Official Google Blog: Google blogging in 2008
Every year right about now we round up our blogging activity across Google. Ready? Here goes.
This is our 368th post of the year on the main Google blog, which is 23% more than in 2007. In addition to more posts, we are thrilled to know that we have many more readers now — 78% more, to be exact. The number of unique visitors jumped from 6,738,830 last year to more than 12 million (12,000,723) in 2008. And readers are coming from all over: the UK, Canada, India, Australia, Germany, France, Spain, Japan and beyond. The top non-Google referrers are Yahoo, Digg, Reddit, Lifehacker and Slashdot.
We posted quite a bit about new products (10) and new product features (56), but nothing caused as much excitement as our earlier-than-planned unveiling of Google Chrome. This post alone had 1,735,093 unique visitors and generated 12% of our total-year pageviews on the blog! There was also the much-anticipated announcement of the first Android-powered phone. And people enjoyed reading about our design philosophies. Who knew a little change to a favicon would generate such interest?
But it wasn't all just product news; there was much else to cover in 2008. To mark Google's 10th birthday, we took a moment to reflect on the enormous impact the Internet has had on people's lives since our founding. Some of our in-house experts shared their thoughts on how various technologies will evolve in the next 10 years.
Like many of you, we were on the edge of seats watching all of the U.S. election action. We posted 27 times about political subjects, providing information about voting tools, how the political process works, and what was top of mind on Election Day. It's clear that technology will be playing an even bigger role in politics in years to come.
Of course, we had some fun too: We kept our long-standing April Fools' Day tradition going with the announcement of Project Virgle; we covered new ways to get around the Googleplex and the masterminding of a giant Ferris wheel; and we raised our glass to a couple who got married with Google.
And the Google blog network keeps on growing: 44 new blogs launched this year, for a total of 127 active company blogs. A few highlights: eight new developer blogs (the Open Source blog is shining star, with 370,000 unique visitors since its start in February), and 22 new ads-related blogs, nearly half of which are in languages other than English (there are AdSense blogs in Traditional Chinese and Russian; and AdWords blogs in Danish, German, Turkish, French, Russian, Korean, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, and Spanish). There's even an Analytics blog in French. And we also welcomed three new regional blogs, for India, Africa, and the Ukraine. Sharing information with people wherever they are in whatever language they speak is a priority for us, and each of these new blogs helps us get a little bit closer to this goal. If the total number of Google blogs makes your head spin, don't worry. We've developed a new blog directory and gadget to help you more easily track news and updates from us.
We're looking forward to another robust year of keeping you informed of all the goings-on at Google. In the meantime, we wish you and yours a very happy New Year.
Friday, January 2, 2009
Google grateful season
Official Google Blog: A grateful season
The holidays are a time for giving, and Googlers across the globe have found some creative ways to give back to their communities this season. From raising money and crafting greeting cards to building gingerbread houses and giving blood, Googlers from east to west have been busy spreading good cheer. We've highlighted just a few of these efforts here, and we're looking forward to many more opportunities to give back in the new year.
London
The UK engineering recruitment team started to plan its annual Secret Santa gift exchange. But as they began thinking about last year, they realized that hardly anyone on the team could remember what they'd received, let alone given. Instead of spending 10 pounds on gag gifts, they decided to use the money to make a difference. After discovering that a local children's hospital was in desperate need of gifts, they quickly raised enough money to buy a Nintendo Wii gaming console for one of the wards.
Mexico City
In the past, Google has held a "Doodle 4 Google" contest in the US, the UK, and Australia, inviting kids K-12 to submit a homepage doodle inspired by a particular theme. This year Mexico held its first such contest (theme: "the Mexico we want"). For each doodle submitted, Google donated to a non-profit that works to eradicate childhood malnutrition in Mexico. In total, more than 70,000 kilos (154,000 pounds) of food and aid were donated. Winner, Ana Karen Villagómez, was recently recognized in a ceremony in Mexico City; her doodle (pictured below) will appear on the Google homepage on January 6.
Boston and beyond
Boston Googlers delivered gifts to some very grateful students at a local school and spent the morning reading and playing with the children. The Chicago office held its first-ever holiday blood drive, donating 36 units of blood. And the Ann Arbor office held a "CANstruction" competition, creating sculptures out of canned food, personal items and baby items, which were all later donated.
