Is Safety on Your Syllabus?
Posted by Unknown in AAA Foundation, AAAFTS, Back to School, GDL, Graduated Drivers Licensing, Holidays, Learners Permits, parents and teens, Passenger limits, School Safety patrol on Thursday, August 30, 2012
Three-and-a-half months ago, we joined with many of our safety partners to publicize the fact that summertime is a particularly deadly period for teens on the road. Longer trips, later nights, and relaxed attitudes can all contribute to a spike in teen driving – and crash risk – during this time. The National Organizations for Youth Safety, therefore, challenged all of us to have the summer of 2012 be the “Safest Summer Ever.” We sincerely hope that for you and your family and friends, it was.
If you drive your kids to school, that time in the car is a perfect opportunity to model safe behaviors and attitudes for them. If they see you buckling up, putting away your cell phone and other distracting items, slowing and stopping properly for school buses, and using extra caution at crosswalks, they’ll have an implicit understanding of the importance of such actions. It’s never too early to start building awareness of the responsibilities that come with being a driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist.Half a gigameter of biking navigation in 12 countries in Google Maps for Android
Posted by Unknown in Android, maps and earth, Mobile on Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Whether you’re a seasoned century rider or a casual beach cruiser, finding the best biking routes can be a challenge. That’s why today we’re bringing mobile biking directions and navigation to the 10 countries where we launched desktop biking directions last month (Australia, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK). Plus, we’re adding turn-by-turn, voice-guided biking navigation to Google Maps Navigation (beta) in every country with biking directions. Mount your device on your handlebars to see the turn-by-turn directions and navigation, or use speaker-mode to hear voice-guided directions.
We know there are lots of ways to get from here to there, which is why in 2010, we added biking directions to Google Maps in the U.S. and Canada, and continue to work to bring more biking features to more places. Today, there are more than 330,000 miles (equal to more than 530,000 kilometers, or half a gigameter) of green biking lines in Google Maps. Dark green lines on the map show dedicated bike trails and paths with no motor vehicles, light green lines show streets with bike lanes and dashed green lines show other streets recommended for cycling. Biking navigation even helps you avoid steep hills.
Where Map Maker and biking directions are both available, riders can add bike trails, lanes and suggested routes to Google Maps, helping to create a more comprehensive map for everyone living in or visiting their community. Thanks to the contributions of members of the biking community like Todd Scott and our partnership with nonprofits like Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, we’ve added bike data for hundreds of cities and trails to Google Maps in the past two-and-a-half years.
When you’re pedaling from Point A to Point B, we hope biking navigation will make Google Maps for Android more useful to you.
(Cross-posted on the Lat Long blog)
Making it easier to cast your ballot
Posted by Unknown in politics on Tuesday, August 28, 2012
The first presidential nominating convention, held in 1832, was meant to give Americans a voice in the selection of the presidential nominee. Fast forward to 2012 and these conventions still represent a major moment in American politics—and we’re helping the conventions reach a larger audience by being the official live stream provider and social networking platform for the Republican National Convention in Tampa and the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte.
In conjunction with our on-the-ground efforts, we’re making a number of online tools available to help you get organized and informed as Election Day approaches.
Get informed
Our Google Politics & Elections site enables you to see the latest Google News, YouTube videos, search and video trends, and Google+ content about the election in one place. You can also visit our live Elections Hub to watch the national political conventions, debates and even election night LIVE right from your mobile phone or laptop.
Register to vote
To make it easy to navigate the rules and deadlines about registering to vote and how to vote by mail, we put together an online voter guide. We’ve also added a special section to make it easier for military and overseas voters to find information about their different rules and deadlines.
As we approach the final days of the election, we’ll continue to develop useful ways for voters and campaigns to engage one another around the important issues in 2012.
We hope these tools will help you stay informed and participate in the election!
Google Maps heads north...way north
Posted by Unknown in maps and earth on Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Search for [cambridge bay] on Google Maps and you’ll fly to a tiny hamlet located deep in the Kitikmeot Region of Nunavut in Canada’s Arctic, surrounded by an intricate lacework of tundra, waterways and breaking ice. High above the Arctic circle, it’s a place reachable only by plane or boat. Zoom in on the map, and this isolated village of 1,500 people appears as only a handful of streets, with names like Omingmak (“musk ox”) Street and Tigiganiak (“fox”) Road.
