Saturday, March 24, 2012

Googland

Googland

[G] Street View on Google Maps comes to Thailand

Posted: 23 Mar 2012 06:18 PM PDT

Google Lat Long: Street View on Google Maps comes to Thailand


Last September, we announced with the Tourism Authority of Thailand that we would collect street-level imagery of Thailand via our Street View cars. Just as we started driving, however, 65 of the country's 77 provinces experienced heavy flooding — resulting in one of the worst humanitarian and economic crises in the country's long history.

While flood waters affected our original driving schedule, the team was determined to keep the cars on the roads by driving up-country and focusing on un-affected areas. And if the weather wasn't enough of a challenge, how about carefully maneuvering Street View cars around curious elephants!


After six short months, it is with great pleasure that imagery of greater Bangkok, Chiang Mai and Phuket is now available on Google Maps. We hope that locals in these areas find the panoramic views helpful for finding their way around their cities, discovering new restaurants and shops, and promoting their businesses online. Tourists can also get a preview of Thailand when planning vacations, figuring out travel logistics about the exact places to visit, or simply looking for more examples of the country's hidden beauty.

Below you can see Bangkok's Grand Palace, one of Thailand's great national treasures. The 360-degree imagery in Google Maps provides an immersive sense of what this spot is like in ways that a single, still photo wouldn't be able to encompass. For example, scroll around the panorama and you'll see Bangkok's bustling roads littered with brightly-painted tuk tuk auto rickshaws and hot pink taxis cruising down the streets.


The new imagery also includes breathtaking views from northern and southern Thailand, from sunny Laem Phrom Thep and Phang Nga Bay in Phuket, to famous temples like Wat Chiang Man or the mountain top monastery of Doi Suthep in Chiang Mai. We will continue driving in Thailand throughout the year, so stay tuned for more imagery updates in the future.


In addition to today's announcement about adding Thailand imagery to Google Maps' Street View feature, we're also thrilled that the Google Trike has arrived in Thailand. Using this unique vehicle, sometimes mistaken for an ice cream vendor, we will begin collecting imagery of new spots that the Street View car cannot reach. Together with our local partner, the Tourism Authority of Thailand, a poll has been opened at www.tourismthailand.org/mymiracle for Thais to decide where the Trike should go. Visit the site and let us know through photo, video, or text the Thai landmark you want to people all around the world to be able to virtually experience.

Despite the floods, Thailand had the highest-ever number of visitors in 2011 with 19 million guests. We hope that this new Street View imagery shows the world that Thailand is back — and ready for even more guests in 2012.

To check out a few Street View in Thailand and more collections around the world, including the Amazon Basin in Brazil, go to our new Street View gallery here.

Posted by Pornthip Kongchun, Head of Marketing, Thailand
URL: http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2012/03/street-view-on-google-maps-comes-to.html

[G] Measure your website’s performance with improved Site Speed reports

Posted: 23 Mar 2012 02:19 PM PDT

Google Analytics Blog: Measure your website's performance with improved Site Speed reports

In our continued effort to improve your experience of Google Analytics, we are excited to release an updated Site Speed report that distills all the key metrics into a quick & easy to read Overview report.

Site Speed Overview Report
The Overview report provides an at-a-glance view of essential information for measuring your site's page loading metrics: Avg. Page Load Time by Browser, Country/Territory, and Page. Plus you can compare your site's average performance over time to forecast trends and view historical performance. All of these tools can help you identify where your pages may be underperforming and adjust so more visitors land on your site instead of waiting in frustration or leaving.
Example of updated reports   

Previously there was only one Site Speed report, this has been renamed to "Page Timings". On the Page Timings report, you can view your site's load times in three ways: use the Explorer tab to explore average load time across dimensions, use the Performance tab to see how the load times break down by speed ranges, or use the Map Overlay tab to see how the load times breakdown by geography.

Previous report, now Page Timings   

Speed metrics available in Intelligence Reports & API
The technical metrics included in the Page Timings report were launched a couple of months ago. So we've been working hard at making these metrics available in more of your favorite Analytics features. We've updated the Intelligence Reports to include the average site load times and all the Page Timings metrics. Now you can create custom alerts based on site speed metrics such as Avg. Page Load Time, Avg. Server Response Time. And view site speed metrics in the Analytics API and Custom Reports.

Site Speed Sample Rate
Small sites (<10K visits per day) can now increase the site speed sample rate up to 100% to get full samples for page load time. Note that the processing limit of up to 10K per day or 1% of pageview hits (whichever is greater) still applies.

- Mustafa M. Tikir, Google Analytics team
URL: http://analytics.blogspot.com/2012/03/measure-your-websites-performance-with.html

[G] Google Summer of Code 2012 Meetup held in Rome

Posted: 23 Mar 2012 02:19 PM PDT

Google Open Source Blog: Google Summer of Code 2012 Meetup held in Rome



On March 15th about 30 students participated in the Google Summer of Code info session held at Fusolab in Rome, Italy by Ninux.org. Some of the students were well known in the local community and have been participating in the development of open source software, while others were excited to start working on open source. There's always a first time to work on open source software development and we think Google Summer of Code is the best occasion to do it! A few of the students were slightly concerned about the overlap between the program and their exams in July but the mentors explained that with careful and realistic planning delivering a successful project is definitely achievable.






Photo taken by Federico Capoano




Ninux.org is an Italian wireless community whose primary goal is to build a community of skilled people that participate in building open and decentralized wireless networks in the Italian peninsula for experimental purposes. For us the Google Summer of Code has been a great way to attract new promising and talented minds in our community. Many of the students that participated in previous years are still contributing, hacking and experimenting with new technologies with us.



We hope to contribute in forming the new generation that will push forward the open source philosophy applied to real life in our country. We believe the open source philosophy is the best approach in solving many of the issues in our society, so we put effort in applying it not only to software, but also to all our other activities. Collaborate, teach, learn and share. The Future is Now!



By Saverio Proto Google Summer of Code mentor for Ninux.org


URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GoogleOpenSourceBlog/~3/jyPYVjP-LK0/google-summer-of-code-2012-meetup-held.html
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