It’s been quite an interesting week on the Google front, with the launch of one new service after another. The one making the biggest waves (if you pardon the pun) has been Google+ (plus). Having wrangled an invite, I used it for a couple of hours. These are some first impressions.

It shouldn’t be surprising that I’m making lots of comparison to Facebook which is the defacto social networking standard right now.

This has come just in time for mLearning implementers; there is a new tool out in Google Labs called Swiffy that let’s one convert flash animation (swf files) to a device independent HTML5. Simply put, this will allow existing libraries of flash animation content to be ported to devices that run iOS – iPhones, iPads, and iPods. This also helps us poor elearning developers circumvent the continuous war between Adobe and Apple over flash technology, and allow delivery across devices/platforms. Incidentally, Adobe had worked on just such a tool called Wallaby.

I discovered something interesting when trawling my feeds this morning. Google has sneak launched a new way of search aggregation result, technology blogs are tripping over it.

Google calls it ‘What Do You Love?’. It’s a strange and quirky way to look at search results. Stranger still there is no mention of this on Google’s blog.  I love Lego, so that’s what I typed into the search box. The results aggregated across a host of google services, and included pictures, video, and a lots more.

1. New Firefox Add-ons for Learning – Links to a competition, with support from the MacArthur Foundation, sought to tap into the spirit of Mozilla’s open-source community to spark innovations in learning-oriented add-ons for the Firefox internet browser. The winning add-ons are available for free download.

2. 3-D Tabletop Display – We’ve often visualized glass-free 3D device after watching the 3D movie – Avatar. The interaction concept is great.

1. Using Twitter for Learning – Fifty-five articles on how to use twitter as a learning tool. You’ll want to look at some if you are considering using twitter for learning in any form.

2. A Collection of Social Media Infographics – Helpful to use infographics in presentations, reports, articles, etc. A cool resource, these graphics also give great ideas on how data can be represented visually.

1. Social media & workplace performance matrix – Harold Jarche takes Jane Hart’s case study resources and puts them in a matrix, made accessible to all through Google docs spreadsheet. Definitely worth a look to see who’s trying social learning in the workplace and the results they’re seeing.

1. Direct access to OpenGL ES 2.0 features On Android devices using Android Native Developer Kit (NDK) – The Android NDK can be used to target Android devices with 1.5 or higher, and includes a number of enhancements; however, what’s really exciting is that developers building apps for 2.0 or higher will get “direct access to OpenGL ES 2.0 features” like controlling the way graphics are rendered.

1. How to keep High Performers – Marshall Goldsmith in the Harvard Business Review Blog writes about steps that organizations can take to help them retain high-impact performers. He pointedly adds as the first point ‘show respect’ to your employees, it all starts there.

1. Games Change Brains – There have been many important findings on the benefits of video games in the last few months. This was a great post that put those in perspective.

• Video gaming improves visual perception, processing and attention.
• Internet use engages more neural circuitry than book reading in the digital generation.
• Sizes of three structures in the brain can predict a video gamer’s success.
• Learning environments of video games can educate children effectively.
• Building computer games promotes critical thinking and creative thinking skills.

1. Do Serious Games Work? Results from Three Studies
Some studies help answer some of the questions now surrounding serious games-or games whose primary purpose is something other than entertainment, such as military training, education, physical therapy-and determine the relationship between the use of video games and learning as measured on standardized tests. More research is needed, but these findings provide some answers to both skeptics and supporters.

1. CopperLicht – fast WebGL JavaScript 3D Engine
CopperLicht is a JavaScript 3D engine for creating games and 3d applications in the webbrowser. It uses the WebGL canvas supported by modern browsers and is able to render hardware accelerated 3d graphics without any plugins.

2. Google Buzz
Google has announced Buzz a new social media service that would be integrated within Gmail. Using Buzz you can connect to the other social media services like Twitter, Picasa, Flickr and Google reader. More information on how we might use it in elearning can be found in this post on our blog.

1. ELIPS Studio 3
ELIPS Studio 3 is a cross-platform mobile application SDK based on Adobe’s Flex Builder. Now software developers and creative designers can quickly develop for rich, connected or non-connected applications for mobile devices and deploy them on any mobile platforms they want. ELIPS Studio 3 is based on native compilation. It will automatically generate, optimize and package your Flex applications as native code for industry-leading platforms, including iPhone, Android, Symbian, and Windows Mobile.