Friday, September 16, 2011

Googland

Googland

[G] Time, technology and leaping seconds

Posted: 15 Sep 2011 09:18 PM PDT

Official Google Blog: Time, technology and leaping seconds

Google's Site Reliability team is responsible for keeping Google's services and data centers up and running 24/7. In this post, you'll hear about a project our Site Reliability Engineers took on to make sure that the fluctuations of time don't adversely affect Google's products and services. If you like this (detailed) glimpse at the tech behind the scenes, come back for more about this team's work in the future. -Ed.

Have you ever had a watch that ran slow or fast, and that you'd correct every morning off your bedside clock? Computers have that same problem. Many computers, including some desktop and laptop computers, use a service called the "Network Time Protocol" (NTP), which does something very similar—it periodically checks the computers' time against a more accurate server, which may be connected to an external source of time, such as an atomic clock. NTP also takes into account variable factors like how long the NTP server takes to reply, or the speed of the network between you and the server when setting a to-the-second or better time on the computer you're using.

Soon after the advent of ticking clocks, scientists observed that the time told by them (and now, much more accurate clocks), and the time told by the Earth's position were rarely exactly the same. It turns out that being on a revolving imperfect sphere floating in space, being reshaped by earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, and being dragged around by gravitational forces makes your rotation somewhat irregular. Who knew?

These fluctuations in Earth's rotational speed mean that even very accurate clocks, like the atomic clocks used by global timekeeping services, occasionally have to be adjusted slightly to bring them in line with "solar time." There have been 24 such adjustments, called "leap seconds," since they were introduced in 1972. Their effect on technology has become more and more profound as people come to rely on fast, accurate and reliable technology.

Why time matters at Google

Having accurate time is critical to everything we do at Google. Keeping replicas of data up to date, correctly reporting the order of searches and clicks, and determining which data-affecting operation came last are all examples of why accurate time is crucial to our products and to our ability to keep your data safe.

Very large-scale distributed systems, like ours, demand that time be well-synchronized and expect that time always moves forwards. Computers traditionally accommodate leap seconds by setting their clock backwards by one second at the very end of the day. But this "repeated" second can be a problem. For example, what happens to write operations that happen during that second? Does email that comes in during that second get stored correctly? What about all the unforeseen problems that may come up with the massive number of systems and servers that we run? Our systems are engineered for data integrity, and some will refuse to work if their time is sufficiently "wrong." We saw some of our clustered systems stop accepting work on a small scale during the leap second in 2005, and while it didn't affect the site or any of our data, we wanted to fix such issues once and for all.

This was the problem that a group of our engineers identified during 2008, with a leap second scheduled for December 31. Given our observations in 2005, we wanted to be ready this time, and in the future. How could we make sure everything at Google stays running as if nothing happened, when all our server clocks suddenly see the same second happening twice? Also, how could we make this solution scale? Would we need to audit every line of code that cares about the time? (That's a lot of code!)

The solution we came up with came to be known as the "leap smear." We modified our internal NTP servers to gradually add a couple of milliseconds to every update, varying over a time window before the moment when the leap second actually happens. This meant that when it became time to add an extra second at midnight, our clocks had already taken this into account, by skewing the time over the course of the day. All of our servers were then able to continue as normal with the new year, blissfully unaware that a leap second had just occurred. We plan to use this "leap smear" technique again in the future, when new leap seconds are announced by the IERS.

Here's the science bit

Usually when a leap second is almost due, the NTP protocol says a server must indicate this to its clients by setting the "Leap Indicator" (LI) field in its response. This indicates that the last minute of that day will have 61 seconds, or 59 seconds. (Leap seconds can, in theory, be used to shorten a day too, although that hasn't happened to date.) Rather than doing this, we applied a patch to the NTP server software on our internal Stratum 2 NTP servers to not set LI, and tell a small "lie" about the time, modulating this "lie" over a time window w before midnight:
lie(t) = (1.0 - cos(pi * t / w)) / 2.0
What this did was make sure that the "lie" we were telling our servers about the time wouldn't trigger any undesirable behavior in the NTP clients, such as causing them to suspect the time servers to be wrong and applying local corrections themselves. It also made sure the updates were sufficiently small so that any software running on the servers that were doing synchronization actions or had Chubby locks wouldn't lose those locks or abandon any operations. It also meant this software didn't necessarily have to be aware of or resilient to the leap second.

