Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Googland

Googland

[G] Introducing CityHash

Posted: 12 Apr 2011 04:22 AM PDT

Google Open Source Blog: Introducing CityHash

We're pleased to announce the new CityHash family of hash functions for strings. We're releasing two functions today: CityHash64 and CityHash128. They hash strings to 64- and 128-bit hash codes, respectively. These functions aren't suitable for cryptography, but our experience so far shows that they're great for, say, hash tables.

We tried to optimize for CPUs that are common in Google's datacenters, but it turns out that most PCs and laptops have the relevant features as well. The important ones are 64-bit registers, instruction-level parallelism, and fast unaligned memory accesses.

We were greatly inspired by previous work on hashing, especially Austin Appleby's MurmurHash. The key advantage of our approach is that most steps contain at least two independent mathematical operations. Modern CPUs tend to perform best with this type of code.

The disadvantage of our approach is that the code is more complicated than most popular alternatives. We decided to optimize for speed rather than simplicity and even included special cases for short inputs.

Overall, we believe that CityHash64 and CityHash128 are exciting new ways to solve a classic problem. Under real-life conditions we expect CityHash64 to outperform previous work by at least 30% in speed, and perhaps as much as a factor of two. Also, as far as we know, these functions' statistical properties are sound. Please don't hesitate to try this fast new code!

By Geoff Pike and Jyrki Alakuijala, Software Engineering Team
URL: http://google-opensource.blogspot.com/2011/04/introducing-cityhash.html

[G] Final hours to submit your Google Summer of Code student applications!

Posted: 12 Apr 2011 04:22 AM PDT

Google Open Source Blog: Final hours to submit your Google Summer of Code student applications!

The student application period for the 2011 Google Summer of Code is almost over. All applications must be submitted into the Google Summer of Code site by Friday, April 8th at 19:00 UTC to be considered for this year's program. Don't wait until the last minute!

By Stephanie Taylor, Open Source Team
URL: http://google-opensource.blogspot.com/2011/04/final-hours-to-submit-your-google.html

[G] Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit 2011

Posted: 12 Apr 2011 04:22 AM PDT

Google Open Source Blog: Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit 2011

This week marks the fifth annual Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit, which will be held from April 6th to 8th in San Francisco, CA. Many Googlers will be attending, and several Googlers are presenting at the Summit as well.
Andrew Morton will be in a panel discussion on The Linux Kernel: What's Next at 11 AM on Wednesday April 6th.

Michael Rubin, Technical Lead for Google's Kernel Storage team will be presenting a keynote on File systems in the Cloud at 3:30 on Wednesday.

Ian Lance Taylor will be discussing the Go Programming Language at 2:15 on Thursday the 7th as part of the Tools track.

Later on Thursday, Jeremy Allison of the Open Source Programs Office will explain Why Samba Switched to GPLv3 at 4 PM.
Although the event is invitation only, live video streaming is available for free, so everyone can watch the keynotes and panel discussions. Tune in to the video stream, or if you'll be attending, introduce yourself after any of the talks!

By Ellen Ko, Open Source Team
URL: http://google-opensource.blogspot.com/2011/04/linux-foundation-collaboration-summit.html

[G] The DOs and DON’Ts of Google Summer of Code: Organization Administrator Edition

Posted: 12 Apr 2011 04:22 AM PDT

Google Open Source Blog: The DOs and DON'Ts of Google Summer of Code: Organization Administrator Edition

This is the second in a series of three posts on DOs and DON'Ts for Google Summer of Code students, mentors, and organization administrators. The first post dealt with students while this post features mentoring organization administrators. Organization administrators (org admins) oversee the overall progress of a mentoring organization and its students throughout the program. Based on our experience with Google Summer of Code, we'd like to share these tips and antipatterns with you to raise awareness and help other org admins avoid the same mistakes we've made. For even more advice, check out the mentor/admin guide.

