GoogleSites
Latest
Google aids accessibility with ChromeVox reader, better YouTube captions and more
Engineers from Google have commandeered a booth at this year's CSUN accessibility conference and they're keen to talk up their latest efforts. For the visually impaired, there's now a beta version of a Chrome screen reader called ChromeVox (demo'd after the break), plus improved shortcuts and screen reader support in Google Docs, Sites and Calendar. Meanwhile, YouTube boasts expanded caption support for the hard of hearing, with automatic captions enabled for 135 million video clips -- a healthy tripling of last year's total. Check the source link for full details or, if you're anywhere near San Diego, go and hassle those engineers the old-fashioned way.
Google Sites simplifies iOS and Android viewing with automatic mobile rendering
Do you use Google Sites to publish to the web? The search giant just added automatic mobile rendering to make your website more mobile-friendly when viewed on an iOS 3.0 or Android 2.2+ device. A new setting to "Automatically adjust site for mobile phones" can be activated in the site management page, at which point pages designed for desktop viewing will be displayed in a much simpler web format, so readers won't need to pinch-to-zoom just to see a page's content. Google also added mobile versions of the site list, sites search, and browse sites categories, for easy access from your smartphone. There's nothing groundbreaking here, but if you happen to run a Google Site or have a friend that does, it wouldn't hurt to flip the switch on mobile viewing -- your visitors will appreciate it.
Google Science Fair 2011 boasts big names, big prizes (video)
Dust off the baking soda and bust out the vinegar, because Google's throwing a science fair. That's right, the internet giant is taking the time-honored tradition of hastily constructed teenage science experiments online. Entrants must be between 13 and 18 years old and submit their projects (in English) via Google Sites by April 4th. Once the projects are in, a panel of real-life teachers will select 60 semi-finalists. From there, the pool will be narrowed down to a group of 15, who will attend an in-the-flesh fair at Google headquarters in Mountain View, CA, this July. The big event's judges include CERN's Rolf-Dieter Heuer, Google's Vint Cerf, and Nobel Laureate Kary Mullis. Grand prize winners in three age groups will receive a $50,000 scholarship, a trip to the Galapagos islands, and some stuff from LEGO and Scientific American. On second thought, maybe the baking soda volcano isn't such a great idea. (Rube Goldberg-inspired promo video after the jump.)
