Friday, August 12, 2011

Googland

Googland

[G] Building better web apps with a new Chrome Beta

Posted: 12 Aug 2011 03:14 AM PDT

Google Chrome Blog: Building better web apps with a new Chrome Beta

Today's new Beta channel release brings big improvements to Chrome's web platform capabilities, enabling developers to build more powerful and more immersive apps and games for the web.



First, we're pleased to announce the integration of Native Client into Chrome. Native Client allows C and C++ code to be seamlessly executed inside the browser with security restrictions similar to JavaScript. Native Client apps use Pepper, a set of interfaces that provide C and C++ bindings to the capabilities of HTML5. As a result, developers can now leverage their native code libraries and expertise to deliver portable, high performance web apps.



Another cool feature is the Web Audio API, a new JavaScript API offering advanced audio capabilities. The Web Audio API supports audio effects such as room simulation and spatialization, allowing web developers to create even more interactive experiences and games. Here are some examples you can play with, but we're looking forward to seeing what other people build!



Posted by Chris Rogers, Software Engineer
URL: http://chrome.blogspot.com/2011/08/building-better-web-apps-with-new.html

[G] Share Your Favorite Books with Literary Circles on Google+

Posted: 12 Aug 2011 03:14 AM PDT

Inside Google Books: Share Your Favorite Books with Literary Circles on Google+

Posted by Abe Murray, Product Manager, Google Books

Say you've found a hidden gem on auto mechanics for your greasemonkey friends or want to hop down memory lane with Peter Rabbit and your family. Good news for monkeys and rabbits alike: you can now share info about any of the millions of books in our Google Books index worldwide with your circles on Google+.

Let's say you are reading Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and you'd like your friends to read it with you (or you have a witty comment to let loose). Simply click on the Google+ Share box on the About the Book page or in a Google Books preview, enter your message, then select which circles you'd like to share details about the book with, and click "share".


The book cover, description and title linking back to the Google Books About the Book page will appear in your Google+ stream with your message.


You can also simply paste the About the Book or Google Books preview URL into your Google+ Share box. This will show the cover and book details, helping your friends know exactly what you're sharing with them. While you're sharing books, you can also +1 them, and the titles will appear in your profile on the +1 tab.
URL: http://booksearch.blogspot.com/2011/08/share-your-favorite-books-with-literary.html

[G] Update to Sessions in Google Analytics

Posted: 12 Aug 2011 03:14 AM PDT

Google Analytics Blog: Update to Sessions in Google Analytics

Beginning today, there will be a small change in how sessions are calculated in Google Analytics. We think this update will lead to a clearer understanding of website interactions. We also want to explain how these changes might impact your reports.


What's changing?
Currently, Google Analytics ends a session when:
  • More than 30 minutes have elapsed between pageviews for a single visitor.
  • At the end of a day.
  • When a visitor closes their browser.
If any of these events occur, then the next pageview from the visitor will start a new session.


In the new model, Google Analytics will end a session when:
  • More than 30 minutes have elapsed between pageviews for a single visitor.
  • At the end of a day.
  • When any traffic source value for the user changes. Traffic source information includes: utm_source, utm_medium, utm_term, utm_content, utm_id, utm_campaign, and gclid.
As before, if any of these events occur, then the next pageview from the user will be the start of a new session.


How will this affect my Google Analytics data?
This change only applies for visits going forward from today, and your historical data will not change. We're bringing the definition of session in line with the common definition of a visit. If a visitor leaves your site and returns soon after with a different traffic source value, each visit will be measured with its own session.


Since Google Analytics will start new sessions for all new campaign information, sessions will now have the more accurate attribution information. This will be especially helpful if you use Multi-Channel Funnels. Additionally, by continuing a session when the user closes their browser for only a very short time, sessions will more accurately model a user's engagement with the website. Overall, this change may slightly increase the number of visits. Based on our research, most users will see less than a 1% change.


