Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Googland

Googland

[G] A new year, new mobile features, and more!

Posted: 05 Jan 2010 04:53 PM PST

Official Google Reader Blog: ​A new year, new mobile features, and more!

​

We know that many of you like to take Reader with you wherever you go, so today we are updating our mobile interface by adding a few new features along with a new streamlined look.



New mobile features include support for "liking", tagging, and sorting feeds by oldest/newest. These are all features that were previously only available on the web interface, and we've worked to get them into the mobile version as quickly as possible.



As far as streamlining goes, we've made a few improvements to give you more features with less clutter. First, we redesigned the bottom action bar to include a "More" link, revealing additional options (with the most common actions selected by default).







We've also updated the main header to be consistent with other Google mobile applications, specifically Gmail, Calendar, and Latitude. And we've added an option drop-down in place of the old secondary tool bar, to give you a little more space for your feed items. We hope this also reduces those accidental "mark as read" accidents that happen on occasion.







On Reader's web interface, we've made it easier to find people who are sharing stuff similar to you. Take a peek at the new people recommendations (in the "Recomended sources" section on the web interface) to find folks with shared items we think you'll enjoy. It's a nifty way to discover new feeds and people that you might not have discovered otherwise.







As always, we listen to your feedback and use it to improve Reader. If there are specific features you miss on the mobile version of Google Reader, head over to our Product Ideas page and leave us a note. We love all kinds of feedback through our official help forums and our Twitter account.

URL: http://googlereader.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-year-new-mobile-features-and-more.html

[G] First 2010 Google D.C. Talk on ACTA: the global treaty that could reshape the Internet

Posted: 05 Jan 2010 02:20 PM PST

Google Public Policy Blog: First 2010 Google D.C. Talk on ACTA: the global treaty that could reshape the Internet

Posted by Mistique Cano, Public Policy Communications Manager

The first Google D.C. Talk of 2010 will be this coming Monday, January 11th and it should be an interesting exchange.

It's on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, known as ACTA, which the U.S. and other countries have been negotiating for the last two years. A number of consumer advocates and technology companies, including Google, have raised serious concerns about ACTA's potential reach and the impact it could have on Internet users' rights and innovation.

The talk will be moderated by Washington Post Consumer Technology Columnist Rob Pegoraro, who wrote a must-read piece on the issue.

The panel will tackle important questions like:  Will ACTA preserve the existing balance in intellectual property laws, providing not just enforcement for copyright holders but also appropriate exceptions for technology creators and users? Will it undermine the legal safe harbors that have allowed virtually every Internet service to come into existence? And will it encourage governments to endorse "three strikes" penalties that would take away a user's access to the Internet?

What other questions should be raised? Submit and vote for questions through Google Moderator. And, if you can make it, come be a part of the exchange:

When: Monday, January 11, 2009
4:30 p.m. Discussion

Where: Google D.C.
1101 New York Avenue, NW 2nd Floor
Entrance on Eye Street, Washington, D.C. 20005

Please RSVP so we've got enough chairs!
URL: http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2010/01/first-2010-google-dc-talk-on-acta.html

[G] Apple's acquisition of Quattro: more proof of mobile advertising competition

Posted: 05 Jan 2010 02:20 PM PST

Google Public Policy Blog: Apple's acquisition of Quattro: more proof of mobile advertising competition

Posted by Paul Feng, Group Product Manager

When we announced our planned acquisition of AdMob in November, we noted that the mobile advertising space is highly competitive -- with more than a dozen mobile ad networks.  In fact, the experts at MobiThinking recently called mobile advertising a "very fragmented" space, in which "no ad network is dominant" and "no one really knows what ad network is biggest."

Today's news that Apple is acquiring one of AdMob's competitors, Quattro Wireless, is further proof that the mobile advertising space continues to be competitive.  And with more investments and acquisitions in the space, including from established players like Apple and Google, that's a sign that vigorous growth and competition will continue. That's ultimately great for users, advertisers and publishers alike.
URL: http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2010/01/apple-quattro-acquisition-more-proof-of.html

[G] Google Voice on the Nexus One

Posted: 05 Jan 2010 02:20 PM PST

Google Voice Blog: Google Voice on the Nexus One

We're excited to see today's launch of Nexus One, particularly since Google Voice is one of the pre-installed apps on the phone. This is the latest version of the Google Voice mobile app we released for Blackberry and Android-powered phones last July.

