Thursday, November 17, 2011

Googland

Googland

[G] Celebrating LEO, the world’s first business computer

Posted: 17 Nov 2011 03:43 AM PST

Official Google Blog: Celebrating LEO, the world's first business computer

This year marks the 60th anniversary of LEO, the world's first business computer—built by J.Lyons & Co, a leading British food manufacturer at the time that also ran a famous chain of tea shops.

Lyons management had long been keen to streamline their back-office operations. In 1947, two Lyons managers visited the U.S. to learn about the latest business processes, including whether the electronic computers they'd heard about during their wartime service, like ENIAC, might be useful. (At the time, the closer-to-home advances at Bletchley Park were still a well-kept military secret.)

They returned inspired by the possibilities and keen to build a machine of their own. After several years of development, LEO, a.k.a. Lyons Electronic Office, took on its first office job on November 17, 1951—weekly valuations for the bakery division, calculating margins on Lyon's output of bread, cakes and pies.



Until LEO, computing in a work setting was treated like a specialist bit of kit on a factory production line. Each machine was dedicated to a single task. In essence, they were narrowly defined calculating machines. The vision for LEO, in contrast, was bravely broad. LEO was a single computer capable of handling a whole swathe of accounting and bookkeeping tasks, as well as producing daily management reports.

LEO was such a success that Lyons set up a commercial subsidiary to sell spare time on LEO to other businesses, including the Ford Motor Company, which used it to process the payroll for the thousands of workers at its U.K. plant. Later, Lyons also built entirely new LEOs and sold them to other blue-chip companies of the era. In total, more than 70 LEO's were built, with the last remaining in service until the 1980's (not bad for a computer that took up an entire room!).

Today we view IT as critical to any enterprise, but in the 1950s, this was by no means a given, as evidenced by a quote from a 1954 issue of The Economist: "There are those who do not believe in the desirability of introducing anything as esoteric as electronics into business routine." Things certainly have changed, and in a sense, all modern day businesses owe a debt to the LEO team.

Last week at the Science Museum in London, we were delighted to sponsor a small gathering of early LEO programmers  to celebrate their accomplishments and reminisce about their pioneering work. Today, on this 60th anniversary, we invite you to have a cup of tea and join us in toasting LEO—a remarkable ancestor in IT's family tree.



Posted by Lynette Webb, Senior Manager, External Relations
URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/celebrating-leo-worlds-first-business.html

[G] Gmail app for iOS available in the App Store (again)

Posted: 17 Nov 2011 03:43 AM PST

Official Google Enterprise Blog: Gmail app for iOS available in the App Store (again)

Posted by Matthew Izatt, Product Manager

(Cross-posted from the Official Gmail Blog and the Official Google Mobile Blog.)

Two weeks ago, we introduced our Gmail app for iOS. Unfortunately it contained a bug which broke notifications and displayed an error message, so we removed it from the App Store. We've fixed the bug and notifications are now working, and the app is back in the App Store. For an overview of what's available in the Gmail app for your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch, check out this blog post.

In the short time the app was public we received a lot of helpful feedback and feature requests. This included requests for everything from bigger features like multiple account support to customizations like improved notifications and mobile specific signatures.

We're just getting started with the Gmail app for iOS and will be iterating rapidly to bring you more features, including all the ones listed above plus many more. Based on your comments we have already improved our handling of image HTML messages - they are now sized to fit to the screen and you can pinch to zoom in.

To try out the Gmail app today, install it from App Store on any iOS 4+ device. Those who already have the Gmail app released Nov 2 must uninstall or log out of the old app prior to installing the new app.
URL: http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2011/11/gmail-app-for-ios-available-in-app.html

[G] Google Music is open for business

Posted: 17 Nov 2011 03:43 AM PST

Official Google Blog: Google Music is open for business

Last May at Google I/O, we launched Music Beta by Google with a clear ambition: to help people access their music collections easily from any device. Music Beta enabled you to upload your personal music collection (up to 20,000 songs) for free to the cloud so you could stream it anywhere, any time. Today, the beta service evolves into a broader platform: Google Music. Google Music is about discovering, purchasing, sharing and enjoying digital music in new, innovative and personalized ways.



Google Music helps you spend more time listening to your collection and less time managing it. We automatically sync your entire music library—both purchases and uploads—across all your devices so you don't have to worry about cables, file transfers or running out of storage space. We'll keep your playlists in tact, too, so your "Chill" playlist is always your "Chill" playlist, whether you're on your laptop, tablet or phone. You can even select the specific artists, albums and playlists you want to listen to when you're offline.

