Thursday, June 3, 2010

Googland

Googland

[G] Introducing OExchange: An open protocol to simplify sharing

Posted: 02 Jun 2010 05:59 PM PDT

Social Web Blog: Introducing OExchange: An open protocol to simplify sharing



As the web becomes more social, more people want to share information with their friends and colleagues across a wide array of services. While most of these services provide APIs to facilitate sharing, the ever-increasing number of these services with unique APIs makes integration costly for publishers and limits the likelihood that lesser-known services will be supported.

OExchange, a new protocol spearheaded by Clearspring, aims to address this problem by specifying a conventional way for publishers to "offer" links to sharing services, and for sharing services to design their API endpoints.

OExchange also provides a mechanism for publishers to discover information about new services that they've never seen before using a format called XRD on top of an emerging protocol called host-meta, which happens to benefit from XAuth as well.

We're happy to report that the Google Buzz sharing API (which powers the Google Buzz Buttons) has supported the basic model of OExchange since it was first released.

As we announced the launch of Google Buzz, we are committed to adopting open protocols and technologies that promote interoperability and intend for Google Buzz to be a good citizen on the social web. OExchange is a promising effort that seeks to simplify and make sharing easier for publishers and service providers alike. We invite you to read over the quick start guide, technical specification, and try out the helpful tools that Clearspring has prepared to make supporting this technology clear and simple. Your feedback is welcome on the OExchange mailing list.

Posted by Chris Messina, Social Web Developer Relations Team
URL: http://googlesocialweb.blogspot.com/2010/06/introducing-oexchange-open-protocol-to.html

[G] Google Search for mobile now includes mobile app results

Posted: 02 Jun 2010 03:35 PM PDT

Official Google Mobile Blog: Google Search for mobile now includes mobile app results

As mobile apps continue to proliferate in stores like Android Market and the iPhone App Store, finding relevant information on the web about these apps is becoming more important to help you decide which apps to download. In addition to helping you find the mobile app information you're looking for, Google Search for mobile now also makes it easier for you to get the actual apps themselves while you're searching.

As of today, if you go to Google.com on your iPhone or Android-powered device and search for an app, we'll show special links and content at the top of the search results. You can tap these links to go directly to the app's Android Market or iPhone App Store page. You can also get a quick look at some of the app's basic details including the price, rating, and publisher. These results will appear when your search pertains to a mobile application and relevant, well-rated apps are found. For example, try searching for download shazam on your Android-powered device or bank of america app on your iPhone.

Mobile app search results are available today in the US, with other countries and devices planned for the future.


Posted by Milena Nikolic and Paul Hadfield, Software Engineers
URL: http://googlemobile.blogspot.com/2010/06/google-search-for-mobile-now-includes.html

[G] Searching for the 2010 Stanley Cup

Posted: 02 Jun 2010 02:33 PM PDT

Official Google Blog: Searching for the 2010 Stanley Cup

Although it feels like summer in many parts of the world, this week much of the North American sports community is focused squarely on ice hockey. That's because the Stanley Cup Finals between the Chicago Blackhawks and Philadelphia Flyers kicked off over the weekend. Today, the series shifts to Philadelphia, and the Flyers look to even the series.

We've always shared the world's interest in ice hockey, and have expressed that through our 2010 Olympic Ice Hockey doodle, NHL scores in search results and our content partnership with the NHL on YouTube. And this year a few Googlers in Chicago tried to grow their own playoff beards to get in the spirit of the games.

We see a surge of search queries related to the Stanley Cup every May, and this year is no exception. As each of the two teams get closer to hoisting Lord Stanley's cup, we're taking a look at what people from Chicago and Philadelphia as well as around the world are searching for related to the Cup.

Globally, searches for [blackhawks] trump searches for [flyers] in the sports category although both are experiencing an unprecedented spike compared to past years.


In both Philadelphia and Chicago, the [blackhawks] and [flyers] were top of mind last week:

Top sports searches in Philadelphia

Top sports searches in Chicago

Searches for [patrick kane] of the Chicago Blackhawks lead the way among searches for players involved in the Stanley Cup Finals.


