Based on RSS, instant Google article or news update(all electronic media ownership are the original media organization, this site provides only the latest information updates and RSS links to the original media page)
PayPal in talks with Google - ITWeb - Google - Google News http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNGfi3E5N5CiuXaq-SuLtqIwW9iy7w&url=http://www.itweb.co.za/index.php?option%3Dcom_content%26view%3Darticle%26id%3D35926:paypal-in-talks-with-google%26catid%3D69%26Itemid%3D58
... QSD8250 processor and a Google Android Donut version 1.6 OS, a 4-inch scratch resistant TFT touchscreen display with WVGA (480 x 854 pixels) resolution. ... See all stories on this topic »...... 2010-08-17T07:16:38Z
Google Cozies Up to Like.com PC World Google will soon announce the acquisition of Like.com, the image-matching technology company formerly known as Riya. The Silicon Valley rumor mill says the ...
TECH CHRONICLES - Ex-MySpace CEO joins Zynga as VP San Francisco Chronicle Facebook: Facebook Inc. has reportedly acquired a small Mountain View startup co-founded by the "godfather" of Google Inc.'s successful Adsense online ...
Premuim News WebSite Zimonet Even if you do not know exactly how things like Google Adwords, Google Adsense and Affiliate Marketing actually work, most people are familiar with how ...
Swingly: New Search Engine Reveals Just The Facts Search Engine Land (blog) For other questions, Swingly is showing ads in the right from Google's AdSense program. Hickl says Swingly may also monetize with paid answers to complement ...
Chitika: Bing Passes Yahoo In Search Market Share Search Engine Land (blog) Chitika is an advertising network similar to Google AdSense. The company receives data about visits to the 80000 sites in its network, which are mostly US ...
Hulu Serving 3x as Many Ads as YouTube Mashable (blog) YouTube relies more on non-video forms of advertising, like banners and AdSense, including ad bars that pop up during videos. Hulu has some display ads, ...
Google Adsense payment process problem for YouTube Partners San Francisco Chronicle (blog) A key part of the YouTube Partner program objective of having its content producers earn a living is the smooth running of the Google Adsense payment system ...
Google to allow trademark terms in AdWords Travolution UK customers of Google's AdWords will be able to include their rivals' trademarked terms in their AdWords text, according to an official blog post. ...
Google AdWords Folklore: The Second Coming Moovin On Up (blog) The legend of the mythical Google AdWord beast is shrouded in mystery. Some say it has the head of a lion and tail of a serpent, while others believe that ...
Guide to Optimizing Your Site for the Search Engine lonad News However, the Google Adword external keyword research tool is different from other free keyword tool. When you want the competition of the keyword to rank ...
Analysis: Trademarks Who's Who Legal The case of third parties bidding on the phrase 'Louis Vuitton' as an adword earlier this year is an apt example of the problems faced by mark holders ...
Making Money Off of Developing Countries IDNBlog (blog) Many are so obsessed with domain statistics such as the Google Adword Keyword Tool (“GAKT”), that they are blinded to other opportunities. ...
Malicious widget hacked millions of Web sites Computerworld Using several search engines, Huang estimated that that infected widget appeared on between 500000 and 5 million domains. Monday, he bet on the bigger of ...
They did say that Google Android would be one of the most versatile operating systems available today, and they weren't kidding. ... See all stories on this topic »...... 2010-08-17T05:22:16Z
This is interesting considering the strong sales that Verizon has seen for the Google Android phones, such as the HTC Incredible and the Motorola Droid, ... See all stories on this topic »...... 2010-08-17T05:22:16Z
Either that, or you could develop for Adobe AIR which not only is available on traditional desktop platforms for also Google's Android mobile operating ... See all stories on this topic »...... 2010-08-17T01:36:33Z
This new offering from the company will be on Google's Android mobile operating system which will be rolled out in March. Supposedly the new product will be ... See all stories on this topic »...... 2010-08-16T23:12:56Z
Google to Acquire Like.com? Rumors Are Flowing - Google Alerts - Google Android http://news.google.com/news/story?ncl=http://ipcommunications.tmcnet.com/topics/ip-communications/articles/95374-google-acquire-likecom-rumors-flowing.htm&hl=en&geo=us A visual search engine has already been incorporated into the Google Android, allowing users to take a picture of a monument, landmark or even a person and ... See all stories on this topic »...... 2010-08-16T23:12:56Z
Android faced similar problems. For example, Jackeey wallpaper application detected personal information on each device where it was installed. ... See all stories on this topic »...... 2010-08-16T20:48:25Z
Asus To Launch Android Eee Tablet - Google Alerts - Google Android http://news.google.com/news/story?ncl=http://feeds.informationweek.com/click.phdo%3Fi%3D13eacb7014cbf871cebd67594dacbdd7&hl=en&geo=us By Esther Shein A Google Android-powered, 10-inch tablet device will be launched by Asus Computer in March 2011 for under $399, CEO Jerry Shen said after a ... See all stories on this topic »...... 2010-08-16T20:48:25Z
Asus's Eee tablet plans revealed - Google Alerts - Google Android http://news.google.com/news/story?ncl=http://www.zdnet.co.uk/blogs/tech-tech-boom-10017860/asuss-eee-tablet-plans-revealed-10018273/&hl=en&geo=us Under-the-bonnet, the Eee Tablet is said to be based on an AsusTek-developed Linux operating system rather than Microsoft Windows or Google Android. ... See all stories on this topic »...... 2010-08-16T18:50:17Z
Adobe has already released Flash 10.1 for Google Android users (on phones that support Android 2.2, “FroYo”), and it's working on versions for Palm WebOS, ... See all stories on this topic »...... 2010-08-16T18:50:17Z
Of all the great stories people send us, some simply make us laugh and appreciate even more why we’re in the search business. For our final post in our series of your Google stories, we’re sharing three tales that we found particularly funny and unique. We hope they make for good Friday summer reading. Enjoy!
Just last month, Trichelle wrote about how Google helped with the rediscovery of a lost wallet:
Received: 7/18/2010 From: Trichelle This isn't really a question but a great story I thought Google would be interested in hearing. Today I called my daughter in St. Louis and found out her friends that were suppose to be coming to see her in St. Louis were stuck in Chicago because the driver's keys and wallet were lost. They searched everywhere cancelled credit cards and tried to have a new car key made....but without ID could not. The group was getting angry at Brandon the one who lost the keys and wallet, and my daughter in St. Louis was highly disappointed because her friends she hadn't seen in a long time were not going to be able to come see her. Well I'm in Perry Georgia and decided to google "Brandon [Brandon’s last name] wallet". And low and behold the first thing that comes up is a Chicago Craigslist entry telling Brandon his wallet had been found and where he could pick it up. I then called Brandon and he and his wallet were reunited and now the group is on the way to my daughter in St. Louis For the record, after the fact I tried Yahoo and Bing and no wallet. Google rocks!
On to the next:
From: Usman You ever hear a song that you wish you knew the name of? Usually you can just Google a few key lyrics to find the answer, but when the song has no lyrics, one has to get creative. This was the case a few years ago when I was tasked with finding out the name of that famous circus/carnival music, you know, with the calliope, like, the clown music people usually hum in situations when someone's just done something silly.. you know, it kind of goes like "doot doot doodle-oodle oot doot do do?" Sorta? Of course it's more likely that you'd recognize the tune if I could whistle it to you. Except everyone I'd whistled to, despite recognizing the tune, had no clue what the name of the song was. So, on a whim, I googled it. That is, I went to Google Search, typed in "doot doot doodle-oodle oot doot do do" (without quotes, even!), clicked "I'm Feeling Lucky"—and guess what? It's called "Entrance of the Gladiators"—also known as "Thunder and Blazes" -- by Czech composer Julius Fučík. Good ear, Google, good ear.
And finally ...
From: Michelle I'm a librarian and I use Google all day every day. Today I helped a senior citizen find the telephone number of the company that made her frying pan. Her frying pan handle had broke and she wanted it replaced. She had actually brought the frying pan into the library where I work, because it had been many years since she had purchased it and didn't know who the manufacturer was. I searched the words on the underside of the pan and not only found the manufacturer, but found that the pan had a 50 year guarantee! One satisfied Library patron, thanks to Google.
We hope you enjoyed these stories as much as we did. We’ll work hard on making Google even more helpful, so that you’ll keep ‘em coming!
