Today Facebook has added yet another app to its growing portfolio. Facebook Groups is its latest standalone app with features dedicated to managing and interacting with groups on Android. Unlike its approach to Facebook Messenger, however, the social network says it will not remove existing group features from the primary Facebook app.
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Google just announced some enhancements and new features rolling out to its Google Classroom service today including much improved controls for teachers. Google Classroom, a platform for teachers to plan lessons, assignments, and work alongside students in real-time, was announced earlier this year and first opened to all Apps for Education users in August.
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Google announced a couple of welcomed improvements to Google Calendar on the desktop today. Perhaps the most notable new feature is autocomplete for addresses powered by Google Maps:
Calendar will autocomplete addresses as you type so you can quickly and accurately add locations to your events. Your friends can then simply click on the “map” link to make sure you all end up at the right place.
The update also brings suggestions for instant relevant events as you type. Now, when searching Calendar you’ll see instant suggestions pop up for events and contacts relevant to your search query. Like the autocomplete feature, instant suggestions for events and contacts aim to make it easier to quickly input entries into your calendar.
Lastly, Google Calendar will now automatically update event guest lists for Google Groups as members leave or join the group:
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In a post on the official Gmail blog, Google has announced that the new Google Groups interface is now available to everyone and it is retiring the old look effective today. The new design is totally different than before and with the new look comes a host of new features. For example, you can now create an inbox that lets you share and track responsibilities with other team members.
One of the recently improved features is the ability to create an inbox that allows you to collaboratively share, distribute and track responsibilities with others. Imagine you and a few friends are organizing an event for your school and want a single email address to coordinate with vendors, parents, and volunteers. Members of the group can work together to manage email, assign items to each other, and mark items resolved. This can be a great feature for teams seeking a really simple way to get things done without sharing passwords or losing track.
The experience for moderating a Google Group has also gotten much better and faster. Moderators can now browse and manage their group on the go via the new mobile site design. They can also now use canned responses to make the moderating process even quicker.
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As expected, Google just started rolling out its brand new inbox to iOS users after first introducing us to the new category-based design last week. While its not a tabbed design like on the desktop, much like the Android app that just started rolling out iOS users can now access the new feature that groups emails into separate inboxes by selecting categories from the app’s side navigation bar.
Meet the new inbox: If you’ve enabled the new inbox, your mail is now grouped into categories so that you can see what’s new at a glance and decide which emails you want to read when. Primary mail is shown first and it’s easy to access and keep track of email in other categories by opening the menu. Configure this feature by going to Gmail.com on your computer.
Today’s Gmail update also brings improved notifications allowing you to customize what emails you receive notifications for:
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