Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Googland

Googland

[G] Google Code-in: Contest is Open!

Posted: 23 Nov 2010 04:49 AM PST

Google Open Source Blog: Google Code-in: Contest is Open!

We're pleased to announce that today marks the start of the Google Code-in contest. Students who are at least 13 years old and not more than 18 years old and are currently enrolled in a pre-university school on November 22, 2010 are eligible to participate. Start claiming tasks to work on for our participating mentor organizations right now.

Tasks are sorted according to organization, difficulty level, type of task, and point value. If you are considering participating, take a look at the tasks list and see what you're interested in claiming. You can comment on the task if you have questions about the task for the organization.

For successful completion of just one task you will receive a t-shirt and certificate of participation. For every three tasks you complete you'll receive $100, up to a maximum of $500. Our 10 contestants with the most points at the end of the contest win the Grand Prize: an all-expenses paid trip with a family member to Google's Headquarters in Mountain View, California!

The contest ends on January 10, 2011. So don't delay, claim a task today!

If you have questions, please review our Frequently Asked Questions and the Rules page. You can also join our discussion list and ask your question there.

Have fun, and meet you on the list or in Mountain View!

By Carol Smith, Open Source Team
URL: http://google-opensource.blogspot.com/2010/11/google-code-in-contest-is-open.html

[G] Even smarter Street View navigation: single click to go (anywhere!)

Posted: 23 Nov 2010 02:18 AM PST

Google LatLong: Even smarter Street View navigation: single click to go (anywhere!)

Last year we introduced Smart Navigation to Street View, which allowed you to jump to a new panorama just by double-clicking on a place or object. Now you can quickly navigate to those images with just a single click.

For those of you who haven't used this click-to-go feature before, notice that as you move your mouse around in a street view panorama, a disk or rectangle follows the cursor (what we call the "pancake"). This pancake not only makes the panorama feel three-dimensional, but shows you where you can jump to a new panorama to get a different view. For instance, let's say you're checking out the town of San Miguel de Allende in Mexico because you read about the large community of artists and writers living there. You can get a closer look at the Parish of San Miguel by clicking on the pancake and navigating around the church.



A few more clicks will take you through the colorful neighboring streets. Through your virtual exploration, you can see a restaurant in the distance behind the below rectangular pancake:


With a single click on the pancake, you're transported right in front of that location and the pancake reappears - this time with a magnifying glass. This means you can zoom in to get an even closer view:


To read the menu at "El Infierno" and see what kind of food they may have, the single click to zoom also applies here. We've also made it easier to zoom out. Once you've zoomed in all the way, the magnifying glass changes from a plus sign to a minus sign, signifying that the next click will zoom all the way out.


QUE VIVA single click navigation!

Posted by Daniel Filip, Senior Staff Engineer
URL: http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2010/11/even-smarter-street-view-navigation.html

[G] In Africa, citizen cartographers tell their stories through their maps

Posted: 23 Nov 2010 02:18 AM PST

Google LatLong: In Africa, citizen cartographers tell their stories through their maps


Earlier this month, we invited 60 of Google Map Maker's top users in Africa to a community workshop in Nairobi. The event celebrated the contributions of exceptional mappers from across Africa who have collectively mapped hundreds of thousands of roads, cities and buildings, covering more than half the population in Africa. Participants from places including Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Gambia, Kenya, Morocco, Uganda, Rwanda, and Tanzania came together for this unique and inspiring opportunity to tell their stories, learn from each other, and share their mapping experiences using Google Map Maker. Check out the the Super Mappers Conference site for more details.


Meeting these passionate online mappers inspired all of us to think not only about creating maps to fulfill a practical need, but also about why we map and the deeply personal stories a map can tell. During these two days, we traveled to places that we perhaps may never see in person, but now mean more to us when we see them on a map because of the stories of mappers such as Noé Diakubama.

Noé grew up in the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire), a country that has suffered many years at war. He is now living in Belgium and proud to give back to his country and people via mapping.