We hope that your holiday season is filled with plenty of time to slow down and reflect on what's important to you, and that you too feel inspired to find ways to give back to your own community in the new year.
The holidays are a time for giving, and Googlers across the globe have found some creative ways to give back to their communities this season. From raising money and crafting greeting cards to building gingerbread houses and giving blood, Googlers from east to west have been busy spreading good cheer. We've highlighted just a few of these efforts here, and we're looking forward to many more opportunities to give back in the new year.
London
The UK engineering recruitment team started to plan its annual Secret Santa gift exchange. But as they began thinking about last year, they realized that hardly anyone on the team could remember what they'd received, let alone given. Instead of spending 10 pounds on gag gifts, they decided to use the money to make a difference. After discovering that a local children's hospital was in desperate need of gifts, they quickly raised enough money to buy a Nintendo Wii gaming console for one of the wards.
Mexico City
In the past, Google has held a "Doodle 4 Google" contest in the US, the UK, and Australia, inviting kids K-12 to submit a homepage doodle inspired by a particular theme. This year Mexico held its first such contest (theme: "the Mexico we want"). For each doodle submitted, Google donated to a non-profit that works to eradicate childhood malnutrition in Mexico. In total, more than 70,000 kilos (154,000 pounds) of food and aid were donated. Winner, Ana Karen Villagómez, was recently recognized in a ceremony in Mexico City; her doodle (pictured below) will appear on the Google homepage on January 6.
Boston and beyond
Boston Googlers delivered gifts to some very grateful students at a local school and spent the morning reading and playing with the children. The Chicago office held its first-ever holiday blood drive, donating 36 units of blood. And the Ann Arbor office held a "CANstruction" competition, creating sculptures out of canned food, personal items and baby items, which were all later donated.
We hope that your holiday season is filled with plenty of time to slow down and reflect on what's important to you, and that you too feel inspired to find ways to give back to your own community in the new year.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Busy year for the Gmail elves
holiday break to play with all the new stuff
It's been another busy year for the Gmail elves, trying to find places to store all these emails (don't you people ever sleep?)... If you're finding it hard to keep track of all the new things we've added to Gmail over the last few months, here are some of our favorites to check out while you're sipping your eggnog this week:
On behalf of the entire Gmail team, happy holidays! We'll see you in 2009.
It's been another busy year for the Gmail elves, trying to find places to store all these emails (don't you people ever sleep?)... If you're finding it hard to keep track of all the new things we've added to Gmail over the last few months, here are some of our favorites to check out while you're sipping your eggnog this week:
- Catch up with distant friends and family with Gmail voice and video chat, or send them a text message with SMS chat.
- When you're having trouble putting your feelings into words, try an emoticon.
(There's nothing quite like a virtual emoticon hug...)
- Pick a Gmail theme and spice up your inbox.
- Turn on Tasks and keep track of your holiday shopping.
- See your calendar, documents, and email all at once with Calendar and Docs gadgets.
- Get a new, faster Gmail app on your mobile phone.
- Use Mail Goggles to avoid sending out that embarrassing email after the company holiday party.
- Send in your self-addressed stamped envelope and get yourself some Gmail stickers.
- And there's more in Gmail Labs – forgotten attachment detector, superstars, and advanced IMAP controls – check out all the new stuff in the Labs tab under Settings.
On behalf of the entire Gmail team, happy holidays! We'll see you in 2009.
Keyhole Santa Radar Backstory
Tracking Santa: the backstory
When I look back on four years of tracking Old St. Nick on Christmas Eve, I can't help but smile. The Santa tracker has really come a long way. I always thought NORAD's Santa Tracker was a great holiday tradition, but I felt like it could have been even better if people could visualize exactly where Santa was on Christmas Eve. So in 2004, shortly after Keyhole was acquired by Google, we followed Santa in the "Keyhole Earth Viewer" — Google Earth's original name — and we called it the "Keyhole Santa Radar." The audience was relatively small since Keyhole was still a for-pay service at that point, and we hosted everything on a single machine shared with the Keyhole Community BBS server. We probably should have had three separate servers to host the Santa tracker — that first year, we had only a portion of a single machine. That night, about 25,000 people kept tabs on Santa and, needless to say, wreaked some havoc on our servers!
