Googler insights into product and technology news and our culture.
9/08/2006 10:14:00 AM
Posted by Anurag Acharya, Distinguished Engineer
As a teenager, history was the class in which I daydreamed -- the one that required memorization of long lists of kings, of battles, of arcane disputes that led to war. It was something I left behind when I graduated from high school and went on to the "real" things in life.
But history was not done with me. Many years later, I drifted from reading George Orwell's novels
1984 and
Animal Farm and Arthur Koestler's
Darkness at Noon to reading more about the Russian Revolution. The evolution of the Bolshevik Old Guard from scruffy revolutionaries fighting a stifling monarchy to becoming ruthless dictators for Stalin's killing machine was fascinating. History had drawn me into its web. History isn't a dry laundry list of the likes of
"Ozymandias". It is what everyone in any era
does, full of rich detail.
And now you can find those contemporary details (and more current ones as always) through a new
archive search feature of
Google News. This new feature can help you explore history through archives of news and other information sources. You can search for events, people and ideas, and see how they have been described over time. If you were to seek information on the 1969 moon landing, now you can find original coverage from that year, as well as analysis, news and commentary from the 37 years following.
Based on relevance, the archive results on Google News include freely available articles from sources such as TIME.com, The Guardian and many others, as well as snippets of articles available for a fee or via subscription. These may come from news organizations like The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, and also from news aggregators like AccessMyLibrary.com, ThomsonGale, Factiva, HighBeam™ Research, LexisNexis and others.
In addition to finding the most relevant articles for your query, you can get an historical overview of the results by browsing an automatically created timeline. Articles related to a single story or theme within a given time period are grouped together to enable you to see a broad perspective on the events. The archive search results include articles about an incredibly wide variety of topics, people and events over the last 200 years or so. About kings and battles, yes, but also about athletes and games, political dramas, crimes, romances and much, much else.
History is often presented to us with a viewpoint many years after it happens -- and it's frequently smoothed over in many ways, and for many reasons. Here's hoping archive search in Google News can help you read about history as it has unfolded, and explore and understand the past for yourself.
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9/05/2006 06:17:00 PM
Posted by Mendel Chuang, Product Marketing Manager
With all the great entries we received for the
Google Desktop Gadget Contest, we've learned that there are some very talented developers out there. Amongst all the gadgets submitted, these three really stood out:
- diGGGadget by Marius and Yannick Stucki – Stay on top of the latest stories from digg.com. Click on a few buttons and you'll know why we think it's so great. It also takes advantage of our advanced APIs to enable sharing news with friends plus personalization based on your interests.
- Multiplayer Reversi Game by Turhan Aydin – Immerse yourself in the fun game Reversi with this visually rich gadget. Not only can you play against the computer, but this gadget takes advantage of our Google Talk API so that you can also play with your friends.
- Day/Night World Clock by Beatrix Gottanka – We couldn't have designed a better world clock. Not only does this clock show you the local time, but there's also a map that indicates whether it's night or day at any given hour. And if you want options, this gadget has them.
For more on the winners and the honorable mentions, read the
Google Desktop Blog, and don't forget to check out all the
other great gadgets you can add to your desktop.
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9/01/2006 12:42:00 PM
Posted by Cliff Samaniego, Google Video team
TED stands for
Technology, Entertainment & Design. For more than 15 years TED has produced a conference notable for its eclectic and stimulating mix of thinkers, leaders and doers from many fields. Traditionally, about 1,000 TEDsters gather each February at an exclusive invitation-only program in Monterey, California. Until recently, most of us could only read about TED or these talks -- but now talks are
available online via Google Video, as well as at the
TED site.