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(Cross-posted on the Lat Long Blog and new Google Canada Blog)
The U.S. election, live on YouTube
Posted by Unknown in politics, youtube and video
Today we’re introducing the YouTube Elections Hub, a one-stop channel for key political moments from now through the upcoming U.S. election day on November 6. You can watch all of the live speeches from the floor of the upcoming Republican and Democratic National Conventions, see Google+ Hangouts with power brokers behind the scenes, and watch a live stream of the official Presidential and Vice Presidential debates. You won’t need to go anywhere else for the must-watch moments of this election cycle...they’re all happening on the Hub live.
In addition to videos from politicians and parties, a diverse range of news organizations—both established names in media and sought-after new voices—are sharing their coverage of the political process on the new hub. You’ll find live and on-demand reporting and analysis from ABC News, Al Jazeera English, BuzzFeed, Larry King, The New York Times, Phil DeFranco, Univision and the Wall Street Journal. Each will put their own stamp on the Presidential race—from the conventions to the debates to election night.
Of course, we’ll have special live coverage around the Republican National Convention from August 27 to 30, the Democratic National Convention from September 4-6, the Presidential and Vice Presidential debates in October, and election night. Bookmark the Elections Hub now for a front row seat along the road to the White House.
(Cross-posted from the YouTube Blog)
Mapping the Motor City with Google Map Maker
Posted by Unknown in maps and earth
Hailed as the birthplace of the automotive revolution, the city of Detroit, Mich. is taking its transportation legacy down new paths. As Detroit embraces a greener, non-motorized outlook, cycling is steadily increasing in popularity. The Michigan Trails and Greenways Alliance is facilitating this transition by creating an interconnected statewide system of trails and greenways, including the development of bike paths throughout the Detroit area.
As these new bike paths change the city’s landscape, Motor City residents need a more comprehensive map showing bike friendly routes. Todd Scott, the Detroit Greenways Coordinator, discovered that he could use Google Map Maker—a free tool that allows anyone to make contributions to Google Maps—to add new information on biking paths and trails in and around Detroit. Adding new bike paths not only makes the map more accurate, it also improves biking directions, making it even easier for people to find the quickest routes through town. Anyone can also enhance existing trails by including details such as the official name, surface type and bicycle suitability. Keeping Google Maps updated with the latest information means everyone in the community is able to find and enjoy these new additions to the trail system.
Building a more comprehensive, accurate and usable map for local cyclists is just one part of Todd’s mission. From the smallest town to a rapidly evolving city like Detroit, maps reflect the heart of a community. Whether you’re improving directions, adding local businesses or mapping an entire area from scratch, your local expertise will help make life easier for not only you, but all Google Maps users. As Todd says, “It goes beyond map making. It’s a way to take back your neighborhood.”
How are you mapping your world? Join the Map Maker Community and tell us your story.
Is Your Child Safe In Their Car Seat?
Posted by Unknown in AAA Foundation, booster seats, Car seats, child passenger safety, CPS, driving safety on Monday, August 20, 2012
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| Proper installation for a child under 2 |
Google for Entrepreneurs goes to San Diego to empower veterans and military families
Posted by Unknown in entrepreneurs at Google on Friday, August 17, 2012
In addition to all they do for their country overseas, service members are also a markedly entrepreneurial group: although veterans represent only 6% of the U.S. population, they account for an impressive 13.5% of all U.S. small business owners. This entrepreneurial spirit is contributing to business growth around the country, and last week we decided to head down to San Diego to see how Google for Entrepreneurs and Startup Weekend could help.
On August 9, Google for Entrepreneurs, along with the Syracuse University Institute for Veterans and Military Families and Startup Weekend, hosted a series of events focused on giving business owners and aspiring entrepreneurs from the military community the training and tools they need to take advantage of the web to build and grow businesses. More than 200 service members learned about free tools to create a web site, track and measure their web presence and market their product or service.
