hyperlinks
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Gmail finally turns addresses and phone numbers into links
Next time someone emails you an address, you no longer have to copypaste it on Maps after viewing it on Gmail or Inbox. Google has rolled out an update that gives its mail apps the power to turn addresses, phone numbers and email addresses into hyperlinks. It's definitely a welcome addition, especially since most other mail apps have been making contact details easier to click for a long time now. Now, you can click addresses to look them up on Google Maps, email addresses to automatically open your default mail app's compose window and phone numbers to start a call on the default phone app if you're on mobile.
Hand-sewn, hyperlinked book is a thing of beauty, and a joy for several minutes
It's not every day that you see something handcrafted with time and care on the internet, but what you see above certainly qualifies. An art / craft project by German designer Maria Fischer, it's called Thoughts on Dreams, it contains threaded 'hyperlinks' which are there to help guide the reader to links between important passages. The book is sadly (for us) in German, so we can't know what it says, but we can imagine that it's all sorts of beautiful, mysterious things that can only be conveyed by paper and colored string. There is one more image after the break, just because.
New Goo.gl URL shortener API lets third party developers in on the outrageous fun that is Google URL shortening
Just a quick note, because we know how much you love APIs: Google has opened its URL shortening service to third party developers. That's right -- not only can you use Goo.gl to generate QR codes, but now you can build it into your own software. As well as support for URL shortening and expanding, the API will also let you track your history and analytics. Says Ben D'Angelo of the URL shortening team: "You could use these features for a wide variety of applications, enabling behaviors ranging from auto-shortening within Twitter or Google Buzz clients to running regular jobs that monitor your usage statistics and traffic patterns." The team is also working to improve spam and malicious site detection for the service. Since the government of Greenland seems to be a bit more stable than that of a certain Muammar al-Gaddafi, we're sure that Google won't run into the same problems that vb.ly did (although we wonder if things would change if Kuupik Kleist got his own voluptuous Ukrainian nurse). Hit the source link to get coding.
Goo.gl URL shortener can also spit out QR codes, if you ask it nicely
Once again, Google fails at being ordinary. Although the claim with its Goo.gl URL shortener is that it's more about quality than features, the search giant couldn't help itself and has inserted a QR code easter egg into the mix. Should you be so daring as to append a .qr at the end of your contracted hyperlink -- such as turning http://goo.gl/JCKW into http://goo.gl/JCKW.qr (both point to this post) -- you'll be treated with a QR code, built especially for you by the company's imaging smurfs. So, in case you still don't have Android 2.2 and its awesome Chrome to Phone functionality, here's an alternative method for transitioning the webpage you're reading onto your phone. Heavens forbid we'd ever have to actually type anything out ourselves.
