Week in Review - January 30, 2016: Hangouts, AI, VR and more

After the holiday freeze, things are picking up this week! Google's AI beat an expert Go player, Hangouts version 7 rolled out, Google built their VR team, and Facebook opened mobile live streaming to all.  Plus there were updates to the Google+ Android app, a new AdWords iOS app, tips and tools for AMP webpages, international updates for Google Calendar and the Google Search app, and tips for Google Photos, AdSense, YouTube, Android, and more.

Image: Monkeys and Rabbits Playing Go by Settei Hasegawa (1878)

Google+

• Update Google+ Android update: tap the bottom bar to scroll to the top of you Home Stream, plus bug fixes and more (Luke Wroblewski)
• Tip See who follows your Google+ Collection (Sooraj Wadhwa)
• Tip Google+ tip: how to follow or unfollow a Collection (Sooraj Wadhwa)
• Play Games Permissions are changing in 2016 - Google+ Profile no longer required (Google Developers blog)

Photos and VR

• Tip Have you tried all the Google Photos features? (How to Geek)
• Tip Take and share photo spheres with Google Street View
• Update YouTube now has a global Virtual Reality evangelist (Re/Code)
• Article VR for everyone: (Un)folding a virtual journey with Google Cardboard
• Update The head of Twitter short-video sharing service Vine has joined the Google VR team (The Verge)
• Article Apple reportedly has a ‘secret’ team of hundreds of employees working on VR (The Next Web)

YouTube and video creators

• New Introducing new donation tool on YouTube benefitting nonprofits (Google for Nonprofits)
• Tip How to work with a (human) video editor (Video Creators)
• New YouTube now has a global Virtual Reality evangelist (Re/Code)

Live Broadcasting

• New Periscope + GoPro + iPhone for active - but less social - livestreaming (Mashable)
• New Facebook opens live streaming to all in the US with an iPhone (Facebook Newsroom)
• Update Blab for iOS update - also looking for beta testers

Hangouts

• Update Hangouts 7 for Android rolling out: quick reply from notifications, conversation pinning, better retry logic and more (Amit Fulay)
• Update Reply directly to Hangouts notifications with the updated Android app (The Verge)
• Update Hangouts 7 for iOS: hide message content in notifications and more
• Tip Hangouts easter egg ¯\(ツ)/¯ (Sage LaTorra)
• Tip Hangouts for gaming: roll (virtual) dice! 

Webmasters

• Update Google updates their general guidelines section of their Webmaster Guidelines (Search Engine Land)
• New: Webmasters: all about Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)
• Google Search guidelines for AMP pages
• Announcing Google Analytics support for Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) Analytics (Google Analytics Blog)
• Google News Lab Office Hour: AMP Part Three:Technical overview, Part II - with guest Malte Ubl, Lead AMP Engineer (Google News Lab on YouTube)
• Tips English Google Webmaster Office Hours with highlights by Barry Schwartz @ Search Engine Roundtable:
• Google: Links In Footers Or Sitewides Are Not Given That Much Weight 
• Google: Nofollow unnecessary for related blog post links 
• Google: Do Not To Worry About Unique IP Addresses Or C-Blocks
• Google: We Pick Shorter URLs For Canonicalization

AdSense

• Tip How to open a US AdSense account (Helpful Information for Newbies)
• Tip App developers: download Google's free guide to App Monetization (AdMob)

Advertising

• New Introducing the AdWords app for iOS (Inside AdWords blog)
• Tip Google Consumer Surveys help you find out what customers think of your small business (Google Small Business)

Productivity

• Update All new Chrome for iOS (Chrome) it is much faster and crashes less (The Verge)
• New Chrome Data Saver Extension for desktop (Chrome)
• Update Mobile comments are here for Google Docs, Sheets and Slides (Google Docs)
• Update Events in Google Calendar with smart suggestions for event titles, places and people, now in more than 30 new languages. plus 54 new country holiday calendars (Gmail)
• Update Inbox by Gmail: find answers even faster (Gmail Blog)
• Update Google My Tracks will no longer be available after April 30th (Maps for Mobile Help)
• Update The Google app now speaks ‘Strayan (Google Australia)

Android

• Article The Android Malware monster will never die (Computerworld)
• Article Future Android phones may use on-device facial recognition (The Next Web)

Security and Privacy

• Tip Celebrate #DataPrivacyDay with a Privacy Checkup of your Google account (Google) 
• Article Google Security Rewards - 2015 Year in Review (Google Online Security blog)

And more!

• An oral history of the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster (Popular Mechanics)
• Google’s AI Masters the Game of Go a Decade Earlier than Expected (MIT Technology Review)
• AlphaGo: Mastering the Ancient Game of Go with machine learning (Google Research blog)
• Politics+Fox+Google: Search for "Fox News debate" to get real time info (official Google Blog) - was it a disaster? (Search Engine Land)
• Twitter Has Stopped Showing Ads to Some of Its Most Valuable Users (Re/Code)
• Facebook’s New “Reactions” Button Options Rolling Out Globally “In The Next Few Weeks” (Bloomberg)

Updated March 2019 to remove Google+ links