Phone Calls Tab in Gmail

Gmail added a tab that lets you make calls. If you've switched to Hangouts in the desktop Gmail interface, you should see a new phone icon at the bottom of the window. It shows a list of contacts that have phone numbers and it lets you search for names or phone numbers. Click a phone number to open an audio-only Hangouts window and dial the phone number you selected.

You can click "make a call" or use the search button to see the list of contacts. Google also suggests to "try our mobile apps for Android and iOS".

"Almost all calls to the U.S. and Canada are free from all countries where Hangouts calling is available. For the rest of 2014, the first minute of most calls to 25 countries are free, and you'll be charged for each minute after," informs Google. The list includes: China, France, Germany, Brazil, Russia, South Korea, Japan, India, United Kingdom.

Hangouts Contacts Tab in Gmail

If you use Google Hangouts inside Gmail, you may have noticed a new icon at the bottom of the page. It lets you switch to the new contacts tab that shows your chat buddies starting with the ones who are online, just like in the old Gmail Chat/Google Talk. The small green circle next to the profile picture shows that your chat buddy is online. "Available contacts (those with the green circle) will show in an alpha-ordered list first, followed by a second alpha-ordered list of unavailable contacts," explains Google.

You can also mouse over a contact, click the small arrow icon and pick one of the options: pin to top, start video call, send email or hide. Pin to top moves the contact in a new section at the top of the list.

There's also the regular Hangouts tab that shows your conversations sorted by date. Gmail remembers the most recently clicked tab.

"Starting today it's easier to see which of your chat buddies are currently online, thanks to a new tab in Hangouts in Gmail. In this new tab, friends who are online are shown first, followed by those who aren't. Of course, you can still send your offline friends a message and they'll get it the next time they check Hangouts on their computer, phone or table," informs Google.

For now, Google still lets you switch between the old Gmail Chat and Google Hangouts, so you can always click "Try the new Hangouts" to switch to Google Hangouts and then "Revert to old chat" to go back to Gmail Chat if you don't like Hangouts.

Google Tests a Search Card for Live Events

There's a Help Center article about a Google experiment that shows relevant Hangouts on Air in Google Search. "We're rolling out an experiment where you can easily find YouTube live events or Hangouts on Air to watch by searching for the event on Google.com. For example, if an author is answering questions about their latest book in a Hangout on Air, you can search the author’s name to find and watch the event," informs Google.

Apparently, a live event will start to show up in search up to 3 hours before it starts. You can find a list of Hangouts on Air and YouTube live events.

"If the event is happening now, you can touch the play on the video to watch the event live. If the event is happening later in the day, click Yes under 'Are you going to watch?' to add the event to your Google Calendar."

Hangouts Interface for Google Voice Migration

Google already announced that Google Voice's functionality will be added to Hangouts. Here's the interface that will be used for migration when this feature will be publicly released: "Migrate Google Voice to Hangouts. Receive voicemail and send text messages in Hangouts".

This dialog can actually be displayed in Hangouts, but the underlying functionality can't be enabled for now. There's an Android app called #DebugAllTheThings that enables debugging features from various Google apps like Play Store, Play Music, Play Books and Hangouts. It requires root, most debugging features aren't useful for regular users and some of them can even cause issues.

To display this message, install #DebugAllTheThings, enable "Hangouts" in the new app, restart the phone, open Hangouts, tap the menu, select "Debug" (this menu item is added by the #DebugAllTheThings app) and then "activate all butter bars".

Here are some other debug options:

- Hangouts: debug activity, request warm sync, rewind 10 days, refresh from contacts, dump database, toggle noise, run DB cleaner, test RTCS watchdog

- Play Books: log to GA (Google Accounts?), geo layer, performance logging, force annotation refresh, show recommendations, Play logging, WebView hardware rendering, mock recommendations, mock offers, emulate offers, compiled JS, search uploaded PDFs, enable in-app reviews

- Play Store: carrier override (not functional), skip caches, export library and asset store databases, disable personalization (this crashed the app for me), dump library state, fake item rater.

{ Thanks, Jérôme. }

No More SMS for Hangouts

Back in April, Google removed the SMS feature from Gmail Labs. Now SMS for Google Hangouts is discontinued.

Here's how Google described the feature: "If you enable SMS for Hangouts, you'll receive messages even when you're not connected to the internet. Messages will be delivered to you as SMS and you can reply by SMS to continue the conversation." SMS for Hangouts was released in May 2013.

Google informs that "this service will be discontinued. It will continue to be available until July 2nd, 2014."

Apparently, this is the settings page for SMS for Hangouts, but it doesn't work for me. All I get is this message: "We're sorry, the feature you are looking for is currently only available in a limited number of countries."

It's important to keep in mind that this has nothing to do with the SMS feature from the Hangouts app for Android. You can still send and receive text and multimedia messages in the Hangouts app. SMS for Hangouts only allowed you to receive Hangouts messages as SMS and to reply by SMS.

{ Thanks, Herin. }

Plugin-Free Google+ Hangouts in Chrome

Last year, Chrome's team announced that NPAPI support will be removed by the end of 2014. At that time, the Google+ Hangouts (Talk) plugin was one of the most popular NPAPI plugins used in Chrome (8.7% usage), so it was obvious that Google had to provide an alternative solution.

Now Google+ Hangouts no longer requires plugins in Chrome. Google uses WebRTC and Native Client to provide a native video chat experience.

"We're rolling out an update that makes it easier than ever to start Hangouts video calls with your family and friends! You'll now be able to launch Hangouts in Chrome without having to download and install a plugin. Just click to start the Hangout, allow Hangouts to use your camera and microphone, and you'll be good to go! This update is now available for all Chrome Dev and Canary users, and will be rolling out to all Chrome users over the next few weeks."

You can get a list of the plugins currently used by Chrome by visiting chrome://plugins (an internal Chrome page). The page lets you disable some of the plugins or whitelist them: check "always allowed" to disable Chrome's plugin blocking feature. Some of the plugins are bundled with Chrome and use Google's PPAPI/Pepper instead of NPAPI: Chrome Remote Desktop Viewer, Widevine Content Decryption Module, Adobe Flash Player, Chrome PDF Viewer, Native Client.

Hangouts Integration in Google Search

Some of the phone numbers from Google's Knowledge Graph cards are now linked and open Google Hangouts. When you search for a local business, Google usually displays the phone number next to the address. Click the phone number and you can call directly from your browser using Google Hangouts, which opens in a pop-up window and informs you about the fees. Calls made to the U.S. and Canada are free.

For searches like [john radcliffe hospital phone number], Google shows a separate card that includes the phone number.

It's interesting to notice that not all phone numbers are clickable. Phone numbers from local search results or from ads don't have links. Another exception: customer service numbers.

{ via Search Engine Roundtable }