After each goal scored in Chicago, the Blackhawks play the song "Chelsea Dagger" by the Fratellis. Accordingly, searches for [chelsea dagger] are surging, with Google users in Illinois topping the list and sparking a resurgence of the song across America.


With Googlers in our offices in both Illinois and Pennsylvania, we'll be watching like the rest of the world to see who wins the greatest trophy in sports. Just make sure you don't touch the Cup until you actually win it!


Posted by Jim Lecinski, Managing Director, U.S. Sales (and rabid Blackhawks fan)
URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/searching-for-2010-stanley-cup.html

[G] Google Chrome’s RLZ library is now open source!

Posted: 02 Jun 2010 02:16 PM PDT

Google Open Source Blog: Google Chrome's RLZ library is now open source!

Today on the Chromium blog, we announced that we're open-sourcing the RLZ library in Google Chrome as its own project. The RLZ library gives us the ability to accurately measure the success of marketing promotions and distribution partnerships in order to meet our contractual and financial obligations. For example, the RLZ library generates a query parameter that sometimes appears in Google search URLs in distributed products:


We're excited to not only improve the transparency of Google Chrome, but also offer potentially useful code to the open source community. Please check it out and let us know what you think!

By Glenn Wilson, Product Manager
URL: http://google-opensource.blogspot.com/2010/06/google-chromes-rlz-library-is-now-open.html

[G] Free download: 10 terabytes of patents and trademarks

Posted: 02 Jun 2010 01:24 PM PDT

Google Public Policy Blog: Free download: 10 terabytes of patents and trademarks

Posted by Jon Orwant, Engineering Manager

When we launched Google Patent Search in 2006, we wanted to make it easier for people to understand the world of inventions, whether they were browsing for curious patents or researching serious engineering. Recently, we've also worked on a number of public data search features, as well as experimental features like the Public Data Explorer.

There are many places to search for individual patents -- the US Patent and Trademark Office and Google Patent Search are two examples. But sometimes that's not enough. If you're trying to identify trends in innovation over time or analyze all the patents relevant to your invention, it helps to have all the patent data on hand. For example, the non-profit Cambia's PatentLens creates topical analyses of patent information, and they can only do this with a comprehensive data set. Others have experimented with a variety of online mashups of the data, such as an interactive map showing the most innovative states.

The trouble is, that's a lot of information -- terabytes of it -- and in the past the only way to deliver that information was on DVDs and other physical media. The USPTO will ship them to you, and over the last decade Cambia alone has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on this data. But with high-bandwidth connections on the rise, both the USPTO and Google think it's time to help people download the bulk data directly.

That's why we're proud to announce that the USPTO and Google are making this data available for free at http://www.google.com/googlebooks/uspto.html. This includes all granted patents and trademarks, and published applications -- with both full text and images. And in the future we will be making more data available including file histories and related data.

We look forward to continuing to work with the USPTO and other public organizations to expand access to public data. You can read the official press release from the USPTO here.
URL: http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2010/06/free-download-10-terabytes-of-patents.html

[G] Google Maps for BlackBerry Gets Biking Directions, Sharing, and New Search Results

Posted: 02 Jun 2010 01:22 PM PDT

Official Google Mobile Blog: Google Maps for BlackBerry Gets Biking Directions, Sharing, and New Search Results

Grab your BlackBerry, hop on your bike, and have your friends join you with Google Maps for mobile! After adding biking directions and sharing for Android folks a few weeks ago, we're happy to announce that Google Maps 4.2 for BlackBerry can also let you get biking directions, quickly see helpful info when searching, and share places with friends.

Biking directions
If you've been using Google Maps on your computer to get biking directions, trails, and lanes, you can now head out for a ride using just your BlackBerry. When getting directions in Google Maps, just choose to travel by bicycle to get an optimal bicycling route in the U.S. If you're in the mood for a more scenic ride, you'll also see the Bicycling layer on the map which shows dedicated bike-only trails (dark green), roads with bike lanes (light green), or roads that are good for biking but lack a dedicated lane (dashed green). You can always turn on this layer from the Layers menu to devise your own route.