His mapping story began in Mbandaka, where he grew up. Noé liked to walk. Walking was about exploration and discovery. And Noé had many places to go, including secret spots to find wild vegetables and the EALA botanical garden. But without a map it was easy to get lost, so he could never wander too far from home. With his uncle, Noé sketched a small paper illustration of Mbandaka and its landmarks - that was his first experience with mapping! A few years later, he was surprised to find Mbandaka poorly represented on Google Maps; it only showed the city airport and two roads. Using Google Map Maker, he began mapping the roads by himself, and then asked friends and family to help him with adding local roads, their names and so on. Together, they created the first map ever of Mbandaka!


When I asked Noé why he maps, he replied:

Everyday, I spend hours and hours in front of my computer… mapping. My rewards include seeing a smile on the face of someone who sees for the first time the name of his/her street on the Internet, and knowing that someone benefited from the maps I created - kids journeying in the neighborhoods, business owners, or tourists. And ultimately, I want to see Africa being mapped and these maps made accessible to everyone. My message to other Africans: don't be just a spectator, let's all share our knowledge and start mapping cities and remote areas. We will soon, together, complete the mapping of our continent!

I'm used to seeing maps and thinking of them as a collection of edits or points of interests. It was an incredible feeling to personally meet and interact with the people behind the creation of the many dots on our maps. This was a gentle and welcome reminder that maps are not static. They're alive, they're personal, and they tell the stories of the people who create them. Mapping allows each of us to be a driving force for change and growth in both our immediate communities and the rest of the world. Let's continue mapping, let's stay connected through the Map Your World Community, and let's continue doing amazing things together!

Posted by France Lamy, Program Manager, Google.org
URL: http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2010/11/in-africa-citizen-cartographers-tell.html

[G] Earthquake motivates New Zealanders to model their town

Posted: 23 Nov 2010 02:18 AM PST

Google LatLong: Earthquake motivates New Zealanders to model their town


Last week, local volunteers in Christchurch and Dunedin New Zealand invested a day of their time learning how to create 3D models using Google SketchUp. The workshops focused on learning how to geo-model, a process that involves creating 3D models of buildings from photographs for display in Google Earth.

The workshop was led by local architect and geo-technology expert Jason Mill of ZNO, who was inspired to organize the events following the recent earthquake in his hometown of Christchurch. As an architect, Jason recognized the value of having a publicly accessible digital model of the city, and has invested considerable time over several years modeling the central business district of Christchurch.

The value of these models took on new meaning when many of the heritage buildings in town disappeared, leaving the community to decide what should stand in their place.

Five hours away, the city of Dunedin was unaffected by the earthquake, but given its large number of heritage buildings, local residents there decided that it shouldn't assume that they will be there forever. They suddenly felt a greater sense of urgency around creating a historical record of these buildings.


Historic preservation and city planning are two reasons that many people model their town, but there are numerous other benefits. Local business owners are keen to be represented on the 3D map, enabling virtual tourists another means to locate them on the Internet. Downtown organizations responsible for promoting their city are other beneficiaries. Exploring a destination virtually, whether for business or leisure, is becoming as common as reading a web site.

Google supports these workshops because it aligns with our mission to build a comprehensive atlas of the world online. This atlas is a dynamic, collaborative, open platform for visualizing, sharing, and searching geographic information—whether it's in your local neighborhood or on the other side of the globe.

By providing free authoring tools like SketchUp and Building Maker, we're making it easy to introduce 3D buildings to the map. Maps are no longer just 2D static images on paper, they're living reflections of the local world around us. Everyone has the ability to help shape the map and contribute their local knowledge, experiences and points of view. Adding 3D buildings to the map is just one way to achieve that.

Local residents such as those in Christchurch and Dunedin are doing more than just putting their cities on the map, they're contributing to an atlas of the world, and becoming the curators of the special places that their cities have to offer.

