Friday, March 11, 2011

Googland

Googland

[G] Click to call phone numbers

Posted: 10 Mar 2011 05:50 PM PST

Google Voice Blog: Click to call phone numbers

(Cross-posted from the Gmail blog)

With the ability to call phones built right into Gmail, you no longer have to get out your phone and retype a number anytime someone send you one in an email or chat message. Starting today, you'll see that phone numbers appear as links, like this:





Just click the number, and Gmail's dialpad will pop up, already populated with the number you're trying to call.





Click "Call" and voilà! Of course, if you don't already have the voice and video plugin installed, you'll be prompted to do that first.



You'll also see a little green phone icon next to numbers in your contacts which you can use to do the same thing.





Posted by Robin Schriebman, Software Engineer

URL: http://googlevoiceblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/click-to-call-phone-numbers.html

[G] Click to call phone numbers

Posted: 10 Mar 2011 05:47 PM PST

Official Gmail Blog: Click to call phone numbers

Posted by Robin Schriebman, Software Engineer

With the ability to call phones built right into Gmail, you no longer have to get out your phone and retype a number anytime someone send you one in an email or chat message. Starting today, you'll see that phone numbers appear as links, like this:


Just click the number, and Gmail's dialpad will pop up, already populated with the number you're trying to call.


Click "Call" and voilà! Of course, if you don't already have the voice and video plugin installed, you'll be prompted to do that first.

You'll also see a little green phone icon next to numbers in your contacts which you can use to do the same thing.

URL: http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/click-to-call-phone-numbers.html

[G] Large Scale Image Annotation: Learning to Rank with Joint Word-Image Embeddings

Posted: 10 Mar 2011 05:26 PM PST

Official Google Research Blog: Large Scale Image Annotation: Learning to Rank with Joint Word-Image Embeddings

Posted by Jason Weston and Samy Bengio, Research Team

In our paper, we introduce a generic framework to find a joint representation of images and their labels, which can then be used for various tasks, including image ranking and image annotation.

We focus on the task of automatic assignment of annotations (text labels) to images given only the pixel representation of the image (i.e., with no known metadata). This is achieved by a learning algorithm, that is, where the computer learns to predict annotations for new images given annotated training images. Such training datasets are becoming larger and larger, with tens of millions of images and tens of thousands of possible annotations. In this paper, we propose a strongly performing method that scales to such datasets by simultaneously learning to optimize precision at the top of the ranked list of annotations for a given image and learning a low-dimensional joint embedding vector space for both images and annotations. Our system learns an interpretable model, where annotations with alternate wordings ("president obama" or "barack"), different languages ("tour eiffel" or "eiffel tower"), or similar concepts (such as "toad" or "frog") are close in the embedding space. Hence, even when our model does not predict the exact annotation given by a human labeler, it often predicts similar annotations.

Our system is trained on ~10 million images with ~100,000 possible annotation types and it annotates a single new image in ~0.17 seconds (not including feature processing) and consumes only 82MB of memory. Our method both outperforms all the methods we tested against and in comparison to them is faster and consumes less memory, making it possible to house such a system on a laptop or mobile device.
URL: http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2011/03/large-scale-image-annotation-learning.html

[G] Building resources to syntactically parse the web

Posted: 10 Mar 2011 05:26 PM PST

Official Google Research Blog: Building resources to syntactically parse the web

Posted by Slav Petrov and Ryan McDonald, Research Team

One major hurdle in organizing the world's information is building computer systems that can understand natural, or human, language. Such understanding would advance if systems could automatically determine syntactic and semantic structures.

This analysis is an extremely complex inferential process. Consider for example the sentence, "A hearing is scheduled on the issue today." A syntactic parser needs to determine that "is scheduled" is a verb phrase, that the "hearing" is its subject, that the prepositional phrase "on the issue" is modifying the "hearing", and that today is an adverb modifying the verb phrase. Of course, humans do this all the time without realizing it. For computers, this is non-trivial as it requires a fair amount of background knowledge, typically encoded in a rich statistical model. Consider, "I saw a man with a jacket" versus "I saw a man with a telescope". In the former, we know that a "jacket" is something that people wear and is not a mechanism for viewing people. So syntactically, the "jacket" must be a property associated with the "man" and not the verb "saw", i.e., I did not see the man by using a jacket to view him. Whereas in the latter, we know that a telescope is something with which we can view people, so it can also be a property of the verb. Of course, it is ambiguous, maybe the man is carrying the telescope.