Engaged and full of pride, the veteran-owned businesses and aspiring entrepreneurs came from across California. Misty Birchall, a Navy veteran and founder of PubCakes, delighted attendees when she gave us a taste of her passion for combining baking and craft beer. Marine Corps sergeant turned organic farmer Colin Archipley brought many participants from Veterans Sustainable Agriculture Training, an entrepreneurial incubator program he founded to help transitioning veterans train for careers in sustainable agriculture. Even the underdogs (and undercats) were well-represented—Precious Paw Prints, an online retailer selling creative pet accessories owned by Marine veteran Kiersten Carlin, shared that small business can win by providing a higher level of quality and service that larger brands cannot.
Over the following weekend, aspiring entrepreneurs from the veterans community attended the local Startup Weekend, where they formed teams to turn their idea ideas into products. By Sunday night, five teams had launched businesses.
Being a successful entrepreneur means having an appetite for risk, an ability to navigate ambiguity and a passion to get things done at all costs; it’s no mystery why such a large number of small businesses are started by veterans or service-disabled veterans. They certainly have what it takes to be entrepreneurs.
You can read more about our recent programs for members of the veterans’ community here.
Tour Brazil and prehispanic Mexican cities with more Street View imagery in Google Maps
Posted by Unknown in Latin America, maps and earth
Our ongoing effort to build great maps—ones that are accurate, easy to navigate and cover every corner of the world—continues to progress. Over the last few months, Google Maps has taken people everywhere from the Amazon to Antarctica, and we’re continuing to add imagery of even more places around globe. Beginning this week, you can dive even deeper into Latin America with new Street View imagery of Brazil and Mexico.
Street View first became available for Brazil in 2010, and as of this week, we’ve grown our collection of panoramic imagery to more than 70 cities throughout the country. You’ll now find colonial cities like Fortaleza, architecturally compelling cities like Brasilia and coastal landmarks like Recife, Natal and Salvador. You can even virtually travel to the west side of Brazil and visit Foz de Iguaçu, or if you’re planning an upcoming trip, preview the the area around your hotel as well as nearby shopping malls, historic monuments, restaurants and more. With so many upcoming events, like the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics, we’re excited to share the riches of Brazil’s cities not only with tourists from around the world, but also with locals who might want to visit a city, neighborhood or landmark they’ve not yet experienced.
We’ve also introduced Street View imagery of 30 Mesoamerican archaeological sites in Mexico. Start your adventure by exploring Kukulkan’s Temple, a 1,100-year-old pyramid whose peak is reached by climbing 365 steps, one for each day of the year. When visitors clap their hands, the architectural acoustics at the base of the pyramid’s steps are designed to mimic the sound of the Quetzal, a bird that the Mayans regard as representative of their gods.
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Chichén Itzá, Mexico
We’re always improving the comprehensiveness of our maps so you can experience more imagery from around the world. Whether you’re planning a visit to one of these areas or touring these locations from the comfort of your armchair, we hope you enjoy these captivating new images of Latin America.
Voice Search arrives in 13 new languages
Posted by Unknown in Android on Thursday, August 16, 2012
“Norwegian restaurants in New York City.” I can type that phrase fast, but I can say it even faster—and when I’m on the go, speed is what I’m looking for. With Voice Search, you can speak into your phone to get search results quickly and easily. Voice Search is already available in 29 languages, and today, we're bringing support to 13 new languages for Android users—bringing the total to 42 languages and accents in 46 countries. In fact, 100 million new speakers can use Voice Search now, with the addition of:
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Each new language usually requires that we initially collect hundreds of thousands of utterances from volunteers and, although we’ve been working on speech recognition for several years, adding these new languages led our engineers and scientists to tackle some unique challenges. While languages like Romanian follow predictable pronunciation rules, others, like Swedish, required that we recruit native speakers to provide us with the pronunciations for thousands of words. Our scientists then built a machine learning system based on that data to predict how all other Swedish words would be pronounced.
This update has already started to roll out, and will continue to do so over the course of the next week. How you get started with Google Voice Search depends on what kind of phone you have. If your phone runs Android 2.2 or later, and you see the microphone icon on the Google Search widget on your homescreen, all you have to do is tap the icon to start a voice-powered search. Otherwise, you can install the Voice Search app from Google Play. Note that you can only speak one language into the app at a time, and you may need to change your language settings to use one of these new languages.