In an experiment, we performed two smears—one negative then one positive—and tested this setup using about 10,000 servers. We'd previously added monitoring to plot the skew between atomic time, our Stratum 2 servers and all those NTP clients, allowing us to constantly evaluate the performance of our time infrastructure. We were excited to see monitoring showing plots of those servers' clocks tracking our model's predictions, and that we were continuing to serve users' requests without errors.

Following the successful test, we reconfigured all our production Stratum 2 NTP servers with details of the actual leap second, ready for New Year's Eve, when they would automatically activate the smear for all production machines, without any further human intervention required. We had a "big red button" opt-out that allowed us to stop the smear in case anything went wrong.

What we learned

The leap smear is talked about internally in the Site Reliability Engineering group as one of our coolest workarounds, that took a lot of experimentation and verification, but paid off by ultimately saving us massive amounts of time and energy in inspecting and refactoring code. It meant that we didn't have to sweep our entire (large) codebase, and Google engineers developing code don't have to worry about leap seconds. The team involved in solving this issue was a handful of people, distributed around the world, who were able to work together without restriction in order to solve this problem.

The solution to this challenge drove a lot of thinking to develop better ways to implement locking and consistency, and synchronizing units of work between servers across the world. It also meant we thought more about the precision of our time systems, which have a knock-on effect on our ability to minimize resource wastage and run greener data centers by reducing the amount of time we must spend waiting for responses and rarely doing excess work.

By anticipating potential problems and developing solutions like these, the Site Reliability Engineering group informs and inspires the development of new technology for distributed systems—the systems that you use every day in Google's products.

Posted by Christopher Pascoe, Site Reliability Engineer
URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/09/time-technology-and-leaping-seconds.html

[G] Saying thanks—in person—to our Google Top Contributors

Posted: 15 Sep 2011 09:18 PM PDT

Official Google Blog: Saying thanks—in person—to our Google Top Contributors

"Oh, you're BlueQuoll!"

You heard a lot of enthusiastic cries of recognition at the Global Top Contributor Summit, as Googlers and members of our Top Contributor program got to leave their laptops behind and meet one another face to face. This two-day event held in and around our headquarters in Mountain View brought together some of our most prolific and knowledgeable users from the Google product forums for the first time.

Top Contributors are the folks you may know by "bkc56" in the Gmail forum, "Noisette" in the Google Earth forum and "theylmdl" in the German Webmaster forum—Google users who volunteer their time to help others with questions and troubleshooting issues. We began the program in 2005 to support this important group, and today there are more than 350 Top Contributors who are active in our forums. They also give Google teams important feedback to help shape the development of our products. In short, they're some of Google's most passionate users, and we wanted to take the time to share our appreciation.

TCs from the AdSense, Gmail and Webmaster forums hang out with Googlers (in red)

At the summit, more than 250 Top Contributors joined us from around the world, representing 40+ product forums in 20+ languages. To see just how global this amazing bunch is, check out the map we set up to showcase their hometowns:


At the event, our Top Contributors met with Google engineers who demo'ed upcoming features, giving them the unique opportunity to give feedback and ask questions. This was also an opportunity for our Top Contributors to meet each other, and make a new friend or two.

Bottom right: TC treebles, as he's known in the Maps and Places for business forums, talks with the custom maps team

We hope this summit gave our Top Contributors more insight into how Google works and expressed just how much we appreciate their help and dedication. In fact, they're such a dedicated bunch that some of the Top Contributors were even spotted during the summit answering forum questions. To see them in action, head on over to the Google product forums.

Find out about how you can become a Top Contributor in our Help Forum guide.

Posted by Brenna Robertson and Adrienne Ludwick, Global Top Contributor Summit co-organizers
URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/09/saying-thanksin-personto-our-google-top.html

[G] Watch Jonah Hill live on YouTube this Friday at 4pm PT

Posted: 15 Sep 2011 09:18 PM PDT

YouTube Blog: Watch Jonah Hill live on YouTube this Friday at 4pm PT

Fans of comedy star Jonah Hill, pull up a chair and join us. Jonah's stopping by YouTube this Friday for a live streaming Q&A at 4pm PT to celebrate the release of his new movie, Moneyball.