Linguistically inclined readers will of course notice that this parse tree has been simplified by omitting empty clauses and traces.

Computer programs with the ability to analyze the syntactic structure of language are fundamental to improving the quality of many tools millions of people use every day, including machine translation, question answering, information extraction, and sentiment analysis. Google itself is already using syntactic parsers in many of its projects. For example, this paper, describes a system where a syntactic dependency parser is used to make translations more grammatical between languages with different word orderings. This paper uses the output of a syntactic parser to help determine the scope of negation within sentences, which is then used downstream to improve a sentiment analysis system.

To further this work, Google is pleased to announce a gift to the Linguistic Data Consortium (LDC) to create new annotated resources that can facilitate research progress in the area of syntactic parsing. The primary purpose of the gift is to generate data sets that language technology researchers can use to evaluate the robustness of new parsing methods in several web domains, such as blogs and discussion forums. The goal is to move parsing beyond its current focus on carefully edited text such as print news (for which annotated resources already exist) to domains with larger stylistic and topical variability (where spelling errors and grammatical mistakes are more common).

The Linguistic Data Consortium is a non-profit organization that produces and distributes linguistic data to researchers, technology developers, universities and university libraries. The LDC is hosted by the University of Pennsylvania and directed by Mark Liberman, Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Professor of Linguistics.

The LDC is the leader in building linguistic data resources and will annotate several thousand sentences with syntactic parse trees like the one shown in the figure. The annotation will be done manually by specially trained linguists who will also have access to machine analysis and can correct errors the systems make. Once the annotation is completed, the corpus will be released to the research community through the LDC catalog. We look forward to seeing what they produce and what the natural language processing research community can do with the rich annotation resource.
URL: http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2011/03/building-resources-to-syntactically.html

[G] Live tutorial on basic AdWords reporting & analysing your performance

Posted: 10 Mar 2011 03:39 PM PST

Inside AdWords: Live tutorial on basic AdWords reporting & analysing your performance

Want to know how to analyse your account performance? On Wednesday 16th March we'll be delivering a live tutorial as part of the AdWords Online Classroom (UK) that will highlight best practices for generating AdWords reports and analysing the results.

We'll focus on four key reports including; Keyword Report, See Search Terms Report, Ad Performance and Campaign Performance Reports, which will allow you not only analyse your performance but also highlight opportunities to optimise your account. In addition we'll also show you how to download, save, schedule and e-mail these reports.

This tutorial will be presented by AdWords Specialists and is appropriate for all advertisers wanting to make their ads as informative as possible. It will take place on Wednesday, March 16th, 2011 3-4pm GMT, 7-8am PST so make sure to sign up now!


Posted by Nathania Lozada, Inside AdWords crew
URL: http://adwords.blogspot.com/2011/03/live-tutorial-on-basic-adwords.html

[G] Negative Keywords for Product Listing Ads

Posted: 10 Mar 2011 03:39 PM PST

Inside AdWords: Negative Keywords for Product Listing Ads

When we launched Product Listing Ads to all U.S. advertisers last year we also launched a new bidding and targeting technology, Product Targets. This feature allows you to bucket the items in your merchant center account into manageable groups, and to bid differently on those groups based on a number of attributes like brand and product type.

Since we launched we've been working on new targeting features to help you improve your performance with Product Listing Ads even further. Today, we're announcing the launch of one of these features - negative keywords.

Negative keywords for Product Listing Ads work just like they do with normal text-based search ads. Adding a negative keyword to your ad group or campaign means that your product listing ads won't show for search queries containing that term.

Using negative keywords, you can limit the chances that your ads will show on unrelated, or low value queries. For example, if you sell sheet sets, but you don't carry twin sizes, you can add the negative keyword [-twin] to your Ad Group and your Product Listing Ads won't show for any queries that contain the word [twin].

You can also manage negative keywords across multiple campaigns using the negative keyword list feature that we introduced earlier this year.

Negative keyword functionality for Product Listing Ads is available now to all U.S. advertisers. To learn more about Product Listing Ads, including best practices, visit our help center.