Posted by Jack Menzel, Director of Product Management and the search team
Responding to the floods in Pakistan - The Official Google Blog http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/responding-to-floods-in-pakistan.html Pakistan has been struck by the worst flooding in its recorded history. The latest estimate of the number of people affected by the flood exceeds 14 million—more than the combined total of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the 2005 Kashmir earthquake and the 2010 Haiti earthquake. Critical infrastructure has been damaged over the last two weeks and clean water is in short supply. As monsoons approach, flooding is expected to worsen.
Our Crisis Response team has been working to use existing tools and build new ones to help the relief efforts. We just launched a page in Urdu and English where you can find information, resources and donation opportunities to help the victims of the floods. We’re also donating $250,000 to international and local NGOs to immediately aid in relief efforts. Although we’ve been able to provide satellite imagery for disasters in the past, cloud cover in Pakistan has prevented us from compiling useful imagery so far. We hope to share imagery as soon as possible.
We’ve already learned a lot about building useful tools from our previous efforts to help with disaster relief. Following the earthquake in Haiti, a small team of Googlers visited relief aid workers in Haiti to understand how we could further help. In observing and speaking with the relief aid workers, we learned that they needed up-to-date information about available resources (such as which field hospitals have X-ray machines or orthopedic surgeons), their location and contact information. Coordination between various health and relief facilities that spring up in a disaster zone can be challenging.
Based on what we learned in Haiti, we’ve been working to develop Resource Finder, a new tool to help disseminate updated information about which services various health facilities offer. It provides a map with editable records to help relief workers maintain up-to-date information on the services, doctors, equipment and beds available at neighboring health facilities so that they can efficiently arrange patient transfers. We normally wouldn’t release the tool so quickly, but decided to make an early release version of Resource Finder available for supporting relief efforts in Pakistan. This is the first time the tool is being launched during a disaster situation so we’ll be working closely with NGOs to understand its usefulness and will iterate accordingly.
We’ve also launched Person Finder in both Urdu and English for this disaster. This application allows individuals to check and post on the status of relatives or friends affected by a disaster. Fortunately, we’ve heard that missing persons has not been as concerning an issue as it was during the earthquakes in Haiti and Chile, but we’ll leave the application up regardless.
Responding to a disaster of this scale is a daunting task, but we can all do something to help. We will try to do our part and continue working with the many incredible NGOs to develop tools that help them work more effectively.
Posted by Ka-Ping Yee, Software Engineer, Google.org
There seems to be no hotter topic for discussion among Internet watchers these days than concerns over online free expression -- from the role of bloggers in advancing democratic movements, to sophisticated government censorship, to debates over how best to balance transparency with national security concerns. YouTube, Google and the Central European University will make our own contribution to the conversation at a major international conference we’re hosting in Budapest from September 20-22. We've invited grassroots activists, bloggers and vloggers from five continents, as well as representatives from NGOs, academia, industry and government to begin a long-term discussion about these issues and to form international working groups to promote practical change.
But a conversation about online free expression would be nothing without contributions from you. From election protests to government whistleblowing to grassroots advocacy, we’ve seen YouTube users upload, watch and share stories that would’ve never received global attention before the Internet era. That's why we're inviting you to submit your own video that answers this question:
"What's the biggest barrier to free expression on the Internet, and what would you do to overcome it?"
You can go to our Moderator series here to submit ideas and videos and/or to vote on your favorite contributions from others around the world.
Please participate by September 7, and we’ll showcase many of your responses at the conference in Budapest later in the month. We’ll also offer highlights from the dialogue on CitizenTube.
Posted by Bob Boorstin, Public Policy, and Steve Grove, YouTube News and Politics
Like most search quality engineers at Google, the projects I work on revolve around helping people find information. The vast amount of content on the web makes this a daunting task—sometimes it feels like searching for a needle in a field full of haystacks. I've always thought one of the amazing abilities of search is how it can sift through that content to help make a connection that otherwise would never be made.
Because of this, some of my favorite search stories come from people who have used Google to reunite with loved ones and family members. It's inspiring to know that search has played a role in creating some of the most important moments in people's lives. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did!
Willie met Elizabeth long before Google existed, but used search to find her 24 years later:
Received: 1/20/2010 From: Willie I would like to thank you for helping to bring me together with my girlfriend. We hope you will enjoy hearing how your company played a part in our wonderful romance. Here's how it happened:
Elizabeth and I originally met in a club in 1986. We hit it off very well in that brief encounter but did not start a relationship at that time. Twenty-four years later, because she had made such a powerful impression, I still remembered Elizabeth well. I decided to try to contact her. I Googled her, using her name and hometown and was delighted to find her in the top spot. I emailed her, and we began an email and texting campaign. We were reunited several weeks later, fell in love soon after, and have been inseparable ever since. Thank you Google for enabling me to find my sweetheart all these years later!
Jennifer also used Google search to reunite with an old flame after 18 years:
Received: 1/8/2010 From: Jennifer Twenty-one years ago I was an art student living in London. One day a friend talked me into having a beer after our painting class...little did I know that one decision would change my life forever. That afternoon we walked into a pub in Nottinghill and I saw a really cute guy having tea with a friend—he and I couldn't stop looking at each other! As I got up to leave, I told him he was “cute” so he asked me out. Because of my busy schedule at school we only had one date but I was absolutely smitten with him. (He used to slip love notes through my front door in the morning.) A few weeks later, I had to return to the US and I phoned him from Heathrow to say good-bye and that I was sorry I didn't get to spend more time with him. I had been busy with my final exams, but he just assumed I had been brushing him off which was not true! I was only 20 years old and I knew I had to go back home to the US, how could it possibly work?
Fast forward 18 years and I'm sitting in my apartment in NYC and thinking about my long lost Hans. I Googled his name and found him still living in London. I sent him an email and asked him if he remembered me. He wrote back and said “Yes” and that he would be traveling to NYC in two weeks and could we have dinner? Our first official date was Waldorf salad at the Waldorf Astoria. We discovered after all those years that the initial spark was still there. We dated back and forth between NYC and London for two years. Last year he moved back to the Netherlands and he asked me to join him a few months later. We got married on August 21, 2009.
And Adrian from the Netherlands was able to locate his biological mother using Google:
Received: 11/9/2009 From: Adrian For many years I have been using Google as a search tool looking for my biological mother in Australia. In May 2009 a Google search led me to my mother's name on an Internet site. From there I was able to research and confirm that the name on the Google page was in fact my real mother. I made contact in June 2009 and we have been enjoying a wonderful reunion via email and telephone ever since. My mother is scheduled to arrive in Los Angeles on December 12 2009 and after 43 years we get to meet each other in person for the fist time. My new-found mother will now be able to share Christmas with her new found family.
It isn't often that a mild-mannered software engineer gets to help two people find one another decades later or on different sides of an ocean. I appreciate both the opportunity to help make these connections and the people behind these stories for sharing them. Thanks, and keep on searching!
Over the past few days there’s been a lot of discussion surrounding our announcement of a policy proposal on network neutrality we put together with Verizon. On balance, we believe this proposal represents real progress on what has become a very contentious issue, and we think it could help move the network neutrality debate forward constructively.
We don’t expect everyone to agree with every aspect of our proposal, but there has been a number of inaccuracies about it, and we do want to separate fact from fiction.
MYTH: Google has “sold out” on network neutrality.
FACT: Google has been the leading corporate voice on the issue of network neutrality over the past five years. No other company is working as tirelessly for an open Internet.
But given political realities, this particular issue has been intractable in Washington for several years now. At this time there are no enforceable protections – at the Federal Communications Commission or anywhere else – against even the worst forms of carrier discrimination against Internet traffic.
With that in mind, we decided to partner with a major broadband provider on the best policy solution we could devise together. We’re not saying this solution is perfect, but we believe that a proposal that locks in key enforceable protections for consumers is preferable to no protection at all.
MYTH: This proposal represents a step backwards for the open Internet.
FACT: If adopted, this proposal would for the first time give the FCC the ability to preserve the open Internet through enforceable rules on broadband providers. At the same time, the FCC would be prohibited from imposing regulations on the Internet itself.
Here are some of the tangible benefits in our joint legislative proposal:
Newly enforceable FCC standards
Prohibitions against blocking or degrading wireline Internet traffic
Prohibition against discriminating against wireline Internet traffic in ways that harm users or competition
Presumption against all forms of prioritizing wireline Internet traffic
Full transparency across wireline and wireless broadband platforms
Clear FCC authority to adjudicate user complaints, and impose injunctions and fines against bad actors
Verizon has agreed to voluntarily abide by these same requirements going forward – another first for a major communications provider. We hope this action will convince other broadband companies to follow suit.