Search and Share
The next time you're searching for a late night bite of pizza, you'll see a redesigned list view of results with pictures and ratings. Select one to see a simplified search results page with easy-access buttons for directions, calling, etc. and all the info you'll need right below. Select a section, such as "Reviews," to see more. A new "share this place" option lets you send anyone place info, such as its address or phone number, by email or text message. In addition to specific places like a restaurant, you can also share any location you select on the map -- including a snapshot of where you are at the moment -- to help folks meet you outside or right where you're standing!



To get started, go to m.google.com/maps in your BlackBerry's browser and install version 4.2. In case you've had previous installation hiccups, we've also fixed some issues with permissions and BlackBerry Enterprise Server installation on some 5.0 devices.

Learn more in the Help Center, ask questions in our Help Forum, or give us suggestions and vote on other people's on the Mobile Product Ideas page.

Posted by Michael Siliski, Product Manager, Google Mobile Team
URL: http://googlemobile.blogspot.com/2010/06/google-maps-for-blackberry-gets-biking.html

[G] Reward dads and grads with great savings

Posted: 02 Jun 2010 12:38 PM PDT

Official Google Checkout Blog: Reward dads and grads with great savings

Graduation and Father's Day are around the corner, and it's time to reward dads and grads for their hard work. Google Checkout makes it easy to find great deals to show dads our appreciation and to give grads our congratulations.

Hundreds of Checkout stores are offering exclusive discounts of $5, $10, or $20 on purchases made now through June 18, 2010. Find places to shop such as Nautica, TigerDirect.com, golfballs.com, eBags and more on the Google Checkout Deals Page. Or search for products to buy on Google.com and look for the Google Checkout promotion badge:



Happy shopping!

Posted by Jason Wang, Google Checkout Operations
URL: http://googlecheckout.blogspot.com/2010/05/reward-dads-and-grads-with-great.html

[G] Freeze frame!

Posted: 02 Jun 2010 12:33 PM PDT

Official Google Blog: Freeze frame!

From iGoogle's debut in 2005 to our more recent launch of stars in search in March, we've enjoyed making your search experience more relevant, useful and fun through personalization. Today, we're introducing a new feature that brings a whole new level of personalization to Google by letting you add a favorite photo or image to the background of the Google homepage. You can choose a photo from your computer, your own Picasa Web Album or a public gallery hosted by Picasa which includes a selection of beautiful photos.

An example homepage featuring artwork by Jeff Koons, photographed by Sandy Volz


A second example page, featuring artwork by Tom Otterness, photographed by Cesar Perez

Whether you choose a photo of a loved one, a picture of your favorite vacation destination or even a design you created yourself, Google.com is now yours to customize. For those of you who want to enjoy the clean, simple look of Google as well as your personalized view, we've made it easy to switch between your customized search page and classic Google.

We are beginning to roll out this new feature to users in the U.S. over the next few days, so if you don't see a link in the lower left-hand corner of Google.com now, check back soon. For those of you outside of the U.S., you can expect to see this new feature in the coming days as we roll it out internationally to offer similar, consistent experiences globally.

And if you've customized your look with a fun personal photo we'd love to see what your new homepage looks like. Tweet a picture of your page with the hashtag #myGooglepage and share it with us!

We hope you enjoy this fun new feature and that it makes Google search more your own.

Posted by Marissa Mayer, VP Search Products & User Experience
URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/freeze-frame.html

[G] Over 2 billion email messages migrated to Google Apps

Posted: 02 Jun 2010 12:14 PM PDT

Official Google Enterprise Blog: Over 2 billion email messages migrated to Google Apps

While the majority of Google Apps customers choose to "go Google" quickly without transferring old data from their previous IT environment, some companies are reluctant to step into the future without bringing along emails, calendar entries and contacts from the past. To that end we've released several data migration utilities, including Google Apps Migration for Microsoft Outlook®, which we announced last week.

These tools have helped unshackle thousands of organizations from their previous technology solutions. Our customers have migrated more than 2 billion email messages to Google Apps, and in the past 2 months alone, more than 14 million calendar events and 6 million contacts (not counting domain-wide address lists) were migrated to Google Apps from Microsoft Exchange® and Lotus Notes®.

It's been some time since several of our migration utilities launched, so we thought we'd summarize our data migration options here.