Posted by Dan Friedman, Inside AdWords crew
URL: http://adwords.blogspot.com/2011/03/negative-keywords-for-product-listing.html

[G] We want YOU-Tube: now hiring

Posted: 10 Mar 2011 12:41 PM PST

YouTube Blog: We want YOU-Tube: now hiring

Nearly six years ago, YouTube was created to enable people to create, share and discover the world through video. Today, 35 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube every minute and we see well over 2 billion views a day. It's been amazing to watch an idea become a platform that turned into a stage for hundreds of millions of people to express themselves. We now have aspiring filmmakers and musicians building their careers on YouTube, activists opening our eyes to global issues and individuals telling their stories in ways that only video can capture. And because we believe that technology and platforms like YouTube are giving rise to the most diverse set of faces and voices ever seen or heard in human history, us YouTubers really enjoy and feel proud to work here.



2010 was a bang-up year. And in 2011, we plan to grow the number of people working at YouTube by more than 30% (!), making it the largest hiring year in YouTube's history. We're looking for top talent from around the world. Why don't you join us?

Jeff Ferguson, YouTube HR, recently watched "We Believe in Allie...do you Brad Paisley??!!"


URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/youtube/PKJx/~3/EkjoiO_nspU/we-want-you-tube-now-hiring.html

[G] Hide sites to find more of what you want

Posted: 10 Mar 2011 11:57 AM PST

Official Google Blog: Hide sites to find more of what you want

Over the years we've experimented with a number of ways to help you personalize the results you find on Google, from SearchWiki to stars in search to location settings. Now there's yet another way to find more of what you want on Google by blocking the sites you don't want to see.

You've probably had the experience where you've clicked a result and it wasn't quite what you were looking for. Many times you'll head right back to Google. Perhaps the result just wasn't quite right, but sometimes you may dislike the site in general, whether it's offensive, pornographic or of generally low quality. For times like these, you'll start seeing a new option to block particular domains from your future search results. Now when you click a result and then return to Google, you'll find a new link next to "Cached" that reads "Block all example.com results."


As always, Matt's been gracious enough to let us use him as an example. His site is awesome, though, and we doubt many people will want to block it!

Once you click the link to "Block all example.com results" you'll get a confirmation message, as well as the option to undo your choice. You'll see the link whether or not you're signed in, but the domains you block are connected with your Google Account, so you'll need to sign in before you can confirm a block.


Once you've blocked a domain, you won't see it in your future search results. (Side note: Sometimes you may have to search on a new term, rather than simply refreshing your browser, before you'll notice the domain has been successfully removed.) The next time you're searching and a blocked page would have appeared, you'll see a message telling you results have been blocked, making it easy to manage your personal list of blocked sites. This message will appear at the top or bottom of the results page depending on the relevance of the blocked pages.


You can see a list of your blocked sites in a new settings page, which you can access by visiting your Search Settings or clicking on the "Manage blocked sites" link that appears when you block a domain. On the settings page you can find details about the sites you've blocked, block new sites, or unblock sites if you've changed your mind.


We're adding this feature because we believe giving you control over the results you find will provide an even more personalized and enjoyable experience on Google. In addition, while we're not currently using the domains people block as a signal in ranking, we'll look at the data and see whether it would be useful as we continue to evaluate and improve our search results in the future. The new feature is rolling out today and tomorrow on google.com in English for people using Chrome 9+, IE8+ and Firefox 3.5+, and we'll be expanding to new regions, languages and browsers soon. We hope you find it useful, and we'll be listening closely to your suggestions.

Posted by Amay Champaneria and Beverly Yang, Search Quality Engineers
URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/hide-sites-to-find-more-of-what-you.html

[G] Google at SXSW 2011: Austin here we come

Posted: 10 Mar 2011 11:57 AM PST

Official Google Blog: Google at SXSW 2011: Austin here we come

SXSW begins Friday, March 11 and pretty soon Googlers will be touching down in Austin for the Interactive, Music and Film Festivals. We have a lot planned for the week, and we hope you'll join us for some of the fun.

More than a dozen Googlers are speaking on a wide variety of panels, kicking off with a talk on Friday, March 11 by Marissa Mayer, our VP of Consumer Products. Google and YouTube panelists will cover topics as varied as Google doodles, electronic privacy, hybrid marketing, recommendation engines and beyond.