As with other languages we’ve added, one of the major benefits to Google’s cloud-based model is that the more people use Voice Search, the more accurate it becomes.
(Cross-posted on the Android blog)
Google Maps now has schedules for more than one million public transit stops worldwide
Posted by Unknown in Android, maps and earth on Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Since 2005, we’ve collaborated with hundreds of transit authorities around the world to make a comprehensive resource for millions of riders to find out which bus, train, subway or tram can take them to their next destination. Today, Google Maps has public transportation schedules for more than one million transit stops worldwide, in nearly 500 cities including New York, London, Tokyo and Sydney.
Public transportation information is especially useful when it’s in the palm of your hand. Today we’re releasing an update to the Google Maps for Android app (version 6.10) which makes this transit information even more useful. We’ve made some changes to the Transit Lines layer, so that you can select a specific mode of public transportation (train, bus, tram or subway) to display on the mobile map, hiding the other modes. This is helpful in areas where there is a tight concentration of several types of public transit.
We’ve also updated the layout of station pages to be more useful. Open it by tapping on the name of the station on your mobile map.
In addition to these new transit features, we’ve updated region highlighting, My Places and Location History displays in Google Maps for Android:
- Now, whenever you search for a city or postal code, the borders of that region are highlighted.
- Under My Places you’ll notice we’ve added new tabs, which will help you access all your information from a single place; from your saved maps for use offline to your starred places and Custom Maps created on your desktop.
- If you enable Location History, you’ll be able to browse the places you’ve been on a daily basis with an updated Location History dashboard.
London calling: some reflections on the digital games
The stats are in, and one clear winner from this year’s summer sports has emerged: digital media. Here’s a quick look behind the “screens” at how the web blew records away around the world, at the most wired Games ever.
Searches set a new pace
Mirroring the growth of the web and digital media, Google search volume around the world was dramatically higher this year than during Beijing in 2008:
- Driven by a 900 percent increase in [ryan lochte] searches, American interest in [swimming] spiked 25 percent higher than 2008 levels.
- The “Fierce Five” vaulted U.S. searches for [gymnastics] to almost double the 2008 peak.
- Spurred on by a record-breaking performance by sprinter Usain Bolt, Jamaican searches for [track and field] raced up 40 percent from 2008.
- Japanese gymnast and first-time gold medalist [kohei uchimura] proved he’s a “superman” in search as well as on the tumbling mat, with search volume in his home country up 420 percent over the last games.
- Success may have been sweeter the second time around for wrestler [sushil kumar], the first Indian athlete to win an individual medal at successive Olympics, with searches up more than 375 percent from the 2008 games.
| Top Athlete Searches (U.S.) | Top Athlete Searches (U.K.) | Top Artist Closing Ceremony Searches (U.S.) |
| Michael Phelps | Usain Bolt | Jessie J |
| Ryan Lochte | Jessica Ennis | Beady Eye |
| Lolo Jones | Michael Phelps | Gary Barlow |
| Usain Bolt | Victoria Pendleton | Ed Sheeran |
| Alex Morgan | Andy Murray | Freddie Mercury |
Global streaming goes the distance
YouTube powered the live stream for NBC Olympics and for the International Olympic Committee’s YouTube Channel, making the world’s games even more global and accessible. NBC Olympics saw more live streams than during the entire Beijing Games—more than 159 million total video streams and more than 64 million live streams across YouTube's online, mobile and tablet experiences. In all, more than 20 million hours of total video was streamed over 17 days. And of course, the Games were also streamed on the IOC’s channel (youtube.com/olympic), with tens of millions of streams to 64 countries in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. We’ll have more details on the YouTube blog soon.
The multi-screen relay
More than ever, people experienced the Games not just via the TV broadcast, but on desktops, mobile phones and tablets. Through research panels conducted in partnership with NBC in the U.S., we learned a bit more about how this played out:
- Mobile makes a strong showing: Many viewers turned to one or more “second screens” beyond TV to keep updated on the Olympics—nearly half of those who did (44 percent) did so via a mobile phone or tablet.