Purchase and share
We also want to make it easy and seamless for you to grow your music collection. Today, we added a new music store in Android Market, fully integrated with Google Music.

The store offers more than 13 million tracks from artists on Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, EMI, and the global independent rights agency Merlin as well as over 1,000 prominent independent labels including Merge Records, Warp Records, Matador Records, XL Recordings and Naxos. We've also partnered with the world's largest digital distributors of independent music including IODA, INgrooves, The Orchard and Believe Digital.

You can purchase individual songs or entire albums right from your computer or your Android device and they'll be added instantly to your Google Music library, and accessible anywhere.

Good music makes you want to turn up the volume, but great music makes you want to roll down the windows and blast it for everyone. We captured this sentiment by giving you the ability to share a free full play of a purchased song with your friends on Google+.

Exclusively on Google Music
We're celebrating our launch with a variety of music that you won't find anywhere else, much of it free. There's something for everyone, with a variety of free tracks to choose from:
  • The Rolling Stones are offering an exclusive, never-before-released live concert album, Brussels Affair (Live, 1973), including a free single, "Dancing with Mr. D." This is the first of six in an unreleased concert series that will be made available exclusively through Google Music over the coming months.
  • Coldplay fans will find some original music that's not available anywhere else: a free, live recording of "Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall", a five-track live EP from their recent concert in Madrid and a remix of "Paradise" by Tiësto.
  • Busta Rhymes's first single from his upcoming album, Why Stop Now (feat. Chris Brown), is available for free.
  • Shakira's live EP from her recent concert in Paris and her new studio single, "Je L'Aime à Mourir" are both being offered up free.
  • Pearl Jam are releasing a live album from their 9/11/11 concert in Toronto, free to Google Music users.
  • Dave Matthews Band are offering up free albums from two live concerts, including new material from Live On Lakeside.
  • Tiësto is offering up a new mix, "What Can We Do?" (feat. Anastacia), exclusively to Google Music users.
Artist hub
Whether you're on a label or the do-it-yourself variety, artists are at the heart of Google Music. With the Google Music artist hub, any artist who has all the necessary rights can distribute his or her own music on our platform, and use the artist hub interface to build an artist page, upload original tracks, set prices and sell content directly to fans—essentially becoming the manager of their own far-reaching music store. This goes for new artists as well as established independent artists, like Tiesto, who debuts a new single on Google Music today.



Starting today, Google Music is open in the U.S. at market.android.com, and over the next few days, we will roll out the music store to Android Market on devices running Android 2.2 and above. You can also pick up the new music app from Android Market and start listening to your music on your phone or tablet today. And don't forget to turn your speakers up to eleven.

Posted by Andy Rubin, Senior Vice President, Mobile
URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/google-music-is-open-for-business.html

[G] Gmail app for iOS available in the App Store (again)

Posted: 17 Nov 2011 03:43 AM PST

Official Google Mobile Blog: Gmail app for iOS available in the App Store (again)

(Cross posted on the Official Gmail Blog)

Posted by Matthew Izatt, Product Manager

Two weeks ago, we introduced our Gmail app for iOS. Unfortunately it contained a bug which broke notifications and displayed an error message, so we removed it from the App Store. We've fixed the bug and notifications are now working, and the app is back in the App Store. For an overview of what's available in the Gmail app for your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch, check out this blog post.

In the short time the app was public we received a lot of helpful feedback and feature requests. This included requests for everything from bigger features like multiple account support to customizations like improved notifications and mobile specific signatures.

We're just getting started with the Gmail app for iOS and will be iterating rapidly to bring you more features, including all the ones listed above plus many more. Based on your comments we have already improved our handling of image HTML messages - they are now sized to fit to the screen and you can pinch to zoom in.

To try out the Gmail app today, install it from App Store on any iOS 4+ device. Those who already have the Gmail app released Nov 2 must uninstall or log out of the old app prior to installing the new app.
URL: http://googlemobile.blogspot.com/2011/11/gmail-app-for-ios-available-in-app.html

[G] Gmail app for iOS available in the App Store (again)

Posted: 17 Nov 2011 03:43 AM PST

The Google Apps Blog: Gmail app for iOS available in the App Store (again)

Posted by Matthew Izatt, Product Manager

Two weeks ago, we introduced our Gmail app for iOS. Unfortunately it contained a bug which broke notifications and displayed an error message, so we removed it from the App Store. We've fixed the bug and notifications are now working, and the app is back in the App Store. For an overview of what's available in the Gmail app for your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch, check out this blog post.

In the short time the app was public we received a lot of helpful feedback and feature requests. This included requests for everything from bigger features like multiple account support to customizations like improved notifications and mobile specific signatures.

