Many of us use a lot of Google services like search, Gmail, Drive and Calendar. However, the company has a host of other products that may surprise you with what they can do.


Have Spoken Conversations with Google Translate


If you've seen any text on the internet that's not in your native language, chances are you've encountered Google Translate. It's built into Chrome and the web-based form is pretty handy for everyone else. However, the mobile app has quite a few other features that are worth keeping around.

For starters, the mobile app includes "Conversation mode." This allows two people to tap on their respective language, speak aloud, and have their words translated into their partner's language and read back. It's as close to a Star Trek universal translator as you can get right now. The app also allows you to translate written text by taking a photo, and even save translated sentences to your personal phrasebook. While it may not be perfect, the Translate app should probably be installed on every phone.

Track Stocks Over Time with Google Finance


Google Now does a pretty good job if you only want to get information on how a stock is doing for today. However, if you're looking into the health of a company to determine which ones to invest in, Google Finance does a great job of collecting as much of the information you need as possible.

On a basic level, Google Finance will show you how a stock has performed over time, the company's market cap, EPS, P/E, and a whole bunch of other important figures you don't understand as much as you pretend to. If you really want to drill down, you can also check a company's financials—that is, all of the public financial documents the company is required by law to publish—to get a more detailed look at how they make money. If you do any investing on the stock market, the web app should be a primary research tool.


Learn About Your World with Google Earth


Google Earth plays second-fiddle to Maps quite a bit, as they have a lot of overlapping features. When it comes to practical day-to-day tasks like finding food or getting directions, Maps has you covered. For everything else, though, Earth is truly the superior product. One of the more useful functions is the ability to measure distances with a higher degree of accuracy than Maps.

If taking account of tedious trivia isn't your schtick, Earth offers a variety of other features that can reveal the nature of the world around you. In many areas, Earth has over two decades of map data. By using the time slider, you can view what a particular area looked like in the past. Alternatively, if the terrestrial world doesn't interest you, Google Sky (which is part of the Earth software), allows you to view all of the images of the universe Google has collected on its servers.


Create Advanced Notifications with Google Alerts


Google Alerts is a long-time staple of power users, yet it's still relatively obscure among Google services. To put it simple, Google Alerts allow you to get email updates whenever something new happens to a particular search term. Want to find out when the internet has something new to say about Miley Cyrus or Syria (hey, I don't judge)? Google Alerts can let you know as soon as something happens, or on a daily basis for just a summary.

By themselves, Google Alerts are a nifty novelty. However, combined with IFTTT, you can do some pretty potent things. For example, say you want to be notified every time that your name shows up online in some fashion. You can set up an alert to send you an as-it-happens email when your name comes up. Create a filter for that particular Google alert, and use IFTTT to send it along to Pushover to help get your attention. Or use any number of other IFTTT recipes.


Educate Yourself with Google Scholar


Perhaps the least known and used service on this list, Google Scholar serves a great function any researcher should know about. This sub-division of Google's search allows you find scientific articles, academic papers, and legal documents. In a sense, it's what the internet was originally meant to be.

Scholar also allows you to drill down into local legal documents, as well. If you have a need to find information about decisions your local courts have made, you can specify which courts you want to hear from. While you won't be able to get down to city municipals, each state's court of appeals and supreme court are present, as well as circuit courts. Most of us won't have a ton of use for that, but when you have that one legal issue (or if you're a lawyer), you'll be glad you have it.