We are excited about this update, and look forward to providing you with a better understanding of your website activity. Please leave any question about the change in the comments.


Posted by Trevor Claiborne, Google Analytics Team


URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/tRaA/~3/p7mkR65bUhY/update-to-sessions-in-google-analytics.html

[G] Games in Google+: fun that fits your schedule

Posted: 12 Aug 2011 03:14 AM PDT

Official Google Blog: Games in Google+: fun that fits your schedule

My family has a games closet. Inside you'll find a few decks of cards, two decades' worth of board games and a Twister mat for those times when we're feeling limber. Playing games is a great way for us to spend quality time with each other (and a little healthy competition never hurt anyone either).

Today we're adding games to Google+. With the Google+ project, we want to bring the nuance and richness of real-life sharing to the web. But sharing is about more than just conversations. The experiences we have together are just as important to our relationships. We want to make playing games online just as fun, and just as meaningful, as playing in real life.

That means giving you control over when you see games, how you play them and with whom you share your experiences. Games in Google+ are there when you want them and gone when you don't.


When you're ready to play, the Games page is waiting—click the games button at the top of your stream. You can see the latest game updates from your circles, browse the invites you've received and check out games that people you know have played recently. The Games page is also where your game accomplishments will appear. So you can comfortably share your latest high score—your circles will only see the updates when they're interested in playing games too.

If you're not interested in games, it's easy to ignore them. Your stream will remain focused on conversations with the people you care about.

You'll have a fun initial set of games to play with on Google+. Thanks to the developers who've worked with us to make them available:


If you're a developer interested in building games for Google+, you can learn more on our new Google+ developer blog.

Today we're starting to gradually roll out games in Google+. We look forward to making them fully available to everyone in Google+ soon. When you see a Games page in your account, please give games a try and send us feedback. Look for the "send feedback" button in the bottom right-hand corner of any page in Google+. Thanks for playing! Like the rest of the Google+ project, we're just getting started.

Posted by Vic Gundotra, Senior Vice President, Engineering
URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/08/games-in-google-fun-that-fits-your.html

[G] Google Apps is big in Japan

Posted: 12 Aug 2011 03:14 AM PDT

Official Google Enterprise Blog: Google Apps is big in Japan

Posted by: Akihito Fuji, Google Apps team



On July 20th we held our second annual Google Enterprise Day in Tokyo, Japan. Despite typhoon warnings, we had 1,577 attendees, over twice the number of attendees as last year's event. The packed agenda consisted of 35 speakers across 20 sessions, including Google Executive Chairman, Eric Schmidt, COO of SoftBank Telecom, Ken Miyauchi, and Yasuki Sato from Toda Corporation.



Google Enterprise Day was an opportunity for Google to share with Japanese business leaders our vision for a 100% web world, where business applications are delivered via a web browser, enabling improved reliability and productivity with access from anywhere, at any time. This was a particularly important topic following the devastating effects of the earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan earlier this year. Business continuity and disaster management have become real concerns in the last few months for businesses in Japan. Well known construction company, Toda Corporation, shared why they moved to Google Apps after losing access to their on-premise servers and business applications during the tsunami. Moving to a 100% web-based platform meant that Toda Corporation could be up and running quickly, with no time spent installing hardware or software.



Several new Google Apps customers announced that they had gone Google at the event, including SoftBank Group, Nortiz, Casio, and Mitsui Soko. Casio's CIO, Atsushi Yazawa, shared his decision to move to Google Apps. "In deciding to move to Google Apps, speed of innovation was a big factor. Google Apps constantly provides new features and products with a great level of service and reliability. Google Apps also allowed us to decrease our total cost of ownership while diverting our IT professionals from repetitive maintenence tasks to more business-centric work that adds value to the organization."



Ken Miyauchi, COO of SoftBank Telecom, SoftBank Mobile and SoftBank BB spoke about its successful deployment of 26,000 employees across the business to Google Apps. SoftBank spoke about some of the benefits they've started to see from this switch – a reduction in servers and the costs and resources to maintain them, more efficient email with much bigger storage limits, better access to email and documents from mobile devices, and greater creativity resulting from better collaboration across departments and teams.