Over the next two years, our Santa-tracking efforts improved dramatically. By December 2005, Keyhole had become Google Earth and our audience had become much, much larger. Our "Santa Radar" team also grew: we used greatly improved icons from Dennis Wang, the Google Doodler, and set up 20 machines to serve the tracking information. My colleague Michael Ashbridge took over the software and more than 250,000 people tracked Santa on Google Earth that Christmas Eve. In 2006, Google acquired SketchUp, a 3D modeling software that enabled us to include models of Santa's North Pole workshop and sleigh. We also incorporated a tracking feed directly from NORAD's headquarters, and we were now displaying NORAD's information in Google Earth. That year, more than a million people tracked Santa.
In 2007, Google became NORAD's official Santa Tracking technology partner and hosted www.noradsanta.org. In addition to tracking Santa in Google Earth, we added a Google Maps tracker and integrated YouTube videos into the journey as well. Now, we had Santa on the map and on "Santa Cam" arriving in several different locations around the world, with commentary in six different languages. The heavy traffic — several millions of users — put Google's infrastructure to the test, but with some heroic work by our system reliability engineers, the Santa Tracker worked continuously.
This year, Googler Bruno Bowden is in charge of the Santa software, and we have further upgraded our server capacity. We're hoping this version of the tracker will be the best yet. In addition to our "Santa Cam" footage, geo-located photos from Panoramio will be viewable in Google Maps for each of Santa's stops that don't include video. We've also included a few new ways to track Santa. With Google Maps for mobile, anyone can keep tabs on him from their mobile phones (just activate GMM and search for "norad santa"). You can also receive updates from "Bitz the Elf" on Twitter by following @noradsanta. And of course, be sure to visit www.noradsanta.org tomorrow morning starting at 6:00 am EST when Santa's journey begins. Enjoy, and see you in 2009!
When I look back on four years of tracking Old St. Nick on Christmas Eve, I can't help but smile. The Santa tracker has really come a long way. I always thought NORAD's Santa Tracker was a great holiday tradition, but I felt like it could have been even better if people could visualize exactly where Santa was on Christmas Eve. So in 2004, shortly after Keyhole was acquired by Google, we followed Santa in the "Keyhole Earth Viewer" — Google Earth's original name — and we called it the "Keyhole Santa Radar." The audience was relatively small since Keyhole was still a for-pay service at that point, and we hosted everything on a single machine shared with the Keyhole Community BBS server. We probably should have had three separate servers to host the Santa tracker — that first year, we had only a portion of a single machine. That night, about 25,000 people kept tabs on Santa and, needless to say, wreaked some havoc on our servers!
Over the next two years, our Santa-tracking efforts improved dramatically. By December 2005, Keyhole had become Google Earth and our audience had become much, much larger. Our "Santa Radar" team also grew: we used greatly improved icons from Dennis Wang, the Google Doodler, and set up 20 machines to serve the tracking information. My colleague Michael Ashbridge took over the software and more than 250,000 people tracked Santa on Google Earth that Christmas Eve. In 2006, Google acquired SketchUp, a 3D modeling software that enabled us to include models of Santa's North Pole workshop and sleigh. We also incorporated a tracking feed directly from NORAD's headquarters, and we were now displaying NORAD's information in Google Earth. That year, more than a million people tracked Santa.
In 2007, Google became NORAD's official Santa Tracking technology partner and hosted www.noradsanta.org. In addition to tracking Santa in Google Earth, we added a Google Maps tracker and integrated YouTube videos into the journey as well. Now, we had Santa on the map and on "Santa Cam" arriving in several different locations around the world, with commentary in six different languages. The heavy traffic — several millions of users — put Google's infrastructure to the test, but with some heroic work by our system reliability engineers, the Santa Tracker worked continuously.
