Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Googland

Googland

[G] Supporting the U.S. Navy’s humanitarian mission with Google Apps

Posted: 26 Jul 2010 08:49 PM PDT

Official Google Enterprise Blog: Supporting the U.S. Navy's humanitarian mission with Google Apps

Editor's Note: We've invited U.S. Navy Captain Douglas Wied to share the story of how Google Apps is being used to improve coordination in disaster relief efforts. Captain Wied currently leads the Navy's effort to develop and foster Non-Classified data sharing among the U.S. and its many international partners focused on improving regional maritime security.

The United States Navy's Maritime Domain Awareness program focuses on improving maritime security around the world. As part of this initiative, the U.S. collaborates with international governments and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to increase maritime security capabilities in different regions in order to prevent threats like piracy and terrorism, as well as to respond to natural disasters.

Sharing information is critical to maritime security. And most of this information is public – or sensitive but unclassified, as the government calls it. In summer 2008, we began InRelief to improve our collaboration capabilities using Google Apps. InRelief supports the Navy's humanitarian assistance and disaster relief mission. We use email, chat, shared documents, calendars, sites, and other Google applications to support our information sharing needs.

Previously, on U.S. Navy ships, the unclassified network was a U.S. network only, so NGOs or foreign governments could not access it. We set up a Non-Classified Enclave (NCE) as a way to give our partners access. The NCE is a network of virtualized servers located in Miami, Florida that provide secure connectivity. InRelief is basically a cloud-based implementation of NCE.

Our team saw several advantages to building InRelief on Google Apps, including security, scalability, reliability, and other powerful features we didn't have to build ourselves. As part of the military, gaining familiarity the security controls of Google Apps was of critical importance. Our security team met with Google's team and went through in detail how Google implements security. We came away with the understanding that Google Apps is very secure. The fact we're hosted on a FISMA-certified environment allows our team increased flexibility and assurance when collaborating and sharing unclassified but sensitive content and documents.

In the event of a major crisis when we would need a lot of accounts for a short period of time, Google Apps lets us scale easily to as many users as necessary. We can turn them off again when we no longer need them. That's a tremendous asset. It would be really tough – and not cost-effective – to resource a system ourselves that could scale up and down like this.

As for reliability, with Google Apps data is replicated in multiple data centers, so we can be assured we'll have access to our data. Having a single point of failure is a constant challenge with other systems. Particularly when dealing with disasters, knowing the system will be available is a big plus.

Some of the built-in features of Google Apps were critical to our needs. For example, real-time collaborative editing of documents, spreadsheets and presentations supports crisis response planning efforts using multiple personnel who are geographically dispersed. Also, real-time translation in chat can be extremely helpful when we're trying to coordinate efforts with a coalition of people who speak multiple languages.

Another issue we are always concerned about is the training requirements new tools impose on our users. With InRelief, we can give an account to a foreign government representative or NGO and it doesn't take much time for them to get started. Earlier this year, we put Google Apps to test in coordinating a response to the Haiti earthquake. When the Haiti effort kicked off, our team was dispersed. We used the Google collaboration tools – email, chat and shared documents – to get things moving. Even the remote team members could review and contribute to the team's work. Half the people in the group hadn't used Apps before our efforts got underway – they just did it, with no learning curve. Our team is currently using the same capabilities to support relief efforts for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster.

Finally, the concern for developing cost-effective solutions that maximize the benefits of tax dollars spent, our overall costs were hundreds of thousands versus millions of dollars; a significant savings when compared to what we spend to host traditional stovepipe type systems requiring network connectivity, software, hardware, system administrators, information assurance testing, and certification & accreditation.

With InRelief.org, we have a collaborative environment easily accessible with a secure and reliable infrastructure that allows us to respond rapidly to crisis.

– Captain Douglas C. Wied, Assistant Program Manager
Non-Classified Enclave, U.S. Navy

Posted by Dan Israel, Google Enterprise team
URL: http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2010/07/supporting-us-navys-humanitarian.html

[G] Google Apps for Government

Posted: 26 Jul 2010 08:49 PM PDT

Official Google Enterprise Blog: Google Apps for Government

Last September, we announced our intent to create a Google Apps environment dedicated to our government customers, and to complete United States government security certification for Google Apps. Today, we're delivering on both.