DODON'T
Track the timeline and projects closely. Most mentors and students need a helping hand, and you can only provide this if you're aware of the deadlines yourself. Be sure both mentors and students are aware of their next steps. Also, keep track of the progress of each project, perhaps with a spreadsheet filled in by the mentors—this gives you time to deal with major problems before midterms/finals, when little choice exists besides failing the student.Fail to follow up on mentors and students. It is easy to lose your perspective of deadlines and progress. If you don't stay on top of them and make sure they are aware of their responsibilities it can result in unnecessary failure of students or embarrassment for your organization.
Start small. Everyone gets the most out of Google Summer of Code when the orgs are on top of everything and everyone knows what's going on. You can achieve this most easily with only a small number of mentors and students. Successful orgs tend to be invited back, so plan for success; there is time to grow later. It's much better to have a few overwhelming successes than many borderline cases and failures.Take on too many students. Most new organizations try to get as many slots as they can. This is, however, rarely a good idea. They greatly underestimate the resources needed to mentor a group of students in a program like Google Summer of Code. Taking on too many students almost always leads to a poor project outcome and integration of the students in the community and thus low retention rates.
Ensure you can support the number of students you request. The requirements for project voting and ordering become much more severe as the number of students, mentors and projects increases; it's nowhere near a linear scale. After coding starts, you still need to track projects to make sure your overall program is running well. Avoid methods that rely on significant time commitment from you, and instead distribute the effort to mentors and students.Grow too quickly. Once you've succeeded with a couple of students, it can be tempting to think you've figured everything out. But things that work great on a small scale can fail wretchedly when scaled up. For example, asking every mentor to read every proposal might work fine when there are only 10 proposals, but it doesn't function nearly as well when there are 100.
Plan for communication throughout Google Summer of Code. There are times throughout the program when you need to let the mentors and/or students know about certain things, like deadlines. Plan for this from the start of the program by, for example, subscribing everyone to a dedicated mailing list. Make it clear from the start that mentors and students can approach you to discuss nontechnical problems, so they know they can rely on you as a resource. Overall, you need to be visible and keep people motivated throughout the process—and follow up with students afterwards to encourage them to become long-term contributors.
Forget to keep clear lines of communication with the mentors and students. Discovering you need to get in touch with a student or mentor and finding you can't reach them is trouble in the making. If you don't have backup contact details for mentors, it's easy for them to disappear—particularly if your primary method is an online chat like IRC or XMPP.
Work out your responsibilities in advance. If you're a new org, it may not be obvious what you need to do to support the mentors and the students. Make sure both you and your mentors have the same idea about your role. Particular things could be: If your organization has IRC meetings, you need to make sure they run smoothly. If your organization requires blog posts, or mailing list updates, you have to make sure these happen. Once the program starts your enthusiasm needs to continue because it feeds mentors and the students. To maintain your excitement, think about the benefits your organization receives at the end of the program for every successful project: new code and new contributors! Be enthusiastic in the application stage but stop when the projects start. It's relatively easy to keep enthusiasm high when it's early in the process as your tasks are obvious (apply for Google Summer of Code, get the ideas page sorted, get the mentors lined up, set up mailing lists, etc.). If mentors or students sense you are distracted or no longer dedicated to your role as organization administrator, their enthusiasm for the project will likely decrease. You are the glue that holds everything together and everyone will look to you to keep things moving forward.
Coordinate mentors early to get a high-quality ideas list. At the meetings for rejected orgs, the most common theme by far is "you can improve your ideas page." Look at other orgs' ideas pages for this year and for last year, as well as the mentoring guide. New organizations often ask whether their ideas are too long, but they usually aren't; clarity and detail are highly desirable. To maximize student interest in your organization, you should have an ideas page well in advance of the deadline for org applications. Also be sure to give the students what they need to get excited about the projects and contact you; provide enough context to convince them why this idea matters. If there are specs for the projects, link to them and be sure to provide contact details for each idea. Handling student interest in the run-up to applications can be very time-consuming, plan accordingly. Construct your ideas page at the last minute. Students look at the ideas pages long before orgs are selected; they'll pass your organization by if you don't have ideas ready when they first start researching the orgs. Failure to prepare early has particularly large consequences for umbrella orgs, where there is a logical disconnect between several developer communities, but it also holds true for individual projects. To avoid "writer's block," you can start with a high-level idea of what types of projects your org wants to sponsor and work from there.
Arrange infrastructure in advance. Most projects will require some infrastructure to be in place for students to work effectively—whether it's a committer account, repository creation, students knowing where they should post their code, or simply getting them subscribed to relevant mailing lists and taught the proper protocols. Everything should be in place for students to make their first commits as a true member of your organization's community on the initial day of coding. There's also a brand-new mailing list for supporting new org admins called gsoc-veterans that you can turn to for advice (new organizations will be invited soon).
Block projects from starting on day one of the coding period. If technical difficulties prevent students from being productive when coding should have started, it instantly lowers the scope of what they can accomplish during the summer and may prevent them from finishing their projects. For example, if they don't know how to use your version-control system or don't have commit access, they'll be mired in tangential problems instead of coding.