MYTH: This proposal would eliminate network neutrality over wireless.
FACT: It’s true that Google previously has advocated for certain openness safeguards to be applied in a similar fashion to what would be applied to wireline services. However, in the spirit of compromise, we have agreed to a proposal that allows this market to remain free from regulation for now, while Congress keeps a watchful eye.
Why? First, the wireless market is more competitive than the wireline market, given that consumers typically have more than just two providers to choose from. Second, because wireless networks employ airwaves, rather than wires, and share constrained capacity among many users, these carriers need to manage their networks more actively. Third, network and device openness is now beginning to take off as a significant business model in this space.
In our proposal, we agreed that the best first step is for wireless providers to be fully transparent with users about how network traffic is managed to avoid congestion, or prioritized for certain applications and content. Our proposal also asks the Federal government to monitor and report regularly on the state of the wireless broadband market. Importantly, Congress would always have the ability to step in and impose new safeguards on wireless broadband providers to protect consumers’ interests.
It’s also important to keep in mind that the future of wireless broadband increasingly will be found in the advanced, 4th generation (4G) networks now being constructed. Verizon will begin rolling out its 4G network this fall under openness license conditions that Google helped persuade the FCC to adopt. Clearwire is already providing 4G service in some markets, operating under a unique wholesale/openness business model. So consumers across the country are beginning to experience open Internet wireless platforms, which we hope will be enhanced and encouraged by our transparency proposal.
MYTH: This proposal will allow broadband providers to “cannibalize” the public Internet.
FACT: Another aspect of the joint proposal would allow broadband providers to offer certain specialized services to customers, services which are not part of the Internet. So, for example, broadband providers could offer a special gaming channel, or a more secure banking service, or a home health monitoring capability – so long as such offerings are separate and apart from the public Internet. Some broadband providers already offer these types of services today. The chief challenge is to let consumers benefit from these non-Internet services, without allowing them to impede on the Internet itself.
We have a number of key protections in the proposal to protect the public Internet:
First, the broadband provider must fully comply with the consumer protection and nondiscrimination standards governing its Internet access service before it could pursue any of these other online service opportunities.
Second, these services must be “distinguishable in purpose and scope” from Internet access, so that they cannot over time supplant the best effort Internet.
Third, the FCC retains its full capacity to monitor these various service offerings, and to intervene where necessary to ensure that robust, unfettered broadband capacity is allocated to Internet access.
So we believe there would be more than adequate tools in place to help guard against the “cannibalization” of the public Internet.
MYTH: Google is working with Verizon on this because of Android.
FACT: This is a policy proposal – not a business deal. Of course, Google has a close business relationship with Verizon, but ultimately this proposal has nothing to do with Android. Folks certainly should not be surprised by the announcement of this proposal, given our prior public policy work with Verizon on network neutrality, going back to our October 2009 blog post, our January 2010 joint FCC filing, and our April 2010 op-ed.
MYTH: Two corporations legislating the future of the Internet.
FACT: Our two companies are proposing a legislative framework to the Congress for its consideration. We hope all stakeholders will weigh in and help shape the framework to move us all forward. We’re not so presumptuous to think that any two businesses could – or should – decide the future of this issue. We’re simply trying to offer a proposal to help resolve a debate which has largely stagnated after five years.
It’s up to Congress, the FCC, other policymakers – and the American public – to take it from here. Whether you favor our proposal or not, we urge you to take your views directly to your Senators and Representatives in Washington.
We hope this helps address some of the inaccuracies that have appeared about our proposal. We’ll provide updates as the situation continues to develop.
Posted by Richard Whitt, Washington Telecom and Media Counsel
Our mobile phones have become modern-day Swiss Army knives. An Android phone is a handheld computer, a music player, a notepad, a GPS navigation unit and more, all rolled into one sleek device that fits in your pocket. Today’s phones do so many things for us that sometimes we don’t even think about how we do them.
Even though our phones do all these new things, the most natural way of interacting with a phone remains what it always has been: speaking. And to that end, we’re pleased to introduce Voice Actions for Android. Voice Actions are a series of spoken commands that let you control your phone using your voice. Call businesses and contacts, send texts and email, listen to music, browse the web, and complete common tasks, all just by speaking into your phone.
To use Voice Actions, tap the microphone button on the Google search box on your home screen, or press down for a few seconds on the physical search button on your phone to activate the “Speak Now” screen. Let Mike LeBeau, the lead engineer for Voice Actions, show you in this video.
Speak any of these commands to perform a Voice Action on your phone:
send text to [contact] [message]
listen to [artist/song/album]
call [business]
call [contact]
send email to [contact] [message]
go to [website]
note to self [note]
navigate to [location/business name]
directions to [location/business name]
map of [location]
And of course, you can still conduct a Google search using your voice.
While we’re at it, we’re also releasing an updated version of the Google search widget for Android. When you type a local search query, like [italian restaurants] you’ll see suggested restaurants with addresses and ratings. Also, as you type queries, you can refine them further by tapping the pencil icon that appears to the right of search suggestions.
Both Voice Actions and the new Google search widget require Android 2.2 (Froyo), and will be pre-installed with the new Droid 2 phone from Motorola and Verizon. Voice Actions are currently available for U.S. English speakers.
If you have another phone with Android 2.2 (like the Nexus One, HTC Evo or the original Droid), you’ll need to download several app updates from Android Market to get all the latest goodness:
Voice Search (this app includes Voice Actions)
Google Search widget
music apps (e.g. Pandora, Last.fm, Rdio, mSpot)
To get started fast, scan the QR codes for these apps below.
We think Voice Actions help you get things done on your phone faster and easier. Give it a try, and let us know what you think!
Voice Search
Search widget
Posted by Hugo Barra, Product Management Director, and Dave Burke, Engineering Manager
I work on projects to help people communicate between languages—whether to read in foreign languages, write in different scripts or chat with people in other countries. Helping people understand information and each other, regardless of language, is an incredibly rewarding experience. This is why it’s always exciting to hear real testimonials from people who have used our language tools—especially in unexpected ways.
Ryan, from Ottawa, shared this moving story of how he used Google Transliteration to learn his future fiancée’s native language:
Received: 1/14/2010 From: Ryan In October 2009, I proposed to my wonderful girlfriend, Irina, and am happy to report we are getting married this Summer. Although we met and fell in love in North America, I am from the United States, while she is originally from Bangladesh.
As our relationship developed, I naturally felt compelled to learn my fiancee's native language, to better understand her life and to learn to communicate to her non-English-speaking family members. [...] Recalling my junior high Spanish courses, I put together a list of English words I figured I should learn in Bangla and passed the list to Irina. After she had translated them for me, I clumsily began constructing awkward sentences and surprising her with them. [...] To help push my education along further, I transferred my word list into a Google spreadsheet via Google Documents. Whenever Irina would use a Bangla word I hadn't heard before, I would ask her what it meant, and then immediately put the word into my Google Document, which I titled “Bangla Dictionary.”; My dictionary grew and grew. Today it contains over 350 words and phrases.
As much as I enjoyed this process, in less than a year I had reached a “peak” and learned as much Bangla as I would ever learn using this method. I realized that if I were ever to learn how to speak Bangla, I would need to become LITERATE in Bangla. [...] That was when I discovered Google Transliteration. Irina had already shown me how to express Bangla words in English characters. By using your Transliteration feature I could spell a word the only way I knew how, and see immediately what it looked like in Bangla! With the help of a few online Bengali alphabet sites, I could now start learning the characters in the contexts of words and sentences I understood.
I am happy to report that I am finally learning to read and write in Bangla. [...] Thanks to your applications, I have learned a second language, become closer to my fiancee, and have opened the door toward building strong ties in my new Bangladeshi family.
We’re always happy to hear how people are using our tools to achieve their goals and, in this case, build relationships with future in-laws across the globe. We wish all the best to Ryan and Irina and here’s to many more years of communicating in Bangla!
Posted by Anjali Joshi, Director, Product Management
I work on several projects at Google with the goal of helping people improve their health and that of their loved ones. It’s humbling to read the feedback we receive from people who have used Google to find health information. These stories make us proud of what we do and encourage us to work harder to make our products even better.
