incoming emails, unsubscribe from mailing lists, and hide the Promotions tab. In addition to these strategies, you can dive deeper into Gmail filters or learn to use Gmail keyboard shortcuts.

By Jacob Estep

Jacob is a designer-developer with a love for tinkering. He loves helping people get more out of their devices and has essentially been his family’s personal IT department since high school.

Sourced from Android Police

In News

Google Unveils Generative AI Capabilities In Gmail, Docs Ahead Of Reported GPT-4 Release

April 17, 2023 No Comments

By Laurie Sullivan

Google today announced several tools to allow businesses to use generative AI as a way to discover and use corporate data. It also showcased how its productivity suite, Google Workspace, will incorporate AI to help write emails in Gmail and create marketing materials in Google Docs. Other apps include Sheets, and Slides.

The PaLM API, included in the announcement, is a way to build on top of Google’s language models. The API comes with an intuitive tool called MakerSuite that lets developers prototype ideas and, over time, it will have features that prompt engineering, synthetic data generation and custom-model tuning. Select developers can access the PaLM API and MakerSuite in Private Preview.

“We’re now at a pivotal moment in our AI journey,” Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud wrote in a post. “Breakthroughs in generative AI are fundamentally changing how people interact with technology — and at Google, we’ve been responsibly developing large language models so we can safely bring them to our products.”

The latest Gartner data shows that Google held 13.7% share of the global enterprise email and authoring market in 2021, with $3.4 billion in revenue. The analyst firm also expects the email and authoring market to grow to $27.9 billion in 2023.

AI will provide a platform to start, but Johanna Voolich Wright, Vice President, Product, Google Workspace, wrote in a post that is the technology is no replacement for the ingenuity, creativity, and smarts of real people.”

A list of AI-powered features that will come to Workspace apps in the future include:

Draft, reply, summarize, and prioritize your Gmail
Brainstorm, proofread, write, and rewrite in Docs
Bring your creative vision to life with auto-generated images, audio, and video in Slides
Go from raw data to insights and analysis via auto-completion, formula generation, and contextual categorization in Sheets
Generate new backgrounds and capture notes in Meet
Enable workflows for getting things done in Chat

Google’s news comes in advance of Microsoft’s virtual Future of Work with AI event on Thursday.

Microsoft Germany CTO Andreas Braun said last week the event will likely include the release a multimodal GPT-4, which OpenAI released today, as well as a ChatGPT upgrade for Microsoft 365 applications such as Word and Outlook.

Some media sites have already reported that Microsoft GPT-4 will be “multimodal” to allow AI to translate a user’s text into images, music, and video. A call canter, for example, could use the AI program to automatically convert phone conversations between employees and customers into text, according to one report.

By Laurie Sullivan

@lauriesullivan

Sourced from MediaPost

In News

How to make your Gmail account self destruct, and why you really should

January 26, 2022 No Comments

By Jack Morse

At least one part of your digital permanent record doesn’t need to outlive you.

What happens after you die doesn’t need to be a mystery. At least when it comes to your email, that is.

As we move through life there are few things that we truly take with us. A family heirloom, perhaps. Your loved ones, if you’re lucky. And, more and more frequently, one of those things happens to be an email account steadily filling up with personal correspondence, bills, medical records, and embarrassing moments from your past.

And thanks to the modern wonder of cloud computing, that collection will likely long outlast you. Unless you set your entire Google account to self destruct after your death — which, thanks to Google’s Inactive Account Manager, you can do.

Why you should enable Inactive Account Manager

Take a moment to think about the contents of your email account. Likely spanning from the quotidian and mundane to the extremely revealing, as the years progress your email account will accumulate evidence of the life you’ve lived.

Which can be extremely useful. It’s also extremely personal. Once you’re gone, is there really a reason for this compendium of deeply revealing data to sit for who knows how long on Google’s servers?

Notably, Google insists it doesn’t do anything too creepy with the contents of your inbox.

“[Per Google CEO Sundar Pichai’s] blog post in June 2020, we don’t sell your information to anyone, and we don’t use information in apps where you primarily store personal content — such as Gmail, Drive, Calendar and Photos — for advertising purposes,” explained a Google spokesperson over email.

However, that statement reflects an updated privacy policy from Google. Google announced in only 2017 that it would stop scanning the contents of users’ Gmail inboxes for advertising purposes. Policies, in other words, can change given enough time. And there’s a lot of time after you die.