The film tells the story of how baseball's Oakland A's used statistical analysis to compete against teams with much higher payrolls. As the A's are one of two baseball teams local to YouTube HQ, we're particularly happy to welcome Jonah as our guest.



As well as starring opposite Brad Pitt in Moneyball, Jonah appeared in some of the most popular comedies of recent years, including Knocked Up, The 40 Year Old Virgin and Funny People, all of which were directed by comedy auteur and mentor Judd Apatow. We'll be asking Jonah about this and more, and he's looking for you share your questions too:







Find out the human-interest story behind the statistics when we throw Jonah some curveballs. Fans of comedy know he's sure to knock a few out of the park.



Mark Day, Comedy Programs Manager, recently watched "Dr Seuss Versus Shakespeare. Epic Rap Battles of History #12."


URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/youtube/PKJx/~3/LurbbrG9gQA/watch-jonah-hill-live-on-youtube-this.html

[G] Gmail Liberates Recorded Chat Logs Via IMAP

Posted: 15 Sep 2011 09:18 PM PDT

Data Liberation: Gmail Liberates Recorded Chat Logs Via IMAP

Enough of these goofy videos for Google Takeout. It's time for an instructional screencast video instead.

This week, Gmail added support for downloading your recorded chat logs via IMAP. All of the entries that you can see in your Gmail chats label will now be delivered to your local email client if it is configured to use IMAP.

We have some information about how to set up and use IMAP for Gmail liberation on our dataliberation.org site, but since chat liberation has been requested by many users in the past (both on twitter and our moderator page), here is a screencast that demonstrates this new feature in use.


If you already use IMAP to synchronize your Gmail account to a local device, enabling this new chat log export is as simple as clicking on the "Show in IMAP" checkbox for Chats in the Labels tab of your Gmail settings.

Posted by Daniel Benson, Data Liberator
URL: http://dataliberation.blogspot.com/2011/09/gmail-liberates-recorded-chat-logs-via.html

[G] Chrome Web Store expands its borders

Posted: 15 Sep 2011 09:18 PM PDT

Google Chrome Blog: Chrome Web Store expands its borders

Nine months ago, we launched the Chrome Web Store in the United States. Since then, the store has gained a lot of momentum and is now home to an ever increasing selection of apps, extensions and themes.

Today, we're expanding and making the store available in 24 more countries: Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

If you are based in these initial 24 countries, you'll find it much easier to discover and add new apps, extensions, and themes to Chrome, across a variety of categories—from games to news to productivity tools. In most countries, for apps that require a fee, you'll now be able to complete the entire transaction in your local currency. Starting today, you'll also be able to access a range of new applications from international developers and publishers. Enjoy viewing beautiful artwork collections from UK museums, get weather updates from Brazil or browse the latest film releases in France.



To try these new apps, as well as tens of thousands of items in the store, download Google Chrome and visit the Chrome Web Store.

Posted by Rahul Roy-Chowdhury, Product Manager
URL: http://chrome.blogspot.com/2011/09/chrome-web-store-expands-its-borders.html

[G] View your top channels on the new interface homepage

Posted: 15 Sep 2011 09:18 PM PDT

Inside AdSense: View your top channels on the new interface homepage




You've been asking, and today we're excited to announce that you can now view your top 10 performing custom and URL channels directly on the homepage of the new AdSense interface. We understand that many of you log in frequently throughout the day to check in on your stats, and this latest change will allow you to get a quick snapshot directly from the new interface. 





When you log in to the new AdSense interface, you'll see your top channels by estimated earnings along with the percentage change for the selected time period. So if you've chosen to view the last 7 days, you'll see your top performing channels for that time range along with the percentage change they experienced compared to the prior 7 day period. 












Thanks for all of the feedback you provided about bringing this report to the new interface -- you can check out this update by logging in to the new AdSense interface today. As a reminder, we're gradually moving away from the older version and focusing on building improvements like these in the new interface. We encourage you to continue familiarizing yourself with the new interface, and as always, please feel free to leave us a comment with your thoughts and suggestions.