Joe from Northern Ireland sent this story about how information he found with Google helped him welcome a new member to his family—firsthand:
Received: 12/23/2009 From: Joe All I can say is thanks to google search engine. Why? My daughter went into labour in the early hours of Wednesday morning ... my wife phoned [emergency services] and my daughter got on her laptop and googled how to deliver a baby in an emergency ... I delivered my grandson just in time for the ambulance to arrive. The ambulance staff were gobsmacked to say the least. It hasn't quite sunk in yet but thanks to google and the emergency services I have a beautiful grandson. So there you have it first there was Google Earth now we have Google Birth. Many thanks.
Michael found resources to help him and his mother cope with the challenges of cancer treatment:
Received: 2/6/2010 From: Michael I am ... a Sergeant in the Marine Corps. I just wanted to say thank you for your search [engine] and the work it does to make information readily available to the world. I recently found out my mother has cancer in the esophagus. She has been undergoing chemo treatment ... and the last few days I've been on Google reading stories about other cancer survivors, side effects they've had from the treatments and even articles on foods she can eat to help heal her cancer. I get emotional writing this but I think google.com has been a blessing from God in facilitating people like myself to get connected to resources that are helpful, especially in difficult circumstances. Google has saved me countless hours of research that I could be spending in and out of libraries [to] find the information we need to help us get through this ... Thank you and God bless you.
Bettie used Google to find a surgeon who helped save her husband’s kidney:
Received: 11/6/2009 From: Bettie My husband and I have an amazing story to share about a surgeon I found easily through Google. Everyone that hears our story tells us we should write a book. Not sure we'll ever get around to that, but we do want to thank Google for directing us to the best possible surgeon to save my husband's one remaining kidney. He had been to many local, well-respected doctors and nationally recognized hospitals for months. None seemed to have the expertise needed to perform the challenging surgery on four malignant kidney tumors. Not only did Google direct us quickly to an expert in the field, but the site had a place to "Talk to the Doctor". On a Sunday afternoon, the doctor himself responded by email in four minutes ... Thank you for saving my husband's only kidney and possibly his life!
Thanks to Joe, Michael, Bettie and the many others who share their deeply personal stories with us. It’s the people behind every search—and our ability to help them—that make my team feel so committed to providing the best services we can.
Posted by Roni Zeiger, MD, Chief Health Strategist
This new batch of apps helps users seamlessly and easily tackle all kinds of issues—from time management with RescueTime to procurement with Ketera.
Check out our post on the Enterprise Blog for more information on these apps as well as the other seven launching today, or go right to the Marketplace.
Posted by Harrison Shih, Google Apps Marketplace Team
We talk a lot about the products we build and the things we’re doing, but we don't often talk about the ways in which search touches people’s lives every day. Yet our ability to help people is why I—and most of the people around me—love working on search.
Some of the best feedback we receive are the real-world stories of how people have used Google to make an impact in their lives or the lives of others. We’re constantly amazed at what people can do and have done with our technology—from making a life-saving diagnosis to reuniting with a long lost love.
This first story struck a chord with me because, oddly enough, a chimney plays a significant role in my family lore. The night I was born, our chimney collapsed into the house—in fact it was the chimney collapsing that triggered my mom’s labor. Google helped Christine’s family avoid harm in a similar situation.
Submitted: 11/12/09 2:24 PM From: Christine YOU SAVED OUR LIVES!!! While we usually Google things like hotel prices, product reviews and autism materials, today Google returned the right site at the top of the page in just the nick of time! About an hour after warming up our fireplace, my husband and I were startled by the rumbling sound of what we thought was a low flying helicopter. My husband darted outside to look for one, but there was nothing of any aircraft in sight. He did tell me about the thick billowing smoke coming from our chimney.
Nervous, I quickly Googled “chimney fires” and within a second the first link caught my attention. At this site I learned that the rumbling sound is what many people hear when their chimney have caught fire! I then called 911 and they advised us to get out of the house right away!
Within 5 minutes our chimney was fully engulfed with flames! I have been praising Google all day today!
So thank you Google for working so hard to make researching and information gathering fast, easy and accessible. Without your commitment to a better product, we very well may have lost our house or our lives today!
This is just the first of many stories like it that we plan to share with you over the course of this week. They’re a huge source of inspiration for us and we’ll hope they’ll be for you, too—check ‘em out. And if you have a Google story, tell us about it.
Posted by Johanna Wright, Director of Product Management, Search
A joint policy proposal for an open Internet - The Official Google Blog http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/joint-policy-proposal-for-open-internet.html Today, Eric Schmidt and Ivan Seidenberg, Chairman and CEO of Verizon, will announce a joint proposal for an open Internet. We’ve been working with Verizon to find common ground on the issue of net neutrality for nearly a year—last October we released a shared statement of principles, and in January, we made a joint filing to the FCC. We hope today’s proposal, a suggested legislative framework for consideration by lawmakers, helps to advance the debate over open Internet rules in Washington. We also believe that it is best for users and for the web.
Today we’re happy to announce that The Maryland Education Enterprise Consortium (MEEC) will make Google Apps for Education available to 1.4 million students in the state. MEEC is comprised of the University System of Maryland, Maryland Higher Education Commission and Maryland Department of Education, and provides software resources and services to its 194 members across the state. This includes all 24 public K-12 districts, libraries and all public and private higher education institutions.
Maryland joins the ranks of Oregon, Colorado and Iowa, who each enabled their educational institutions to “go Google” under one statewide agreement. And more than 8 million other students, staff and faculty across the globe actively use our free messaging and collaboration suite.
In addition to Google Apps, this agreement also enables MEEC member institutions—for example University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC)—to license Google Postini Services such as Google Message Security, for use with the existing email infrastructure to enhance Spam filtering and email security for students, faculty and staff.
According to Assistant Vice President of IT at UMBC, Mike Carlin, students were overwhelmingly in favor of Google and vocal about their preference when it came to email since it “works exceptionally well with their mobile lifestyle.”
Posted by Miriam Schneider, Apps for Education Team
Google and Slide: building a more social web - The Official Google Blog http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/google-and-slide-building-more-social.html We’re excited to announce we’ve acquired Slide, a social technology company with an extensive history of building new ways for people to connect with others across numerous platforms online.
For Google, the web is about people, and we’re working to develop open, transparent and interesting (and fun!) ways to allow our users to take full advantage of how technology can bring them closer to friends and family and provide useful information just for them.
Slide has already created compelling social experiences for tens of millions of people across many platforms, and we’ve already built strong social elements into products like Gmail, Docs, Blogger, Picasa and YouTube. As the Slide team joins Google, we’ll be investing even more to make Google services socially aware and expand these capabilities for our users across the web.
While we don’t have any detailed product plans to share right now, we’re thrilled to welcome Max and his very talented team to Google, and we can’t wait to work together to give people more and better tools to communicate and connect.
The 2010 Google Faculty Summit - The Official Google Blog http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/2010-google-faculty-summit.html Last week, we held our sixth North American Computer Science Faculty Summit at our Mountain View headquarters. About 100 faculty members from universities around the world attended the summit, which focused on security, cloud computing and the social web.
Included in the agenda were presentations by Eric Grosse on security at scale, Ulfar Erlingsson on cloud computing and software security, Betsy Masiello on engineering private spaces online, and Andrew Fikes on “planetary-scale” storage systems in the cloud. Andrew Tompkins also moderated a panel on the future of the social web. Alfred Spector, VP of Research and Special Initiatives, talked of “prodigiousness” in his discussion of the potential of cloud computing. He noted that the network underlying the Internet is predicted to carry a zetta-byte (1021) per year, which translates to 32 KB/sec for 1 billion people. You can see a more complete list of the topics and panels on the Faculty Summit site.
In his closing talk last Friday, Vint Cerf spoke about the “Future of the Internet.” Among his topics were the challenges in migrating from IPv4 to IPv6, which has a much larger address space than IPv4. This results from the use of a 128-bit address, whereas IPv4 uses only 32 bits. We will soon exhaust the IPv4 address space, so migration is imminent, and complex.
Vint also discussed the great potential in implementing an “Internet of things,” which refers to a network of everyday objects. Imagine that you’re traveling, and receive a text message informing you that the temperature in your wine cellar has increased to a level that can damage the wine. You then start an app on your smartphone that interfaces with the cellar’s temperature control system to bring the level down. That’s just one possible application as we connect more and more of our personal and home electronics to the Internet.
