Vic Gundotra, Google Senior Vice President of Engineering, spoke on several of the 41 different improvements to Google+ during the company's keynote address this morning.
During his time on stage, Gundotra focused on Google+'s newly designed Stream, Hangouts and Photo features which all rolled out today.
Outside of a new multiple column home, Stream will now use "Related hashtags" to analyze a post's content and designate appropriate hashtags. Flippable cards then can be used to see content based on related topics and current locations. Web developers can add code to their sites that will allow Google+ users to link off to relatable stories, more stories by that publisher or writings from the same author.
Google+'s most popular Hangouts gains its own mobile app like Facebook Messenger and Apple's FaceTime outside of new additions. The new Hangouts comes with one-on-one conversations during a group chat. Google also added the ability to view the entire history of conversations including text and photos through Hangouts. That option can be cleared or turned off completely.
Gundotra called photography "very labor-intensive" with all the editing and uploading that comes along with shooting photos which is why Google+ Photo feature will see the most updates. As mobile phone cameras get higher and higher in MP, file size is sure to increase. This is why Google decided to update Google+'s cloud storage from 5GB to 15GB. A slew of editing tools comes to Google+'s Photo also. Tonal distribution, skin softening, noise reduction is apart through a robust Auto Enhance feature. An algorithm can even sort and pick the best pictures and make enhancements once uploaded through Picasa or mobile devices. All the user has to do is upload the photo and Google will take care of the rest. If users have uploaded multiple photos of the same activity, Google can automatically create GIFs.
Cross platform sign in is another update from Google+. This means users signed into a website through Google's social network have the option of installing the mobile app on their device. Once installed, users will automatically be logged in on the app.
