Google+ Mobile App (for Android)

Do Google services work best when used on Google platforms? I was curious if that would be the case when I installed the a Google+ Mobile app (free) on an Android-based phone (Android being Google’s mobile operating system). In fairness, Google’s new social network, Google+, runs just as well on Android as it does as an iPhone app (free, 3.5 stars). It doesn’t get special treatment on Android, except that when you download and install the app, you actually get two: the primary Google+ app and a separate app for Huddle, or group chat. The only other difference is that the interface on Android deviates slightly from what’s in the iPhone app; the way the apps work is largely the same, however.

Check out our Google+ Review

Mobile apps are essential to the whole social networking experience. Think about Facebook and Twitter. Mobile apps are the most convenient way to check in on what’s happening, and just as quickly get back to life in real time. As a social network, Google+ has made itself is much more usable with the addition of the mobile apps.

Part of this success comes from the design. Less screen space (compared with a full computer monitor, where other Google properties are often deployed) means every inch of it has to be use effectively. If you’ve ever felt that Google was too sparse with its designs on the Web, you might see Google+ as a revelation in Google UI. The app is clean and easy to navigate without too many menus and unnecessary words cluttering the screen.

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How to Get Google+ Mobile App
Start by locating the Google+ Mobile app in the Android Marketplace, and dropping it onto your mobile device. Alternatively, you can try getting it through a QR code provided by Google.

Once you find and install the free app, just sign in using your Google account, if it’s not already synced to the phone. If it is synced, you can select it from a list after firing up the app. Note that you must already have Google+ access in order to use the app, so if you haven’t received an invitation yet, hang tight until you do.

Design
Like Facebook’s mobile app, the mobile version of Google+ orients you with a landing screen that shows the main components in a grid, their icons and single-word descriptors helping you choose how you’ll use the app. Google+’s icons are not yet as well known as Facebook’s, so the names printed below them help a great deal: Stream, Huddle, Photos, Profile, and Circles. If you didn’t guess what you can do by the name of the tool, at least you’ll be mildly intrigued to dive in and find out.

Features
Any social networking user will be familiar with words like “stream” (updates from your contacts), “profile” (information about you) and “photos.” And if you’ve used the Google+ site, you’ve likely already established Circles, or subsets of your connections, grouped by whatever classification you want to create, such as close friends, co-workers, extended family, and so forth.

Notably missing in the mobile app is the Hangout feature, or video group chat, which is Web-only. Replacing it is Huddle, a group instant messaging tool. To use Google+’s Huddle, select Huddle and click the speech bubble icon at the top right to start a new chat. Alternatively in Android, you can go directly to the Huddle app that automatically installs when you first downloaded the Google+ mobile app. In Huddle, you can invite individuals to group chat with you or an entire Circle. As people are invited, their profile pictures appear in a strip at the top, giving you the ability to quickly see who’s there. Six images fit easily in that banner at the top, and when more people are invited, the strip become scrollable. This visual presentation of who has been invited to a Huddle is excellent.

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Facebook launches bug bounty program

Facebook is set to announce today a bug bounty program in which researchers will be paid for reporting security holes on the popular social-networking Web site.

Compensation, which starts at $500 and has no maximum set, will be paid only to researchers who follow Facebook’s Responsible Disclosure Policy and agree not to go public with the vulnerability information until Facebook has fixed the problem.

“Typically, it’s no longer than a day” to fix a bug, Facebook Chief Security Officer Joe Sullivan told CNET in a conference call.

Facebook’s Whitehat page for security researchers says: “If you give us a reasonable time to respond to your report before making any information public and make a good faith effort to avoid privacy violations, destruction of data, and interruption or degradation of our service during your research, we will not bring any lawsuit against you or ask law enforcement to investigate you.”

The compensation program is a good way to provide an incentive and show appreciation to the research community for helping keep Facebook safe for users, according to the company’s security team. Up until now, researchers received recognition on the Facebook Whitehat page, maybe some “swag,” and–if they were lucky–a job.

“Some of our best engineers have come to work here after pointing out security bugs on our site,” like Ryan McGeehan, manager of Facebook’s security response team, said Alex Rice, product security lead at Facebook. (Facebook also recently hired famed
iPhone jailbreaker and
Sony PlayStation 3 hacker George Hotz, who works on security issues.)

Meanwhile, Facebook is allowing security researchers a way to create test accounts on Facebook to ensure they don’t violate terms of use or impact other Facebook users, Rice and McGeehan said.

Facebook is following in the steps of Mozilla, which launched its bug bounty program in 2004, and Google, which offers a bug bounty program with payments ranging from $500 to more than $3,000 for finding Web security holes, as well as a program specifically for Chrome bugs.

Microsoft has offered bounties of $250,000 for information leading to the arrest of virus writers, but does not pay researchers who find bugs in its software. However, other companies do, like TippingPoint’s Zero Day Initiative.

Researchers typically are paid more for finding bugs in desktop software, which can take much longer to fix and to update software on computers than bugs in Web-based software, which can be fixed much more quickly.

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