Over on the Research Blog, we’ve posted deeper dives on a few of the talks—on cloud and security, cloud computing and the social web. Visit the research site for videos of the plenary talks and presentations. And if you have questions, please add them to our Moderator page and we’ll be glad to answer.
Posted by Maggie Johnson, Director of Education & University Relations
Google Tags makes it easy as pie to find local customers - The Official Google Blog http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/google-tags-makes-it-easy-as-pie-to.html This is the latest post in our series about Small Business and the real-life entrepreneurs who are using Google tools to fuel their success. Previous posts have illustrated the possibilities enabled by online resources like Google Places, Google Apps, Google AdWords and YouTube. Starting today, we invite small business owners to check out our new Google Small Business Blog for more inspiring stories like these and the latest news, updates and tips to help you grow your business. -Ed.
To characterize the life of a small business owner as “busy” would be a bit of an understatement. You get up early to set up shop, spend all day on your feet working with customers and burn the midnight oil balancing expenses—then do it all over again the next day. It’s no wonder you sometimes feel you’d have to be superhuman (or be able to stop time) just to keep up!
With so many hats to wear, we know you don’t have much time to play the role of marketer. But attracting potential customers is an essential part of growing your business. With that in mind, we designed Google Tags, our newest online advertising offering through Google Places that lets you personalize your Google.com and Google Maps listing with specific information such as a coupon, video, website, menu, reservations, photos or a custom message.
Susan Holt, the co-founder of a recreational cooking school in Washington, D.C., has been using Google Tags, and I’ve asked her to share her experience:
My friend Susan Watterson and I had been friends for about 20 years and were both instructors at the same culinary institute when we saw a unique market opportunity and decided to go for it. Our employer, who was primarily focused on professional training for students and one-off recreational cooking classes for the public, was constantly turning away business; their business model relied on a paper catalog of printed classes that were advertised months in advance, so they had little flexibility to accept new bookings. But after watching an estimated $40,000 worth of business walk out the door one week because they couldn't accommodate the size or timing of these types of corporate events, Susan and I decided we could flip that model and create a cooking school specifically tailored to recreational learning and private events.
With no previous business experience, we began the long and eye-opening process of starting our own company. Along the way, we learned more about raising capital, leasing property and complying with design and construction codes than we ever could have imagined. Our vision and passion kept us going, and in November 2008, CulinAerie opened its doors in a 3,800 square foot space in downtown D.C.
A strong website with the built-in functionality to register and pay for classes online was part of our strategy from the start, but we soon realized we needed a way to generate more awareness. Part of that effort included building out our Place Page on Google Places to gain more visibility and make sure people looking for us online had basic information like our phone number and location.
Then in May 2010, we heard about Google Tags, a super-easy way to do online advertising that wouldn’t require any ongoing work. We already knew through our website analytics data that our free business listing on Google.com and Google Maps was bringing in lots of customers—about 60 percent, in fact. So the ability to include a little yellow tag to help our listing stand out against the competition was a no-brainer—and at $25 a month, it wouldn’t break the bank. At first, we used the website tag to drive more traffic to our website, but then we decided to push the envelope and switched to a coupon tag that promoted a discount on our classes.
Since setting up Google Tags, the clickthroughs on our listing have increased a whopping 400 percent! Class bookings also jumped 9 percent because of the coupon tag, and our 24 contract instructors are busier than ever teaching classes on baking and entertaining for occasions like team-building events, birthday parties and summer bridal showers.
Now, while we’re concentrating on the important things that ensure our clients have a good time at our school—like creating new concoctions for the cocktail mixing course—our Tags are working for us and helping us connect with new local customers online. I guess you could say it’s been a recipe for success.
Posted by Chikai Ohazama, Director of Product Management, Google Tags
You can count the number of books in the world on 25,972,976 hands - The Official Google Blog http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/you-can-count-number-of-books-in-world.html Ever wonder just how many different books there are in the world? After some intensive analysis, we've come up with a number. Standing on the shoulders of giants—libraries and cataloging organizations—and based on our computational resources and experience of organizing millions of books through our Books Library Project and Books Partner Program since 2004, we’ve determined that number.
As of today, we estimate that there are 129,864,880 different books in the world. That's a lot of knowledge captured in the written word! This calculation used an algorithm that combines books information from multiple sources including libraries, WorldCat, national union catalogs and commercial providers. And the actual number of books is always increasing.
Ultimately, it is truly incredible to fathom the depth and breadth of published works out there in the world. To find out how we calculated this number (no, we didn’t count them on our fingers:), check out the Google Books blog.
Update on Google Wave - The Official Google Blog http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/update-on-google-wave.html We have always pursued innovative projects because we want to drive breakthroughs in computer science that dramatically improve our users’ lives. Last year at Google I/O, when we launched our developer preview of Google Wave, a web app for real time communication and collaboration, it set a high bar for what was possible in a web browser. We showed character-by-character live typing, and the ability to drag-and-drop files from the desktop, even “playback” the history of changes—all within a browser. Developers in the audience stood and cheered. Some even waved their laptops.
We were equally jazzed about Google Wave internally, even though we weren’t quite sure how users would respond to this radically different kind of communication. The use cases we’ve seen show the power of this technology: sharing images and other media in real time; improving spell-checking by understanding not just an individual word, but also the context of each word; and enabling third-party developers to build new tools like consumer gadgets for travel, or robots to check code.
But despite these wins, and numerous loyal fans, Wave has not seen the user adoption we would have liked. We don’t plan to continue developing Wave as a standalone product, but we will maintain the site at least through the end of the year and extend the technology for use in other Google projects. The central parts of the code, as well as the protocols that have driven many of Wave’s innovations, like drag-and-drop and character-by-character live typing, are already available as open source, so customers and partners can continue the innovation we began. In addition, we will work on tools so that users can easily “liberate” their content from Wave.
Wave has taught us a lot, and we are proud of the team for the ways in which they have pushed the boundaries of computer science. We are excited about what they will develop next as we continue to create innovations with the potential to advance technology and the wider web.
Posted by Urs Hölzle, Senior Vice President, Operations & Google Fellow
Over the last couple of weeks, we introduced several new capabilities in Google Docs for documents and drawings, and added the ability for organizations to tailor Google Apps to meet the needs of different groups within their organizations. We also launched a new version of Google Apps to meet the security and policy needs of government agencies in the U.S.
Document translation and undo smartquotes in Google Docs On Tuesday we introduced automatic document translation to the new document editor in Google Docs. This allows you to instantly convert your document into any one of the 53 languages, powered by the technology behind Google Translate. And while we were at it, we added the ability for you to change smartquotes—angled quotation marks—back to straight quotation marks by pressing Ctrl-Z (Cmd-Z on a Mac).
Zoom and more in drawings Last Monday, we also made improvements to the drawing editor in Google Docs, too. You can zoom in several different ways now: with the toolbar zoom icon, by drawing a rectangle around the area to zoom, zoom options in the “View” menu and with zoom keyboard shortcuts. We also introduced several changes to the shape-drawing tools, including pie and arc drawing improvements, the ability to duplicate shapes while resizing and rotating, new line ending decoration controls and new style options for the corners of shapes.
User policy management One of the top requests from businesses, organizations and schools using Google Apps has been the ability to enable different applications for different groups within the organization. For example, a K-12 school may choose not to give Chat to students, but still allow faculty and staff to instant message with each other. Last Tuesday we launched user policy management, which lets administrators divide their users in to organizational units, and give each group access to different sets of services.
Google Apps for Government now available On Monday we announced Google Apps for Government, a new version of Google Apps specifically tailored to the policy and security needs of federal, state and local governments in the United States. In addition to the applications and administrative controls available in the business edition of Google Apps, the service for government agencies has received Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) certification and accreditation from the U.S. General Services Administration, the first such certification for any cloud computing messaging and collaboration suite.
Who’s gone Google? To go along with the launch of Google Apps for Government, we’re excited to share stories from two government organizations who are now using Google Apps. The U.S. Navy InRelief program is using Google Apps to improve coordination in disaster relief efforts, and the Berkeley Lab, a member of the National Laboratory system supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, is using Google Docs and Sites to support better collaboration among scientists and researchers.
We’re also thrilled to welcome another new crop of schools to Google Apps. Haverford College, Wayne County Community College District and Westwood College are all going Google!
I hope you're making the most of these new features, whether you're using Google Apps with friends, family, coworkers or classmates. For more details and updates from the Apps team, head on over to the Google Apps Blog.