We're just getting started with the Gmail app for iOS and will be iterating rapidly to bring you more features, including all the ones listed above plus many more. Based on your comments we have already improved our handling of image HTML messages - they are now sized to fit to the screen and you can pinch to zoom in.

To try out the Gmail app today, install it from App Store on any iOS 4+ device. Those who already have the Gmail app released Nov 2 must uninstall or log out of the old app prior to installing the new app.
URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GoogleAppsBlog/~3/3VCZfbNq7ZE/gmail-app-for-ios-available-in-app.html

[G] More ways to reach your audience with YouTube mobile ads

Posted: 17 Nov 2011 03:43 AM PST

Inside AdWords: More ways to reach your audience with YouTube mobile ads


There's no debate that the world is going mobile. Mobile web searches have grown five times over the past two years. YouTube mobile now gets more than 400 million views a day, representing 13 percent of our total daily views.

For advertisers, this opens up more opportunities to reach customers. And in some cases, it can amplify existing campaigns. In a recent study conducted with Nielsen research, we found that promotions perform better together when displayed across multiple screens. In fact, brand recall jumps dramatically to 74 percent for people who saw ads across TV, PC, smartphone and tablets, up from 50 percent for those who saw ads only on TV.

Here are a few ways you can extend your mobile reach with YouTube:

YouTube's Promoted Video ads on mobile

Do you use Promoted Video ads to reach viewers searching for relevant products and potential customers browsing videos on YouTube.com? You can also use Promoted Videos to reach viewers on the go. Promoted Videos are featured at the top of the video search results on m.youtube.com, YouTube's mobile platform.

Advertisers pay only when the viewer chooses to watch the video, and all mobile and desktop view counts are summarized into one complete view count on your channel page. Mobile Promoted Video ads are auction-based campaigns that can be managed in your Google AdWords account. All Google AdWords campaigns are opted into "all devices" by default, but creating separate mobile campaigns helps optimize your mobile advertising efforts and the performance of your brand channel.

A Promoted Video ad on m.youtube.com includes an ad thumbnail, title and channel name; similar to the organic video results.

Promoted Video ads have recently joined YouTube's family of TrueView ad formats. Soon, your Promoted Video ads will become TrueView in-search ads and TrueView in-display ads. TrueView in-search ads show up in display ad units against search results on YouTube, whereas TrueView in-display ads show up in display ad units against suggested videos on YouTube and across website content on the Google Display Network. These TrueView video ads can be set up and managed in any Google AdWords for video account and purchased on a cost-per-view basis.

YouTube mobile in-stream ads

YouTube mobile in-stream ads are 15-second pre-roll ads that appear before the video begins to play. Similar to your desktop experience, mobile in-stream ads may show before videos produced by YouTube partners. In addition to the Android YouTube app, in-stream ads are also available to viewers accessing m.youtube.com from their iPhone.

You can optimize your mobile in-stream ads to reach specific audiences, locations and content. In-stream ads are priced on a CPM basis and can be arranged via ad reservation through your Google sales representative.

Animal Planet used mobile in-stream ads to promote the new season of River Monsters.

YouTube mobile roadblocks

YouTube Mobile roadblocks give brands 100% share of voice on the YouTube home, browse and search pages on m.youtube.com. According to recent Nielsen data, these roadblocks add 17 percent incremental impressions for advertisers.

adidas used mobile roadblocks to complement their homepage masthead ad. Using multiple mobile tactics in addition to roadblocks, channel views jumped 26x over the span of their "adidas is all in" brand campaign.

Mobile brand channels extend your online presence


Many advertisers use banners, background images and gadgets to customize their YouTube brand channels. Extend your brand presence to mobile users by creating a customized mobile brand channel. Accessed through m.youtube.com, mobile channels offer the same high level of customization, including the use of gadgets. You can drive traffic to your YouTube mobile brand channel by running ads on the AdMob network or on m.youtube.com.

YouTube's AdBlitz brand channel features custom-designed elements which engage our growing mobile audience.

For more information about YouTube mobile ads, connect with your Google sales representative or visit www.youtube.com/advertise/mobile.html.

Posted by Nicky Crane, Product Manager

URL: http://adwords.blogspot.com/2011/11/more-ways-to-reach-your-audience-with.html

[G] Gmail app for iOS available in the App Store (again)

Posted: 16 Nov 2011 02:37 PM PST

Official Gmail Blog: Gmail app for iOS available in the App Store (again)

Posted by Matthew Izatt, Product Manager

Two weeks ago, we introduced our Gmail app for iOS. Unfortunately it contained a bug which broke notifications and displayed an error message, so we removed it from the App Store. We've fixed the bug and notifications are now working, and the app is back in the App Store. For an overview of what's available in the Gmail app for your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch, check out this blog post.