Posted by Bruce Polderman, Product Manager
URL: http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2010/11/earthquake-motivates-new-zealanders-to.html

[G] Invest Smarter: Stay on top of the latest Trends

Posted: 23 Nov 2010 01:41 AM PST

Google Finance Blog: Invest Smarter: Stay on top of the latest Trends

Posted by Laura Hughes, Consumer Operations Associate

We all know that to invest wisely, you need to keep an eye on broad market and economics trends. But did you know that Google Finance can help you do that in the blink of an eye? Right on the Google Finance homepage, we have a box dedicated to real-time trends that can help you make investment decisions, or just satisfy your curiosity.

This section allows you to see which companies are the biggest movers across many categories, each on a separate tab. Stay informed of big changes in basic stock metrics like price change, market cap, and volume as well as the unique market insight gained from knowing which companies have seen the biggest increase and decrease in searches on Google.




Here's a look at what the trends we we display and what they mean.
  • Popular: The stocks that people are searching for most on Google
  • Price: Top gainers and losers in terms of % price change vs. the prior day's official closing price
  • Mkt Cap:Top gainers and losers in terms of change in absolute market capitalization vs. the prior day's official closing market cap
  • Volume: The stocks with the highest trade volume

Note: Price, Market cap, and Volume exclude stocks with market caps less than $1 billion and stock prices lower than $1.

Happy Investing!
URL: http://googlefinanceblog.blogspot.com/2010/11/invest-smarter-stay-on-top-of-latest.html

[G] Google Apps for Education professional development webinars

Posted: 22 Nov 2010 06:28 PM PST

Official Google Enterprise Blog: Google Apps for Education professional development webinars

As more and more states and school districts are going Google, we're hearing great ideas for integrating Google Apps into the classroom. To help educators make the most of Google Apps, we're starting a biweekly webinar series focused on Google Apps for Education professional development.

Webinars will be led by Google Apps for Education Certified Trainers and held biweekly on Tuesdays, 4:30PM PT.

We kicked off the series on November 9 with an overview of Google Sites. The next webinar in the series will be tomorrow, November 23, at 4:30PM PT/7:30PM ET on the topic of Student Newspapers and Google Apps - register today.

Future webinars in this series include:
Dec 7 - Taking the core features of Google Apps to the next level
Dec 21 - The Collaborative STEM classroom
Jan 4 - Becoming a Gmail Ninja

Recordings from past Google Apps webinars can also be found in our resource center.

To get a glimpse of how a teacher might use Google Apps in the classroom today, you can also view our new K-12 demo:



Posted by Dana Nguyen, Google Apps Education Team
URL: http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2010/11/google-apps-for-education-professional.html

[G] Now available with Google Apps: Google Voice

Posted: 22 Nov 2010 06:28 PM PST

Official Google Enterprise Blog: Now available with Google Apps: Google Voice



Editor's note: We recently launched an improvement that makes over 60 additional Google services available to Google Apps users. This series showcases what's new and how your organization can benefit.



Welcome to Google Voice
Telephones make our lives easier every day, but we've all met with the limitations of what the existing technology can do for us. Maybe it's missing an important call because you were away from your office. Maybe it's juggling multiple voicemail inboxes or struggling to listen to voicemail in a crowded conference room or on a noisy train. Maybe its wishing you could set up a conference call right from your mobile phone and connect with colleagues instantly.

Now, Google Apps users can move beyond these limitation and use their telephones in new and more flexible ways by using Google Voice with their Google Apps accounts.

Google Voice is about giving you more control over your communications, regardless of which phone or carrier you use. Here's a little bit about how it works:
  • A Google Voice number is tied to you (not to a single device) and can ring all of your phones. This means when someone calls your Google Voice number, you can choose to have it ring your work phone, home phone, mobile phone, or all of them at once, so you'll never miss a call again.

  • Google Voice makes voicemail as easy as email by transcribing your voicemail messages and storing them all in one place, along with your SMS messages, for as long as you like. You've long had the ability to quickly scan email messages as they arrive, and Google Voice now brings this same flexibility to voicemail.