Setting your Gmail account to self-destruct after you die can be just another part of getting your affairs in order. No one wants to leave behind a mess, even if it’s only a digital one.

How to enable Google’s Inactive Account Manager

Turning on Google’s Inactive Account Manager is a quick process, but as there are various settings you can tweak you want to make sure you do it in a way that makes sense for you.

But before we get into that, it’s important to understand what this setting actually does and how it works. It doesn’t magically know when you’ve died, for example. Instead, it uses inactivity as a proxy. So, for example, if you don’t log into your Google account for a predetermined amount of time it’s only then — after Google attempts to contact you — that the Inactive Account Manager goes into effect.

“We will only trigger the plan you set up if you haven’t used your Google Account for some time,” explains Google.

Got it? You’re not going to flip this switch by mistake, in other words.

So, to set up Google’s Inactive Account Manager:

Start it up for when you’ve wound it down. Credit: Screenshot: Google

Log into your Google account.
Go to Google’s Inactive Account Manager page.
Select “Start.”
Choose how long Google should wait before it considers you gone — dead, or otherwise. Twelve months of inactively seems like a good amount of time, but tweak that setting to your liking.
Now, because you don’t want your account being deleted on accident, Google gives you the option of entering a cell phone number as a backup contact method. “Before we take any action,” explains Google, “we’ll contact you multiple times by SMS and email.” Enter your cell phone number here.
Decide which “contact email” you want to use.
SEE ALSO: How to encrypt your computer (and why you should)
Select “Next” and then choose who, if anyone, besides yourself you want Google to notify and share your data with after your account is officially deemed inactive. “You can choose up to 10 people for us to notify if your Google Account becomes inactive,” explains Google. “You can also give them access to some of your data.” A spouse? A child? No one? It’s up to you.
Select “Next” then toggle the option which says “Yes, delete my inactive Google Account.” This only happens three months after your account is declared inactive.
Select “Review Plan,” make sure everything is in order, then select “confirm plan.”

By Jack Morse

Sourced from Mashable

In News

On CRM: What’s The Best Small Business CRM For Gmail?

September 22, 2020 No Comments

By Gene Marks.

Many of my clients who are looking for a customer relationship management system ask me: is there a specific offering that works with Gmail? To answer that question, you have to define what “works” means.

Gmail is really two things. It’s a web-based mail client (or application) that you can use from any device in a stand-alone manner. It’s also, when you subscribe to G Suite, an email server, not unlike Microsoft Exchange, where you can connect other email applications to it, including email applications that come with some CRMs.

There are three types of CRMs that work with Gmail. Some – like Zoho (which my company sells), Sugar, Insightly and GoldMine (which my company also sells) – have their own, built-in email clients that can connect to Gmail’s server to send and receive messages. Others – such as Salesforce – will just quickly integrate with Gmail right out of the box via a plug-in and then synchronize messages back and forth. And then there are a few – like Copper and Streak – that work right inside of Gmail.

In the end we all want the same thing: a simple way to send and receive messages so that all of our email communications are stored in the history for each contact and account in our CRM systems and can be shared (with permissions) with others in our group. That way when a customer or prospect reaches out the team’s got their entire email history at their fingertips.

So what’s the best option for integrating Gmail with your CRM? The first thing you need to do, in order to get the most out of your Gmail integration, without any limitations, is to subscribe to Google’s G Suite of business applications. Once you do that, there are essentially two roads you can take.

Going Inside of Gmail

If you want your CRM system to be imbedded inside of Gmail I recommend looking at either Copper or Streak. These applications “super-charge” your Gmail in-box and give you a Google experience on hyper-drive. They enable you to manage your prospects, leads, customers and pipeline right from inside of Gmail, and assuming you’re a G Suite user, your data will not only be synchronized with your Google contacts and calendar but with most of G Suite’s apps including Slides, Sheets and Meet.

Both Copper and Streak’s most popular versions come with mobile apps that will work on iPhones and Android devices and cost about $50 per month per user. They include workflows, automation and reporting. They also integrate with other popular small business applications like QuickBooks, Xero, HubSpot and MailChimp. Copper has a growing number of implementation partners that can help with your setup and training. Streak has robust capabilities for mass emails. Both applications have been around for a while (Copper, formerly known as ProsperWorks was founded in 2014 and Streak launched in 2011) and both have received mostly positive reviews for their interface and support.