Making Google Summer of Code the best possible program requires a commitment to excellence and preparation from participants at every level. In this post we've provided suggestions for org admins, and in the last post in this series we'll cover mentors. Whatever role you would like to play in Google Summer of Code or a similar program, read everything you can find so you know what you're getting into. Good luck, and have fun this summer!

By Donnie Berkholz, Lydia Pintscher, and Kevin Smith, Google Summer of Code Administrators for Gentoo & X.Org, KDE, and XMPP Standards Foundation, respectively
URL: http://google-opensource.blogspot.com/2011/04/dos-and-donts-of-google-summer-of-code.html

[G] Investing in the world’s largest solar power tower plant

Posted: 11 Apr 2011 03:58 PM PDT

Official Google Blog: Investing in the world's largest solar power tower plant

We've invested $168 million in an exciting new solar energy power plant being developed by BrightSource Energy in the Mojave Desert in California. Brightsource's Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System (ISEGS) will generate 392 gross MW of clean, solar energy. That's the equivalent of taking more than 90,000 cars off the road over the lifetime of the plant, projected to be more than 25 years. The investment makes business sense and will help ensure that one of the world's largest solar energy projects is completed.

We need smart capital to transform our energy sector and build a clean energy future. This is our largest investment to date, and we've now invested over $250 million in the clean energy sector. We're excited about Ivanpah because our investment will help deploy a compelling solar energy technology that provides reliable clean energy, with the potential to significantly reduce costs on future projects.

Power towers, which have been successfully demonstrated in the U.S. and abroad at smaller scale, are based on a relatively simple idea. The technology works by using a field of mirrors, called heliostats, to concentrate the sun's rays onto a solar receiver on top of a tower. The solar receiver generates steam, which them spins a traditional turbine and generator to make electricity. Power towers are very efficient because all those mirrors focus a tremendous amount of solar energy onto a small area to produce steam at high pressure and temperature (up to 1000 degrees F). Think about burning a tuft of grass with a magnifying glass, only multiplied by thousands (or the original application: Archimedes' heat ray that allegedly used mirrors to burn enemy ships!).

Brightsource Energy's Solar Energy Development Center in Israel's Negev desert

Several large solar projects are in the works in the sunny Southwest (and around the globe), but Ivanpah will be the first solar power tower system of this scale. The Ivanpah Power Tower will be approximately 450 feet tall and will use 173,000 heliostats, each with two mirrors. The project is being constructed by Bechtel, a major engineering firm. Construction began in October 2010, and is projected to finish in 2013.

The Ivanpah project will also be financed by NRG and with clean energy technology loan guarantees provided by the U.S. Department of Energy. We hope that investing in Ivanpah spurs continued development and deployment of this promising technology while encouraging other companies to make similar investments in renewable energy.

Posted by Rick Needham, Director of Green Business Operations
URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/investing-in-worlds-largest-solar-power.html

[G] Announcing the 2011 Google Policy Fellows

Posted: 11 Apr 2011 03:37 PM PDT

Google Public Policy Blog: Announcing the 2011 Google Policy Fellows

Posted by Pablo Chavez, Director of Public Policy

We're excited to announce the 2011 class of Google Policy Fellows, and we're expecting great things from the 16 students selected for the fourth summer of the Google Policy Fellowship. Our host organizations selected the 2011 fellows from over 900 impressive submissions – nearly double the number of applications from 2010. The 2011 class includes undergrads and graduate students from 15 schools, studying computer science, economics, information policy, intellectual property, international affairs, law, library sciences, and public policy.

Congratulations to the 2011 Google Policy Fellows!
  • Adam Weinberg, Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies - Technology Policy Institute
  • Avonne Bell, The George Washington University Law School - Public Knowledge
  • Casey Fiesler, Georgia Institute of Technology - Creative Commons
  • Colin Rhinesmith, University of Illinois - New America Foundation's Open Technology Initiative
  • Corey Carpenter, George Mason University School of Law - TechFreedom
  • Corey Walker, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies - Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies
  • Daniel Kent, Haverford College - Internet Education Foundation
  • Elizabeth Allen, University of Michigan Law School and University of Michigan School of Information - Future of Music Coalition
  • Elizabeth Ruiz, University of North Carolina School of Law - Media Access Project
  • Fabiola Rivas, American University Washington College of Law - National Hispanic Media Coalition
  • Jennifer Simpson, University of Western Ontario - Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic
  • Jessie Mannisto, University of Michigan School of Information - American Library Association
  • Jon Penney, Oxford University - Citizen Lab
  • Josephine Wolff, Massachusetts Institute of Technology - Center for Democracy & Technology
  • Luke Pelican, University of Nebraska College of Law - Competitive Enterprise Institute
  • Oscar Montezuma, The George Washington University Law School - Electronic Frontier Foundation
The 2011 Fellows will spend 10 weeks this summer at our host organizations in Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Toronto, and Ottawa working on Internet and technology policy issues including free expression, privacy, security, and intellectual property.