The goal for making these talks public isn't to sell more seats (TED 2007 is already sold out); under TED Curator Chris Anderson, the idea is simply to find the widest possible audience for these provocative presentations. The first batch of eight include Al Gore's compelling story of climate crisis; Hans Rosling's inspired interpretation of global public health statistics; Sir Ken Robinson's vision for an education system that values creativity; MacArthur Foundation prize-winner Majora Carter's commitment to environmental justice; storyteller Julia Sweeney's quest for a sensible faith; architect Joshua Prince-Ramus' tour of the new Seattle Public Library; Tony Robbins' roadmap for human potential; and David Pogue's unforgettable technology-inspired show tunes.
And do check back for more: we'll continue to add talks to Google Video regularly, pulling primarily from TED 2006 and TEDGlobal, but we'll also feature a number from previous years.
The TED Talks video series was edited specifically for the micro-screen with closer shots and faster cuts. To ensure the widest possible audience, the talks are also released under a
Creative Commons license so that non-commercial sites are free to re-post them in their entirety. However you partake of them, we hope you're as inspired by TED as we are.
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9/01/2006 07:14:00 AM
Posted by Philipp Lenssen, Google Blogoscoped
It's time for a little guest post from Germany -- thanks, Google, for inviting me over! I'm the author of a blog on Google (
Google Blogoscoped), and this year I've written a book called
55 Ways to Have Fun With Google. In it, I present Google-related riddles, games, cartoons, search tips, stories, and miscellaneous insights (no programming skills needed -- and most of the time, you don't need to be close to a computer, either).
You'll learn about such things as the giant Japanese Google painting, the man who traveled the world looking for Googlewhacks, advanced tips for Google-searching, how Google News can screw up in funny ways, or the Google Image prediction trick. There's a great German word for this -- "Wunderkammer," a cabinet of curiosities.
The book is self-published with
Lulu.com, an interesting service. Basically, Lulu allows you to upload your Microsoft Word or OpenOffice Writer file along with your cover, and then convert it to a print-on-demand book. If you pay a little extra, your book will also appear on Amazon. The process ain't free of headaches but I gotta say, it's worth it. Lulu will also make sure the book's findable through
Google Book Search.
Self-publishing is already an interesting experiment on its own, but I chose to take an alternative route with copyright as well.
55 Ways can be copied, remixed and shared under a
Creative Commons license, and the full text is available as a free download. People have already converted it to websites, and there's a group effort going on to translate the full book into Chinese! Some people told me making the book available for free will stop people from buying the "offline" version ... well, here's your chance to prove them wrong :)
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8/31/2006 09:39:00 AM
Posted by Jeanne Williams, Staffing Programs
There are only 5 days left until registration closes for Google Code Jam 2006. So far, about 16,000 competitors have signed up to show off their programming skills -- and perhaps win an all-expenses paid trip to our New York City engineering office to compete in the finals on October 27. The winner gets $10,000 and global bragging rights: people have registered in huge numbers not only from the U.S., but from India, China, Canada, Brazil, the Russian Federation, Poland, Pakistan, Iran, Australia, the U.K., Germany, Singapore, Japan, Hungary -- you get the idea.
The top 100 finalists will be flown to NYC to show us what they've got. Have you got what it takes to Code Jam? Then by all means
register here.
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8/30/2006 09:38:00 AM
Posted by Adam Mathes, Associate Product Manager, Google Book Search
Starting today, you can go to
Google Book Search and download full copies of out-of-copyright books to read at your own pace. You're free to choose from a diverse collection of public domain titles -- from well-known classics to obscure gems.
Before the rise of the public library -– a story chronicled in this 1897 edition of
The Free Library – access to large collections of books was the privilege of a wealthy minority. Now, with the help of our wonderful
library partners, we're able to offer you the ability to download and read PDF versions of out-of-copyright books from some of the world’s greatest collections.