Posted by Dan Banfield - AdSense Engineering









URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/tuAm/~3/FyjShZZ0dTo/view-your-top-channels-on-new-interface.html

[G] New tools to help publishers maximize their revenue

Posted: 15 Sep 2011 09:18 PM PDT

DoubleClick Publisher Blog: New tools to help publishers maximize their revenue

(Originally posted on the Official Google Blog)

What do a celebrity blog, a video interview on a newspaper site and a cable channel's smartphone app have in common? They're all supported by advertising...and they're all examples of how the lines between media formats are blurring.

These increasingly blurry lines are not only resulting in highly engaging forms of content for users, but many new revenue opportunities for publishers. A wave of innovation and investment over the past several years has also created better performing ads, a larger pool of online advertisers, and new technologies to sell and manage ad space. Together, these trends are helping to spur increased investment in online advertising. We've seen this in our own Google Display Network: our publisher partners have seen spending across the Google Display Network from our largest 1,000 advertisers more than double in the last 12 months.

With all these new opportunities in mind, we're introducing new tools for our publisher partners—in our ad serving technology (DoubleClick for Publishers) and in our ad exchange (DoubleClick Ad Exchange).

Video and mobile in DoubleClick for Publishers
Given the changes in the media landscape, it's not surprising that we've seen incredible growth for both mobile and video ad formats over the past year: the number of video ads on theGoogle Display Network has increased 350 percent in the past 12 months, while AdMob, our mobile network, has grown by more than 200 percent.

Before now, it's been difficult for publishers to manage all their video and mobile ad space from a single ad server—the platform publishers use to schedule, measure and run the ads they've sold on their sites. To solve this challenge, we're rolling out new tools in our latest version of DoubleClick for Publishers that enable publishers to better manage video and mobile inventory. Publishers will be able to manage all of the ads they're running—across all of their webpages, videos and mobile devices—from a single dashboard, and see which formats and channels are performing best for them.

A handful of publishers have already begun using the video feature and it appears to be performing well for them: we've seen 55 percent month-over-month growth in video ad volume in the last quarter. In other words, publishers are now able not only to produce more video content, but to make more money from it as well.

Direct Deals on the DoubleClick Ad Exchange
Another way publishers make money is to sell their advertising via online exchanges, like the DoubleClick Ad Exchange, where they can offer their ad space to a wide pool of competing ad buyers. This has already proven to generate substantially more revenue for publishers, and as a result we've seen significant growth in the number of trades on our exchange (158 percent year over year).

However, publishers have told us that they'd also like the option of making some of their ad space available only to certain buyers at a certain price—similar to how an art dealer might want to offer a painting first to certain clients before giving it to an auction house to sell. So we're introducing Direct Deals on the Doubleclick Ad Exchange, which gives publishers the ability to make these "first look" offers. For example, using Direct Deals, a news publisher could set aside all of the ad space on their sports page and offer it first to a select group of buyers at a specific price, and then if those buyers pass on the offer, automatically place that inventory into the Ad Exchange's auction.

Looking back at that blog, news site and app, we'd like them to have one more thing in common—being able to advantage of new opportunities to grow their businesses even further. These new tools, together with the other solutions we're continuing to develop, are designed to help businesses like them—and all our publisher partners—do just that, and get the most out of today's advertising landscape.

Posted by Neal Mohan, Vice President of Display Advertising
URL: http://doubleclickpublishers.blogspot.com/2011/09/new-tools-to-help-publishers-maximize.html

[G] A search insights lesson for back-to-school

Posted: 15 Sep 2011 09:18 PM PDT

Official Google Blog: A search insights lesson for back-to-school

(Cross-posted on the Inside Search Blog and the Retail Blog)

Time to sharpen those pencils: now that the back-to-school season is winding down and students are back at their desks, we thought we'd take a look at some popular searches from the last few weeks. Students across the U.S. are hitting the books—although, as we found, not all their back-to-school searches are academically inclined.

Overall, search interest in [back to school] is up about 10 percent from last year.


