Sunday, December 19, 2010

Googland

Googland

[G] Robot hackathon connects with Android, browsers and the cloud

Posted: 19 Dec 2010 04:33 AM PST

Official Google Research Blog: Robot hackathon connects with Android, browsers and the cloud

Posted by Ryan Hickman and Mamie Rheingold, 20% Robotics Task Force

With a beer fridge stocked and music blasting, engineers from across Google—and the world—spent the month of October soldering and hacking in their 20% time to connect hobbyist and educational robots with Android phones. Just two months later we're psyched to announce three ways you can play with your iRobot Create(R), LEGO(R) MINDSTORMS(R) or VEX Pro(R) through the cloud:

For the month of October, we invited any Googler who wanted to contribute to connect robots to Google's services in the cloud to pool their 20% time and participate in as much of the process as they could, from design to hard-core coding.

Thanks to our hardware partners (iRobot, LEGO Group, and VEX Robotics), we never suffered a shortage of supplies. Designers flew in from London, and prototypes were passed between engineers in Tel-Aviv, Hyderabad, Zurich, Munich and California. In Mountain View, we gathered around every Thursday night, rigging up a projector against the wall to share our week's worth of demos while chowing on pizza. And here is what we produced (so far!):



We hope these applications provide some fun and inspire you to build upon this lightweight connectivity between robots, Android, the cloud and your browser.

URL: http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2010/12/robot-hackathon-connects-with-android.html

[G] Discover Your Blog's Community with OneTrueFan

Posted: 18 Dec 2010 08:09 PM PST

Blogger Buzz: Discover Your Blog's Community with OneTrueFan

This is a guest post by Eric Marcoullier, CEO of OneTrueFan. Though Blogger/Google does not have any affiliation with OneTrueFan, we've found OneTrueFan as an interesting way for our users to build community around their blog and get to know their audience, and so asked Eric to introduce OneTrueFan for our users. -- Chang Kim, Product Manager

You work hard to write great content and bring people to your Blogger blog. You've built a great community of loyal readers, many of them reading everything you post. Too bad it's so hard to better know who your readers are: On average, less than one percent of readers comment on an article on the web; Regularly searching Twitter, Digg, or other sites for links to your site is tedious and time consuming.

At the same time, you're likely getting good traffic from search engines and social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. Unfortunately, these readers are incredibly difficult to engage. More than 80% of a site's traffic visits just one time and reads only one article. Visitors driven by search and social media tend to skim a blog post and then leave. Less than 24 hours later, they can't remember where they read your content, so they'll never come back.

OneTrueFan surfaces the community that exists on and around your Blogger blog, creating a deeper sense of engagement with new and returning users, and helps you get to know the people who visit.


OneTrueFan lives at the bottom of your blog. People show up in two ways: they can check in via OneTrueFan or share a link on Twitter. (In the coming weeks, people will also show up when they share a link with Facebook, Tumblr, Posterous, and many other sites.) You and your readers can mouse over anyone's picture to learn more about them.


Readers earn points for coming to your site each day, reading content, sharing links and driving traffic to your site. The ten readers with the most points show up in a leaderboard, but those points only last for 14 days. Readers need to keep coming back because fanship is an ongoing process.

Now you might be asking yourself, "Why would anyone want to check into my blog?" Because they *love* your blog and want people to know that they are a part of your community. OneTrueFan is an easy way for readers to show you a bit of love without going through a lot of effort.

Getting OneTrueFan on Blogger is free and easy! Just click this link to add OneTrueFan to your Blogger blog. Once it's installed, you'll start discovering your community in no time.

Link: Install OneTrueFan to your Blogger blog
URL: http://buzz.blogger.com/2010/12/discover-your-blogs-community-with.html

[G] Imagery Update - Week of December 12th

Posted: 18 Dec 2010 06:37 PM PST

Google LatLong: Imagery Update - Week of December 12th



'Tis the season of giving! For those of you who'd like nothing more than to receive the gift of new places to explore on Google Earth and Maps, you're in luck. Our imagery team's latest update includes many places that relate metaphorically to the holiday season.