This year, Googler Bruno Bowden is in charge of the Santa software, and we have further upgraded our server capacity. We're hoping this version of the tracker will be the best yet. In addition to our "Santa Cam" footage, geo-located photos from Panoramio will be viewable in Google Maps for each of Santa's stops that don't include video. We've also included a few new ways to track Santa. With Google Maps for mobile, anyone can keep tabs on him from their mobile phones (just activate GMM and search for "norad santa"). You can also receive updates from "Bitz the Elf" on Twitter by following @noradsanta. And of course, be sure to visit www.noradsanta.org tomorrow morning starting at 6:00 am EST when Santa's journey begins. Enjoy, and see you in 2009!
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Jean Bartik ENIAC programmer
Official Google Blog: Jean Bartik: the untold story of a remarkable ENIAC programmer
This guest post was written by Kathy Kleiman, who discovered the ENIAC Programmers 20 years ago and founded the ENIAC Programmers Project to record their stories and produce the first feature documentary about their work. More at www.eniacprogrammers.org. – Ed.
"For many years in the computing industry, the hardware was it, the software was considered an auxiliary thing."
– Jean Bartik
For more than 50 years, the women of Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer (ENIAC) were forgotten, and their role in programming the first all-electronic programmable computer and creating the software industry lost. But this fall, old met young, and a great computer pioneer met today's Internet pioneers. It happened in Silicon Valley and it happened at Google.
A little over a month ago, the Computer History Museum (CHM) in Mountain View honored Jean Bartik with its Fellows Award. This lifetime achievement award recognized her work as a programmer of the ENIAC and leader of the team to convert ENIAC to a stored program machine.
The Fellows Award was a rousing celebration of Bartik, Bob Metcalfe and Linus Torvalds. The next night, Bartik returned to CHM to discuss her life story in An Evening with Jean Jennings Bartik, ENIAC Pioneer. More than 400 people attended. They laughed at Bartik's descriptions of the ENIAC Programmers' exploits and enjoyed her stories of “Technical Camelot,” Bartik's description of her days at Eckert and Mauchly Computer Corporation in the 1950s. This video captures the evening:
During the Q&A session, one audience member asked: “If you were working today, where would you want to work?” Without hesitation, Bartik replied “Google!” with a huge smile. Googlers in the audience cheered.
Two days later, Bartik and I went to Google. We were met by our hosts, Ellen Spertus, Robin Jeffries, Peter Toole and Stephanie Williams, and whisked onto the campus past scrolling screens of Google searches and beach volleyball courts.
In the cafeteria, two dozen Google Women Engineers joined us. They pushed their chairs close to Bartik and leaned in to catch every word. Bartik regaled them with stories of computing's pioneers – the genius of John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert, co-inventors of the computer, and the ingenuity of Betty Holberton and Kay Mauchly Antonelli, fellow programmers and software creators. She shared the joys and struggles of those who created the computer industry.
After lunch we toured the campus. Bartik enjoyed seeing where Googlers program work and the videoconferencing equipment they use to talk with colleagues around the world.
It is a visit we will never forget, and for me, its own moment in history. Twenty years ago, I discovered the ENIAC Programmers and learned their untold story. I founded the ENIAC Programmers Project to record their histories, seek recognition for them and produce the first feature documentary of their story. Our website provides more information about the documentary, WWII-era pictures and an opportunity to help change history. The stories Bartik shared with Googlers that day belong to the world.
This guest post was written by Kathy Kleiman, who discovered the ENIAC Programmers 20 years ago and founded the ENIAC Programmers Project to record their stories and produce the first feature documentary about their work. More at www.eniacprogrammers.org. – Ed.
"For many years in the computing industry, the hardware was it, the software was considered an auxiliary thing."
– Jean Bartik
For more than 50 years, the women of Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer (ENIAC) were forgotten, and their role in programming the first all-electronic programmable computer and creating the software industry lost. But this fall, old met young, and a great computer pioneer met today's Internet pioneers. It happened in Silicon Valley and it happened at Google.
A little over a month ago, the Computer History Museum (CHM) in Mountain View honored Jean Bartik with its Fellows Award. This lifetime achievement award recognized her work as a programmer of the ENIAC and leader of the team to convert ENIAC to a stored program machine.
