Official Google Blog: January 2008

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International Science + Engineering Fair

January 31, 2008

Posted by Alan Eustace, Senior VP, EngineeringISEFSociety for Science & the Peoplethe participation process

Google Finance UK open for business

January 30, 2008

Posted by Ayan Mandal, Product Manager, Google Financenow live

Search with a preference for UK companies and mutual funds.

Google News integration – With a preference for news from British sources. The news is organized in groups by news topic, rather than listed by date, so you won't have to scroll through multiple headlines for the same news story.

Interactive Charts – Maps market data with corresponding news stories in a single interactive chart, so you can track news to stock performance. You can also click and drag on the charts to see different time periods, and zoom in for more detailed information.

Front page market summary with FTSE indices and British pound exchange rates.

Blogs – Incorporates blog postings for related company information from Google Blog Search.

Discussion Groups – High quality discussion forums are part of the service. We have a team of folks dedicated to keeping the conversation experience free of spam and irrelevant posts.

Portfolios – A fast and easy way for you to create and track portfolios of stocks and mutual funds in the currency of your choice.

Help Center

Introducing new search views

January 28, 2008

And selecting "images" from the control panel displays some nice images from the page:

If you run a search and find many of your results are looking similar, try using info view. It may highlight the differences between results and help you select the best page for your needs.

Tell us what you think
You can opt in to the alternative views experiments so they become your main search UI -- as well as try out many other new search tools -- on the experimental search page. After opting in, send us feedback by clicking on the experiment name in the upper right part of the search page and selecting "Take our survey". We'd love to hear your thoughts!

Posted by Andrew Hogue, Uber Tech LeadIntroducing experimental views for search resultsexperimental search page"alternative views" experimentMap viewmath conferences happening in your statejazz around townTimeline viewupcominghistoricbiographical informationInfo view

And selecting "images" from the control panel displays some nice images from the page:

Three more languages for Blogger

January 27, 2008

Posted by Tyrone Nicholas, Software EngineerBloggernew features

Celebrating data privacy

January 25, 2008

Posted by Jane Horvath, Senior Privacy Counsel;
Peter Fleischer, Global Privacy Counsel; and Shuman Ghosemajumder, Business Product Manager for Trust and SafetyData Privacy Day 2008conferencevideoYouTube Privacy Channelprivacy bookleteducational materials

Gmail in your words

January 23, 2008

Posted by Miriam Schneider, Associate Product Marketing Managerrecently invitedvideo submissionsgmail.com/yourstory

give us a shout

Public transit made easy

January 18, 2008

Posted by T.V. Raman, Research Scientist
From time to time, our own T.V. Raman shares his tips on how to use Google from his perspective as a technologist who cannot see -- tips that sighted people, among others, may also find useful. - Ed. A little over a year ago, I blogged about our simple textual directions as an alternative to the popular graphical Google Maps interface. Those directions help me orient myself and learn my way around. But in the interest of safety -- my own and others! -- I choose not to drive and rely heavily on public transportation. Now that Maps has textual directions in place, it's easy to build on top of that interface to introduce new innovations that become immediately useful to someone like me. Google Transit is a great example of this -- it helps me locate public transportation options and does so in the text format that I need. In addition, it offers several nice features to help me plan my trip:

I can specify the desired departure or arrival time.

It will show more than one trip choice, allowing some flexibility with respect to when I'd like to start.

It estimates the amount of walking required to get to a transit stop/station.

It identifies the length of waiting at each transit point.

It estimates the comparable cost of transportation options, where available.

But these aren't the only benefits. Behind the scenes is the Google Transit Feed Specification (GTFS), an open data format used by public transit agencies to upload their data. Several agencies are already using these public feeds. Though GTFS is never seen by commuters directly, it opens up a wealth of possibilities with respect to accessibility and alternative access, such as building custom user interfaces and specialized route guidance applications that are optimized for people with special needs. Though we added this alternative view to enhance the accessibility of Google Maps for blind and low-vision users, we hope that everyone finds it a useful addition to your commute arsenal. So next time you use the Maps graphical interface, give its cousin, the simple textual directions, a try -- there might be times when you find yourself using it even if you can see.
And here's to ever more open data feeds from the various public transport agencies!

Searching for solutions

January 17, 2008

Posted by Sheryl Sandberg, VP, Global Online Sales & Operationswrote heresharedInform and EmpowerPrathamASER ReportGoogle.org

Google India Women in Engineering Award 2008

January 17, 2008

Posted by Manoj Varghese, Human Resources Director, IndiaGoogle India "Women in Engineering Award"application criteriaJanuary 31stapplicantsinspire

Team Aquaduct wins Innovate or Die competition

January 16, 2008

Posted by Dan Reicher, Google.org teamfirst Innovate or Die Pedal-Powered Machine contestread more about all the winnersYouTube Innovate or Die page

The iGoogle Themes API

January 15, 2008

Posted by Kevin Tom, iGoogle Product Managercustom iGoogle designsRead more on the Google Code Blog start creating your theme.

Earth-light by Yves Behar, founder of the San Francisco design studio fuseproject

The flow of information at the Googleplex

January 8, 2008

Posted by Bo Cowgill, Economics GroupEarlierprediction markets last Friday's meetingAmerican Economic AssociationUsing Prediction Markets to Track Information Flows: Evidence From Google

Traders in the same location tend to make the same trades at the same time. The trades of cubemates within a small radius is the best predictor we found. By using a record of historical office changes, we could observe that the correlation begins shortly after people are seated nearby. It makes sense, because the physical proximity enables easy communication. As Eric Schmidt (our CEO) and Hal Varian (now our Chief Economist) advised in 2005: "The best way to make communication easy is to put team members within a few feet of each other. No telephone tag, no e-mail delay, no waiting for a reply." As you can see below, our finding about the importance of proximity holds, even once we account for many other factors.

Although we did find strong correlations among professional and social contacts, these were substantially weaker than the correlations for micro-geography. We also measured the influence that people on similar projects, in similar places in the organization and with similar demographic characteristics exert on each other. This helped establish that geographic proximity -- and not some other type of similarity -- was responsible for the correlations we saw.

Despite the markets' strong forecasting abilities, there is a slight optimistic bias driven mainly by new employees. On average, outcomes that were good for Google were overpriced by 20%. This bias was strongest on days after appreciations in Google stock and, ironically, for outcomes under our own control! We also find biases against extreme outcomes and short selling. Given a range of five outcomes, the middle ones were typically overpriced and unprofitable by comparison with the outliers.

Baby steps to a new job

January 4, 2008

Posted by Gretta Cook, Software Engineer, Google Seattlenear Seattlea job at Google

AdWords and local markets

January 3, 2008

Update Feb 25, 2010: Fixed link to reseller site.

Posted by Brynne Zuccaro, Channel Marketing Specialist, Local MarketsWebVisible-Nielsen surveyour Google AdWords Authorized Reseller site
Update Feb 25, 2010: Fixed link to reseller site.

Front row for First in the Nation

January 3, 2008

Posted by Ginny Hunt, Google Election ProgramDes Moines Register's YouTube ChannelGoogle MapsIowa Caucus mapGoogle News ElectionElection 2008 Google gadget

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