Thank you to everyone who applied. Each year brings more and more outstanding applicants, and we hope everyone will stay engaged, involved, and consider applying again for future programs. Please sign up here to receive program announcements, and visit google.com/policyfellowship for more information.
URL: http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2011/04/announcing-2011-google-policy-fellows.html

[G] Stars line up on YouTube to take action against sex trafficking

Posted: 11 Apr 2011 10:21 AM PDT

YouTube Blog: Stars line up on YouTube to take action against sex trafficking

Each year, the global sex slavery market generates $32 billion in profit, while the average age of American girls who are forced into prostitution is only thirteen. Today, some of the biggest celebrities in Hollywood are speaking out against this injustice, and they're turning to YouTube to make sure the world hears them.

Through the DNA Foundation, an organization spearheaded by Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore, a number of stars from Jessica Biel to Edward Norton, Justin Timberlake to Jason Mraz, are launching the "Real Men Don't Buy Girls" video campaign. Watch the first episodes from the campaign here:







The campaign also makes use of YouTube annotations to help you join the movement and action against child sex slavery


Ramya Raghavan, YouTube News and Politics, recently watched "Sunitha Krishnan's Fight Against Sex Slavery".


URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/youtube/PKJx/~3/2Koh7qpPVbE/stars-line-up-on-youtube-to-take-action.html

[G] Improved printing in Spreadsheets

Posted: 11 Apr 2011 10:12 AM PDT

Docs Blog: Improved printing in Spreadsheets

In January, we added support for Google Cloud Print to mobile documents. Today, we're extending that functionality to mobile spreadsheets and adding some additional printing improvements to the desktop version of Google spreadsheets.

Mobile printing for spreadsheets
Now you can print your spreadsheets to any cloud-connected printer right from your phone by selecting Print... underneath the spreadsheet title. This feature will work on most phones and tablets that support HTML5, such as devices running Android 2.1+ and iOS 3+.


Improved desktop printing
We've added a number of printing options, including spreadsheet titles, sheet names and page numbers. You have control over which of these you want to print.


We hope you enjoy these improvements to printing.

Posted by: Jakov Krolo, Software Engineering Intern
URL: http://googledocs.blogspot.com/2011/04/improved-printing-in-spreadsheets.html

[G] A trivia game where using Google is allowed

Posted: 11 Apr 2011 09:51 AM PDT

Official Google Blog: A trivia game where using Google is allowed

Traditional trivia games have a rule that you can't cheat—you can't look things up in books, you can't ask your friends and you certainly can't ask Google. But what if there were a trivia game where you could not only ask Google, but were encouraged to do so? Imagine how difficult the questions would need to be with the power of the world's information at your fingertips.

A Google a Day is a new daily puzzle that can be solved using your creativity and clever search skills on Google. Questions will be posted every day on agoogleaday.com and printed on weekdays above the New York Times crossword puzzle. We'll reveal each puzzle's answer the next day in the Times and on agoogleaday.com, along with the search tips and features used to find it.

Just like traditional crossword puzzles, the difficulty of the questions increases over the course of the week, so by Thursday or Friday, even the most seasoned searcher may be stumped.

To prevent spoilers from appearing as you search the web, look for the answers on agoogleaday.com instead of regular google.com—we've made a special version of Google that excludes real-time updates and other things that are likely to include spoilers as people post the answers to the puzzle online.

Here's a sample question for you to try:


As the world of information continues to explode, we hope A Google a Day triggers your imagination and helps you discover all the types of questions you can ask Google—and get an answer.

Start playing A Google a Day now—visit agoogleaday.com or look for the puzzle in tomorrow's New York Times, just above the crossword. The clues are currently only in English, but anyone can attempt to solve the puzzles. And let us know what you think on Twitter at @agoogleaday or at agoogleaday@google.com.

Posted by Dan Russell, User Experience Researcher
URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/trivia-game-where-using-google-is.html
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