For example, it's often at the end of the year that we remark "Out with the old, and in with the new." That concept can also be applied to the below image that captures two military installations located North West of Beijing. You can see the fascinating juxtaposition of the modern Yongning Air Force base (bottom right) and an adjacent section of the ancient Great Wall of China (upper left quadrant) that outlines parts of the Shibapan Ling mountain range. And yes, you really can see the wall from space!

Near Beijing, China

Wouldn't gold make a great stocking stuffer? Take a look at the below image of Jin Xixin Lake, the dammed section of the Minjiang River also known as the Gold Lake, located south of Mount Wuyi, China. In this image, you can see lots of prime locations that might make great prospecting camps. Get out your pans!

Gold (but no frankincense) near Mount Wuyi, China

Finally, although this time of year is often associated with the Christian-based holidays, when thinking about China, thoughts naturally turn to Buddhism. Just the other day on the Google campus in Mountain View, a group of Tibetan monks visited to build a Sand Mandala and lead a meditation group. In this spirit, I've included the below image of the first Buddhist monastery built in Tibet, the Samye Monastery.

A site of enlightenment in Tibet

The examples above only hint at the type and breadth of features that can be seen and discovered in our latest batch of published imagery. Happy exploring and happy holidays!

High resolution aerial updates:
USA: Birmingham AL, Little Rock AK, Peoria IL, Tuscaloosa AL, Worcester MA, Jerome ID, Stevenson WA, Knoxville TN, Morganton NC, and Statesville NC
Canada: Powell River, and Sunshine Coast, BC., Canmore, and Cold Lake
Netherlands: Hilversum
South Africa: Northern, Eastern, and Western Cape, and Limpopo
Sweden: Gävleborgs Län, Jönköpings Län, Uppsala Län, Västerbottens Län, and Västra Götalands Län

Countries receiving high resolution satellite updates:
Albania, Algeria, Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belgium, Bhutan, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, British Virgin Islands, Brunei Darussalam, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Cameroon, Canada, Chad, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cuba, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Estonia, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Latvia, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Mali, Mauritania, Mexico, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, Nepal, Netherlands, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Republic of Korea, Romania, Russia, Samoa, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Solomon Islands, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Thailand, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, Vietnam, Virgin Islands, West Bank, Yemen, Zambia, Zimbabwe

These updates are currently only available in Google Earth, but they'll also be in Google Maps soon. To get a complete picture of where we updated imagery, download this KML for viewing in Google Earth.

Posted by Eric Kolb, Geo Data Strategist
URL: http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2010/12/imagery-update-week-of-december-12th.html

[G] Last chance for Checkout holiday shopping deals

Posted: 18 Dec 2010 10:03 AM PST

Official Google Checkout Blog: Last chance for Checkout holiday shopping deals

Online holiday shopping has been setting new records this season, and there's no reason to slow down now. Google can help you find great deals for all the last-minute items on your list using Google Checkout and Google Product Search.

Know the type of store you're looking for? Visit the Checkout Deals Page to find Checkout sellers offering discounts of $5, $10, and $20. Shop with multiple merchants to take advantage of the deals through December 16.

Need a little item inspiration? Use Product Search to browse popular items, holiday gift guides, and specific deals from Checkout sellers. Remember to pay with Google Checkout to take advantage of the advertised deals.

Happy shopping and happy holidays!

Posted by Jessica Smallman, Google Checkout Team
URL: http://googlecheckout.blogspot.com/2010/12/last-chance-for-checkout-holiday.html

[G] Live 'Project for Awesome' show premiering on YouTube today

Posted: 18 Dec 2010 09:12 AM PST

YouTube Blog: Live 'Project for Awesome' show premiering on YouTube today

Day one of Project for Awesome was a huge success, thanks to you! So many videos have been created and shared with the world. If you haven't already, we encourage you to create and upload a video promoting your favorite cause or charity.

To celebrate the finale of Project for Awesome, join us for a live show from 4 - 7pm PST at www.youtube.com/p4a. YouTube's biggest stars and some of the world's leading nonprofit organizations will team up to promote important causes in education, health, poverty, children's wish giving and more -- through a wide array of entertaining moments and stories.

We look forward to your participation!

Christopher Hamilton and Bing Chen, Product Marketing Managers, recently watched "Project for Awesome! P4A! charity : water".


URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/youtube/PKJx/~3/Rqt11nMMPGc/live-project-for-awesome-show.html
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