Improved navigation, search, customization, and visibility are available today in a beta new design of the Cloud Console. Try it today and let us know what you think.
A recent Google shopper survey revealed that over 40% of people are likely to use their phones to pay digitally for products this holiday season. Google’s head of commerce Shridhar Ramaswamy recently sat down with Fortune to discuss this and more commerce trends to come.
Maps
As the crow flies is not the best measure of proximity. But, thanks to the Distance Matrix Service as part of the Google Maps API, you can calculate what point of interest is actually the closest to travel to for your users.
Games
Get a Project Tango Developer Kit for 50% off with a special limited time offer on the Google Store available soon. Keep an eye out on the Google+ community for an update on the sale, and in the meantime, check out the recent App Contest Winners for some inspiration.
Record your gameplay & share it on YouTube from your phone with an update to Google Play Games. It includes support for your front-facing camera and mic so we all know how you feel about that hidden bomb. Also, we’re working on an SDK for this so you can build it right into your own app or game.
VR is cool and Google Cardboard now makes it possible around the world in 39 languages and in more than 100 countries on both Android and iOS. Oh, and the SDK got updated too.
Backgammon Plus by Peak Games
Turkish mobile games developer Peak Games has a growing user base in the US with their game, Spades Plus. The game generates over 70% of its mobile revenue from Android. We recently had a chat with them about how they improved user engagement, increased installs with Google Play Store Listing experiments and app promotion, as well as other Android and Google Play features that help them be successful.