Google Voice comes pre-installed on Nexus One phones sold in the United States. Existing Google Voice users can log-in and access their voicemail messages right away, while new users can set up Google voicemail as an alternative to their carrier's voicemail.

With the Google Voice mobile app, you can receive free voicemail transcriptions and play messages in the order you want. A karaoke-style interface lets you easily replay any part of a message, without needing to listen to the whole voicemail. You can also place international calls via Google Voice and enjoy Google Voice's low rates from your Nexus One.



Last but not least, the app is synchronized with the web, so you can access and listen to all your voicemail messages from any computer by simply logging in to www.google.com/voice.



If you're already using Google Voice and have a Google phone number, you can display this number as the caller ID on outbound calls. Additionally, you can send and receive text messages using the Google Voice app for free.

To learn more about the app, visit m.google.com/voice. And for more on the Nexus One, visit google.com/phone. As always, we welcome your feedback on how to improve Google Voice.

Posted by Christian Brunschen and Jacob Hesch, Software Engineers
URL: http://googlevoiceblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/google-voice-on-nexus-one.html

[G] The 2009 Semantic Robot Vision Challenge

Posted: 05 Jan 2010 02:20 PM PST

Google Open Source Blog: The 2009 Semantic Robot Vision Challenge

The Semantic Robot Vision Challenge (SRVC) is a robot scavenger hunt competition that is designed to push the state of the art in image understanding and automatic acquisition of knowledge from large unstructured databases of images (such as those generally found on the web). In this competition, fully autonomous robots receive a text list of objects that they are to find. They use the web to automatically find image examples of those objects in order to learn visual models. These visual models are then used to identify the objects in the robot's cameras.

The lastest SRVC was hosted at the International Symposium for Visual Computing (ISVC) in Las Vegas Nevada from Nov 31 to Dec 2, 2009. Five individual teams competed this year and hree of the teams brought robots and participated in both the robot and software league. The other two teams participated only in the software league.


The arena was set up with four chairs, three round tables, two tables with drawers, and a small set of stairs for displaying objects. All of the furniture had at least one object for the robots to discover on it, but not all of the objects in the environment were on the list of items for the robots to find.



The crowd was very interested in watching the different robots moving around the environment during their runs. Unfortunately, the robot teams themselves were plagued with various hardware and software integration troubles and only one team was able to find any objects. However, the robot teams that did not perform well demonstrated that their software was very capable of doing the work in a stand-alone mode. The visual classification results from the software league were very impressive.

The official list of objects consisted of:
  1. pumpkin
  2. orange
  3. red ping pong paddle
  4. white soccer ball
  5. laptop
  6. dinosaur
  7. bottle
  8. toy car
  9. frying pan
  10. book "I am a Strange Loop" by Douglas Hofstadter
  11. book "Fugitive from the Cubicle Police"
  12. book "Photoshop in a Nutshell"
  13. CD "And Winter Came" by Enya
  14. CD "The Essential Collection" by Karl Jenkins and Adiemus
  15. DVD "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" widescreen
  16. game "Call of Duty 4" box
  17. toy Domo-kun
  18. Lay's Classic Potato Chips
  19. Pepperidge Farm Goldfish Baked Snack Crackers
  20. Pepperidge Farm Milano Distinctive Cookies
Objects 5-9 were part of a list of generic objects that were given in advance to the teams. This was in a response to a suggestion from previous years to allow the teams a chance to try to build classifiers that would be capable of recognizing a generic class of objects rather than a very specific one. You can find a full analysis of the results on the SRVC site.

The US Naval Academy entered a robot based on a iRobot Create platform which used a Hokuyo URG LIDAR for navigation and a camera mounted on a mast for ddetecting the objects. This robot was by far the least expensive of the competitors but was still capable of carrying a laptop as well as the other hardware. However, under this load, the robot rapidly drained its batteries but was still able to capture a few images of objects and label them correctly.

Kansas State University entered with a robot based on a MobileRobots Inc. Pioneer 3 platform. They also had a Hokuyo URG LIDAR for navigation and a camera on a mast used for identifying the objects in the environment. This robot was able to traverse most of the environment successfully. Unfortunately, the robot was not able to aim its camera at enough objects to get a chance to correctly identify them.