Using Google Book Search, you can find
The Free Library and many other extraordinary old books, such as:
* Ferriar's
The Bibliomania* A futurist from 1881's
1931: A Glance at the Twentieth Century* Aesop's
Fables* Shakespeare's
Hamlet* Abbott's
Flatland* Hugo's
Marion De Lorme* Dunant's
Eine Erinnerung an Solferino* Bolívar's
Proclamas* Dante's
InfernoTo find out-of-copyright books that you can download, simply select the "Full view" radio button when you search on
books.google.com. (Please note that we do not enable downloading of any book currently under copyright. Unless we have the publisher’s permission to show more, we display only small snippets of text –- at most, two or three sentences surrounding your search term -– to help you determine if you’ve found what you’re looking for.)
Of course, this is just the beginning. As we digitize more of the world's books -- whether rare, common, popular or obscure -- people everywhere will be able to discover them on Google Book Search.
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8/28/2006 02:15:00 PM
Posted by Raju Gulabani, Product Manager, Google Apps for Your Domain
Back in February, we
blogged about an experiment called "Gmail for your domain" that enabled IT administrators to power their custom domain email with Gmail with 2GB of storage, powerful search tools, and other Gmail features to all of their users. Since then, we've been listening to feedback from thousands of small businesses, K-12 schools, non-profits, universities, even families with their own websites, and based on what they've suggested, we've added so many features that the original name just didn't describe the service accurately any longer.
So say hello to
Google Apps for Your Domain, a service available at no cost to organizations of all shapes and sizes.
We think we may be on to something here: all the functionality of Gmail, Google Talk and Google Calendar wrapped up with tools to make them work for your organization, plus Google Page Creator for designing and publishing your website. There's no hardware or software required, and you can customize the user interfaces with your branding and color scheme, so they look and feel like your own.
Things have come a long way in the last six months, and we're still working on the service. If you're from a larger business or university with more advanced needs for communications and sharing, please
get in touch regarding premium versions of the service, due out later this year.
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8/24/2006 04:30:00 PM
Posted by Vanessa Fox, Product Manager, Webmaster Central, and Adam Lasnik, Search Evangelist
We always aim to offer our users relevant and helpful results, and webmasters provide the great content that we point to. Unfortunately -- though we've had the pleasure of chatting with many of you in a variety of forums, around the blogosphere, and at many conferences across the world -- we simply haven't been able to interact with every one of you. So we're excited to announce our new
Google Webmaster Central, which enables us to have productive conversations with many more of you, all the time.
Recently, we've added:
Furthermore, Google Sitemaps has been renamed
Google webmaster tools. It's more than a new coat of paint; we've added and improved lots of geeky goodies to help give you more info and control.
For those of you who've already established a Google sitemap, have no fear: the
Sitemaps protocol remains unchanged and Sitemaps submission mechanisms and reporting is still available from the Sitemaps tab. If you haven't already added a Sitemap, you might want to
learn more about it. (In short, putting a Sitemap file on your site enables you to tell us
what pages your site has,
which of them are most important, and
how often they are typically updated.)
You've worked hard on your sites, and, not surprisingly, you want to make sure they're listed appropriately in Google, so of course you have lots of questions. You can find many answers simply by creating a
Google webmaster tools account (if you have a Google Account, you're already set), adding your site URL to your account, and verifying that you own the site. A few of the many things you can do with webmaster tools:
We've also put together a comprehensive webmaster help center to answer more of your questions, such as:
With our webmaster tools and webmaster help center, we're able to tackle an increasing number of questions and make the answers available to
all webmasters. But we're not planning to rest on our laurels. We're listening to your concerns (in person and all over the Net!) and working hard to expand the content and languages of our help center. We appreciate the webmaster community very much, and look forward to many great conversations to come. We couldn't do search without you.
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8/24/2006 02:46:00 PM
Posted by Lewis Lin, Product Marketing Manager, Google Talk
A year ago today, we launched
Google Talk. On the days leading up to launch, we spent long summer nights fueled by
Reza's eclectic play list. Thankfully, Google Talk didn't have
Music Trends back then. The team listened to everything from 2Pac to Ludacris to Biggie.