After a three-month hiatus, everyone wants to make a great impression on the first day of school. Searches related to starting fresh—like [kids shoes], [kids haircuts] and [healthy school lunches]—jump during the back-to-school season. People are also eager to sport just the right look—searches for [first day of school outfit] have increased 20 percent since the 2010 season.

A well-stocked locker is also top of mind for many at the start of the school year. Search interest for back-to-school staples like pencils, notebooks and backpacks routinely peaks during the season, as kids compare colors, styles and designs online. But tech-savvy students are seeking new essentials for the classroom. Searches for [tablet] exceeded searches for [backpack] for the first time in a July-September period. And with [etextbook] searches up 50 percent from September 2010, look for ereaders to slip into more backpacks in the future.



Crossing items off the back-to-school list is rewarding, but it's a lot more satisfying when there's a bargain involved. This year is no exception with shoppers scanning for deals before heading to stores. Searches for [back to school coupons] and [back to school sales] increased 10 and 25 percent, and searches for [printable coupons] jumped 45 percent from last year's season.


College-bound freshmen seem to be looking for ways to take charge of their finances. Searches for [bank account] and [open bank account] peak in August, and were up about 20 percent from last year's back-to-school season. Searches for [student credit card] are also highest during this time of year, along with searches for the means to pay a credit card bill: [campus jobs]. In recent years, securing a steady source of income has trumped on-the-spot spending. While searches for [student credit card] have decreased 30 percent since 2004, searches for [campus jobs] have steadily increased, up 50 percent in the same period.


Finally, we'll leave you with a few back-to-school essentials that might not have made your list. To avoid using the modern version of the old "my dog ate my homework" excuse, protect your computer with a [laptop lock]—searches regularly spike in in August. If you've been thinking about picking up an instrument, now's the time to jump on the bandwagon (pun intended), as searches for [flute], [cello], [violin] and [clarinet] jump every September. And for your mother's sake (and your roommate's), find a good [laundry service] on campus. Search interest peaks in September, though the clothes-washing learning curve lasts the entire year.


Posted by Julie Krueger, Industry Director, Retail
URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/09/search-insights-lesson-for-back-to.html

[G] New tools to help publishers maximize their revenue

Posted: 15 Sep 2011 09:18 PM PDT

Official Google Blog: New tools to help publishers maximize their revenue

What do a celebrity blog, a video interview on a newspaper site and a cable channel's smartphone app have in common? They're all supported by advertising...and they're all examples of how the lines between media formats are blurring.

These increasingly blurry lines are not only resulting in highly engaging forms of content for users, but many new revenue opportunities for publishers. A wave of innovation and investment over the past several years has also created better performing ads, a larger pool of online advertisers, and new technologies to sell and manage ad space. Together, these trends are helping to spur increased investment in online advertising. We've seen this in our own Google Display Network: our publisher partners have seen spending across the Google Display Network from our largest 1,000 advertisers more than double in the last 12 months.

With all these new opportunities in mind, we're introducing new tools for our publisher partners—in our ad serving technology (DoubleClick for Publishers) and in our ad exchange (DoubleClick Ad Exchange).

Video and mobile in DoubleClick for Publishers
Given the changes in the media landscape, it's not surprising that we've seen incredible growth for both mobile and video ad formats over the past year: the number of video ads on the Google Display Network has increased 350 percent in the past 12 months, while AdMob, our mobile network, has grown by more than 200 percent.

Before now, it's been difficult for publishers to manage all their video and mobile ad space from a single ad server—the platform publishers use to schedule, measure and run the ads they've sold on their sites. To solve this challenge, we're rolling out new tools in our latest version of DoubleClick for Publishers that enable publishers to better manage video and mobile inventory. Publishers will be able to manage all of the ads they're running—across all of their webpages, videos and mobile devices—from a single dashboard, and see which formats and channels are performing best for them.

A handful of publishers have already begun using the video feature and it appears to be performing well for them: we've seen 55 percent month-over-month growth in video ad volume in the last quarter. In other words, publishers are now able not only to produce more video content, but to make more money from it as well.

