Q: When using Gmail in a browser, what is the difference between Google Chat and Google Hangouts?
A: Google’s Chat function, also known as Google Talk or Gchat, is an older text-messaging system built into the Web-based Gmail service and the Google Plus social network. Fairly unobtrusive and simple to use, the chat feature has its fans because it makes it easy to send messages quickly to people. Chats between Gmail users can also be archived and searched. With the proper hardware and plug-in software installed, Chat users can make voice and video calls between computers.
Google Hangouts is a newer communications tool that can send and receive text messages from the Gmail window and more. When everyone involved is using Hangouts, users can make voice and video calls with up to nine participants, exchange videos and photos, make telephone calls or even share a computer screen.
Hangouts is Gmail’s default chat application, but if you prefer the older Chat service, you can switch back — at least until Google retires Chat for good. To change from Hangouts to Chat, log into your Gmail account and click the Hangouts icon on the left side of the screen if you do not see your list of acquaintances showing.
In the Hangouts column, click the menu arrow next to your name. In the window showing your status and notifications options, click the “Revert to old chat” button at the bottom. In the alert box that appears, confirm your decision to change back to Chat. If you ever want to return to Hangouts, click the menu arrow next to your name again and choose “Try the new Hangouts.”
Google Hangouts also has a mobile app for Android and iOS. The company announced two more messaging apps last spring, Allo (a “smart” instant messenger that makes use of the company’s predictive Google Assistant technology) and Duo (a video-calling program).
Google’s Source of Traffic Data
Q: How does the Google Maps app know there’s a car stopped by the side of the highway or a jam up ahead?
A: Google pulls in traffic data from multiple sources for its Maps app, including information from police and local transportation departments. Many reports concerning real-time events — like cars stopped on the highway shoulder, debris on the road, construction, congestion and accidents — come from the users of its Waze service.
Waze, a company Google acquired in 2013, has mobile apps for Android and iOS devices. Waze members can use the app for navigation to a destination and to report traffic observations and incidents along the route. One screen within the Waze app provides a set of icons for users — typically passengers in the car — to update the app’s maps with new information, including stopped vehicles. These Waze reports then get incorporated into the Google Maps navigation, too.
Google has been collecting traffic and map data for more than a decade and gathering crowdsourced congestion reports since at least 2009. The collection has given the company a lengthy history of patterns and trends for its software to analyse. Google Maps users themselves contribute to the traffic database too, as speed and location information from devices using the app (inside the moving cars) are shared with the company.
The app uses a colour code on routes to indicate current traffic conditions, including green for no delays, orange for a moderate amount of traffic and deepening shades of red as road congestion gets worse and progress slows to a crawl. Last year, Google Maps added new traffic alerts that preview the conditions between you and your destination — and suggest alternate roads to get you there faster if an accident or other incident has occurred on your original route.
— New York Times News Service