We want to thank all the users who have submitted product feedback. We'd also like to thank the millions of users who are using the Google Talk network – either through the
Google Talk client,
Gmail chat, or
other supported clients. Our users love the chat integration within Gmail, and we're planning to make it easier to chat with your buddies through other Google services.
Want to send us a birthday message? Leave us a
voicemail at talkbirthday@gmail.com.
MEEP.
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8/24/2006 10:10:00 AM
Posted by Bruno Fonseca, Google Brazil
As a student and then as a researcher, I used to haunt libraries in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. I spent time looking for the books I needed, but also happened to find gems by chance, as I scanned the shelves I walked by. Fun as it was to find an unexpected treasure, I always knew that much remained hidden. Large libraries are way too big to just walk around and browse, even for an enthusiastic teenager.
Today, we're launching the Library Catalog Search feature in Google Book Search, designed to help casual readers and bookworms everywhere find gems in the libraries around the world. Queries on
Google Book Search will automatically include results from library catalogs when appropriate. Each result includes a "Find Libraries" link to help readers find libraries that hold the book -- ideally a library nearby, or if need be, a library far away. For example, after reading
Martin Gardner's book Fads and Fallacies, I wanted to follow up on
Immanuel Velikovsky's books about scientific explanations for biblical miracles. Clicking on the "Find Libraries" link for Velikovsky's
Worlds in Collision, I found that a copy was available in the University of Sao Paulo library.
This is true of many types of books in countries all over the world -- my colleagues in Google's Zurich office tell me about being able to find
Harry Potter and the Chambers of Secrets for their nephews and nieces. In many cases, it's even possible to click through to the local library and reserve the book.
For this feature, we have worked with more than 15 library union catalogs that have information about libraries from more than 30 countries, as well as with our colleagues working on
Google Scholar (which includes a similar feature just for scholarly books).
We would like to acknowledge and fete our partners who have collected information about the wealth in world's libraries with amazing thoroughness and care. And we're looking to work with union catalogs in other parts of the world so it can be just as easy for library patrons elsewhere to learn what their libraries have waiting for them.
If you're a library patron and can't find the books you're looking for, ask your local library to participate in this program. If you are a librarian at a union catalog and would like to work with us to help users find books in your collections, please
contact us.
Here's hoping readers worldwide will use this to discover and explore the wonderful collections in the world's libraries.
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After three space walks, Dextre—the robot that will now service the International Space Station—has been completed today, and is now ready for activation. I was watching it live on NASA TV and grabbed these shots (yes, I am that sad) of this fully-assembled gigantastic space spider. To get a sense of how big it is, check the images after the jump. Update: added new images released by NASA
Comments
I was in total technological awe, till I saw the blurb "and now prepare to die". I note the "monster" looking part appears to be coming out of the canadian portion so shouldnt that read "Prepare to die, eh?"
Dextre.
Canadian for "Giant Robotic Tiki God!"
Looks like a giant break dancer to me
Yeah, it's real great and all, but the thing comes down to Florida every year for the winter and drives 15 in a 45. He also wears Canadian flag thongs to the beach in January.
Yes, I'm from Florida.
They had to go with the French spelling for Dexter, didn't they?
@combat chuck:
well, they are CANADIAN
@combat chuck: Everyone give Chuck a minute to wake up this morning.
It's okay man. Happens to the best of us. :)
"half a fraction of an inch"
What's that in centimeters? ;-)
Dextre has to be an acronym for something. Anyone? Seriously, what was the last time any piece of equipment went into orbit whose name wasn't an acronym?
@Barcard: a few
Yeah actual space stuff and real science are sooo unhip compared to iPods and plastic toys. (?)
If you are building a LEGO Millennium Falcon in your home (and at this point I'd have to say it's a growing "if" unless you're doing the time lapse thing BoingBoing Gadgets beat you to weeks ago) you can probably manage a little joy to be witnessing REAL and ACTUAL developments in space without fear of it appearing to damage your hipster cred with the Gizmodians or anybody else.