- Power viewers: Second-screen viewing didn’t seem to diminish participants’ interest in watching the games on TV...in fact, it increased it. People who followed the Games on TV plus one other screen watched 52 percent more Olympics on TV than those who didn’t; people who followed on two additional screens spent more than twice as much time (105 percent) with TV. And people who watched live streams of events online watched 66 percent more Olympics on television than people who followed exclusively on TV.
- Synchronized usage: Overall, nearly 56 percent of people who followed the Games on TV and at least one other screen did so simultaneously. These simultaneous viewers also watched TV for 67 percent longer than those who only watched TV.
Gold for digital businesses
Brands who invest in digital marketing to connect with customers grow their own businesses and help make great content possible. A few campaigns that caught our eye:
- Visa’s global “Go World" campaign invited fans to show their support for Team Visa athletes in the form of cheers across social media. The campaign generated more than 59 million cheers, and Visa’s YouTube channel accounted for more than 47 million views of Visa’s commercials and athlete training videos from around the world.
- Insurance provider Zurich launched a successful “Share your Sports Moments” marketing campaign on Google and YouTube, featuring members of the German Olympic team. The result: a significant uplift in the number of leads who then signed insurance contracts.
- Lloyds TSB Bank, presenting partner of the Olympic Torch relay, conducted a successful AdWords campaign that kept pace with the Olympic torch as it passed through towns in the U.K., resulting in more than 190,000 clicks and more than 2 million impressions over three months.
Higher traffic and increased investment in the web also helped online publishers in a big way:
- In the U.S., across 2 million sites in our Google Display Network and the DoubleClick Ad Exchange, ads shown on sports-related websites increased by 19 percent, while revenues (RPMs) for these sites increased by 14 percent, compared to the two previous weeks.
- Our premium ad serving platform for publishers (DoubleClick for Publishers), which helps some of the web’s largest publishers make money from their content, broke a new record, with one major publisher serving more than 400 million ad impressions in a day across its website and mobile content—driving higher revenues and more free content.
A fun note to end on: showing how the web can fuse data and creativity while opening the playing field, one of our software engineers used Google App Engine to create a “per capita” medal tally (the data is real, the accounting is somewhat creative). On this basis, one country stands above all others—congratulations to the most successful nation of the last two weeks, Grenada!
Royalty Payout Service
Posted by Unknown in Royalty Payout Service on Saturday, August 11, 2012
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Pre-flight check: Can we find you?
Posted by Unknown in 406 ELT, aviation, emergency locater transmitter, flight plan, search and rescue on Thursday, August 9, 2012
Working out of the Wenatchee airport, searchers flew grid patterns (based on the route he most likely took), scoured mountainous terrain and chased leads. Sadly - after six and a half days of searching, dried-up leads and exhausted resources – we had to suspend the search.
When a plane goes missing, it’s a race against the clock to try to get as much information as possible. When hours turn into days, the chances of a favorable outcome decrease drastically.
So now we have a sobering reminder to pilots and anyone who cares about someone who flies. No one wants to think they might one day be the subject of a search. However, the old adage –“expect the best and prepare for the worst” might just be the key to saving a pilot’s (and any passengers’) life.
Our goal is no plane ever goes missing. But if the worst happens, here are some things that will make it easier for emergency crews to find the plane faster:
File a flight plan – a flight plan will tell searchers where you were heading and your intended route. This information can be critical during a search.
Use flight following – talking to air traffic control (ATC) during your flight can pay dividends if you go missing. ATC would have radar information and details about when they last spoke to you, where you were heading, and if you had reported any in-flight troubles.
Make sure you have an operational emergency locator transmitter – the key word here is “operational.” Check it out every so often to make sure it’s working. ELTs transmit distress signals in emergencies and help search crews find your location. ELTs are required in most U.S. registered civil aircraft.
Consider investing in a new 406 ELT – several years ago, a more advanced model of the ELT (406 mhz) was developed. This version will cost around $550 per unit, but has an 80 percent chance of activating upon impact. And it will tell searchers your tail number and exact location. This could mean the difference between hours and minutes when it comes to searches.