Sota Umezu, Manager of Sales Strategy in the Sales Promotion Division at SoftBank says, "Google Apps has changed the way we do business. For example, when gathering information from employees, we used to email attachments to each employee, ask them to fill in their information, and manually aggregate their input in numerous attachments back into a master copy of the file. With Google Docs employees all update the same document, making a 6 hour process a 30 minute process. The ability to access data from anywhere and collaborate in real time has greatly improved productivity,"



We really enjoyed hosting such innovative business leaders at this year's Enterprise Day. If you'd like to see some of the presentations from this event, you can watch the videos on YouTube.
URL: http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2011/08/google-apps-is-big-in-japan.html

[G] The computer that keeps getting better...

Posted: 12 Aug 2011 03:14 AM PDT

Official Google Enterprise Blog: The computer that keeps getting better...

Posted by Rajen Sheth, Group Product Manager, Chrome for Business



One of the best things about Chromebooks is that they improve over time with frequent automatic updates. Over the last few months we've gotten great feedback from many of our Chromebooks for Business and Education customers, and we're excited that this week's latest stable release of Chrome OS includes their top feature requests: VPN and secure Wi-Fi (802.1x) support, and access to virtualized applications.



With VPN support, users can remotely access their private school or business network from a Chromebook so they can use important internal systems while taking advantage of the Chromebook's portability.



Secure WiFi (802.1X) support lets organizations protect their wireless network and systems by requiring authentication credentials in order for a Chromebook to connect to the network.



Finally, while most new applications will be built for the web, we recognize that some users need to access desktop applications.1 With the technology preview release of Citrix Receiver for Chrome OS, Citrix customers can now access virtualized versions of their desktop applications, like Adobe Photoshop, using a Chromebook.


Also in this week's release, Chromebooks resume even more quickly – 32% faster in most cases. And users can save paper by using Google Cloud Print's Print to Docs feature. We're excited for feedback, and to get the latest features, fixes, and improvements, all users need to do is open their Chromebooks!


If you're interested to learn how Chromebooks can help your school or business, contact our team.


1. IDC, 2010. "Worldwide Software as a Service 2010–2014 Forecast: Software Will Never Be the Same."↩
URL: http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2011/08/computer-that-keeps-getting-better.html

[G] Improvements in Custom Reports: Better builder, more metrics, and custom navigation

Posted: 11 Aug 2011 12:28 PM PDT

Google Analytics Blog: Improvements in Custom Reports: Better builder, more metrics, and custom navigation

This is part of our series of posts highlighting the new Google Analytics. The new version of Google Analytics is currently available in beta to all Analytics users. And follow Google Analytics on Twitter for the latest updates. This week, Gilles Roux, an Analytics engineer will discuss some recent improvements to custom reporting in Google Analytics.


Creating custom reports in Google Analytics is a great way to answer specific questions about how users interact with your website or keep track of the metrics that really matter to you.
Since releasing the new Analytics earlier this year you have sent us lots of great feedback. Thank You! We have been hard at work integrating some of your suggestions and adding new features that will make custom reports more useful and easier to use.


Simplified custom report builder
The custom report builder has an updated look and feel that simplifies the process of creating and editing custom reports. The sections are now clearly labeled, with optional settings at the end, and the metric groups are shown on a single page without the need to switch tabs. We have also added the ability to quickly reorder metrics and dimensions using drag and drop. We hope these improvements will help you create reports that look just the way you want, in just a few minutes.




More metrics and dimensions!
We know - when it comes to analyzing your website usage, the more metrics the better. That's why we have enabled 45 additional metrics and dimensions inside custom reports. These cover a wide variety of areas such as mobile, social, goals, site search, e-commerce and advertising. All metrics and dimensions are now organized in categories to make the list more manageable.