Today, we're pleased to introduce a new edition of Google Apps designed specifically for the needs of U.S. government entities. It's called – appropriately enough – Google Apps for Government. This new edition is available now to federal, state and local governments in the United States.

Google Apps is also the first suite of cloud computing applications to receive Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) certification from the U.S. government. With this federal government certification of our security controls, government agencies can use our cloud services with confidence.

A wide range of U.S. government customers are already taking advantage of Google Apps, from the U.S. Department of Energy's Berkeley Lab to the U.S. Navy's InRelief program, to the City of Los Angeles, to smaller governments across the country like Panama City, Florida and the City of Wooster, Ohio.

You can learn more about how U.S. Government customers can benefit from this new edition in today's Official Google Blog post.

– Kripa Krishnan, Technical Program Manager, Google Apps for Government

Posted by Dan Israel, Google Enterprise team
URL: http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2010/07/google-apps-for-government.html

[G] Berkeley Lab is going Google

Posted: 26 Jul 2010 08:49 PM PDT

Official Google Enterprise Blog: Berkeley Lab is going Google

Editor's note: Today's guest author is Dr. Rosio Alvarez, Chief Information Officer at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Dr. Alvarez serves the computational needs of scientists that carry out over $0.7B of sponsored research in quantitative biology; nanoscience; new energy systems and environmental solutions; and the use of integrated computing as a tool for discovery. She is also overseeing Berkeley Lab's move to Google Apps.

Ernest Lawrence, the Nobel Prize winning physicist, is often credited as being the father of "team science." He understood that some of the most important and difficult problems in science required bringing together experts from across disciplines to work on experiments that they couldn't possibly execute individually. That legacy is the foundation of work at Berkeley Lab. Today, we're excited to be bringing the next generation of tools to support team science to the Laboratory, including Google Apps.

Berkeley Lab is a member of the National Laboratory system supported by the U.S. Department of Energy through its Office of Science. It is managed by the University of California (UC) and is conducts unclassified research across a wide range of scientific disciplines. Berkeley Lab employs approximately 4,000 scientists, engineers, support staff and students. Eleven Berkeley Lab researchers have won the Nobel Prize. Fifty-seven Lab scientists are members of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), one of the highest honors for a scientist in the United States.

Switching to Google Apps supports a number of important Berkeley Lab goals:
  • Sustainability We now utilize the Google data centers that power Google Apps, which are are among the most efficient in the world, instead of operating our own servers;
  • Efficiency Berkeley Lab is going Google reduces internal infrastructure costs and allows us to recover data center and personnel capacity;
  • Collaboration It provides new tools and platforms for improving scientific collaboration, including real-time document sharing and support for easily including collaborators from around the world as full participants in our work.
Berkeley Lab is in the midst of the first production rollout of Google Apps in the Department of Energy. We have moved over 4,000 people to the Google Mail service to date and an expected total of 5,000 accounts by the end of summer 2010. We have already rolled out Google Docs and Google Sites Lab-wide to improve collaboration capabilities for our staff. A transition to Google Calendar is planned in the coming months, as well.

If you want to learn more, we've even set up a public site to tell the world about this project. Or you can watch this video:


It's been really gratifying to watch the adoption of Google Sites and Docs at the Lab. These two applications extend the reach of the Lab's existing collaboration systems by offering new features and easier inclusion of external collaborators.

Smaller research projects with a few dozen collaborators often struggle with building the infrastructure to effectively share information; Google Apps makes it easy for them to deploy the services they need with no help from IT folks.

Since we've integrated Google Apps with the Lab's Identity Management System, our users have a seamless experience. And all our users benefit from the extensive resources that Google has dedicated to keeping the Google Apps system -- and our data -- secure.

The Lab expects to realize financial savings as a result of the transition. The final numbers are not available yet, but the estimates range in the area of $1.5M-$2M savings over the next five years in hardware, software and labor costs. Cost avoidance, increased functionality and resiliency were all important factors in the decision to migrate. Above all, we're empowering our researchers to share, collaborate, and build teams like never before. We think Ernest Lawrence would be pleased.