Conquer the back to school blues with Google tools
Posted by Unknown in apps, chrome, google+, googleplus, maps and earth, Mobile, Search
August is both an end to the lush freedom of summer and the beginning of another year of student life. As a rising senior at the University of Florida, this time is both exciting and anxiety-inducing. Even though I’m looking forward to many aspects of the school year, there are certain things about college—from book budgets to calculus study sessions—that can make it a headache.
But this fall, I feel more prepared to face the daily student grind. This summer, I had the chance to intern on the communications team at Google and got the inside track on some tools and tricks to make school a snap. For example, did you know there was an extension for Chrome that helps you stay focused on your work? Yup, didn’t think so! So I thought I’d share some of my new favorite tips—my “Survival Guide for Student Life”—to help make it easier for all students to get through the coming months.
Easy ways to coordinate your social and extracurricular life
- Google+ Hangouts enables you to video chat with up to nine friends from your desktop, mobile phone or tablet. A great feature for when your club needs to discuss some last minute changes for the upcoming meeting.
- Stay on task with Hangout Apps like Symphonical, which provides a digital wall of sticky notes for virtual brainstorm sessions.
- With Google+ Events, invite all your friends to your get-together and attach a personalized video greeting to the invitation. During the event, photos from the party can be uploaded to the event page in real-time using Party Mode. So if you have to miss a party due to a study session, you can avoid that pesky FOMO (Fear of Missing Out)!
- Let your friends know what you’re up to by sharing your Google Calendar with them. Or create a shared calendar just for your study group.
- Stop the email flood from the ridiculous number of email lists you signed up for using Gmail’s auto-unsubscribe feature.
- No more sore eyes from crowded inboxes—Gmail's default mode is Priority Inbox so it automatically sorts your important messages for you.
- Cite your sources! Use Google Docs’ research tool to investigate highlighted portions of your essay and then generate a citation.
- Group projects call for collaboration. With Google Drive, you can use shared folders so everyone can access materials without having to email updates to each other.
- Using your laptop or phone, you can send any documents or presentations saved on your Google Drive to Fedex to be printed, thanks to Google Cloud Print.
- For those of you starting at university this year, Google Maps has 360-degree panoramic Street View imagery for many campuses around the world to give you a preview of your new stomping grounds.
- Back to school shopping is one of the most fun things about August. Find your way in and out of malls and department stores with indoor Google Maps on Android devices.
- We college students can’t go too long without homemade food. Search for your next flight home with Flight Search. (If flying makes you a bit queasy, track any care packages by typing the tracking code into the Google search bar.)
- Stay informed with Google Now. This feature, available on Android devices running Jelly Bean, can update you when the next bus is coming or provide the weather forecast for Saturday’s big game.
- Don’t break the bank on textbooks. Google Play has millions of FREE (emphasis is important) books readily available such as "Pride and Prejudice" and "Gulliver’s Travels."
- With the new Nexus 7 tablet, you can take your Google Play books, music, movies, TV shows, magazines and apps (like My Majors and doubleTwist Alarm Clock) with you, wherever you go.
- Locate hard-to-find books online or at a library near you with Book Search.
- Put Chrome to work with educational apps.
- Not a fan of traditional note taking? Chromebooks are a super fast and virus-proof laptop. It starts seconds after you boot it and will last through a whole day of classes.
- A fair portion of us students aren’t fans of mental math. Type any equation into the Google search box to get the answers you need. It can graph functions as well.
- We know we spend too much of our time watching funny videos on YouTube, but there are video channels that can actually help us learn more about a variety of subjects—from astrophysics to world history. Find more educational channels at YouTube EDU.
Building the search engine of the future, one baby step at a time
Posted by Unknown in Search on Wednesday, August 8, 2012
Larry Page once described the perfect search engine as understanding exactly what you mean and giving you back exactly what you want. It’s very much like the computer I dreamt about as a child growing up in India, glued to our black-and-white TV for every episode of Star Trek. I imagined a future where a starship computer would be able to answer any question I might ask, instantly. Today, we’re closer to that dream than I ever thought possible during my working life—and here are some of the latest steps we’re taking today to make search even more intelligent:
1. Understanding the world
In May we launched the Knowledge Graph, our database of more than 500 million real-world people, places and things with 3.5 billion attributes and connections among them. The feedback has been phenomenally positive and we want to extend this feature to people outside the U.S. So starting today, you’ll see Knowledge Graph results across every English-speaking country in the world. If you’re in Australia and search for [chiefs], you’ll get the rugby team—its players, results and history.