When viewing a custom report that has an explorer tab, you will now be able to select a secondary dimensions, which can be useful to perform a deeper analysis of your data without having to make changes to the custom report.


Custom navigation
The custom reports overview page is the central place to view and manage all your custom reports. You will now notice a 'New Category' button to create your own categories, in which you can group related custom reports. You will also be able to reorder reports, for example to make sure that your most important ones are conveniently shown at the top of the navigation.




We hope these improvements will help you create powerful reports that are targeted to the specificities of your site. As always, please don't hesitate to send us feedback, and expect more features in the near future.


Posted by Gilles Roux, Google Analytics Team


URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/tRaA/~3/kX_7IakD9FM/improvements-in-custom-reports-better.html

[G] Aid for Africa: YouTube partners rally to provide relief for famine

Posted: 11 Aug 2011 12:28 PM PDT

YouTube Blog: Aid for Africa: YouTube partners rally to provide relief for famine

As a devastating famine continues to spread across the Horn of Africa, news outlets, nonprofits and musicians are turning to YouTube to raise awareness and funds for the more than 12 million people who are in severe need of food and water. We wanted to share with you an overview of the situation as we're seeing it on YouTube, as well as several ways you can get involved.



News of the famine

According to the AFP, the Horn of Africa is facing the worst drought in over 60 years and tens of thousands of people have already died as a result. This video from the AFP YouTube channel offers a overview of the situation:







Nonprofits are also using video to share the voices of those afflicted with the world. Here's a video diary from a World Food Program worker who is stationed in Dadaab, an area in Kenya near the Somali border experiencing the brunt of the crisis:







How you can help

The WFP's videos currently all feature a direct link you can click to donate to relief efforts. Other organizations like UNICEF and Doctors Without Borders are also producing videos that help explain the extent of suffering caused by the famine.



Global nonprofit Save the Children has even teamed up with a host of Universal Music Group artists like Lady Gaga, Kanye West and Coldplay to launch the "I'm Gonna Be Your Friend" campaign to help. The featured video on the Bob Marley YouTube channel supports this campaign, and you can donate to the "I'm Gonna Be Your Friend" campaign here.



To stay updated with the latest news on this crisis, visit our CitizenTube channel where we are watching for all of the latest video from this region.



Ramya Raghavan, News and Politics Manager, recently watched "Dadaab: Get There or Die Trying."


URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/youtube/PKJx/~3/Ev0eTinlOeA/aid-for-africa-youtube-partners-rally.html

[G] The computer that keeps getting better...

Posted: 11 Aug 2011 12:28 PM PDT

Google Chrome Blog: The computer that keeps getting better...

One of the things that excites us about Chromebooks is that unlike other computers, the user experience automatically gets better over time. For instance, with this week's latest stable release of Chrome OS, users may notice their Chromebooks now resume even more quickly – 32% faster in most cases. For those of you who like watching movies and TV shows on your Chromebook, you now also have the option to do so using Netflix. If you'd rather enjoy a good read, you'll be able to fire up the Amazon's new Kindle Cloud Reader app, read your favorite books and even take them offline when you're not connected. If you need to print, you can give trees a break and use the Print to Docs feature with Google Cloud Print instead.









For businesses and schools, we also have a host of new features launching this week. If you use Citrix in your organization, you can now install the Citrix Receiver Tech Preview app from the Chrome Web Store to access desktop software such as Adobe® Photoshop® directly from your Chromebook. In addition, this latest release brings VPN and secure Wi-Fi support (802.1X).









Along with these new features, our recent update delivers many bug fixes and improvements under the hood. Chromebook users should automatically get this release this week. As a consumer, business or school, all you need to do is relax and let your Chromebook do the work. We hope you enjoy the experience of a computer that keeps getting better.



Update 8/10: Added link to more information on Print to Docs feature



Posted by Alberto Martin, Technical Program Manager
URL: http://chrome.blogspot.com/2011/08/computer-that-keeps-getting-better.html
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