In the short time the app was public we received a lot of helpful feedback and feature requests. This included requests for everything from bigger features like multiple account support to customizations like improved notifications and mobile specific signatures.

We're just getting started with the Gmail app for iOS and will be iterating rapidly to bring you more features, including all the ones listed above plus many more. Based on your comments we have already improved our handling of image HTML messages - they are now sized to fit to the screen and you can pinch to zoom in.

To try out the Gmail app today, install it from App Store on any iOS 4+ device. Those who already have the Gmail app released Nov 2 must uninstall or log out of the old app prior to installing the new app.
URL: http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/gmail-app-for-ios-available-in-app.html

[G] Upgrade to AdWords Editor 9.7.1 for more efficient campaign management

Posted: 16 Nov 2011 02:37 PM PST

Inside AdWords: Upgrade to AdWords Editor 9.7.1 for more efficient campaign management

AdWords Editor version 9.7.1 is now available for Windows and Mac. This new version includes performance improvements and several new options for editing and targeting your campaigns. A few highlights:
  • Faster downloading for large accounts, and faster cut, copy, and paste (including drag-and-drop).
  • A new tool for changing the capitalization of selected text in one step.
  • More AdWords settings available within AdWords Editor, including advanced location settings, user interest category targeting, and Wifi traffic targeting.
For a complete list of changes and instructions, visit our release notes.

If you're already using AdWords Editor, you'll be prompted to upgrade automatically. If you're not already using AdWords Editor, you can visit our website and click "Download AdWords Editor." To learn more about AdWords Editor, visit our Help Center.

Posted by Katie Miller, Inside AdWords crew
URL: http://adwords.blogspot.com/2011/11/upgrade-to-adwords-editor-971-for-more.html

[G] Watch Mary J Blige perform live on Thursday

Posted: 16 Nov 2011 02:37 PM PST

YouTube Blog: Watch Mary J Blige perform live on Thursday

In recent years, artists like the Flaming Lips and Van Morrison have taken to the stage to perform classic albums in their entirety. It's an amazing way to re-experience a significant moment in a musician's career -- and to make old favorites new again. Tomorrow, you'll get a chance to hear Mary J Blige's breakthrough 1994 album My Life in its entirety -- performed by the queen of hip-hop soul herself.



Tune in to youtube.com/maryjbligevevo at 8 p.m. PT/11 p.m. ET on Thursday, November 17 to see the legendary singer perform live as part of Amex's UNSTAGED concert series, in partnership with YouTube and VEVO. The concert will be directed by Adam Shankman, the noted dancer/choreographer/director who's also directing Blige in the upcoming film version of the Broadway musical Rock of Ages. His credits include the film Hairspray as well as innumerable music videos. (He has also found time to judge on the television show So You Think You Can Dance.)



Many music critics credit Mary J Blige with inventing hip-hop soul, with help from a very young P. Diddy, on her first album What's The 411? The song "Real Love" became a monster hit.







For My Life, her second album, Diddy (then known as Sean "Puffy" Combs) pulled samples from a who's-who of soul music: Curtis Mayfield, Isaac Hayes, Al Green and many more. (Check out our playlist of My Life's soul music influences.) Those samples pervade the album, and though Blige had the pipes to vie with the old masters, she was unmistakably of the hip-hop generation in attitude and style; this was no clean-cut Whitney Houston. She co-wrote many of the songs on the album, working off material from her own life.







The singer quickly became a pop music phenomenon, but privately she was battling demons. Later albums such as 2001's No More Drama saw Blige speaking openly about the challenges she'd faced in her personal life and using her music to deliver life-affirming messages to her faithful fanbase.







Blige has been stalwart of the R&B scene for so many years that it's easy to forget just how influential she's been. She was the first artist to forge ties between hip-hop and R&B that we now take for granted; before Blige's Grammy-winning collaboration with Method Man, R&B singer/rapper collaborations were nearly unheard-of. They're now de rigeur. On the eve of the second installation of My Life, we're proud to welcome a musical legend to UNSTAGED.



Sarah Bardeen, Music Community Manager, recently watched "Mary J Blige - All That I Can Say."


URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/youtube/PKJx/~3/bpbnJWWquHE/watch-mary-j-blige-perform-live-on.html

[G] New Layout for the Help Center

Posted: 16 Nov 2011 02:37 PM PST

Inside AdSense: New Layout for the Help Center

As AdSense has developed over years, the Help Center has also grown to help you answer your questions and learn more about AdSense. With continuous updates and articles being added regularly, however, the Help Center became increasingly difficult to navigate. Today we're pleased to announce a redesigned Help Center, making it easier for you to access materials to answer your questions.  We're excited to share some of the changes we have made to make the Help Center more user friendly.