We’ll also use this intelligence to help you find the right result more quickly when your search may have different meanings. For example, if you search for [rio], you might be interested in the Brazilian city, the recent animated movie or the casino in Vegas. Thanks to the Knowledge Graph, we can now give you these different suggestions of real-world entities in the search box as you type:
Finally, the best answer to your question is not always a single entity, but a list or group of connected things. It’s quite challenging to pull these lists automatically from the web. But we’re now beginning to do just that. So when you search for [california lighthouses], [hurricanes in 2008] or [famous female astronomers], we’ll show you a list of these things across the top of the page. And by combining our Knowledge Graph with the collective wisdom of the web, we can even provide more subjective lists like [best action movies of the 2000s] or [things to do in paris]. If you click on an item, you can then explore the result more deeply on the web:
So far we can produce hundreds of thousands of lists involving millions of items, and we’ll keep growing to match your curiosity. A quick preview:
2. Putting your info at your fingertips
Sometimes the best answer to your question isn’t available on the public web—it may be contained somewhere else, such as in your email. We think you shouldn’t have to be your own mini-search engine to find the most useful information—it should just work. A search is a search, and we want our results to be truly universal. So we’re developing a way to find this information for you that’s useful and unobtrusive, and we’d love your feedback. Starting today, we’re opening up a limited trial where you can sign up to get information from your Gmail right from the search box.
So if you’re planning a biking trip to Tahoe, you might see relevant emails from friends about the best bike trails, or great places to eat on the right hand side of the results page. If it looks relevant you can then expand the box to read the emails:
We’re working on some even more useful features. For example, if you search for [my flights] we will organize flight confirmation emails for any upcoming trips in a beautifully easy-to-read way right on the search results page:
3. Understanding your intent
Often the most natural way to ask a question is by asking aloud. So we’ve combined our speech recognition expertise, understanding of language and the Knowledge Graph so that Voice Search can better interpret your questions and sometimes speak the answers back as full sentences. This has been available on Android for a few weeks and people love it. It’ll soon be available on your iPhone or iPad (iOS version 4.2+).
You just need to tap the microphone icon and ask your question, the same way you’d ask a friend. For example, ask “What movies are playing this weekend?” and you’ll see your words streamed back to you quickly as you speak. Then Google will show you a list of the latest movies in theaters near you, with schedules and even trailers. It works for everything from celebrity factoids to the height of Kilamanjaro and more. When Google can supply a direct answer to your question, you’ll get a spoken response too.
These are baby steps, but important ones on our way to building the search engine of the future—one that is much more intelligent and useful than it was just a few years ago. It’s a very exciting time to be working in this field.
Deadly Debris
Posted by Unknown in Road Debris, Safety, sudden hazzards, Unsecured Loads, Vehicle related road debris, VRRD
Statistically-speaking, this means VRRD crashes are rare, accounting for roughly 0.2% of fatal crashes and 0.4% of non-fatal crashes. But this rarity is of no comfort to Katie’s loved ones, or the loved ones of Sara Betancourt, who was killed in Connecticut last year when a metal bolt came off a dump truck and crashed through her windshield, or the loved ones of Channing Quinichett, who died on the Capital Beltway in 2009 when a tire detached from a truck that was being towed, bounced down the highway, and was launched onto her vehicle by a striking tractor-trailer truck.
Motorists can also take steps to avoid being the victims of VRRD crashes, of which remaining alert and observant at all times is the most important. See a tire tread in the lane next to you? Chances are there’s more rubber elsewhere, too. Are cars suddenly slowing and changing lanes up ahead? It could be due to a hazard that you can’t see yet, but have plenty of time to avoid because you were paying attention. And don’t hesitate to call the police if you see a vehicle with a load that appears to be improperly or inadequately secured.The self-driving car logs more miles on new wheels
Posted by Unknown on Tuesday, August 7, 2012
Technology is at its best when it makes people’s lives better, and that’s precisely what we’re going for with our self-driving car project. We’re using advanced computer science to try and make driving safer and more enjoyable.