The Fellows Award was a rousing celebration of Bartik, Bob Metcalfe and Linus Torvalds. The next night, Bartik returned to CHM to discuss her life story in An Evening with Jean Jennings Bartik, ENIAC Pioneer. More than 400 people attended. They laughed at Bartik's descriptions of the ENIAC Programmers' exploits and enjoyed her stories of “Technical Camelot,” Bartik's description of her days at Eckert and Mauchly Computer Corporation in the 1950s. This video captures the evening:
During the Q&A session, one audience member asked: “If you were working today, where would you want to work?” Without hesitation, Bartik replied “Google!” with a huge smile. Googlers in the audience cheered.
Two days later, Bartik and I went to Google. We were met by our hosts, Ellen Spertus, Robin Jeffries, Peter Toole and Stephanie Williams, and whisked onto the campus past scrolling screens of Google searches and beach volleyball courts.
In the cafeteria, two dozen Google Women Engineers joined us. They pushed their chairs close to Bartik and leaned in to catch every word. Bartik regaled them with stories of computing's pioneers – the genius of John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert, co-inventors of the computer, and the ingenuity of Betty Holberton and Kay Mauchly Antonelli, fellow programmers and software creators. She shared the joys and struggles of those who created the computer industry.
After lunch we toured the campus. Bartik enjoyed seeing where Googlers program work and the videoconferencing equipment they use to talk with colleagues around the world.
It is a visit we will never forget, and for me, its own moment in history. Twenty years ago, I discovered the ENIAC Programmers and learned their untold story. I founded the ENIAC Programmers Project to record their histories, seek recognition for them and produce the first feature documentary of their story. Our website provides more information about the documentary, WWII-era pictures and an opportunity to help change history. The stories Bartik shared with Googlers that day belong to the world.
gadget 2.0 - Blog
Official Google Blog: Blog gadget 2.0
Back in September we introduced an iGoogle gadget that makes it possible to read recent posts from all of our corporate blogs, right on your dashboard. With the help of developer Ben Lisbakken, we're ready to roll out the next version of the gadget, which translates posts into 34 languages. Using Google Translate, the gadget gives people all over the world access to posts they might otherwise be unable to read. The default setting translates posts into the language in which your browser is set, but you can also choose from any of our supported languages by going into the "Edit" setting (found in the "Menu" arrow in the right-hand corner). If you want to learn more about Google in Latin America or AdWords in Russia, for example, but haven't had the chance to learn Spanish or Russian, give the gadget a spin. While machine translation is not exact, and we're constantly working to improve the quality, hopefully this new feature lets you get the gist of the post.
Here's a list of the supported languages:
Arabic, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese, Chinese (simplified), Chinese (traditional), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese
Just choose the category of blogs you would like to read and click the "Translate" button.
The gadget will translate the posts and give you the option to "Revert" back to the original language. And to read the entire blog in translation, just click on the blog title beneath the post.
We hope you have fun exploring the entire Google blogosphere.
Back in September we introduced an iGoogle gadget that makes it possible to read recent posts from all of our corporate blogs, right on your dashboard. With the help of developer Ben Lisbakken, we're ready to roll out the next version of the gadget, which translates posts into 34 languages. Using Google Translate, the gadget gives people all over the world access to posts they might otherwise be unable to read. The default setting translates posts into the language in which your browser is set, but you can also choose from any of our supported languages by going into the "Edit" setting (found in the "Menu" arrow in the right-hand corner). If you want to learn more about Google in Latin America or AdWords in Russia, for example, but haven't had the chance to learn Spanish or Russian, give the gadget a spin. While machine translation is not exact, and we're constantly working to improve the quality, hopefully this new feature lets you get the gist of the post.
Here's a list of the supported languages:
Arabic, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese, Chinese (simplified), Chinese (traditional), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese
Just choose the category of blogs you would like to read and click the "Translate" button.
The gadget will translate the posts and give you the option to "Revert" back to the original language. And to read the entire blog in translation, just click on the blog title beneath the post.
We hope you have fun exploring the entire Google blogosphere.
Black Googlers community
Official Google Blog: Black Googlers Network: building community
We believe great ideas can come from anywhere and everyone. And we aspire to be an organization that reflects global diversity, because we know that a world's worth of perspectives, ideas and cultures leads to the creation of better products and services. We have more than a dozen employee-driven resource groups, from Gayglers to GWE (Google Women Engineers), that actively participate around the world in building community and driving policy at Google. This is the next post in our Interface series, which takes a look at valuing people's similarities and differences in the workplace. For more information on how Google fosters an inclusive work environment, visit Life at Google on our Jobs site. – Ed.