Posted by Jeremy Milo, Google Apps Marketing Manager
What do Alex Trebek, teachers and Googlers have in common? Last week, these individuals and groups all came together at the Googleplex in Mountain View, CA to celebrate exploration and learning.
Google hosted its first Geo Teachers Institute, an intensive two-day workshop in which 150 educators received hands-on training and experience with Google Maps, Google SketchUp and Google Earth, including features like Mars, Moon and SkyMaps. Attendees from around the globe not only learned how these products work, but also discovered tips and resources for introducing these tools to students and using them to conceptualize, visualize, share and communicate about the world around them. Through this event, teachers were hopefully inspired to bring the world's geographic information to students in compelling, fresh and fun ways.
John Hanke, VP of Product Management, addressing the audience of educators
As part of our continued effort to collaborate with teachers and help students get a better sense of places across the globe, we also announced that Google Earth Pro is now available to educators for free through the Google Earth for Educators site. Educators from higher educational and academic institutions who demonstrate a need for the Pro features in their classrooms can now apply for single licenses for themselves or site licenses for their computer labs. A similar program exists for SketchUp Pro through the Google SketchUp Pro Statewide License Grant, which is currently being provided via grants to 11 states, and available to all others at the K-12 level at no cost.
In conjunction with these exciting Geo-related events and announcements, the Geo Education team also thought it’d be timely and fun to test Googlers’ geographic knowledge by hosting the company’s first-ever Google Geo Bee. With help from National Geographic, 68 teams relived their school years and took a written geography exam, competing for a spot on stage with Alex Trebek, who hosted the main event. The competition was based on the group version of the National Geographic Bee for students, which Google has sponsored for the past two years. Questions included those like “Which country contains most of the Balkan Mountains, which mark the boundary between the historical regions of Thrace and Moesia?” and “Ben Nevis, the highest peak in the United Kingdom, is located in which mountain chain?”
The winners of our Google Geo Bee: Ian Sharp, Marcus Thorpe and Rob Harford
The final three Google teams (the Tea-Drinking Imperialists, the Geoids and the Titans) all showed off their geographic literacy and answered a plethora of diverse and complex questions. In the end, it was the Tea-Drinkers who emerged the winners when they figured out that Mecca was the answer to the clue, “Due to this city’s location on a desert trading route, many residents were merchants, the most famous of whom was born around A.D. 570.” And they didn’t just walk away with bragging rights; thanks to Sven Linblad from Linblad Expeditions, they also won an amazing adventure trip to either the Arctic, the Galapagos or Antarctica.
Through all of these education efforts — for teachers, students and grown-up Googlers alike — we hope people of all ages never stop exploring.
Having been a new dad for six months now, I’ve quickly come to learn two valuable parenting lessons. First, being a father is truly a full-time job—and second, sleep is completely overrated. Whether buying the latest bottles, binkies, blankets and bibs, or just blogging about the whole magical journey, becoming a father has been the most invigorating and moving experience of my lifetime.
This week, I’m excited to help introduce our latest search story, New Baby. The video really captures the joys (and costs!) of becoming a new parent. I’d like to share my heart-felt compassion with new dads everywhere (and of course, my wife and the other mothers out there who are the true heroes.) We will all rest when they head off to college—in the meantime, enjoy!
Stargazing in Pittsburgh - The Official Google Blog http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/07/stargazing-in-pittsburgh.html Humans have always been fascinated by the night sky. And Googlers are no exception. Over the years, Google engineers have used their 20 percent time to create Google Sky, Moon, Mars and most recently Google Sky Map for Android. This handy app, built by engineers in our Pittsburgh office, turns your Android-powered phone into a live map of the night sky. You just point your phone to the sky and it gives you information about the stars and planets that you’re looking at. Since we introduced the app a year ago, Sky Map has been downloaded more than 5 million times.
On Sunday night we had a wonderful opportunity to share our passion for astronomy with our community in Pittsburgh at the Deep Sky Urban Star Party, held in the abandoned swimming pool at Leslie Park in Lawrenceville. We loaded up a bunch of Android phones with Sky Map and joined the Amateur Astronomers Association of Pittsburgh—who brought along their telescopes—and several hundred local residents for a night of stargazing.
As a Sky Map engineer the biggest thrill I get is when we get emails from people who have used our app to show a planet to their children for the first time. At the Star Party we were delighted to have the chance to show people around the night sky in person. It was great to meet so many people who were both excited by astronomy and interested in Google’s technology. Thanks for all of your ideas for new features, and a big thank you to the Leslie Park Pool Collective and all involved for organizing such a fun event.
Light summer reading: entertaining legal opinions - The Official Google Blog http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/07/light-summer-reading-entertaining-legal.html Last November, we added legal opinions to Google Scholar. Legal opinions consider serious issues and help refine the laws that govern our country—but they can also be surprisingly entertaining. We’ve shared some of these for your summer reading pleasure on the Google Scholar blog.
Introducing Google Apps for Government - The Official Google Blog http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/07/introducing-google-apps-for-government.html Today we’re excited to announce a new edition of Google Apps. Designed with guidance from customers like the federal government, the City of Los Angeles and the City of Orlando, Google Apps for Government includes the same great Google applications that people know and love, with specific measures to address the policy and security needs of the public sector.
We’re also pleased to announce that Google Apps is the first suite of cloud computing messaging and collaboration applications to receive Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) certification and accreditation from the U.S. General Services Administration. The FISMA law applies to all information systems in use by U.S. federal government agencies to help ensure they’re secure. The federal government’s General Services Administration has reviewed the documentation of our security controls and issued an authorization to operate, the official confirmation of our FISMA certification and accreditation. This review makes it easier for federal agencies to compare our security features to those of their existing systems; most agencies we have worked with have found that Google Apps provides at least equivalent, if not better, security than they have today. This means government customers can move to the cloud with confidence.
Take Berkeley Lab, a member of the national laboratory system supported by the U.S. Department of Energy. It’s managed by the University of California and conducts unclassified research across a wide range of scientific disciplines. Berkeley researchers collaborate with scientists around the world, so emailing version upon version of documents among collaborators and trying to juggle disparate files is difficult. Berkeley Lab researchers have been using Google Apps to share documents that live in the cloud, and can view and edit documents and spreadsheets simultaneously knowing they are always working from the latest information. (Read more from Berkeley Lab’s Chief Information Officer on the Enterprise blog.)
And we’re not stopping with FISMA certification. Google Apps for Government will continue to evolve to meet unique government requirements. Google Apps for Government stores Gmail and Calendar data in a segregated system located in the continental United States, exclusively for our government customers. Other applications will follow in the near future. The suite is a “community cloud”—as defined by the National Institute for Science and Technology—to support the needs of our government customers. Google Apps for Government is available now to any federal, state or local government in the United States.
With reviews of our security controls in place, government agencies can more easily take advantage of all the benefits of one of the world’s best cloud computing systems. Google’s cloud offers higher reliability, best-in-class disaster recovery and access to a steady stream of innovation—all of which can provide substantial improvements over existing systems in addition to significant cost savings. And with no hardware or software to install and maintain, Google Apps for Government allows agencies to redeploy resources to technology projects core to their mission of serving the public. This new edition should give governments an even stronger case for making the move to the cloud.
Update July 27: Clarified details regarding the source of our certification and accreditation.
Posted by Kripa Krishnan, Technical Program Manager, Google Apps for Government
Bending, walking, breathing, hearing, seeing and sleeping are simple things that are often taken for granted, as are thinking, learning, and communicating.
Twenty years ago today, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was signed into law. This milestone legislation bans persons or companies from discriminating against anyone with limited abilities. It’s hard to imagine a world in which the right to participate in activities commonly enjoyed by the bulk of the population are denied or inadequately accommodated, but that was the case before ADA.
The efforts of the advocates who came to Washington two decades ago to rally for their civil rights has transformed so much of the modern world around us. As someone who’s worn hearing aids since I was 13, for example, I very much appreciate that most television programs and DVDs or Blu-Ray disks are captioned. On my way home, I might pass through a door that I know is wide enough for a wheelchair -- because the ADA set the building codes that require it. I see service animals on the DC Metro, accessible checkout aisles at my grocery store, ramps on sidewalks, and designated parking in movie theater lots: all there because of the important provisions included in the ADA.