Migrating from Microsoft® Exchange and Microsoft Outlook®:
  • Google Apps Migration for Microsoft® Exchange is a server-side tool that migrates your company's email, calendar and contact data from Microsoft Exchange to Google Apps. This tool works for Microsoft Exchange 2003 and 2007, and both on-premises and hosted Exchange.
  • Google Apps Migration for Microsoft Outlook® is an end-user tool that moves email, calendar and contact data from Microsoft Outlook profiles, PST files and Microsoft Exchange accounts to Google Apps. This tool works with Microsoft Outlook 2003 and 2007, on-premise and hosted Exchange, as well as legacy PST files saved on users' machines.
Migrating from Lotus Notes:
Migrating from other email systems:
  • IMAP mail migration tool enables domain administrators to transfer the existing contents of users' mailboxes from an IMAP server to Google Apps. This tool supports email migration for archives hosted on Microsoft Exchange Server 2003, Cyrus IMAP Server, Courier-IMAP, and Dovecot.
  • The Google Apps Email Migration API allows administrators and users of Google Apps to migrate mail from legacy email systems into their domain's hosted Gmail accounts. This API can be used by custom email migration applications.
Migrating documents to Google Apps:
In addition to the tools listed above, customized data migration solutions are available from partners listed in the Google Apps Marketplace.

For more information about migrating from common legacy solutions to Google Apps, see our resource pages for IT managers looking to switch from Lotus Notes and Microsoft Exchange.

Posted by Hicham Alaoui, Google Apps Marketing Manager
URL: http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2010/06/over-2-billion-email-messages-migrated.html

[G] Making U.S. community health data accessible and useful

Posted: 02 Jun 2010 07:21 AM PDT

Google Public Policy Blog: Making U.S. community health data accessible and useful

Posted by Roni Zeiger, MD, Chief Health Strategist

Today the Institute of Medicine and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) are hosting an event called The Community Health Data Forum to highlight the power of transparency in health care. I was pleased to offer one of several technology demonstrations highlighting how health data can help us make better health decisions.

HHS has published useful data about communities, hospitals and nursing homes and made it available for download. As a demonstration project, we combined some of this information using Google Fusion Tables, a database service in the cloud that makes it easy to explore, visualize and share structured data. Using Fusion Tables we created a customized map to display information from the database. For example, you can see a map of "heart friendly" and "people friendly" hospitals, based on statistics from HHS:



It's important to note that the science behind measuring the quality of hospitals and health care in general is still evolving, so we can't make definitive conclusions from this data. However, this kind of transparency will lead to discussion, questions, and analysis which we hope will improve choices and outcomes. We encourage you to explore the new data from HHS, including visualizations like the one above, using our published table.
URL: http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2010/06/making-us-community-health-data.html

[G] Miley Cyrus helps celebrate a year of service on YouTube

Posted: 02 Jun 2010 06:46 AM PDT

YouTube Blog: Miley Cyrus helps celebrate a year of service on YouTube

We launched YouTube Video Volunteers last June at the National Conference on Volunteering and Service (NCVS) to help nonprofits who struggle with creating great video, engage the passionate YouTube community, and introduce the idea that the Internet can be a powerful force for volunteerism. One year later, the YouTube community has created over 500 videos for nonprofits working on a vast array of issues from health to human rights, animal welfare to the arts -- and these videos have received millions of views.



This month, we're teaming up with a true YouTube veteran, Miley Cyrus, to celebrate the organizations that devote themselves to promoting service and volunteerism on the ground and online; organizations like our partner Service Nation, Miley's own org Get Ur Good On, mentoring orgs like Big Brothers/Big Sisters and countless others. To find one that you'd like to make a video for, visit www.youtube.com/videovolunteers. Then submit it by June 23 for the chance to be featured on the YouTube homepage during this year's National Conference on Volunteering and Service at the end of the month.



Here's more from Miley about this round of Video Volunteers:







Thanks for contributing your time and video skills to making the world, and YouTube, a better place. Together, we can make sure nonprofits everywhere continue to be recognized for their amazing work.



Ramya Raghavan, Nonprofits & Activism Manager, recently watched "Message in a Bottle."


URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/youtube/PKJx/~3/FEtmYRwaxzs/miley-cyrus-helps-celebrate-year-of_8542.html
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