It's been a busy few months for the Black Googlers Network (BGN). One of our group's core goals is to build a community that keeps us connected, facilitates the sharing of ideas, and participates in community outreach. We sponsored a variety of events this fall across many of our offices, giving us the opportunity to give back and have some fun while doing it.
To kick things off, a group of us from the Mountain View, New York, Ann Arbor, Chicago and Atlanta offices, to name a few, rolled up our sleeves for our first annual service trip. We headed to New Orleans in September to aid in the Hurricane Katrina rebuilding efforts. Undeterred by Hurricane Gustav, which unexpectedly hit the coast the week before we arrived, we managed to make some adjustments to flights and itineraries and were some of the first volunteers back into the city.
We partnered with the St. Bernard Project, learning everything from how to lay flooring to installing drywall as we worked on three homes. Additionally, we joined a strategy session with The Idea Village, helping them kick off their newest initiative, the 504ward Project. The opportunity to serve the community in such a meaningful way while getting to know BGN members was unique. We each put our minds, bodies, and souls into the city and the experience.
Next, BGN participated in the United Negro College Fund's annual Walk-a-thon in Oakland, CA. Our Google-UNCF partnership also includes an annual scholarship for college students pursing a degree in engineering or computer science, and we're continuing to explore different ways to support and encourage underrepresented students.
This month, we're coming together in many of our offices for the holidays, giving ourselves a chance to catch up and take stock of the work we've done over the past year. Not to be slowed down for too long, though, as we will soon begin the exciting process of planning our new initiatives for 2009.
We believe great ideas can come from anywhere and everyone. And we aspire to be an organization that reflects global diversity, because we know that a world's worth of perspectives, ideas and cultures leads to the creation of better products and services. We have more than a dozen employee-driven resource groups, from Gayglers to GWE (Google Women Engineers), that actively participate around the world in building community and driving policy at Google. This is the next post in our Interface series, which takes a look at valuing people's similarities and differences in the workplace. For more information on how Google fosters an inclusive work environment, visit Life at Google on our Jobs site. – Ed.
It's been a busy few months for the Black Googlers Network (BGN). One of our group's core goals is to build a community that keeps us connected, facilitates the sharing of ideas, and participates in community outreach. We sponsored a variety of events this fall across many of our offices, giving us the opportunity to give back and have some fun while doing it.
To kick things off, a group of us from the Mountain View, New York, Ann Arbor, Chicago and Atlanta offices, to name a few, rolled up our sleeves for our first annual service trip. We headed to New Orleans in September to aid in the Hurricane Katrina rebuilding efforts. Undeterred by Hurricane Gustav, which unexpectedly hit the coast the week before we arrived, we managed to make some adjustments to flights and itineraries and were some of the first volunteers back into the city.
We partnered with the St. Bernard Project, learning everything from how to lay flooring to installing drywall as we worked on three homes. Additionally, we joined a strategy session with The Idea Village, helping them kick off their newest initiative, the 504ward Project. The opportunity to serve the community in such a meaningful way while getting to know BGN members was unique. We each put our minds, bodies, and souls into the city and the experience.
Next, BGN participated in the United Negro College Fund's annual Walk-a-thon in Oakland, CA. Our Google-UNCF partnership also includes an annual scholarship for college students pursing a degree in engineering or computer science, and we're continuing to explore different ways to support and encourage underrepresented students.
This month, we're coming together in many of our offices for the holidays, giving ourselves a chance to catch up and take stock of the work we've done over the past year. Not to be slowed down for too long, though, as we will soon begin the exciting process of planning our new initiatives for 2009.
New style for Google Image Search
Official Google Blog: New search-by-style options for Google Image Search
Many of us use Google Image Search to find imagery of people, clip art for presentations, diagrams for reports, and of course symbols and patterns for artistic inspiration. Unfortunately, searching for the perfect image can be challenging if the search results match the meaning of your query but aren't in a style that's useful to you. So some time ago we launched face search, which lets you limit your search results to only images containing faces (see a search without and with this option). More recently we also rolled out photo search, which limits results to images that contain photographic elements, ignoring many cartoons and drawings which may not be useful to you (see a search without and with this option).
