Google recently made an interesting change to Gmail, making it possible for users to send messages to anyone in their Google+ circles. If the prospect of receiving emails from people you don’t know concerns you -- they don’t even need to know your email address -- you might like the idea of locking down your account. Thankfully, Google has made it quite simple to put restrictions in place. So if you'd like to avoid a possible influx of unsolicited emails, here's how to go about it.

Before we get started, it's worth pointing out that you may not see these settings in Gmail yet. This means that the feature has not been enabled for your account yet -- which means you don’t need to worry about receiving messages in this way anyway!

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Google is a technology juggernaut. Barely a day goes by without the company making some sort of news. After all, it has its fingers in so many things -- search, ads, software. Most recently, the company drew the ire of the technology community by integrating Google+ with Gmail.

However, not all news from the search giant is Google+ sadness. Today, the company announces that it has been working to improve FFmpeg -- a cross-platform multimedia library and program solution. In fact, Google has fixed a massive one thousand bugs.

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Assuming you're a Gmail user you'll be aware that there's rarely a need to type out an email address in full. Once a contact is in your address book, you can start typing a name into the To field and suggestions will pop up as you type. But what about those people whose email address you don’t actually have? You may have connected with someone on Google+ but start to type out an email and you suddenly realize you don’t have an address to send to. D'oh! However a new feature that's rolling out could see this frustration becoming a thing of the past.

What’s the solution? Google is keen on integrating Google+ with as many products and services as possible, and now this is spreading to Gmail. You've probably got a large number of contacts on Google+ (well… maybe you have some... Google+ isn't that unpopular!), but it doesn’t necessarily mean that you have their email address. Over the next few days, when you start to type the name of a recipient in the To field, Google+ contacts will be displayed as suggestions in addition to entries from your address book.

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It's Consumer Electronics Show 2014 Day 0, and we have hands-on with new Acer and Toshiba Chromebooks -- and both share the same flaw: Yes, flaw. Not enough memory, like HP Chromebook 11, among other newer models. I know margins are tight on these things, but how much more costly really would be 4GB? I can say from absolute experience that 2GB simply isn't enough, particularly if the objective is Chromebook replacing Mac or Windows PC.

Shared memory takes a good chunk out of that 2GB, let alone Chrome running atop Linux. What are these manufacturers thinking? One foot in the Chrome OS outdoors, but rest of body inside Windows? Because Chromebook with 2GB of RAM, even running a Haswell processor, stretches to replace a Windows PC. Make that 4 gigs, and the experience can be as good or better. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, you can stop laughing now. I can hear you all the way down in San Diego.

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Google may have just announced the closure of Flock and Bump, but it's not all about closures -- there are also acquisitions taking place as well. The latest addition to the Google fold is Bitspin. The name of the company may not be immediately familiar, but this is the company behind the Android alarm clock app Timely. At this stage it is not clear whether the company has been bought outright by Google or if there is a partnership in the cards, but there is certainly something afoot.

An announcement on the Bitspin website says:

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The start to any new year is always slow, and 2014 is no different. As the tech world struggled to shake off its New Year hangover, it was a pretty quiet week. The pace should start to pick up again, though, as CES is just around the corner!

The New Year wasn't the only cause for celebration; it was also Linus Torvalds' 44th birthday. Tablet makers were popping the champagne corks as it was revealed that such devices were among the most popular Christmas presents. Microsoft was also celebrating Windows 8 gaining a 10 percent market share, but Windows 7 also continues to grow in popularity.

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It's becoming quite a trend with Google. Buy up an interesting company or service, sit on it for a little while… and then shut it down. The latest victims of Google's seemingly never-ending cull are Flock and Bump. Bump was only acquired back in September, but it is already on the kill list. At the time of the acquisition, there was debate about whether the service might be rebranded, but as of the end of January it will be no more.

Bump was, in its day, quite an innovative tool, seen by many as the precursor to NFC. It enabled files to be quickly transferred between devices by bumping them together. Flock was a similar tool, but concerned solely with photo sharing. However as of 31 January, both apps will disappear from view, as announced in a blog post by CEO and co-founder of Bump, David Lieb:

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I'm not big on making year-ahead predictions -- common as the stories are at the turn of the year. But it's a slow news week, with the holiday and Consumer Electronics Show still ahead, so I thought: "Why not look into the crystal ball?"

If any of these come to be, something is seriously wrong with the space-time continuum.

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Motorola's New Year's resolution gives notice to Apple and other Android phone manufacturers: We don't need stinking subsidies. Today, the Google subsidiary cut Moto X's off-contract to $399, even personalized, on all carriers. The permanent discount is $50 more than Motorola's glitchy Black Friday sale.

Google has a long history of selling unlocked, off-contract phones, starting with Nexus One four years ago. But in 2012, Nexus 4 brought the price down to something mere mortals could afford: $299. The Android's successor costs more, starting at $349.

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It’s the eve of 2014 and, let’s face it, tech news is scant on this day. Silicon Valley has taken a hiatus, but will return next week, with the kickoff of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. But a holiday is always good for one thing -- checking the search engines to see how each is celebrating the event.

Google today has gone all 1970’s on us, with dancing and a disco ball. The animated numbers 2 0 1 3, are having a blast as the speakers pound out an unheard rhythm and the mirrored ball spins above. One would think we were on the verge of welcoming in 1977, and you can almost hear the Chic music playing in the distance, but actually it's 4 that's waiting impatiently for its chance to take over 3's spot on the colorful dance floor.

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The year is almost at a close, the ball ready to drop above Times Square, fireworks being shipped to all the major cities... It’s a reflective time, as evidenced by the BetaNews staff recently stopping to ponder 2013 in tech products. But, it’s also a time to look forward at what to expect over the coming 12 months.

Google’s Eric Schmidt is no exception, as he has recently taken a couple of minutes to reveal his thoughts about what is in store for 2014.

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Well, that's another year out of the way! It's customary at this time of year to make resolutions... for some people at least. It's something I've always shied away from, but this year is going to be different.

I don’t smoke anymore, I don’t need to lose weight, and I'm unlikely to take over the world in the next twelve months. But when it comes to tech, there is room for improvement, so here are my New Year's resolution that I will, truly, try to stick to.

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This past year has been incredibly busy, and a huge amount of hardware has passed through my hands. Some of it has impressed, a lot has disappointed, but a handful was great enough to make it to my list of favorites for the year.

While I've tried out a great deal of software, this has been a year in which it has been hardware that has caught my eye. So here it is: my favorite tech from 2013.

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While the percentage of incidents was rather low, Google was forced to pull the HP Chromebook 11 from the market due to an overheating charger. Since then, the company has come out with a replacement model, and has begun shipping them out to customers who were affected.

Though the notebook has not yet reappeared in the Play store, it has now gone back up for sale via Amazon. The device is once again listed as "in stock", selling for the $279 that it previously went for.

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Besides girth, Oprah Winfrey and I have something else in common -- we both like to share our favorite things. At the end of every year, I like to reflect on some of my favorite tech products.

This was a very wild year for me as most of the things on my list changed the way I both interact with and think about computers. It contains both hardware and software. So, without further ado, please read on for my list.

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