  • With Google Voice you can switch phones in the middle of a call, so you can continue a conversation that you started on your desk phone from your mobile when you need to get going.

  • You can also customize call settings based on who's calling. Google Voice lets you choose which phones ring based on the caller, which voicemail greeting is played if you don't answer, and allows you to block certain numbers or send them straight to voicemail. For example, with this functionality you could direct most calls to your desk phone, but also ring your mobile when an important customer calls, as well as serve different voicemail greetings to that customer than you do to your coworkers or suppliers.



Just like Google Apps, Google Voice runs in Google's cloud so it can be accessed online, even when you are away from your phone.

Learn more and get started
Google Voice can be enabled by your domain administrator from the Google Apps Control Panel at https://www.google.com/a/[your_domain.com] (replace [your_domain.com] with your actual domain name). If your organization isn't using Google Apps yet, you can learn more and sign up today at http://www.google.com/apps/more.

For more information, you can visit the Google Voice overview page to see video explanations of the key features or take a look at our Help Center for details instructions. You can also follow the latest product news and features on the Google Voice Blog.

Share your story
Have you already started using Google Voice at your organization, or plan to now that it's available? Please share your story and your organization could be featured in the next Gone Google ad campaign!


Posted by Vincent Paquet, Product Manager, Google Voice

Note: Google Voice is only available in the U.S.
URL: http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2010/11/now-available-with-google-apps-google_22.html

[G] A bridge to the cloud: Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office now available to early testers

Posted: 22 Nov 2010 06:28 PM PST

Official Google Enterprise Blog: A bridge to the cloud: Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office now available to early testers

Tens of millions of people have moved to Google Docs because it's 100% web: it provides real-time collaboration in the browser, with no software to install, manage or upgrade. Of course, we know that many more of you still use Microsoft Office, because until recently, there weren't many tools to help you collaborate and share with others. Now there's more choice.

To help smooth the transition from Office to the cloud, my teammates and I founded a company called DocVerse, which was acquired by Google earlier this year. Over the last 9 months, we've been hard at work moving the DocVerse product to Google's infrastructure. We've also renamed it Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office. Today, we're pleased to take the next step towards a public launch and make it available to early testers.

For those of you who have not made the full move to Google Docs and are still using Microsoft Office, Google has something great to offer. With Cloud Connect, people can continue to use the familiar Office interface, while reaping many of the benefits of web-based collaboration that Google Docs users already enjoy.

Users of Office 2003, 2007 and 2010 can sync their Office documents to the Google cloud, without ever leaving Office. Once synced, documents are backed-up, given a unique URL, and can be accessed from anywhere (including mobile devices) at any time through Google Docs. And because the files are stored in the cloud, people always have access to the current version.

Once in the Google cloud, documents can be easily shared and even simultaneously edited by multiple people, from right within Office. A full revision history is kept as the files are edited, and users can revert to earlier versions in one click. These are all features that Google Docs users already enjoy today, and now we're bringing them to Microsoft Office.


All you need is a Google account, and you're ready to go. That's it!

If you're a Google Apps for Business customer interested in joining our preview program, please sign up here. If you're not, don't worry- at launch, Google Cloud Connect will be available free to everyone, including consumers.

Posted by Shan Sinha, Group Product Manager

Update: Thank you for your interest! Due to the extraordinary demand from thousands of businesses in just the last few hours, we are no longer accepting volunteers for our early testing program. Please fill out this form if you would like to be notified when Google Cloud Connect becomes available.

Many of you have also asked about availability for Macs. Unfortunately due to the lack of support for open APIs on Microsoft Office for Mac, we are unable to make Google Cloud Connect available on Macs at this time. We look forward to when that time comes so we can provide this feature to our Mac customers as well.
URL: http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2010/11/bridge-to-cloud-google-cloud-connect.html

[G] Welcome, Google Apps users!

Posted: 22 Nov 2010 11:17 AM PST

Google Voice Blog: Welcome, Google Apps users!