Today we're pleased to extend this capability to clip art and line drawings. To see the effect of these new options, let's take a look at the first few results for "Christmas," one of our most popular queries on Image Search right now.
Photo content
Clip art
Line drawing
All of these options can be selected from the "Any content" drop down in the blue title bar on any search results page, or by selecting one of the "Content types" on the Advanced Image Search page. The good news: no extra typing! In all these examples our query remained exactly the same, we just restricted our results to different visual styles. So whether you're interested holiday wreaths, Celtic patterns, or office clip art, it just became a lot easier to find the images you're looking for.
Many of us use Google Image Search to find imagery of people, clip art for presentations, diagrams for reports, and of course symbols and patterns for artistic inspiration. Unfortunately, searching for the perfect image can be challenging if the search results match the meaning of your query but aren't in a style that's useful to you. So some time ago we launched face search, which lets you limit your search results to only images containing faces (see a search without and with this option). More recently we also rolled out photo search, which limits results to images that contain photographic elements, ignoring many cartoons and drawings which may not be useful to you (see a search without and with this option).
Today we're pleased to extend this capability to clip art and line drawings. To see the effect of these new options, let's take a look at the first few results for "Christmas," one of our most popular queries on Image Search right now.
Photo content
Clip artLine drawingAll of these options can be selected from the "Any content" drop down in the blue title bar on any search results page, or by selecting one of the "Content types" on the Advanced Image Search page. The good news: no extra typing! In all these examples our query remained exactly the same, we just restricted our results to different visual styles. So whether you're interested holiday wreaths, Celtic patterns, or office clip art, it just became a lot easier to find the images you're looking for.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Voice and video chat in Gmail
Official Gmail Blog: Say hello to Gmail voice and video chat
I'm a big user of Gmail chat. Being able to switch from email to chat as needed, all within the same app, is really great for productivity. But people can only type so fast, and even with our new emoticons, there are still some things that just can't be expressed in a chat message.
That's why today we're launching voice and video chat -- right inside Gmail. We've tried to make this an easy-to-use, seamless experience, with high-quality audio and video -- all for free. All you have to do is download and install the voice and video plugin and we take care of the rest. And in the spirit of open communications, we designed this feature using Internet standards such as XMPP, RTP, and H.264, which means that third-party applications and networks can choose to interoperate with Gmail voice and video chat.
Once you install the plugin, to start a video chat, just click on the "Video & more" menu at the bottom of your Gmail chat window, and choose "Start video chat." You'll have a few seconds to make sure you look presentable while it's ringing, and then you'll see and hear your friend live, right from within Gmail. You can click the "pop-out" icon
to make the video larger, or click the fullscreen icon
in the upper left-hand corner for a fully immersive experience. See this all in action in the video below:
Our team is spread between Google offices in the US and Sweden, and video has really changed the way we work. Collaborating across continents and timezones is a fact of life for us, and it sure is easier (and greener) to click "Start video chat" than to get on a plane! And when I do have to visit another Google office, I can use Gmail voice and video chat to check in with my family.
We've just started to roll out Gmail voice and video chat for both PCs and Macs, so if you don't see it right away, don't worry -- it could take a day or so for this feature to be available in all Gmail and Google Apps accounts. If you want to download the plugin right away, visit http://gmail.com/videochat. And if you need a webcam, there are a few models with special discounts through November 30th (I use the QuickCam Pro 9000 myself).
I'm a big user of Gmail chat. Being able to switch from email to chat as needed, all within the same app, is really great for productivity. But people can only type so fast, and even with our new emoticons, there are still some things that just can't be expressed in a chat message.
That's why today we're launching voice and video chat -- right inside Gmail. We've tried to make this an easy-to-use, seamless experience, with high-quality audio and video -- all for free. All you have to do is download and install the voice and video plugin and we take care of the rest. And in the spirit of open communications, we designed this feature using Internet standards such as XMPP, RTP, and H.264, which means that third-party applications and networks can choose to interoperate with Gmail voice and video chat.