Dr. Rosio Alvarez, Chief Information Officer
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Posted by Dan Israel, Google Enterprise team
URL: http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2010/07/berkeley-lab-is-going-google.html

[G] Light summer reading: entertaining legal opinions

Posted: 26 Jul 2010 05:42 PM PDT

Official Google Blog: Light summer reading: entertaining legal opinions

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.

Rimes v. Curb Records, Inc., 2001 the opinion is written as a series of songs to be sung to tunes by LeAnn Rimes. It starts:
LeAnn Rimes
A very rich and famous star
Wasn't so rich in times afar
But what a talent she had!

Read the rest on the Google Scholar blog.

Posted by Anurag Acharya, Distinguished Engineer
URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/07/light-summer-reading-entertaining-legal.html

[G] An Even Better Way to Find Places Nearby

Posted: 26 Jul 2010 04:59 PM PDT

Official Google Mobile Blog: An Even Better Way to Find Places Nearby

With six updates in six months, Google Maps for Android has been getting plenty of new features, both big and small. A continued focus with each update has been on giving you better ways to find places nearby. In the most recent updates, Maps has gotten features like swiping between search results and info like photos, reviews, and more helpful content on the result pages. With today's launch of Google Maps for mobile 4.4, we're introducing an even easier way to find places around you: a dedicated Places icon that lets you quickly look up nearby places and pick a place to go using updated Place Pages, just like on your computer.

On Android-powered phones with Google Maps 4.4, you'll find the new Places icon in the app launcher with the rest of your apps. Press and drag it right onto your home screen to use it when you're looking for a restaurant, shoe store, movie theater or any other type of local business. You'll get a detailed list of all the nearest places and can choose one to learn more about it on its Place Page.



Search for several convenient types of places with the default categories or add your own for your most frequent searches. You can also use the search bar at the top to type or speak any query. I tend to use the "coffee" search a lot, but I've also looked for "gas stations" on the road, "ice cream shops" in my neighborhood, and even specific places like "Chelsea Market" on a recent trip to New York.

Of course, you'll often want to learn more before deciding where to go. With updated Place Pages, you should be able to find all you need to know about a place, whether you're wandering into a new restaurant or deciding from your couch. In addition to photos and reviews, Place Pages now have a bunch of new details, such as prices, parking and menu links to inform your quest for the perfect steak. You'll also notice that the search results list now highlights business opening hours in addition to compass direction and distance -- consider it your late night caffeine radar.



Google Maps for mobile 4.4 is available now for Android 1.6 and above. Just search for Google Maps in Market or tap here from your phone. The Place Page and search result updates are coming soon for BlackBerry users so keep an eye out for an update at m.google.com/maps (from your BlackBerry Browser) or on our Twitter and Facebook pages.

Visit our Help Center to learn more, 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/2010/07/even-better-way-to-find-places-nearby.html

[G] AdSense: Behind the Scenes - Meet Evanne

Posted: 26 Jul 2010 03:44 PM PDT

Inside AdSense: AdSense: Behind the Scenes - Meet Evanne

In the last video of this series, Evanne, a member of the Partner Development team, talks about her favorite Google perk, her obsession with music, and an important tip she'd like to share with all of you.

We hope you've enjoyed learning more about what goes on behind the scenes in AdSense. If you have feedback on this series, or ideas for future series, we'd love to hear them so please leave us a comment!



Posted by Katrina Kurnit - Inside AdSense Team
URL: http://adsense.blogspot.com/2010/07/adsense-behind-scenes-meet-evanne.html

[G] Introducing Google Apps for Government

Posted: 26 Jul 2010 03:08 PM PDT

Google Public Policy Blog: Introducing Google Apps for Government

Posted by Kripa Krishnan, Technical Program Manager, Google Apps for Government
(Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog)

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 applications to receive Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) certification and accreditation from the U.S. government. 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.
URL: http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2010/07/introducing-google-apps-for-government.html

[G] Honoring the 20th Anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act

Posted: 26 Jul 2010 03:08 PM PDT

Google Public Policy Blog: Honoring the 20th Anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act

Posted by Vint Cerf, Chief Internet Evangelist

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 a 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 www.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.
URL: http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2010/07/honoring-20th-anniversary-of-americans.html

[G] Introducing Google Apps for Government

Posted: 26 Jul 2010 02:47 PM PDT

Official Google Blog: Introducing Google Apps for Government

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 applications to receive Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) certification and accreditation from the U.S. government. 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.