When I speak to clients that use these products I generally get good feedback. However, the biggest limitations I hear is that both applications’ functionality are mostly for lead management and sales pipelines. That’s fine if you’re a small business and need a simple, yet robust sales tool inside of Gmail. But what if you need more? That brings me to the second road you can take.

Integrating With Gmail

Some companies want to use their CRM for more than just lead management or to track sales. My company integrates our CRM with our website. We do quotes. We track service issues and run relatively advanced campaigns from within our CRM, which is Zoho.

However, because Zoho comes with its own built-in email application, we use Gmail as our company’s email server, so our need is less to be inside of Gmail but to integrate with Gmail. Zoho does that well. Although it does integrate with Google’s contacts and calendar, because Zoho isn’t built into Gmail like Copper or Streak, it doesn’t integrate with as many Google applications. Also, we’re forced to use the capabilities of Zoho’s email functionality, including spam filtering, which is not as robust as Gmail’s. But on the other hand we have more features and applications available to us – like accounting, projects and campaigns – as part of Zoho’s business suite than if we were just using Copper and Streak.

As mentioned above, some CRM applications – Salesforce being the most prominent – forgo their own email application and just give their users the ability to quickly integrate with other popular email apps like Outlook and Gmail via a plugin. This way if you want to send or check your email, the application literally calls up a Gmail window and you do the work through there. All messages sent or received will be saved inside of your CRM application. If that capability isn’t available out of the box, it’s likely that you can use a connector like Zapier or Workato, to accomplish this. Google publishes a large list of CRMs and connectors that have integration capabilities on its G Suite Marketplace.

The bottom line is that just because you use Gmail doesn’t necessarily mean you have to get a CRM that’s built into Gmail. That’s nice, as long as you’re willing to work within their limitations. But most, good CRMs today will easily synchronize with Gmail and, although not perfect, the synchronization tends to work well.

Feature Image Credit: (Photo Illustration by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images) NURPHOTO VIA GETTY IMAGES

By Gene Marks

I write about technology developments for small business owners.

Sourced from Forbes

In News

Google Says It Won’t Creep On Your Emails Anymore

July 14, 2017 No Comments

By Catherine Trautwein.

Google will stop scanning your emails in order to customize the advertising you see in Gmail, the company announced Friday.

“G Suite’s Gmail is already not used as input for ads personalization, and Google has decided to follow suit later this year in our free consumer Gmail service,” Google Cloud senior vice president Diane Greene wrote in a blog post. “Consumer Gmail content will not be used or scanned for any ads personalization after this change.”

The move means Gmail users — all 1.2 billion of them — will get the same treatment when it comes to this aspect of email privacy as the 3 million companies that pay for access to G Suite, according to the blog post.

“This decision brings Gmail ads in line with how we personalize ads for other Google products,” Greene wrote.

Google makes an overwhelming majority of its money on advertising. The search giant raked in more than $21.4 billion in advertising revenue during the first quarter of 2017, which represented a nearly 20 percent increase year-over-year.

By Catherine Trautwein.

Sourced from TIME

In News

Gmail users will soon get Windows 10’s best new mail and calendar features

April 28, 2017 No Comments

By Chris Welch.

Back in February, Microsoft updated Windows 10’s mail and calendar apps with a few useful features. Focused Inbox shows you only the important emails and puts everything else into an “other” tab. And the calendar app gained the ability to display travel reservations and package delivery details. But at the time, neither of these options worked for Google / Gmail accounts — only for Outlook.com and Office 365 accounts. Thankfully, that won’t be the case much longer.

Today Microsoft announced that it going to be rolling out Gmail support to Windows Insiders over the next few weeks before a wider release to all consumers. Users chosen for early access will receive a prompt to update their account settings to get started.

For all of this to work, Microsoft says it has to sync a copy of your email, calendar, and contacts to its servers. Any changes you make — composing / deleting emails, scheduling new appointments, or adding contacts — are synced back to Google so everything remains up to date.

Microsoft will be “fine tuning” the experience for Gmail users over the next few weeks before Focused Inbox and the helpful summary cards for reservations and package deliveries make their way to all Windows 10 users at a later date. If you’re a Gmail-using Windows Insider and somehow miss the prompt to test out the new features, you’ll receive another reminder “in a few weeks.”

By Chris Welch

Sourced from The Verge