The University of British Columbia (UBC) robot had by far the most complex setup of all of the robot competitors. They used a MobileRobots Inc. Powerbot that carried four laptops, multiple cameras--including a monocular PowerShot Canon camera, and a Pt. Grey Bumblebee2 stereo camera, and multiple LIDARs both for navigation and object extraction. The team demonstrated several impressive non-scored runs both before and after the event. However, during their officially scored event, the process that ran the primary object detection camera failed and so they were unable to identify any objects.

For more detailed descriptions of the robots, the software, and the computer vision techniques used by these teams, please refer to the team presentations. Each team's workshop presentation has been posted to that page. Links to their source code will also be posted.

As this contest continues to grow and evolve, the organizers are quite pleased by the progress of the computer vision research that is being demonstrated at these events. This was shown quite handily by the very high scores in the software-only league. However, the organizers would also like to remind the community that this is a robotics competition and thus want to see advances in active vision techniques, intelligent mapping and exploration, and reasoning about where objects are likely to be found (e.g. the "semantics" of the objects). In previous years, most of the robotics competitors took a random-walk approach to exploring the environment where they would hope to cover all of the space and get enough images to see the objects in question. However, the organizers this year were quite pleased to see the previous reigning champions from the University of British Columbia take the robotic exploration aspect of the competition to the next level. The organizers would like to take the time to highlight some of the significant aspects of the UBC team's approach to how to control their robot.

The UBC team approached the contest in two distinct phases: a mapping phase, and an object identification phase. The strategy of UBC this year was first to navigate the environment and map it using the SICK LIDAR and a SLAM algorithm (Simultaneous Localization and Mapping). Then the robot would revisit the obstacles in the room and scan them with the Hokuyo LIDAR. Flat horizontal surfaces would be detected in the scans from detection of a few consistent surface normals and a verification stage of the hypothesis of a planar surface. The regions that point out of the plane are interpreted as objects, and 3D bounding are computed from their convex hull (see figure below). This gives a set of candidate locations for the objects. The robot then would revisit these locations to take snapshots and run its object recognition algorithms on these snapshots. Three object recognition methods were implemented, SIFT matching, Contour matching, Deformable Parts Models (DPM). A fourth one using spherical harmonics to recognize 3D data was turned off because it was not quite ready. The DPM approach was trained on the objects known in advance, but could not be used for internet images as it was slightly too slow for that even though it had been rewritten in C.
The organizers were very impressed by the fact that the robot would first identify the specific locations where objects should be found, e.g. the tops of tables and chairs, and then go back and use the 3D sensors to explicitly segment out the locations of the objects to find them. This is exactly the kind of active robotics vision research that we feel will help to push forward the state of the art in real-time computer vision on physical robots and we hope to see more of this kind of approach on future competitors.

To sum up, the research being performed by the teams interested in this competition is extremely impressive. The teams are definitely rising to the challenge put forth by the organizers. Congratulations to all that participated!

By Paul E. Rybski, Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University & Daniel DeMenthon, Johns Hopkins University
URL: http://google-opensource.blogspot.com/2010/01/2009-semantic-robot-vision-challenge.html

[G] Google Maps on Nexus One

Posted: 05 Jan 2010 02:20 PM PST

Google LatLong: Google Maps on Nexus One


We're really excited about today's launch of Nexus One. The device is the newest phone to run on the Android platform with Google Maps for mobile pre-installed, and the app has never run better. Nexus One has a super fast 1GHz processor and feels as fast and responsive as any phone.

But my favorite thing about Nexus One is the beautiful, 3.7" high-resolution AMOLED display. I use Google Maps Navigation (beta) constantly for turn-by-turn guidance and traffic, and having such a large, clear display makes a world of difference. Maps are more readable, and satellite and street-level imagery look amazing. And when I pull up to my destination and a large, crisp Street View is shown automatically, I know exactly what to look for.

Nexus One ships with Android 2.1, including the latest version of Google Maps and Navigation. It also has all the other new features we've launched in the past year, such as Google Latitude, layers, and labs.

To learn more about Nexus One, visit google.com/phone.