I know for a fact that you were filled with wonder and joy at the things we're doing in space because I think that's the kind of person you are, so THERE! :p
Be a booster. We can't get into space without 'em.
@Geisrud:
Demonic
Extra-terrestrial
Xenomorph
Threat
Retaliation
Exterminator
George Bush was quoted as saying, "You go get them there space Aliens, Dex... Dax... You go get 'em Dippy!"
Oh Canada, oh Canada, your robots best not error
Oh Canada, oh Canada, they would induce some terror
@Geisrud:
Dextre (Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator)
Oh you like it now. But just wait until it demands you only talk to it in French, joins a union and sits around the Space Station on strike, drinking beer and playing with his hockey stick telling everyone how it could have made it to the NHL if only its engineers weren't such hosers and programmed it how to skate like good, eh.
(Go Flames Go)
pfft. At best it's an artificial Canadian... Seriously... Where's it's toque? :P
And yes I am Canadian.
@Amsterdaam - KEEP SMILING: Hey! You guys have a huge military that the MP force alone can take over our country... We have spooky people that trek down to Florida in questionable garb and Celine Dion.
P.S. You can keep her.
Ummm, "all with a precision of half a fraction of an inch" is still just a fraction of an inch. All that sentence shows is that a dumb writer is trying to make his message stronger by saying something that actually doesn't make any sense.
Besides, doesn't NASA do most, if not all of their work with metric now? I know the Canadians do. And since the robot is Canadian made, wouldn't the proper and more precise terminology would be more along the lines: "all the precision of .5mm of control?"
/former news producer
//stickler for proper copy, use of English
Where is Johnny Sokko when we need him? Who else can possibly control this metal monster??
@mrsteve007: Yes, I concur.
It's the old Carlin Conundrum: If you take a crumb, and cut it in half, is that two crumbs, or two halves of a crumb?
@mrsteve007: If we have to start making this all proper english, or even lucid, most of the posts and comments will cease. I dont know about everyone else, but I read Giz for substance and not for style.
Now see? Canada is gonna take over the WERLD!
I wonder if it thinks the iPod on the dash is its runt cousin?
I saw some of this action on NASA TV live on the web too. They put a lot of work to put that thing together over the weekend and past couple of days. It's cool as hell to watch this live and also live-track the location of the shuttle and the ISS. It's freakin' flying right along at like 17000mph. Cool. Hey, I'm married okay. I get it all the time :)
um, since this is all about scientific achievement and all, exactly how long is "half a fraction of an inch" ? ;)
@islandhopper: A hair over a smidge.
@Barry99705:
In Canada they call that a coozie hair
I knew Canada was spending their military budget on something. I mean you can't be a huge country like that and not have a huge military budget. Now we know...
I for one welcome our new Canadian controlled Robot Overlords.
@apeguero: your married AND you get it all the time?
You can't understand.
You're frightened because you can't understand it.
I'm going to show you.
I'm going to show all of you.
It takes 430 people to man a starship.
With this, you don't need anyone.
One machine can do all those things
they send men out to do now.
Men no longer need die in space
or on some alien world.
Men can live
and go on to achieve greater things
than fact-finding
and dying for galactic space,
which is neither ours to give or to take.
You can't understand.
We don't want to destroy life.
We want to save it.
Thanks Dr. Daystrom, for trying to save us from ourselves..
too bad one power glitch can render it totally unusable.
I give it less than a year of functionality.
@Curves: And that is why Gawker sites post 40+ items per day of terribly-written faux-reporting copy.
@mrsteve007: Continue the crusade.
To clarify, the Canadian Space Agency website says that Dextre has "millimetre level positioning accuracy" (1/25th of an inch for metric-resisters).
