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Yahoo gives search a redesign, unveils Google-esque nav bar
Yahoo has been a busy little bee recently, updating its various properties and snatching up new ones. Now its giving its Bing-powered search page a facelift. The redesign is actually quite subtle. The color scheme remains the same and there's still a sidebar, though, the various search tabs have all been pushed to the left rail. The look is flatter, boxier and more modern with quite a bit of empty space. In fact, the padding on the right side has been expanded, leaving much of the screen strangely bare. In addition to the updated aesthetics, the company has introduced a new navigation bar that sits glued to the top providing shortcuts to the homepage, your mailbox, Flickr and other Yahoo-owned properties. The nav bar will also be rolling out to these other services soon, providing a Google-esque way to quickly hop around. Now Yahoo just needs to figure out how to serve up actually useful results. When our search for sushi on Staten Island turned up only one restaurant actually in the borough and a query for "old fashioned recipe" spit out a pile of pancake plans, we knew that there was still quite a lot of work to be done.
Gmail advanced search gets autocomplete in 'from' and 'to' fields, three lab features become standard
Coming on the heels of Google announcing additional languages for Gmail search, the dev team out in Mountain View is rolling out a few more tweaks. For starters, when you use advanced search, you'll now see autocomplete predictions in the "from" and "to" fields. Google is also "graduating" three labs: Refresh POP accounts, Filter import / export and Navbar drag and drop. Starting with that POP feature, you'll be able to click the refresh link at the top of the inbox to populate your inbox with new messages, and also fetch messages from any other POP address you've got set up. Moving on, that filter import / export feature should come in handy if you want to share filters with friends or feel the need to back them up. Wrapping things up, the ability to drag and drop gadgets on the left-hand pane is good for, well, you get the idea.
Android Open Kang Project brings hyper-customization to your nav bar (video)
Still dallying at the corner of Custom ROM Road? Then maybe the forthcoming update from Team Kang (AOKP Build 30, no less) will entice you onwards. The preview clip after the break reveals a new level of freedom for the ICS navigation bar, including the ability to add up to five buttons, assign them to apps or actions as you wish, modify their icons and add separate long-press functions. It also gives you the ability to incorporate Nova Launcher actions into the bar, effectively bringing a whole extra layer of customization. Reactions over at RootzWiki range from "I'm crying, this is a beautiful moment" to "I just broke my hand punching a wall," but the latter dude admitted he'd been drinking.
Google continues its massive facelift, intros new persistent nav bar (video)
We hope you're enjoying that new Gmail and Reader interface, because Google isn't done repainting every nook and cranny just yet. The next bit to get a facelift is the Google Bar. The thin dark gray strip of text is going away, and in its place is a new persistent UI element that combines search and Google+ tools, including a share button and notifications. There's still quick access to other services available in the Google menu -- just hover over the logo and you'll be presented with a bunch more links. Love it? Hate it? Doesn't really matter... it's coming, so you might as well embrace it. Get a preview after the break.