Posted by Kripa Krishnan, Technical Program Manager, Google Apps for Government
URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/07/introducing-google-apps-for-government.html

[G] Honoring the 20th Anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act

Posted: 26 Jul 2010 02:47 PM PDT

Official Google Blog: Honoring the 20th Anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act

[Cross-posted on Google Public Policy Blog] 

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.

Posted by Vint Cerf, Chief Internet Evangelist
URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/07/honoring-20th-anniversary-of-americans.html

[G] Tips & Tricks: GoogleLookup in Google spreadsheets

Posted: 26 Jul 2010 11:16 AM PDT

Official Google Docs Blog: Tips & Tricks: GoogleLookup in Google spreadsheets

Have you been frustrated trying to find the populations or capitals of a list of countries? Would you like to easily get a list of the birthdays of all of your favorite musicians and actors? The GoogleLookup function in Google spreadsheets does all of the work, and in a matter of seconds you have all of the information you want. Using the information collected from the Web using Google Search, the GoogleLookup function finds the values for straightforward facts about specific things.

To use the GoogleLookup function, enter the following formula in the desired spreadsheet cell:
  • =GoogleLookup("entity" ; "attribute") where "entity" represents the name of the entity you want to access and "attribute" is the type of information that you want to retrieve.
For example, I want to know the atomic number of gold. In this case, gold is the entity while atomic number is the attribute. In the desired cell, I enter =GoogleLookup("Gold" , "Atomic Number"). Be sure to include quotation marks around both the entity and the attribute.

The atomic number of gold, 79, then shows up in the cell in which the formula was entered.

After experimenting with one GoogleLookup formula, I'd like to apply the formula to a larger list of elements, and also get information on the atomic weight. Instead of typing the formula out like before, I want to click the cell of the first entity in my list, in this case it's gold. Next, I want to reference the cell in which I name the attribute I'm looking up, in this case, atomic number. Then I want to freeze the appropriate rows and columns with the "$" symbol.

Freezing the appropriate row and column allows me to drag the formula across to the "Atomic Weight" column and down the other rows to apply the formula to all of the other entities. When I apply the formula to all of the other cells, the results will show.

Keep in mind that while the GoogleLookup function knows quite a bit, it doesn't know everything. Although not all of the formulas you try will work, we encourage you to experiment. When GoogleLookup isn't sure if an answer isn't the best one for your entry, you'll see a dialog box with a handful of possible answers that you can choose from. Just select the cell and click More Options... to select a different value.

Here are a few more examples of entities you can access using the GoogleLookup formula, and a few popular attributes:
  • Countries and Territories (like "Burkina Faso"): population, capital, largest city, gdp
  • U.S. States (like "Tennessee"): area, governor, nickname, flower
  • Rivers (like "Amazon River"): origin, length
  • Cities and Towns (like "Chicago"): state, mayor, elevation
  • Musicians (like "John Lennon"): date of birth, place of birth, nationality
  • Politicians (like "Anwar Al-Sadat"): date of birth, place of birth, nationality
  • Baseball Players (like "Wade Boggs"): games, at bats, earned run average, position
  • Chemical Compounds (like "Isopropyl Alcohol"): chemical formula, melting point, boiling point, density
  • Stars (like "Betelgeuse"): constellation, distance, mass, temperature
  • Planets (like "Saturn"): number of moons, length of day, distance from sun, atmosphere
  • Dinosaurs (like "Velociraptor"): height, weight, when it lived
  • Ships (like "USS Chesapeake"): length, displacement, complement, commissioned
  • Companies (like "Hewlett-Packard"): employees, ceo, ticker
Checkout the video below to see the GoogleLookup function in action and don't forget to give it a try to see what kind of facts you can find.



Posted by: Julia Harter, Consumer Operations Associate
URL: http://googledocs.blogspot.com/2010/07/tips-tricks-googlelookup-in-google.html
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