@mrsteve007: Yeah, you are right. I was writing while I was listening to the comments from the presenter and just didn't do research for precise data. I should have, but I just wanted to put the images, which to me were the biggest thing as we have written about the bot and its technical features before. I'll add the info. Oh, yes, and you are banned for being a douchebag.
@strider_mt2k: Watching science is not sad. What I meant is that I spent two hours watching people moving in slooooooowmoooootion as the put the final touches on the bot. LEGO is still in construction. But it won't be time lapse. It will be another thing.
@mrsteve007: "doesn't NASA do most, if not all of their work with metric now? I know the Canadians do."
huh? wait... we do? I'm Canadian and work in Canada and only about 2% of my work is metric.
@Topcat: Yeah, 40+ posts terribly-written post so you can read and terribly write inaccurately comments on.
"millimetre level positioning accuracy" (1/25th of an inch for metric-resisters)."
I'm afraid that's also inaccurate: it's 2 millimeter incremental positioning accuracy (1/12 inch) and 6 millimeters relative to the target (1/4 inch)
Thanks for playing.
@Jesus Diaz: I quoted I was sourcing the CSA's public website for Dextre, which leaves it vaguely at "millimetre scale" (hence quotations). If I'd read the fact sheet initially, I would've quoted the exact numbers.
@Jesus Diaz: No, please, Mr. Jesus Diaz, please, oh, please, do not wield the deadly banhammer! Topcat is merely standing up for what he believes is right! I am sure he means no disrespect, Mr. Jesus Diaz! Spare him from the ugliness of the wicked blows of your banhammer! Put it back in its banhammer-hammock for another time! There will come a day, Mr. Jesus Diaz, when deadly banhammer may be loosed freely on the recalcitrant population, but Topcat is but a waif, a naif, a child among the fierce tigerousness of Gizmodo!! Spare him in the name of all that is sacred, Mr. Jesus Diaz!
@ps61318: Um, he banned the OTHER guy.
I might remind anyone who dislikes the posts or form of Giz (I dont go to any of the other Gawker sites), that they CAN go the hell BACK to work and not read it.....
NASA, like all of science, has ALWAYS used the metric system for everything they do.
@Geisrud:
Deadly EXra Terrestrial Robotic Enigma
@ps61318: I didn't ban him. We don't ban people for disagreeing. We only ban them for acting like douchebags.
@Topcat: If I had read the spec sheet before, I would have quoted it too. But as I said, I just wrote by ear while listening to the live broadcast.
"I was watching it live on NASA TV and grabbed these shots (yes, I am that sad) of this fully-assembled gigantastic space spider"
Hey, thats not sad at all! I've been keeping the NASA TV feed running continuously on my second monitor ever since the launch last Tuesday, watched the ISS docking and all spacewalks so far. Some people could care less, I suppose, but to me, these dudes are friggin' floating around in OUTER SPACE, and we get to watch live! I could watch for hours on end, on pins-and-needles the whole time. There's no better reality TV.
Not bad. You'd think a robot by Dexter would shoot fireballs or sumthin', or a least dodgeballs.
+ Watch video
'Dextre' is French, from the Latin word 'Dextra', meaning dextrous, or right-handed. I wonder if the space station's going to get a Sinistra arm as well?
Time to die stupid humans!
Smart! Naming a giant space-robot after a TV serial killer! I'm gonna sleep in the basement tonight.
@Beelzeboss: It also means demonstrating good skills. Like diestro in spanish (Diestro in spanish, btw, also means "bullfighter"). That's why they put that name to the bot.
Sinistra will probably be the name of the maintenance bot in Spectra's secret space station.
I think Gizmodo should run more articles with "Giant Space Robot" in the headline.
@Brian Sexton: In their headlines, that is.
Is it a bending unit? And will it be last 992 years to befriend (currently) frozen pizza delivery boys?
@LastVigilante: it's always fascinating to watch pictures from up there, I find myself doing it for hours on end.
@Jesus Diaz: Oh, that's very different.
Never mind.
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