Whereas the ADA set legal standards for ensuring equal rights for Americans with disabilities, Google is keenly aware that technology can help all users better enjoy the world around them. From opening millions of titles of printed content to persons with visual impairments through Google Book Search, to providing ready and easy-to-use captions on YouTube, to including a built-in screenreader and text-to-speech engine in Android, to introducing new extensions on Chrome to make online text easier to read, we’re serious about honoring our mission to make the world’s information universally accessible and useful. You can keep up with our progress at google.com/accessibility.
Congratulations to all those who work to make the ADA a living, breathing reality. For all the years I’ve been working on policy in Washington, it’s still rare to see a law that has had as positive and fundamental an influence on our lives as this Act. There still is work to be done to meet the goals of ADA, and we are committed to doing our part.
As we seek to expand the most comprehensive search experience on the web, we've made a number of recent enhancements to your search results. Ultimately, what you're looking for isn't limited to text websites; you may be looking for a tweet, a video or a place—and we want to make sure you can find all of it. This week, we've made it easier to find definitions and images.
Dictionary search feature enhancements When it comes to dictionary-related searches, both content and precision are vital. Recently, we expanded our dictionary search feature to all global English users, giving you quick and easy access to even more useful dictionary information. We added implicit triggering, which means you can simply search for [flummox] and find the definition, you don't have to search for [define flummox] or [what is flummox]. We've also improved the definition result snippet to show more details such as parts of speech and pronunciation. Stay tuned for more enhancements here, including an expanded mobile experience.
Our biggest redesign yet for Google Images Our focus on comprehensiveness extends itself to our other search properties, including Google Images. Over time, Google Images has become a very popular source of visual information. For many of you, Google Images has become a great tool for inspiration, learning, and even shopping. And, today, we've indexed more than 10 billion images -- so you can imagine the depth.
With this in mind, we have introduced a new design for Google Images. You'll now see a dense, tiled layout that makes it easy to view many images—up to 1,000—on a single scrollable page. In addition, we made the thumbnail previews on the results page larger, so all you have to do is hover over an image to get an even larger view. You'll also find more information about the image, and other image-specific features in the thumbnail preview. Once you click an image, you'll be taken to a new landing page that displays a large image directly over the website that hosts the image—so you can instantly learn more about the source and context.
Meizu M9 to Feature 1GHz Processor and Display Similar to the iPhone 4’s - Android Community http://androidcommunity.com/meizu-m9-to-feature-1ghz-processor-and-display-similar-to-the-iphone-4s-20100816/ There’s no question that Meizu, the Chinese-based company, likes to emulate Apple’s iPhone. They do it in such a way, though, that legal action has never been taken against the company. This is helped with the inclusion of Android as the Operating System of choice, along with the company’s utilization of an original User Interface. [...]...... Mon, 16 Aug 2010 22:11:45 +0000
Philips GoGear Connect On Sale Across the Pond - Android Community http://androidcommunity.com/philips-gogear-connect-on-sale-across-the-pond-20100816/ If you’ve been waiting for an Android-powered Personal Media Player (PMP), but don’t have the patience for Samsung to bring you their Galaxy Player, then maybe the GoGear Connect from Philips would be a better choice. (Which we first saw back in February.) That is, if you find yourself in Europe, and not in the [...]...... Mon, 16 Aug 2010 21:58:37 +0000
Motorola Droid 2 World Edition, Droid Pro, and Stingray Tablet for Verizon Coming Soon? - Android Community http://androidcommunity.com/motorola-droid-2-world-edition-droid-pro-and-stingray-tablet-for-verizon-coming-soon-20100816/ Internal screenshots come and go, but they’re certainly a great way to find out which devices are making their way in and out of Verizon’s inventory at any given time. Thanks to a tipster sending in some digital screens of Verizon’s inventory, we’ve got a bit more details about the plenty-rumored upcoming Droid devices. Unfortunately, [...]...... Mon, 16 Aug 2010 21:06:06 +0000
Adobe Flash Player 10.1 Finalized for Nexus One - Android Community http://androidcommunity.com/adobe-flash-player-10-1-finalized-for-nexus-one-20100816/ Adobe, at the Flash Summit in San Francisco today, officially announced that Flash Player 10.1 for the Nexus One has lost that whole Beta tag, and is now officially, official. What’s even better, though, is that if you have a Nexus One, you can find your wait into the Android Market, seek out Flash Player [...]...... Mon, 16 Aug 2010 20:46:31 +0000
Adobe AIR Making its Way to Android by Fourth Quarter 2010 - Android Community http://androidcommunity.com/adobe-air-making-its-way-to-android-by-fourth-quarter-2010-20100816/ While Flash hasn’t necessarily been missing from the Android platform, it hasn’t been present in its fullest form until recently. With the launch of Adobe’s Flash Player 10.1 on Android 2.2-equipped devices like the Nexus One and Motorola Droid 2, plenty of folks are eagerly awaiting Adobe’s AIR platform as well. Today, at Adobe’s Flash [...]...... Mon, 16 Aug 2010 18:16:21 +0000
HP Zeen Tablet Featuring Android to Launch This September - Android Community http://androidcommunity.com/hp-zeen-tablet-featuring-android-to-launch-this-september-20100816/ Despite the fact that HP acquired Palm (the house that built webOS), it looks like HP’s first tablet is actually going to be powered by our favorite little green android. The tablet is called the Zeen, and it’s not a self-sustaining machine like many of the other tablets out there. It’s meant, actually, to be [...]...... Mon, 16 Aug 2010 17:10:50 +0000
Motorola Droid 2 Plagued by Signal Issues? - Android Community http://androidcommunity.com/motorola-droid-2-plagued-by-signal-issues-20100816/ Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve heard about Apple’s flamboyant attempts to drag the entire mobile phone industry into its “antennagate” situation. In the mean time though, company’s have come out swinging, saying that their devices don’t fall into the same shoddy category as Apple’s iPhone 4. Motorola was one of those companies, [...]...... Mon, 16 Aug 2010 17:01:39 +0000
Firmware gives up new details on Samsung Galaxy Tab - Android Community http://androidcommunity.com/firmware-gives-up-new-details-on-samsung-galaxy-tab-20100816/ We have already heard a bit about the coming Samsung Galaxy Tab that is powered by Android. A firmware has surfaced in Europe for the device that gives us hints at some of the hardware and other features that the Galaxy Tab will support.The firmware shows that the screen will have a resolution of 480 [...]...... Mon, 16 Aug 2010 11:50:40 +0000
Samsung Epic 4G for Sprint Reviewed by SlashGear - Android Community http://androidcommunity.com/samsung-epic-4g-for-sprint-reviewed-by-slashgear-20100815/ It’s only been a few days since we heard official word from Sprint and Samsung when customers would be able to get their hands on the newest 4G capable device coming to market. You should have already got your reserve down, or even your pre-order, with a release date of August 31st set in stone [...]...... Mon, 16 Aug 2010 04:06:33 +0000
Samsung YP-MB2 Poses for Another Photo - Android Community http://androidcommunity.com/samsung-yp-mb2-poses-for-another-photo-20100813/ The Personal Media Player from Samsung, better known as the YP-MB2, still exists. It’s not just some cruel joke that Samsung is playing on all of us. And just to make sure that we all know that, it’s lined itself up for some more photos. It’s still looking just as good as ever, especially with [...]...... Fri, 13 Aug 2010 21:22:20 +0000
Samsung Hard at Work on GPS Fix for Galaxy S Devices - Android Community http://androidcommunity.com/samsung-hard-at-work-on-gps-fix-for-galaxy-s-devices-20100813/ There’s no question that the Galaxy S devices out there in the wild have a GPS situation going on right now. Plenty of folks keep telling us about it, after all. And while it’s all well and good for us, and the owners, to know that there’s a problem, there’s a certain amount of satisfaction [...]...... Fri, 13 Aug 2010 21:15:35 +0000