All developers are invited to join us at the League of Extraordinary H4ckers on Sunday, March 13. At this 1-6 PM event, attend 15-minute API briefings on Android, Chrome, HTML5, Blogger, Google TV, Google Maps, App Engine, YouTube, Web Fonts, Cellbots and Fusion Tables, mingle with our developer team or hang out in the YouTube Leanback lounge. If you stick around, that same evening we're co-sponsoring SuperHappyDevHouse—complete with hacking and a LEGO® MINDSTORMS® sumobot competition. Be sure to RSVP for both events!


If you're also attending the Film and Music portions of the festival, keep an eye out for screenings of Life in a Day, and check out the YouTube-sponsored NPR Music showcase on March 17 and the Other Music & Dig for Fire Lawn Party on March 17-18. We'll be holding a meetup for Texas-area partners, too.

Of course, no SXSW is complete without a slew of parties, and this year is no exception. Here are a few of the places you'll find Googlers unwinding:
  • Sunday, March 13 - don your legwarmers along with the ACLU and party like it's 1986—the last time the U.S. electronic privacy law was updated
  • Monday, March 14 - Blogger is hosting its annual bash—this time with co-conspirators from the SketchUp team
  • Tuesday, March 15 - YouTube-sponsored Official Film Closing/Music Opening party
Plus, from March 14-17, you can visit us at our booth for demos and presentations of Google products and features.

There's a full list of Google/YouTube activities on our event site, and throughout the festival, we'll post updates about all our events via @googlesxsw, so be sure to follow us and spread the word. We're looking forward to seeing you in Austin!

Posted by Emily Wood, Google Blog editor
URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/google-at-sxsw-2011-austin-here-we-come.html

[G] Apply to the YouTube Creator Institute’s inaugural class

Posted: 10 Mar 2011 10:50 AM PST

YouTube Blog: Apply to the YouTube Creator Institute's inaugural class

People who create content for YouTube today come from all walks of life: aspiring filmmakers, moms with cooking shows, teenage gossip vloggers, fantasy football commentators, ironing skydivers—the list goes on and on.

Very often, these dedicated YouTubers wear several hats at once: actor, writer, director, producer, cinematographer, studio head, and lead marketer—in other words, to get their videos to the world, they need to know how to do it all. But we figure there are people out there who've always wanted to express themselves through video, but may be limited by funding, video-making skills, insufficient tools, or just knowing where to start. That's why today we're establishing the YouTube Creator Institute - the first initiative from YouTube Next - to help nurture these content creators, existing YouTube partners, and the next generation of stellar YouTube talent with the skills they need to thrive online and offline.

We've worked with some of the world's leading film and television schools to put together the YouTube Creator Institute. Based both at YouTube and onsite at the campuses of our institutional partners, participants will learn from a unique new media curriculum, apply new media tools, find out how to build their audiences, be promoted globally on the YouTube platform, and engage with industry leaders and experts. Participants will learn everything from story arcing to cinematography, money-making strategies to social media tactics. The wider YouTube community will be able to learn along the way, too, by following the rise of the YouTube Creator Institute's inaugural class on YouTube this summer.



The inaugural YouTube Creator Institute programs begin in the United States in May this year.

The University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts is the country's first film school and regarded as one of the leading schools in the world, with an alumni base of industry leaders and an array of notable accolades. The YouTube-USC Creator Institute takes place from May 25 until June 22 in Los Angeles, CA.

Columbia College Chicago's Television Department has been innovating around new online media strategies for years, with students creating award-winning web-isodes while investigating new opportunities in the online space. The YouTube-Columbia College Chicago Creator Institute begins on May 31 and ends on July 22 in Chicago, IL.

Any U.S. citizen over 18 is welcome to apply, and candidates may apply online at www.youtube.com/creatorinstitute from now until March 25. Applications include two short answer questions and a maximum two-minute demonstration of the creator's craft, whether it be a short film, a clip of a personal cooking show, or a snapshot of a nature expedition. Afterwards, the YouTube community will vote for two weeks between March 28 and April 8 for their favorite creators. The top voted candidates will move on to the final round, where our film and television school partners will choose the inaugural class for each of their programs, which will be announced on April 20. Learn more about the application and judging criteria.

Stay tuned for more YouTube Creator Institute and creator opportunities in the near future.

Bing Chen, YouTube Creator Initiatives and Product Marketing, recently watched, ""Rocketeer" cover, mastered by Kurt Hugo Schneider."


URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/youtube/PKJx/~3/LC2w_2pkAL4/apply-to-youtube-creator-institutes.html
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