Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Googland

Googland

[G] A new view of Google Earth on 48 screens

Posted: 12 Dec 2011 03:33 PM PST

Google LatLong: A new view of Google Earth on 48 screens


Back in 2009, Google developed the first Liquid Galaxy, an entirely new way to display Google Earth on eight screens - which creates an immersive experience of virtually flying around the globe. Since then, we've built dozens of Liquid Galaxies all over the world and open sourced the code so anyone can build their own.

Late last year, the Paris Center for Architecture and Urbanism: Le Pavillon de l'Arsenal, approached us asking if they could use Google Earth to power a new interactive display highlighting the Paris metropolitan area in 2020 with upcoming buildings in 3D. Naturally, we were excited about the project, especially when they shared that the display would be 40 square meters - posing a fun and unique challenge.

A year later, we are excited to share that the first 48 screen Liquid Galaxy is now on display in Paris. We believe this to be the largest screen showing Google Earth to date!

Photo: Vincent Fillon

What started as a 20% project to support the new Google Cultural Institute resulted in a stunning display of the Earth in almost 100M pixels - powered by 48 instances of Google Earth synchronized and operated through 4 multi-touch screens with pinch and zoom functionality. The view is even sharper due to a refresh of the entire Paris area with higher resolution imagery.

As a Parisian, it's amazing to be able to see what the city will look like in the future. If you can't make it to France in the near future, you can preview it at home by downloading this KML file and opening it in Google Earth.

The Canopy and Transport Hub: Patrick Berger and Jacques Anziutti architects

This project was a close collaboration between Google and Le Pavillon de l'Arsenal, as well as technology JCDecaux, End Point and design partners ultranoir.



Over the next few months we'll be fully open sourcing this work on Liquid Galaxy, as well as the graphical interface. Keep an eye out on our source code page for updates.

Posted by Pierre Lebeau, Product Manager
URL: http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2011/12/new-view-of-google-earth-on-48-screens.html

[G] The power of Search Ads, now available on your mobile site

Posted: 12 Dec 2011 03:33 PM PST

Inside AdSense: The power of Search Ads, now available on your mobile site


Recently on the Official Google Blog, we talked about the momentum we're seeing in mobile search advertising. We also announced a new mobile search ad product: Custom Search Ads for Mobile Sites. We wanted to give some more details about this new format and how you can begin using it to grow your business on mobile.



As increasing numbers of users access websites using their mobile phones, more and more desktop publishers are bringing their businesses to the mobile web. You may have seen our recent initiative, 'GoMo', which is designed to help publishers and businesses take their site mobile.



Currently, publishers can monetize their mobile sites using AdSense for Mobile Content. We wanted to also help mobile web publishers earn from their search traffic, and so with Custom Search Ads for Mobile Sites, we're bringing the power of search ads to the world of the mobile web.



Mobile websites that provide a search option will be able to show ads related to search queries. Users will see ads relevant to what they're searching for, and publishers will open up a new revenue stream from their mobile properties.



Many mobile websites contain custom search functions that ask users to search within a variety of specific parameters. With Custom Search Ads for Mobile Sites, these parameters are taken into account to help determine what ad is shown and deliver the most relevant ad for a user's query. For example, in the image below you can see that someone using Trulia, a real estate search engine, is searching for properties in Washington, DC, and the ads match this query.






Trulia.com implemented Custom Search Ads on their mobile site. When a user scrolls through their search results (in this case, for property in Washington, DC), they are served both search results and Custom Search Ads relevant to their query.



Moreover, mobile web publishers can customize the look and feel of the ads to complement their site's design and layout. Some of the customization options include changing the font size, background color and gradient. Custom Search ads can also be integrated into mobile apps with the same customization features and options.



We're currently accepting applications from publishers to use Custom Search Ads for Mobile Sites. If you're a mobile publisher or app developer interested in this product, apply now on the Custom Search Ads page.



Posted by Chris Monkman, Product Manager, Mobile Ads


URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/tuAm/~3/8ZrXlcR7Wk4/power-of-search-ads-now-available-on.html

[G] Updating the Roads in United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden and Finland

Posted: 12 Dec 2011 03:33 PM PST

Official Google Enterprise Blog: Updating the Roads in United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden and Finland

Natasha Wyatt, Google Earth and Maps for Business Team

Today we announced changes to the data that powers Google Maps API Premier, Google Earth Builder and Google Earth Pro in the UK, Germany, Sweden and Finland.