Watch the video on YouTube to preview Google Maps Navigation on the Nexus One:

Posted by Michael Siliski, Product Manager
URL: http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2010/01/google-maps-on-nexus-one.html

[G] Google Docs and Sites: 2009 in Review

Posted: 05 Jan 2010 02:20 PM PST

Official Google Docs Blog: Google Docs and Sites: 2009 in Review

As the new year begins, we wanted to reflect on 2009 and highlight our favorite additions to Google Docs and Sites. We've shed the beta label and added more than 45 new features including:
We hope you enjoyed the 2009 additions to Google Docs and look forward to bringing you lots more in 2010.

On behalf of the entire Google Docs team, Happy New Year!

Posted by: Peter Harbison, Product Marketing Manager
URL: http://googledocs.blogspot.com/2010/01/google-docs-and-sites-2009-in-review.html

[G] Gmail on Nexus One

Posted: 05 Jan 2010 01:07 PM PST

Official Gmail Blog: Gmail on Nexus One

Posted by Anna de Paula Hanika, Android Product Marketing Manager

Not only does the just-announced Nexus One have a beautiful display, snappy processor, and five megapixel camera complete with flash and geotagging, but you can also buy it online with or without a service plan. Plus, it runs Android 2.1, which adds a couple of new features to the native Gmail application:
  • Quick contact badge: Press the contact status icon within Gmail, and a handy box shows all of the ways you can reply to a contact — including email, chat, SMS, and Facebook.
  • Voice input: Swipe the keyboard, then just speak to select contacts or write an email, complete with punctuation. Period!




Nexus One also features the Gmail updates of Android 2.0, including:
  • Multiple Gmail accounts: Sync multiple accounts to the same device and switch between them without leaving the app.
  • Undo: A handy 'undo' link makes it easier to retrieve messages when you hit archive or delete by mistake. (Note: you can't yet undo send as you can with the desktop version of Gmail).

For more information on Nexus One visit google.com/phone. To learn more about Gmail on this and other Android devices, check out the Gmail page on mobile.google.com/android, or watch this video:

URL: http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/gmail-on-nexus-one.html

[G] Nexus One Offers Seamless YouTube Experience

Posted: 05 Jan 2010 01:07 PM PST

YouTube Blog: Nexus One Offers Seamless YouTube Experience

The YouTube mobile experience on Nexus One, the newest Android-powered phone, is smoother and faster than ever before. You can shoot a DVD-quality video and upload it to YouTube with just a few taps, as well as search millions of YouTube videos and watch them in seconds.



For
example, the day I received my very first CD-ROM game, "Star Wars:
Rebel Assault," is one of my more vivid childhood memories. Today my
nostalgia was satisfied in exactly 17 seconds: with just three clicks I was
able to watch "Rebel Assault gameplay video" on the 3.7 inch AMOLED display of my new Nexus One -- that's less time than it used to take to load the game on my PC.
I simply tapped 'Search' on the new YouTube home screen widget, hit the
microphone icon and said "star wars rebel assault" -- the first video
found was the very same video I had seen at a computer expo back in
1993.



To learn more about Nexus One, visit google.com/phone. You can watch a preview of YouTube on Nexus One here:


















Andrey Doronichev, Product Manager, Mobile, recently watched "Star Wars: Rebel Assault - Gameplay part 4" on his Nexus One phone. 


URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/youtube/PKJx/~3/JSUHafHc41Q/nexus-one-offers-seamless-youtube.html

[G] Introducing Nexus One

Posted: 05 Jan 2010 11:54 AM PST

Official Google Mobile Blog: Introducing Nexus One

We're very excited about today's launch of Nexus One, the newest Android-powered phone running the latest Android 2.1 software. Nexus One comes with all your favorite Google Mobile apps pre-installed: find the classics like Search, Maps, Gmail, YouTube and Google Talk, with additional goodies like Maps Navigation and Google Voice. With its 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon™ chipset, these apps are speedier than ever before.

Additionally, Nexus One has a few cool new features like a voice-enabled keyboard for any text field; this way, you can speak to your phone and it does the text messaging, email writing, or search querying for you. Try adding the new YouTube widget to one of the five customizable home screen panels to quickly access the videos you want with just a few clicks. Explore your Picasa Web Albums with the 3D interface of the new Cooliris Gallery application. With Nexus One's 3.7" AMOLED display, your videos, apps, and photos are larger, clearer, and sharper.