Google Apps recently launched an improvement that made dozens of exciting Google services available to Google Apps users for the first time. As part of this launch, Google Voice is now available to our Google Apps users for free with their Apps accounts.

Google Apps is Google's suite of cloud-based messaging and collaboration apps used by over 30 million users in small businesses, large enterprises, educational institutions, government agencies, and non-profit organizations around the world. If your organization hasn't gone Google yet you can learn more about how to lower IT costs and improve productivity and collaboration at google.com/apps.

For those users who have a Google Apps account, if your administrator has already transitioned your organization to the new infrastructure, you can now use Google Voice by signing in at google.com/voice with your existing Apps account. At this time, Google Voice is available in the U.S. only.

For more details, read the complete post on the Google Enterprise blog and follow all the updates on other newly available services for Google Apps users.

Posted by Michael Bolognino, Product Marketing Manager
URL: http://googlevoiceblog.blogspot.com/2010/11/welcome-google-apps-users.html

[G] A bridge to the cloud: Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office now available to early testers

Posted: 22 Nov 2010 09:43 AM PST

Official Google Docs Blog: A bridge to the cloud: Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office now available to early testers

Cross posted on the Google Enterprise Blog

Tens of millions of people have moved to Google Docs because it's 100% web: it provides real-time collaboration in the browser, with no software to install, manage or upgrade. Of course, we know that many more of you still use Microsoft Office, because until recently, there weren't many tools to help you collaborate and share with others. Now there's more choice.

To help smooth the transition from Office to the cloud, my teammates and I founded a company called DocVerse, which was acquired by Google earlier this year. Over the last 9 months, we've been hard at work moving the DocVerse product to Google's infrastructure. We've also renamed it Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office. Today, we're pleased to take the next step towards a public launch and make it available to early testers.

For those of you who have not made the full move to Google Docs and are still using Microsoft Office, Google has something great to offer. With Cloud Connect, people can continue to use the familiar Office interface, while reaping many of the benefits of web-based collaboration that Google Docs users already enjoy.

Users of Office 2003, 2007 and 2010 can sync their Office documents to the Google cloud, without ever leaving Office. Once synced, documents are backed-up, given a unique URL, and can be accessed from anywhere (including mobile devices) at any time through Google Docs. And because the files are stored in the cloud, people always have access to the current version.

Once in the Google cloud, documents can be easily shared and even simultaneously edited by multiple people, from right within Office. A full revision history is kept as the files are edited, and users can revert to earlier versions in one click. These are all features that Google Docs users already enjoy today, and now we're bringing them to Microsoft Office.

All you need is a Google account, and you're ready to go. That's it!

If you're a Google Apps for Business customer interested in joining our preview program, please sign up here. If you're not, don't worry- at launch, Google Cloud Connect will be available free to everyone, including consumers.

Posted by Shan Sinha, Group Product Manager
URL: http://googledocs.blogspot.com/2010/11/bridge-to-cloud-google-cloud-connect.html

[G] YouTube Holiday Solutions Center to the rescue

Posted: 22 Nov 2010 08:02 AM PST

YouTube Blog: YouTube Holiday Solutions Center to the rescue

With Thanksgiving around the corner, another holiday season moves into full swing. Every year at this time, we see searches for cooking videos and turkey recipes surge on the site, and it's one reason we've aggregated many great culinary videos on a single channel, the YouTube Holiday Solutions Center, which is back for its third year.

For 2010, we've spiced up this holiday destination with even more recipes and how-to tips, including:

This tasty and easy-to-follow stuffing recipe from Howcast...



Ideas to decorate your home for the holidays from Real Simple Network...



A guide to building a gingerbread house with the family from Epicurious.com...



We'll be updating the channel daily, so make sure to check back regularly. We might just have that solution you're looking for.

The YouTube Holiday Solutions program is brought to you by Target.

Lee Hadlow, Marketing Programs Associate, recently watched "How to Carve a Turkey."


URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/youtube/PKJx/~3/RY-1Mg8QoSE/youtube-holiday-solutions-center-to.html
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