Google Announces 18 New Updates

Today's "A Morning with Google+" Live HOA broadcast included an announcement of the following updates that will be available today to their 540M active users:

Google Hangout App Updates:

1. Addition of location sharing
2. Animated gifs support
3. SMS integration
4. HD full screen videos
5. Algorithms for facial recognition to improve lighting
6. Photo editing tools including spotlight features and focus effects

Google Hangout On Air Updates (Broadcasts):

1. Improved ability to plan hangouts with dedicated landing page
2. Promotional tools
3. Management tools

Photos:

1. Backup for full resolution images
2. Coming Soon: Full size backups and background sync on for IOS
3. Automatically select your "highlights" or best pictures by hiding blurry images, looking for the "important people" in your life and landmarks
4. Search for images even if the images are not tagged using "deep learning" that recognizes images for 1000 additional words added including "apple pie," "beach," "sunset," etc. You can also include searches such as "my dog at the beach."
5. Ability to search your images as well as the images shared in your friends circles per their privacy settings
6. Improved auto-enhance with more control and settings on an album by album basis
7. New HDR filter in Snapseed
8. Adding Analog Efex Pro to the Nik Collection for advanced photo editing
9. Additional "Auto Awesomes" for action sequence and eraser

Auto Awesome Action Sequence

Videos:
Too mind-blowing to talk about. You will need to watch yourself. Video starts at 0:49 minutes.

Surprisingly, no updates on Helpouts or Google Glass.