Once you install the plugin, to start a video chat, just click on the "Video & more" menu at the bottom of your Gmail chat window, and choose "Start video chat." You'll have a few seconds to make sure you look presentable while it's ringing, and then you'll see and hear your friend live, right from within Gmail. You can click the "pop-out" icon
to make the video larger, or click the fullscreen iconin the upper left-hand corner for a fully immersive experience. See this all in action in the video below:Our team is spread between Google offices in the US and Sweden, and video has really changed the way we work. Collaborating across continents and timezones is a fact of life for us, and it sure is easier (and greener) to click "Start video chat" than to get on a plane! And when I do have to visit another Google office, I can use Gmail voice and video chat to check in with my family.
We've just started to roll out Gmail voice and video chat for both PCs and Macs, so if you don't see it right away, don't worry -- it could take a day or so for this feature to be available in all Gmail and Google Apps accounts. If you want to download the plugin right away, visit http://gmail.com/videochat. And if you need a webcam, there are a few models with special discounts through November 30th (I use the QuickCam Pro 9000 myself).
Picasa 3 (and name tags) go global
Official Google Blog: Picasa 3 (and name tags) go global
A few months back, we announced some pretty big upgrades to Picasa and Picasa Web Albums for English-speaking users in the U.S. On the PC side, we rolled out a brand-new version of Picasa, with a slew of new tools like effortless web sync, movie editing, and photo-retouching capabilities. On the web, we launched "name tags," a new feature that automatically helps organize your photo collection based on who's in each of your pictures.
Today, just in time for your holiday snapshots, these changes (and more!) are available in all of the 38 languages we currently support. If you've been waiting to try the new photo-collage feature in Picasa, or been curious to see how clustering technology can automatically find similar faces across your photo collection, now's the time to download Picasa 3.1 or opt in to name tags on Picasa Web Albums.
Of course, having a truly global audience sharing and commenting on photos is one of the things that makes Picasa special. The people and places you'll spot on our Explore page attest to this, as do the multilingual comments users receive on their most popular public albums. That's why we just launched automatic comment translation on Picasa Web Albums, which harnesses Google Translate to make sure you know that "美麗的落日" means "Beautiful sunset!"
In fact, if you look closely, you'll see that we've recently rolled out a number of other small but meaningful changes across Picasa Web Albums, in all 38 languages -- ranging from improved sharing to better video playback. Swing by the Google Photos blog to learn more about what's new.
(Or, if you speak British or American English, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Brazilian or European Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Turkish, Danish , Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish, Bulgarian, Catalan, Croatian, Czech, Greek, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Romanian, Serbian, Slovakian, Slovenian, Tagolog, Thai, Vietnamese, or Ukrainian, just visit Picasa Web Albums and see for yourself!)
A few months back, we announced some pretty big upgrades to Picasa and Picasa Web Albums for English-speaking users in the U.S. On the PC side, we rolled out a brand-new version of Picasa, with a slew of new tools like effortless web sync, movie editing, and photo-retouching capabilities. On the web, we launched "name tags," a new feature that automatically helps organize your photo collection based on who's in each of your pictures.
Today, just in time for your holiday snapshots, these changes (and more!) are available in all of the 38 languages we currently support. If you've been waiting to try the new photo-collage feature in Picasa, or been curious to see how clustering technology can automatically find similar faces across your photo collection, now's the time to download Picasa 3.1 or opt in to name tags on Picasa Web Albums.
Of course, having a truly global audience sharing and commenting on photos is one of the things that makes Picasa special. The people and places you'll spot on our Explore page attest to this, as do the multilingual comments users receive on their most popular public albums. That's why we just launched automatic comment translation on Picasa Web Albums, which harnesses Google Translate to make sure you know that "美麗的落日" means "Beautiful sunset!"
In fact, if you look closely, you'll see that we've recently rolled out a number of other small but meaningful changes across Picasa Web Albums, in all 38 languages -- ranging from improved sharing to better video playback. Swing by the Google Photos blog to learn more about what's new.
(Or, if you speak British or American English, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Brazilian or European Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Turkish, Danish , Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish, Bulgarian, Catalan, Croatian, Czech, Greek, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Romanian, Serbian, Slovakian, Slovenian, Tagolog, Thai, Vietnamese, or Ukrainian, just visit Picasa Web Albums and see for yourself!)
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