Voice and Video chat now in Gmail

Gmail already has its chat i.e. Gtalk integrated into its web app. Now what’s better is that through that same very page where you have your mail and your Gtalk contacts you can now voice and video chat with them. Gmail’s Gtalk web app has just recently added new emoticons making it more fun to chat via the web app. This feature uses Internet standards such as XMPP, RTP, and H.264, which means that third-party applications and networks can choose to interoperate with Gmail voice and video chat.

To get started hit the link in the top right in your Gmail app reading - “New! Video chat” or head to http://gmail.com/videochat. Once you install the plugin, to start a video chat, just click on the “Video & more” menu at the bottom of your Gmail chat window, and choose “Start video chat.” You’ll have a few seconds to make sure you look presentable while it’s ringing, and then you’ll see and hear your friend live, right from within Gmail. You can click the “pop-out” icon to make the video larger, or click the fullscreen icon in the upper left-hand corner for a fully immersive experience. Gmail is also offering a few webcams with special discounts through November 30th.

“Bhuvan” India’s Google Earth

Come March 2009 ISRO (Indian Space Research Organization) will launch its own IRS (Indian Remote Sensing) image portal called Bhuvan. The portal states that it will offer even better detailed satellite views of our planet as compared to Google Earth and Wikimapia. As compared to Google Earth which can zoom up to 200m Bhuvan will provide zoom level of up to 10m. Just like the Google Earth version Bhuvan too will have Pro and Corp version which will come with a price tag for the high resolution images while its base version will remain completely free.

Coming from Indian satellites Bhuvan will concentrate primarily on the Indian subcontinent providing multi-layer information. Along side Bhuvan, ISRO is also readying another portal called “Bhu Sampada” and both services will go live in March ‘09

Opera Mini extends to Google’s Android

Few days back we had Opera Mini beta 4.1 released & not too long after that Opera made an announcement. Opera plans to offer its browsing capabilities on Google’s Android platform. Opera said their goal is to provide their browsing capabilities over all platforms and Google’s Android was one missing piece. At the moment testing is ON and Android version of Opera is available for testers. You can download the SDK pack, test and give valuable feedback just like you’ll fringsters do. Google introduced Android last November; it includes a mobile OS and applications for mobile devices. So far mobile manufacturers like HTC, Motorola, Samsung and LG have committed to building devices for Android, and Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile and AT&T are among the service providers who are willing to co-operate.