With the new layout, you can quickly move through topics to answers and in the left navigation bar, you'll see all articles related to the same topic. The links along the top that show you how you've progressed through topics will help you navigate more quickly. In addition, we've reorganized help articles based on the task you're trying to accomplish. We hope that this will cut down the time it takes you to find the article you're looking for, make it much easier to find that content, and help you learn about AdSense.

In the new layout, you'll recognize that we have four separate sections:
  • Learn about AdSense contains all help articles organized by category.
  • Fix an issue is for publishers that have a specific question.
  • Additional resources in the right navigation bar has more useful information about AdSense.
  • Get Started in the left navigation bar has basic information about AdSense and how to get started.
For security reasons, some forms require publishers to login. Thus, we recommend that you login to your account while you are visiting the Help Center, especially the "Fix an issue" section.

In the coming weeks, you may notice more design and layout changes that will make your Help Center experience even better. Combined with the new Help Center organization, we hope that these ongoing design changes will make your learning experience in the Help Center more enjoyable, efficient, and useful.

Posted by Özge Kökçü, AdSense Help Center Lead
URL: http://adsense.blogspot.com/2011/11/new-layout-for-help-center.html

[G] Testifying before the U.S. House of Representatives on copyright legislation

Posted: 16 Nov 2011 02:37 PM PST

Google Public Policy Blog: Testifying before the U.S. House of Representatives on copyright legislation

Posted by Pablo Chavez, Director of Public Policy

 This morning Google copyright policy counsel Katherine Oyama will testify before the House Judiciary Committee on the Stop Online Piracy Act. You can read her written and her oral testimony.

We strongly support the goal of the bill -- cracking down on offshore websites that profit from pirated and counterfeited goods -- but we're concerned the way it's currently written would threaten innovation, jobs, and free expression. We are not alone in our concerns. Earlier this week, we joined eight other Internet companies -- AOL, eBay, Facebook, LinkedIn, Mozilla, Twitter, Yahoo!, and Zynga -- in a letter to Congress, echoing concerns voiced by industry associations, entrepreneurs, small business owners, librarians, law professors, venture capitalists, human rights advocates, cybersecurity experts, public interest groups, and tens of thousands of private citizens.

Google takes the problem of online piracy and counterfeiting very seriously, devoting our best engineering talent and tens of millions of dollars every year to combat it through our Content ID system on YouTube, our efforts to make copyright work better online, and our work to keep counterfeiters out of our ads system.

Katherine's testimony will offer recommendations for more targeted ways to combat foreign "rogue" websites that are dedicated to copyright infringement and trademark counterfeiting, while preserving the innovation and dynamism that has made the Internet such an important driver of economic growth and job creation.
URL: http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2011/11/testifying-before-us-house-of.html

[G] Google Apps helps reduce the risk of data breaches

Posted: 16 Nov 2011 02:37 PM PST

Official Google Enterprise Blog: Google Apps helps reduce the risk of data breaches

Posted by Adam Swidler, Senior Manager, Google Apps Team

Editors note: This is the final post in a series that explores the top ten reasons why customers trust Google with their business data. A complete top ten list can be found here.

It's important for all businesses regardless of size or industry to assess the risk of potential data breaches and take steps to prevent them, especially in the area of information technology. The use of laptops, smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices is increasing as users demand anytime, anywhere access to email and documents. This can increase the risk of a data breach if you're using traditional applications which store a local copy of the data on the device and the device gets lost or stolen.

Google Apps can help reduce the risk of a data breach by limiting the data that is stored on your devices. When you check email or work on a document in a browser with Google Apps, the data is stored in our data centers, not on your device. That means that if your device gets lost or stolen, there is lower overall risk of a data breach. Similarly, if you collaborate with others in Google Docs, you don't need to send them a copy of the document. You can enable and disable access to the document with a simple set of sharing controls and your collaborators access it from their browser. The document does not need to be stored locally on their device for them to collaborate on it.

For those times when you want to access Google Apps but you don't have an Internet connection, we recently released an offline capability for Gmail and for Google Docs. The offline capability does involve some local data storage on devices. The amount of stored data is likely to be smaller as only a limited amount of documents and email are synchronized to the device for offline access. If you decide that this local data storage poses a risk, you can easily disable offline access.

For additional security and data protection information, including a video tour of a Google data center, you can visit our Google Apps security page.
URL: http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2011/11/google-apps-helps-reduce-risk-of-data.html
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