To learn more about Nexus One, visit google.com/phone.

Posted by Amit Sood, Senior Marketing Manager, Google
URL: http://googlemobile.blogspot.com/2010/01/introducing-nexus-one.html

[G] Our new approach to buying a mobile phone

Posted: 05 Jan 2010 11:20 AM PST

Official Google Blog: Our new approach to buying a mobile phone

Android was developed with one simple idea: Open up mobile devices to enable greater innovation that will benefit users everywhere.

We first executed on this vision a little over a year ago, when we launched Android on one device with one operator in one country. Today, we have 20 devices with 59 operators in 48 countries and 19 languages. And because Android is free and open source, it continues to flourish. Android allows devices to be built faster, and at lower cost. And anyone can build anything on top of the platform. This ultimately benefits users.

To help adapt Android to the needs of consumers, we apply our engineering resources to selected projects with handset makers and operators. Together we have improved the rate and pace of innovation in mobile phones. The volume and variety of Android devices today has exceeded even our most optimistic expectations. And we believe we can accelerate the pace of innovation further. So we thought: What if we work even more closely with our partners to create devices which showcase some of the great software technology we've been working on? And what if we make those devices available for purchase through a new, simple online web store from Google?

Well, today we're pleased to announce a new way for consumers to purchase a mobile phone through a Google hosted web store. The goal of this new consumer channel is to provide an efficient way to connect Google's online users with selected Android devices. We also want to make the overall user experience simple: a simple purchasing process, simple service plans from operators, simple and worry-free delivery and start-up.

The first phone we'll be selling through this new web store is the Nexus One — a convergence point for mobile technology, apps and the Internet. Nexus One is an exemplar of what's possible on mobile devices through Android — when cool apps meet a fast, bright and connected computer that fits in your pocket. The Nexus One belongs in the emerging class of devices which we call "superphones." It's the first in what we expect to be a series of products which we will bring to market with our operator and hardware partners and sell through our online store.

Manufactured by HTC, the Nexus One features dynamic noise suppression from Audience, Inc., a large 3.7" OLED display for deep contrast and brilliant colors and a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon™ chipset for blazing speeds. Running on Android 2.1, the newest version of Eclair, the software includes innovations like a voice-enabled keyboard so you can speak into any text field, fun Live Wallpapers, a 3D photo gallery for richer media experiences and lots more. Of course, it also comes with a host of popular Google applications, including Gmail, Google Voice and Google Maps Navigation.

Today, the web store allows you to purchase the Nexus One without operator service or with service from T-Mobile USA. We expect to add more operators, more devices and more countries in the future, including Verizon Wireless in the U.S. and Vodafone in Europe. To learn more about the Nexus One, and our new web store, we recommend checking it out for yourself by visiting www.google.com/phone. We look forward to seeing how our new program and the Nexus One contributes to accelerating innovation on mobile products for the benefit of users worldwide.

Posted by Mario Queiroz, VP of Product Management
URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/our-new-approach-to-buying-mobile-phone.html

[G] 2009: A Look Back

Posted: 05 Jan 2010 09:13 AM PST

Google Analytics Blog: 2009: A Look Back

2009 was a fun year for us, and we hope, for you too. Here's a month by month breakdown of new features and significant launches from 2009, with links to the blog posts announcing or explaining them. And if you haven't yet, take a look at the Google Analytics YouTube channel, where you can see tons of tutorial videos on the new features.

A big thank you to our Google Analytics Authorized Consultants, who have helped advise us on our product roadmap and told us what you need to see in the product.

Get ready! 2010 should be even more exciting.

January
AprilMay
June
July
September
December
And, of course, we added the ability to post comments on our blog posts.

From our entire team, we hope that, wherever you are, you and yours had a safe New Year's Eve and are looking forward to a happy, healthy, productive and data-driven 2010!


Posted by Jeff Gillis, Google Analytics Team
URL: http://analytics.blogspot.com/2009/12/2009-look-back.html
Posted by at

1 comment:

  1. The Kids PointSeptember 21, 2019 at 5:21 PM

    Amazing article. I am so impressed. Could never think of such a thing is possible with it...I think you have a great knowledge especially while dealings with such subjects.

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)