Among other improvements, the updated maps will show more detailed bodies of water and local parks and will ultimately provide better, more accurate geospatial information for your employees and customers. As Google Maps and Google Earth for Business customers, you can now share direct feedback about our maps and let us know about needed updates to the map in these areas by using the "Report a Problem" tool in the lower right corner of the map. We highly recommend that you re-geocode all of your data to take advantage of the new updated data.
URL: http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2011/12/updating-roads-in-united-kingdom.html

[G] TripIt makes communication easier with Google Apps

Posted: 12 Dec 2011 03:33 PM PST

Official Google Enterprise Blog: TripIt makes communication easier with Google Apps

Posted by Scott Hintz, Co-Founder and Vice President of Business Development at TripIt

Editors note: Scott Hintz, Gregg Brockway and Andy Denmark founded TripIt in 2006 to simplify the Internet travel experience by bringing together travel plans from multiple online sources into a single, centralized itinerary, and allow travelers to manage and share their travel plans. See what other organizations that have gone Google have to say.

We launched TripIt with about 10 people back in 2007. We now employ about 50 and were acquired by Concur at the beginning of the year. It took all of one minute to decide that Google Apps provided the best tools for our growing team. As a Silicon Valley startup, our employees are very familiar with Gmail and we could count on them getting up to speed quickly without any IT training programs.

We attribute a lot of our internal business success to Google's communication tools. Google Docs has become our primary collaboration tool and makes it easy for those outside our domain to work in tandem with internal employees. We rely on Google Docs for project planning and a lot of our accounting process. Before our acquisition, we used external bookkeepers to manage our accounting, do invoicing, etc. So we created Google spreadsheets where TripIt folks could enter invoice amounts and our accountants could access the doc and issue invoices based on our entries, then add confirmation information. Because Google documents is always up to date, TripIt employees could always track the status of invoices.

Plus, having a Google Docs link removes the email clutter that results from attachments, while allowing us the certainty that we're all looking at the most recent version of the information. Before Google Docs, project prioritization was done using Microsoft Excel, which mandated a master owner and often resulted in outdated files. I can't tell you how many times we were in meetings with people who were looking at different versions of the same spreadsheet.

Now we know the most recent versions of all our docs and the rest of our data are automatically saved in the cloud and accessible anywhere with an Internet connection. With hard drives, too many bad things can happen to your valuable files, especially as much as we travel. Mobile Gmail works great—it's fast and easy—and we rely quite heavily on email and shared calendars while on the road. As a travel company, the mobile capabilities have become indispensable.

We've moved our offices three times in just four years. Because we're now a cloud-based organization, it's wonderful not having to lug around hardware and servers, and the fact that we never have to worry about interrupting critical email service is huge.

As a company that believes in the power of technology to simplify things, Google Apps is the perfect fit for us.
URL: http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2011/12/tripit-makes-communication-easier-with.html

[G] Gmail and Contacts get better with Google+

Posted: 12 Dec 2011 03:33 PM PST

Official Google Enterprise Blog: Gmail and Contacts get better with Google+

Posted by Mark Striebeck, Engineering Director

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

We want to bring you a great experience across all Google products which, for Gmail and Contacts, means understanding what you care about and delivering it instantly. With that in mind, we're introducing some new integrations with Google+ that we think will make Gmail and Contacts even better. If you use Google+, you can now grow your circles, filter emails and contacts by circles, keep all your contact information up-to-date automatically and share photos to Google+, all right from Gmail and Contacts.

Grow your circles from your email
Now when you open an email from someone on Google+, you can see the most recent post they've shared with you on the right-hand side of the conversation. If they're not in your circles yet, it's easy to add them straight from Gmail.


Find information from the people you care about most
Looking for the info on an upcoming family holiday gathering but can't remember who sent it? If you've spent time building your Google+ circles, you can now quickly use them to filter your mail, saving yourself from having to sift through that pile of daily deal emails and newsletters. You can see messages from all of your circles at once or from each individual circle. And if you want, you can show circle names on emails in your inbox. Contacts can also be filtered by circles, making it easier to view your social connections.


Keep your contact information up-to-date automatically
Manually entering contact information can be a huge time drain—so let your circles do it for you. If your contacts have a Google profile, their contact entry in Gmail will be updated with the profile information they've shared with you, including phone numbers, email addresses and more. If they change it in the future, you'll get those updates automatically. You can also make sure the people you care about have your most up-to-date contact information by updating your own Google profile and sharing it.


Share effortlessly without leaving your inbox
Lots of great images are sent through email, but sharing those photos with friends on Google+ used to require downloading the image from Gmail and re-uploading to your profile. Not anymore: Now you can share photo attachments with one quick click. The image(s) will be uploaded to your Google+ photos and be viewable only to the circles that you choose to share with.


We'll be rolling out all of these changes out over the next few days to Gmail, Gmail Contacts and the "standalone" version of Google Contacts at contacts.google.com. Please note that Google Apps users won't see the Contacts updates quite yet, but we're actively working to make them available.

All of these features (and the more to come) are the result of the great discussion that we had on Google+ with users in July. If you want to join in discussions like these, add the Gmail Google+ page to your circles. And if you haven't signed up for Google+ and would like to try these new features, visit this page to get started.
URL: http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2011/12/gmail-and-contacts-get-better-with.html
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