HTC Droid Incredible Update to Android 2.2 Rolling Out August 18th, Sources Say - Android Community http://androidcommunity.com/htc-droid-incredible-update-to-android-2-2-rolling-out-august-18th-sources-say-20100813/ August 12th may have been a big day for its own reasons, but we’re already looking forward to August 18th. That’s the date that the original Motorola Droid is supposed to get Adobe’s Flash Player 10.1, and it’s now supposedly the date that Droid Incredible owners out there are going to get their own [...]...... Fri, 13 Aug 2010 20:42:42 +0000
Motorola Droid X Now Features Clockwork Recovery - Android Community http://androidcommunity.com/motorola-droid-x-now-features-clockwork-recovery-20100813/ One feature that wasn’t listed with the Droid X, was Clockwork Recovery. Why? Because Motorola doesn’t want you to root your phone and do whatever you want to it. They went as far as to add that pesky eFuse aspect, and ever since, folks have been wondering if the Droid X would ever, ever be [...]...... Fri, 13 Aug 2010 19:11:51 +0000
Dell Streak Update to Android 2.1 Leaks [Video] - Android Community http://androidcommunity.com/dell-streak-update-to-android-2-1-leaks-video-20100813/ This wouldn’t be the first time a version of the Android mobile Operating System leaked out ahead of its intended launch. In fact, it’s pretty much a common occurrence now-a-days. Nothing wrong with that at all. This time around, it’s for those over there in the UK who’ve managed to pick up one of Dell’s [...]...... Fri, 13 Aug 2010 16:58:47 +0000
HTC Merge Makes an Appearance in Verizon Inventory, Android in Tow - Android Community http://androidcommunity.com/htc-merge-makes-an-appearance-in-verizon-inventory-android-in-tow-20100813/ At this point, we can safely assume that HTC has a ton of Android-based devices coming down the pipe. So many, in fact, that one or two of them can manage to sneak into a wireless company’s inventory, and no one be the wiser. At least, not right away. There’s no telling how long the [...]...... Fri, 13 Aug 2010 16:49:11 +0000
Motorola Droid 2 Advertisement “Digits” Shows Up Online - Android Community http://androidcommunity.com/motorola-droid-2-advertisement-digits-shows-up-online-20100813/ The successor to the original Droid, the Motorola Droid 2, launched yesterday. It’s what many people consider a soft launch, as there wasn’t much official press lingering around anywhere about its existence. We had heard in the past that, due to the fact that the Droid X launched less than a month before, that Verizon [...]...... Fri, 13 Aug 2010 16:40:26 +0000
HTC Lexikon and HTC Bee specs outed from ROMS - Android Community http://androidcommunity.com/htc-lexikon-and-htc-bee-specs-outed-from-roms-20100813/ Details of two new HTC Android smartphones have emerged, seemingly dug out of the company’s own ROMs by 911HTC. According to the site, the HTC Bee and HTC Lexikon each run Android 2.2 Froyo, with the Bee packing a lowly 528MHz MSM7625 chipset while the Lexikon gets a somewhat more satisfying 800MHz MSM7630.Both have a [...]...... Fri, 13 Aug 2010 12:40:19 +0000
iFixit tears up Droid 2 so you don’t have to - Android Community http://androidcommunity.com/ifixit-tears-up-droid-2-so-you-don%e2%80%99t-have-to-20100813/ When a new gadget launches geeks everywhere want to know the new device in and out. Therefore, we all knew this day was going for the Droid 2. The device has been officially torn down over at iFixit.I will say that the Droid 2 has a lot of parts. A lot of the gear I [...]...... Fri, 13 Aug 2010 11:43:44 +0000
Google Updates Gesture Search, Now With Flipping Action - Android Community http://androidcommunity.com/google-updates-gesture-search-now-with-flipping-action-20100812/ Last year, Google unveiled a new way for you to search. They like to do that kind of thing, after all. This time around, it was meant for Android-only devices, and you could use our finger to simply draw a shape, and find a result. For example, drawing an “n” would get you “n”-based results. [...]...... Thu, 12 Aug 2010 22:53:10 +0000
Dell Blaze Appears on the Scene, Shows Off Android 1.5 - Android Community http://androidcommunity.com/dell-blaze-appears-on-the-scene-shows-off-android-1-5-20100812/ We’ll go ahead and assume that Dell must not have received the memo. You know the one, where it says that most devices are now running Android 2.x, and that 1.5 is just about as archaic as it gets? That’s the one. Why do we say that? Because the Dell Blaze has just shown up [...]...... Thu, 12 Aug 2010 22:37:42 +0000
Google set to acquire Like.com - Googling Google Blog RSS | ZDNet http://www.zdnet.com/blog/google/google-set-to-acquire-likecom/2369 It sounds like Google is in the final stages of talks to acquire Like.com. The technology being eyed up by Google is visual search — the remnants of a company that used to search for people by face called Riya.Like TechCrunch says, the reasoning behind the acquisition isn’t quite clear — it doesn’t really [...]...... Sun, 15 Aug 2010 21:26:25 -0700
The problem with Google Voice Actions for Android - Googling Google Blog RSS | ZDNet http://www.zdnet.com/blog/google/the-problem-with-google-voice-actions-for-android/2367 Google Voice actions is a “cool” new feature for Android (Froyo 2.2). With this new feature you are able to tell your phone what to do, with just your voice. How about some of these examples:1) “send text to bob hey are you coming for lunch or what?”2) “note to self don’t forget [...]...... Fri, 13 Aug 2010 14:34:45 -0700
Oracle sues Google: Looking for a piece of the mobile pie - Googling Google Blog RSS | ZDNet http://www.zdnet.com/blog/google/oracle-sues-google-looking-for-a-piece-of-the-mobile-pie/2362 In what was a surprising turn of events for many in the tech community, Oracle filed a formal complaint of patent infringement against Google, demanding a jury trial and unspecified damages over the use of Java in their Android platform. So why now? Can they win? And what does it mean for Google and Java [...]...... Fri, 13 Aug 2010 03:00:40 -0700
Macbook/iPhone/iPad or PC/Droid/Streak? No, seriously... - Googling Google Blog RSS | ZDNet http://www.zdnet.com/blog/google/macbookiphoneipad-or-pcdroidstreak-no-seriously/2360 This wasn’t your typical Mac vs. PC question. This was an iPad-driven, serious inquiry from someone who could function in either Mac-land or PC-land. Would my Android loyalties be too strong for objectivity?...... Thu, 12 Aug 2010 03:00:14 -0700
Mysterious Google mobile event on Thursday - Googling Google Blog RSS | ZDNet http://www.zdnet.com/blog/google/mysterious-google-mobile-event-on-thursday/2358 It appears that Google is getting ready to announce a couple new features for Android on Thursday at an invite-only event, according to an invitation received by Gizmodo. There is only speculation at this point about what might be announced, but whatever it is, events like this tend to generate lots of buzz, and [...]...... Tue, 10 Aug 2010 23:18:01 -0700
The real Google-Verizon Net neutrality story - Googling Google Blog RSS | ZDNet http://www.zdnet.com/blog/google/the-real-google-verizon-net-neutrality-story/2353 There has been an incredible amount of mud-slinging and hand-wringing over a perceived back office deal by Google and Verizon, both of whom, if you listen to most reports, are hell-bent on destroying the Internet for their own gains. Thanks for that, New York Times. Google and Verizon, however, are finally speaking out on the [...]...... Mon, 09 Aug 2010 18:13:22 -0700
Is Facebook really nervous about Google Me? - Googling Google Blog RSS | ZDNet http://www.zdnet.com/blog/google/is-facebook-really-nervous-about-google-me/2351 Google is getting close to launching their much hyped “Google Me” social network. This isn’t Google’s first stab at social networking — for example, Orkut (Google’s own Facebook) is a successful website in only a few countries.Reports from Venture Beat say that Facebook is on “lock down” — basically meaning that all hands are [...]...... Sun, 08 Aug 2010 22:56:50 -0700
Google's Slide acquisition follows on the heels of Zynga investment - Googling Google Blog RSS | ZDNet http://www.zdnet.com/blog/google/googles-slide-acquisition-follows-on-the-heels-of-zynga-investment/2349 Don’t you wish you were a fly on the wall in a boardroom at the Googleplex? A variety of sources reported Wednesday and Thursday that Google had bought Slide, a designer of social applications and games, for some 9-digit figure (neither Slide nor Google is commenting and there were conflicting reports on the actual price). [...]...... Fri, 06 Aug 2010 00:06:34 -0700
Lessons learned from Google Wave failure - Googling Google Blog RSS | ZDNet http://www.zdnet.com/blog/google/lessons-learned-from-google-wave-failure/2347 There was lots of promise — Email is an ancient technology, and is due for a refresh. Google Wave promised to change the way we communicate, and would eventually replace Email. Unfortunately, Google decided to pull the plug on the project before it accomplished that goal.So what should be learned from Google Wave? [...]...... Thu, 05 Aug 2010 21:56:04 -0700