Direct Deals on the DoubleClick Ad Exchange
Another way publishers make money is to sell their advertising via online exchanges, like the DoubleClick Ad Exchange, where they can offer their ad space to a wide pool of competing ad buyers. This has already proven to generate substantially more revenue for publishers, and as a result we've seen significant growth in the number of trades on our exchange (158 percent year over year).

However, publishers have told us that they'd also like the option of making some of their ad space available only to certain buyers at a certain price—similar to how an art dealer might want to offer a painting first to certain clients before giving it to an auction house to sell. So we're introducing Direct Deals on the Doubleclick Ad Exchange, which gives publishers the ability to make these "first look" offers. For example, using Direct Deals, a news publisher could set aside all of the ad space on their sports page and offer it first to a select group of buyers at a specific price, and then if those buyers pass on the offer, automatically place that inventory into the Ad Exchange's auction.

Looking back at that blog, news site and app, we'd like them to have one more thing in common—being able to advantage of new opportunities to grow their businesses even further. These new tools, together with the other solutions we're continuing to develop, are designed to help businesses like them—and all our publisher partners—do just that, and get the most out of today's advertising landscape.

Posted by Neal Mohan, Vice President of Display Advertising
URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/09/new-tools-to-help-publishers-maximize.html

[G] Introducing Ad Exchange Direct Deals

Posted: 15 Sep 2011 09:18 PM PDT

DoubleClick Publisher Blog: Introducing Ad Exchange Direct Deals

The rise of Ad Exchanges has made it easier for buyers and sellers to connect, using technologies such as real-time bidding (RTB) to help unlock more value for every impression. Exchanges have also provided a number of efficiency benefits such as the elimination of Insertion Orders and trafficking headaches for every transaction and the ability for publishers to manage controls across a broad set of buyers. Increasingly, publishers have been innovating on this platform by making exclusive tiers of inventory available to select buyers via exchanges, a model typically known as a "private exchange". Private exchanges allow publishers to better leverage their brands and sales relationships and provide buyers with enhanced access to premium inventory.

While we've offered the ability for sellers to list inventory privately in the DoubleClick Ad Exchange auction for more than a year, it was clear that the industry was also ready for yet another evolutionary step in exchange buying. Both buyers and sellers wanted even more flexibility, control and pricing certainty for select transactions, while continuing to manage all of their exchange deals in an integrated fashion. In response, we've continued to evolve DoubleClick Ad Exchange to meet these needs by rolling-out a new solution called Ad Exchange Direct Deals.

This new type of exchange deal allows publishers to offer inventory on DoubleClick Ad Exchange to specific buyers at a fixed price, instead of determining the price via auction. This inventory is also offered on a pre-auction basis, which means that publishers can give these select buyers "first look" access, while still making the ad impression available in our open exchange if it remains unsold. Publishers typically negotiate these fixed price exchange deals directly with sophisticated exchange buyers, such as large agencies or ad networks buying in real-time.

Direct Deals allows publishers to forge relationships with new, data-driven, buyers and benefit from the efficiency of an exchange transaction, such as "insertion-orderless" buying and automated clearing of payments. At the same time, publishers can use standard Ad Exchange protections from unwanted data collection, restricted advertiser categories, malware and latency. Advertisers gain more seamless access to high quality publisher inventory and pricing certainty.

Premium publishers, such as The Washington Post and About.com, have been early testers of this feature working with leading exchange buyers such as Criteo, who specializes in expanding search budgets into display. For Criteo, this feature has meant new opportunities to connect with publishers. "Working directly with publishers has always been critical for Criteo, as a way to access the best inventory and deliver the highest CPMs to publishers. We are delighted to be using Direct Deals as a new way to achieve this, with all the advantages of a real-time mechanism," said Jonathan Wolf, Chief Buying Officer at Criteo.

Direct Deals joins a number of other sales models supported by DoubleClick Ad Exchange, including branded, anonymous and private auctions. Sellers using the DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP) platform for direct sales can also benefit from dynamic integration with DoubleClick Ad Exchange to ensure that the most profitable impression is delivered for every impression. We are excited to introduce this new level of flexibility to Ad Exchange to help buyers improve the effectiveness of their campaigns and sellers profit from real-time display buying on their terms. DoubleClick Ad Exchange advertisers and publishers can contact their account manager to join the Direct Deals beta program.

