Google change log

Every week I plan to have the Google changelog. The Google change log would contain summary of things that have changed with any of the Google products.

Source of information

The main source would be taken from This Week In Google (TWIG) on the TWIT.tv network, which is hosted by Leo Laporte and the participants are Jeff Jarvis of the Buzzmachine and Gina Trapani (one of my top 10 techies whom I admire and try to emulate). The log is usually prepared by Gina and announced at the end of the TWIG show every week on Wednesday. However, if anything important I would be adding those to the update. However, given the way Gina does things (check her thinkup app which provides social analytics) I do not think there would be a much of chance of me adding to her Google change log.

Purpose of the Google change log

There is an ulterior motive for maintaining the change log (sorry I'm not that nice guy who  does things only for the readers) is to keep myself updated on what is happening on Google. I have realized that basically I'm a lazy guy and if I do not write this weekly post, which over a period of time is hopefully read by some people, I will not have the incentive to keep myself updated.
So without further ado here is the change log of this week.

Google Change Log (week ending January 8, 2014)

1. Google+ Auto Backup for Desktop
   
   
   A new application allows you to backup your Google+ account. The installer is available in the latest Picasa for Windows or Mac. If you do not want to download and install Picasa you can download G+ Auto Backup installer here. To know more about G+ Auto Backup for Desktop click here. 
2. Google Latitude dashboard de-linked.
   The bad news for location users on Google Maps is that the dashboard has been removed. The good news is that the old data will remain in your account but it will not be updated. You can go to the location history URL but the dashboard will not be available which used to earlier provide data like a summary of your locations, including total miles traveled and trip information.
   
   I agree with Leo Laporte that the reason behind shutting the dashboard is that Google does not want you to know how much they know about you since Google internally will still have the data from the dashboard when it comes to delivering relevant advertisements.
   

   

   Old Google Location Dashboard that has been retired

   Personally I would be more comfortable if Google showed me all the data they have about me but now with the latitude dashboard there is gone I will not be able to see what information Google has which is not good. 
3. Schemer is being shutdown.
   Schemer was a service where users could share and discuss their plans. The name schemer was kept to associate the service with the users as they used to plan or scheme about achieving their goals. The service was a invite only service for quite sometime.
   
   Unfortunately the service, that was launched two years back,  never caught on in spite of having an Android and IOS apps and therefore the service is being shutdown and users have been advised to download their data from the service.

That is all for the week. Please provide feedback and advise on the posts and whether this series should be continued or not. Any feedback would be highly appreciated.