Saturday, January 14, 2012

Googland

Googland

[G] Beckham kicks it at Google

Posted: 13 Jan 2012 07:14 PM PST

Official Google Blog: Beckham kicks it at Google

International soccer phenom +David Beckham is taking off his boots and heading to Google for an exclusive live interview. Have a question you've been dying to personally ask Becks? Post it on Google+ with hashtag #GoogleBeckham, and maybe he'll answer it live!

Watch the interview on Thursday, January 19 at 9am PT on youtube.com/atgoogletalks. And as an added bonus, hangout with him directly afterward on his Google+ profile at 10:30am PT. Add him to your circles now for all the latest updates.



Don't worry if you can't make the live interview or Google+ hangout—we'll post them to YouTube shortly after.

So, what are you waiting for? Punt us your best questions on Google.com/+!

Posted by Andrew Schulte, Product Marketing Manager

(Cross-posted on the YouTube Blog)
URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2012/01/beckham-kicks-it-at-google.html

[G] Beckham kicks it at Google

Posted: 13 Jan 2012 07:14 PM PST

YouTube Blog: Beckham kicks it at Google

Cross posted from the Official Google Blog




International soccer phenom +David Beckham is taking off his boots and heading to Google for an exclusive live interview. Have a question you've been dying to personally ask Becks? Post it on Google+ with hashtag #GoogleBeckham, and maybe he'll answer it live!


Watch the interview on Thursday, January 19 at 9am PT on youtube.com/atgoogletalks. And as an added bonus, hangout with him directly afterward on his Google+ profile at 10:30am PT. Add him to your circles now for all the latest updates.





Don't worry if you can't make the live interview or Google+ hangout—we'll post them to YouTube shortly after.

So, what are you waiting for? Punt us your best questions on Google.com/+!




Andrew Schulte, Google Product Marketing Manager, recently watched, "All the FreeKicks from David Beckham."  


URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/youtube/PKJx/~3/1IN78FAkJJk/beckham-kicks-it-at-google.html

[G] CDC Birth Vital Statistics in BigQuery

Posted: 13 Jan 2012 07:14 PM PST

Google Research Blog: CDC Birth Vital Statistics in BigQuery

Posted by Dan Vanderkam, Software Engineer



Google's BigQuery Service lets enterprises and developers crunch large-scale data sets quickly. But what if you don't have a large-scale data set of your own?



To help the data-less masses, BigQuery offers several large, public data sets. One of these is the natality data set, which records information about live births in the United States. The data is derived from the Division of Vital Statistics at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which has collected an electronic record of birth statistics since 1969. It is one of the longest-running electronic records in existence.



Each row in this database represents a live birth. Using simple queries, you can discover fascinating trends from the last forty years.



For example, here's the average age of women giving birth to their first child:







The average age has increased from 21.3 years in 1969 to 25.1 years in 2008. Using more complex queries, one could analyze the factors which have contributed to this increase, i.e. whether it can be explained by changing racial/ethnic composition of the population.



You can see more examples like this one on the BigQuery site.


URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/gJZg/~3/LAHkUn-0Jpc/cdc-birth-vital-statistics-in-bigquery.html

[G] Making ads smart -- Adapting ads to the device

Posted: 13 Jan 2012 07:14 PM PST

Inside AdSense: Making ads smart -- Adapting ads to the device

As smartphones and tablets become more and more popular, your websites are being viewed on a wider variety of devices - with different screen sizes and features. We've recently discussed the importance of having mobile friendly sites and the best ways to monetize them, and also just released Custom Search Ads for Mobile to help you take advantage of this trend. As part of our focus on helping you monetize your content across all screen sizes, we'll soon also be improving the way ads appear on different devices.

We're making our text ads smarter and will soon display them differently so they perform optimally depending on where users are viewing them from: computers, tablets, or smartphones. The best part is that our ads do the right thing automatically - without any changes required to your web pages - by detecting what device your web page is being viewed from.

With this change, we're taking advantage of the unique features of mobile devices to deliver more engaging, better-performing ads.  Since the screens are smaller, we're reducing the number of ads per ad slot and increasing the size of the text to make them more legible and noticeable.

We're also providing a big button on each ad to make it easy for users to select the ads using a touch screen. Here's how the 728x90 leaderboard will appear differently on the different platforms.


Desktop


Tablet


Phone
We're continuing to look for ways to improve ad performance for publishers, no matter what size screen your users are accessing your site from. Stay tuned to Inside AdSense for more updates.

Posted by Priya Gupta, Mobile Ads Engineering
URL: http://adsense.blogspot.com/2012/01/making-ads-smart-adapting-ads-to-device.html

[G] Explore your world, start here.

Posted: 13 Jan 2012 06:47 AM PST

Google LatLong: Explore your world, start here.


Google has always been on a mission to help organize the world's information, and our Google Maps and Google Earth teams constantly work to apply this to place and space. A quick retrospective look at 2011 shows a number of improvements to help our users discover and experience new places around the world, both digitally and in person.

To start, we've continued to add new satellite and 45 degree imagery on Google Maps and Google Earth, which reached 1B downloads last year, as well as expand our imagery coverage of Street View to Belgium, business interiors, partner locations like parks and even museums with the Art Project. If you want to follow these imagery updates, we expanded Follow Your World so you can get notifications about locations that interest you.

You may have also noticed improvements to the look and feel of our maps, especially with 3D buildings across the world (e.g. Rome, Italy) and smoother transitions with the introduction of Google MapsGL. Using WebGL technology your maps experience is much better with 3D buildings, smoother transitions between imagery and the ability to instantly "swoop" into Street View without a plugin.

Providing the latest map data has also been an important goal, which is why we introduced Google Map Maker in the U.S. and Canada to reach a total of 188 countries where users have an easier way to contribute local knowledge. Up-to-date maps can also enable other organizations be more effective, such as relief and aid organizations who were able to access imagery after the earthquake and tsunami hit northern Japan, and organizations that use Google Earth Builder to build on top of our APIs.

Before and after the earthquake and tsunami.

And of course, your mobile device enables you to take Google Maps with you wherever you go. We recently made indoor maps available with a more accurate blue dot to help you orient yourself, as well as offline maps so you can still see a map area when you're not connected. The video below shows some of the ways Google Maps can help through all parts of your journey.


In 2012, our goal is to continue making knowledge of the physical world more accessible and tailored to your needs. We want Google Maps and Google Earth to be your sidekick; making travel and exploration smarter and more efficient. Whether you want to map your excursion from point A to point B, find interesting detours along your way, or see new and foreign places, Google Maps can help you explore your world.

To learn more about some Google Maps features, check out our interactive tour at maps.google.com/starthere

Posted by Brian McClendon, VP of Engineering, Google Earth and Maps
URL: http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2012/01/explore-your-world-start-here.html
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