Posted by Scott Spencer, Director of Product Management
URL: http://doubleclickpublishers.blogspot.com/2011/09/introducing-ad-exchange-direct-deals.html

[G] Introducing Your September “On The Rise” Nominees

Posted: 15 Sep 2011 09:18 PM PDT

YouTube Blog: Introducing Your September "On The Rise" Nominees

Each month, we identify four YouTube Partners who are growing their subscribers but haven't yet reached the 100,000 subscribers mark for our On The Rise program. You vote for your favorite in the top right corner of this blog, and the winner will be featured on the YouTube homepage and videos page.



This September, our nominees are here to help you learn and play. So go grab a football, arts supplies, headphones or popcorn and check out the nominees are below. Then vote for your favorite in the top right corner by September 22 at 6pm PT, and we'll announce the winner on September 29.



UncutSports

Kevin and George were bored with traditional TV sports reporting, so they created the Uncut Sports Show to offer unfiltered opinions on everything from football to wrestling to golf.







simplekidscrafts

When her son was four years old, Merve began this video blog to document their frequent arts and crafts projects. Now three years old, the channel offers step-by-step videos for how to turn everyday materials into fun kids crafts.







theneedledrop

Anthony Fantano is a public radio host and an avid independent music fan. For the last two years, he's been reviewing all kinds of songs and albums from "music you like and music you hate."







pineappleboyfilms

Jake Jarvi is a writer/videographer for luxury lifestyle magazines by day, but his real passion is film. In 2008 he produced the short film "Twisted Thicket," and he's now creating episodes of "The Platoon of the Power Squadron," a series revolving around four Chicago strangers who become roommates and happen to have super powers.







Past winners like JasonMundayMusic and DestinWS2 have seen their audiences grow and even been in the news, all thanks to your support. If you're interested in checking out more rising YouTube Partners, visit our On The Rise channel, which features nominees, trending partners and monthly blog winners. Look for more featured partners on the YouTube Browse page.



Devon Storbeck, Partner Support, recently watched "How to Edit Videos for Free."


URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/youtube/PKJx/~3/qcV7EDvv4i0/introducing-your-september-on-rise.html

[G] +1 button in Google Sites

Posted: 15 Sep 2011 09:18 PM PDT

Docs Blog: +1 button in Google Sites

We have been thrilled with the response to the launch of the +1 button on websites all across the web, but we also heard that you'd like a simple way to add the +1 button to your own Google Sites. Adding the +1 button to your site will allow your visitors to recommend it to their friends and contacts, which helps more people discover it via their personalized search results.

Starting today, you can add the +1 button to any individual page by choosing +1 Button from the Insert menu, or you can add it to your site's sidebar and have it appear on every page instantly by editing your Site Layout under Manage Site.


Try it out and let us know what you think in the forum.

Posted by: Michael Verrilli, Software Engineer
URL: http://googledocs.blogspot.com/2011/09/1-button-in-google-sites.html

[G] Your smartphone camera is now smarter with Goggles 1.6

Posted: 15 Sep 2011 09:18 PM PDT

Official Google Mobile Blog: Your smartphone camera is now smarter with Goggles 1.6

Today, we launched a new version of Google Goggles that enhances the camera on your Android-powered phone. With this new opt-in feature in Goggles, you can simply photograph an image using your phone's camera, and Goggles will work in the background to analyze your image. If your photo contains items that Goggles can recognize, the app will notify you.

Let's say that I'm going on vacation, and I decide to use my Android-powered phone as my primary camera. Goggles would identify landmarks, paintings and other interesting objects in my photos. I can share these facts about my vacation with my friends right from my Goggles search history.

