Friday, November 25, 2011

Googland

Googland

[G] Bringing 64-bit data to R

Posted: 24 Nov 2011 06:31 PM PST

Google Open Source Blog: Bringing 64-bit data to R


The R programming language has become one of the standard tools for statistical data analysis and visualization, and is widely used by Google and many others. The language includes extensive support for working with vectors of integers, numerics (doubles), and many other types, but has lacked support for 64-bit integers. Romain Francois has recently uploaded the int64 package to CRAN as well as updated versions of the Rcpp and RProtobuf packages to make use of this package. Inside Google, this is important when interacting with other engineering systems such as Dremel and Protocol Buffers, where our engineers and quantitative analysts often need to read in 64-bit quantities from a datastore and perform statistical analysis inside R.

Romain has taken the approach of storing int64 vectors as S4 objects with a pair of R's default 32-bit integers to store the high and low-order bits. Almost all of the standard arithmetic operations built into the R language have been extended to work with this new class. The design is such that the necessary bit-artihmetic is done behind the scenes in high-performance C++ code, but the higher-level R functions work transparently. This means, for example, that you can:

• Perform arithmetic operations between 64-bit operands or between int64 objects and integer or numeric types in R.
• Read and write CSV files including 64-bit values by specifying int64 as a colClasses argument to read.csv and write.csv (with int64 version 1.1).
• Load and save 64-bit types with the built-in serialization methods of R.
• Compute summary statistics of int64 vectors, such as max, min, range, sum, and the other standard R functions in the Summary Group Generic.

For even higher levels of precision, there is also the venerable and powerful GNU Multiple Precision Arithmetic Library and the R GMP package on CRAN, although Romain's new int64 package is a better fit for the 64-bit case.

We've had to work around the lack of 64-bit integers in R for several years at Google. And after several discussions with Romain, we were very happy to be able to fund his development of this package to solve the problem not just for us, but for the broader open-source community as well. Enjoy!

By Murray Stokely, Software Engineer, Infrastructure Quantitative Team
URL: http://google-opensource.blogspot.com/2011/11/bringing-64-bit-data-to-r.html

[G] CPG Thought Leader Video Series Episode 5 - Mindshare's Ritu Trivedi

Posted: 24 Nov 2011 06:31 PM PST

Official Google CPG Blog: CPG Thought Leader Video Series Episode 5 - Mindshare's Ritu Trivedi

Over the past four days, we've featured a consultant, two Googlers, and an entrepreneur in our CPG Thought Leader Video Series. Today's thoughts come from a leader in the agency world, Ritu Trivedi, Managing Partner at Mindshare. She discusses today's demanding consumers and how they are interacting with brands.

URL: http://google-cpg.blogspot.com/2011/11/cpg-thought-leader-video-series-episode_23.html

[G] Street View comes to beautiful Belgium

Posted: 24 Nov 2011 06:31 PM PST

Google LatLong: Street View comes to beautiful Belgium


Belgium may be a small country but it's big on culture with more than 300 castles, 40 UNESCO World Heritage sites, 200 museums, 500 types of beer and 2000 chocolate shops. Today we are opening up our beautiful sites to users all over the world as we launch the country at the centre of Europe on Street View.

In the heart of the capital, Brussels, you can now take a virtual stroll around the famous Grand Place which houses the town hall, markets, cafes, museums and the magnificent flower carpet.



Belgium was one of the founding members of the European Union and Brussels is home to many EU and international headquarters. You can now explore the area around the European Parliament and the European Commission.



Beyond Brussels is a world of landscapes, castles and stone-built villages. From the scenic town centre of Bruges to the castles of Bouillon, Belgium's magnificent sites are now available for all via the Street View feature of Google Maps. Imagery of the historic battlefield of Waterloo is also now available, where the fate of Europe was defined almost 200 years ago.



We're thrilled to be releasing the imagery of our small yet fascinating country, known by connoisseurs to be Europe's best hidden secret. As we continue to expand Street View, we look forward to bringing many more European countries for you to explore.

Posted by Julien Blanchez, Google Belgium
URL: http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2011/11/street-view-comes-to-beautiful-belgium.html
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