  
(l-r) Goggles has found a search result for this popular landmark; Find out more about this item in your photo within Google Goggles

Photos you take with your phone's camera will only be seen by Goggles if you enable the Search from Camera feature. Here's how:
  • launch Google Goggles
  • tap Menu > Settings > Search from Camera

Manage your opt-in status from the settings menu

Google Goggles 1.6 is available for Android 2.1 and newer devices. Download by clicking here or by scanning the QR code below:


Posted by Pavel Vodenski, Software Engineer
URL: http://googlemobile.blogspot.com/2011/09/your-smartphone-camera-is-now-smarter.html

[G] This week in Docs: Format painter, Google Fusion Tables, and drag & drop images

Posted: 15 Sep 2011 09:18 PM PDT

The Google Apps Blog: This week in Docs: Format painter, Google Fusion Tables, and drag & drop images

This week in Docs, we're introducing three new tools that put the fun in functional.

Format painter in Google documents

First, we've added a format painter to help you copy formatting within Google documents. The new format painter allows you to copy the style of your text, including font, size, color and other formatting options and apply it somewhere else in your document. To use the format painter, select the text for the formatting you want to copy, press the paintbrush button in your toolbar, and then select the text where you want to apply that formatting.

If you double-click on the format painter icon, you'll enter a mode that lets you select multiple sections of text so you can apply the same formatting to each section.

You can also use keyboard shortcuts for format painting. To copy the style of your selected text, press Ctrl+Option+C for Mac or Ctrl+Alt+C for Windows. To apply any copied styles to whatever text you have selected, press Ctrl+Option+V for Mac or Ctrl+Alt+V for Windows.

Google Fusion Tables in documents list

With this week's update, we're also integrating Google Fusion Tables into your documents list. Google Fusion Tables is a data management web application that makes it easy to gather, visualize and collaborate on data online. Now you'll be able to store and share your Fusion Tables with the rest of the files in your documents list.

Recently, people have used Google Fusion Tables to:

Go to Create new > Table from your documents list menu to get started visualizing or sharing tables of data in .csv, .xls or .kml files.

We're working on making Google Fusion Tables available to Google Apps customers and will let you know as soon as they are. Take a tour to learn more about Google Fusion Tables.

Drag & drop images in Google drawings

We also made it easier to add images from your desktop to Google drawings. If you're using the latest version of Chrome, Safari, or Firefox, you can now drag an image from your desktop and drop it directly in the drawing canvas.


Give these tools a try and let us know what you think in the comments.

Posted by: Micah Lemonick, Software Engineer

Updated 9/13 to add shortcuts for Windows
URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GoogleAppsBlog/~3/JHim6FQ7g7k/this-week-in-docs-format-painter-google.html

[G] Improved accessibility for Google Calendar

Posted: 15 Sep 2011 09:18 PM PDT

The Google Apps Blog: Improved accessibility for Google Calendar

Posted by: Florian Niemann, Software Engineer

Today we announced some of the updates we've released recently to make Google's applications more accessible to the blind community. Google Calendar now has new keyboard shortcuts and better screen reader support for our blind users. Members of the blind community can now use JAWS, VoiceOver and ChromeVox to manage your calendars, create and edit events or simply browse your events. Here are a few examples of how screen readers and keyboard shortcuts work with Google Calendar:
  • In your calendar lists, you can use the up and down arrow keys to navigate between your calendars. For each calendar in the list, you'll hear its name and can use the spacebar to turn the calendar on or off. To remove a calendar from the list, use the delete key.
  • In the agenda view, you can use the up and down arrow keys to move between events and use the left and right arrow keys to move between dates. To expand an event and expose the event details, press enter. To go to the event details page, type 'e'. To remove an event, press delete. Although agenda view provides the best screen reader experience today, we are also working on improved accessibility for other views.
  • In the guest list on the create/edit event page, you can navigate around using the up and down arrow keys. Use the spacebar to switch a guest's status between optional and required. To remove a guest from the list, use the delete key.
  • Additional keyboard shortcuts make it easier to use Google Calendar no matter which view or screen you're on. Type 'c' to create an event, '/' to start a search, and '+' to add a calendar.
For a complete list of keyboard shortcuts and to learn more about using Google Calendar with screen readers, please visit the help center.With these new accessibility features, we hope to make it easier for everyone to use Google Calendar. Please use this form to share your feedback directly with the accessibility team so we can continue to improve our products.
URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GoogleAppsBlog/~3/hWe8ZGZPPKM/improved-accessibility-for-google.html
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