Our vehicles, of which about a dozen are on the road at any given time, have now completed more than 300,000 miles of testing. They’ve covered a wide range of traffic conditions, and there hasn’t been a single accident under computer control.
We’re encouraged by this progress, but there’s still a long road ahead. To provide the best experience we can, we’ll need to master snow-covered roadways, interpret temporary construction signals and handle other tricky situations that many drivers encounter. As a next step, members of the self-driving car team will soon start using the cars solo (rather than in pairs), for things like commuting to work. This is an important milestone, as it brings this technology one step closer to every commuter. One day we hope this capability will enable people to be more productive in their cars. For now, our team members will remain in the driver’s seats and will take back control if needed.
And while these team members are commuting, many of them will be testing our algorithms on a new type of vehicle we’ve added to the self-driving car family over the past few months to help us refine our systems in different environments and on different terrain: the Lexus RX450h.
With each breakthrough we feel more optimistic about delivering this technology to people and dramatically improving their driving experience. We’ll see you on the road!
The tree versus the shadow
Posted by Unknown on Monday, August 6, 2012
Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing. —Abraham LincolnWhen I was looking for investors for my startup in 1997, I was a lot more interested in the values and character of my potential investors than in the name of the firm on the door. My first investors were not from Sand Hill Road or Palo Alto, but were people I knew would support my company (and me) in the ways we most needed help.
As an entrepreneur, you want to know if your investors will be there for you, help you do the right things, and encourage you to persist and evolve when things seem dark. Perhaps most of all, you want to know they’ve been there before, and that they’ll be calm and confident when things go wrong—when giving up sounds like a pretty good option.
At Google Ventures, we try to be the kind of hands-on investors that quietly help to build companies. We try to be the kind of investors we sought as entrepreneurs ourselves. Starting a company can be a lonely business, and it helps to know you’ve got someone on your side who has been through it before.
Today, we're launching a new Google Ventures blog as an experiment, hoping it will help you get to know the people and companies at Google Ventures a little better. We’ll share how we think about things and why, if you’re an entrepreneur, you might want to talk to Joe, Rich, Kevin and the rest of the team.
(Cross-posted from the Google Ventures Blog)
Fish-friendly culvert to open after SR 167 closes next weekend
Posted by Unknown in culvert replacement, fish-friendly, highway closure, SR 167
by guest blogger Steve Peer
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| Crews install a section of culvert during another fish-friendly project. Our culvert is similar…but twice as large! |
Although there never a good time to close a busy highway, we chose this weekend in August to make the most of the dry, warm weather, and light summer traffic.
Closure Details
For 58 hours, spanning from 7:30 p.m. on Friday, August 10 to 5 a.m. on Monday, August 13, we’ll close SR 167 between I-405 and the S. 180th Street/SW 43rd Street exit to the IKEA district.
What should you do?
- Know Before You Go: check our website, call 511 for real-time travel information and plan for delays and added travel time.
- Delay discretionary trips, especially during high traffic periods, such as between 10 a.m. and 8 p.m.
- Anticipate heavy congestion on alternate routes such as I-405, I-5 and SR 181.
- Expect increased congestion on local streets, especially on Lind Avenue, South 180th Street, South Grady Way, Rainier Avenue South, Talbot Road, and SR 181/West Valley Highway.
- Carpool and use transit. Here are some links to help you plan your trip:
The SR 167 closure isn’t the only large project shutting down a highway during the weekend. Crews in Bellevue will also install a fish-friendly culvert resulting in a 55 hour weekend closure of SR 520. For the latest on the regional closures, please check out our What’s Happening Now page.
A new way to visualize the global arms trade
Posted by Unknown in policy and issues on Friday, August 3, 2012
Did you know that 60 percent of all violent deaths are due to small arms and light weapons? Small arms, such as revolvers, assault rifles and light machine guns, and ammunition represent a multi-billion dollar industry, and three quarters of the world’s small arms lie in the hand of civilians—more than 650 million civilian arms. As part of the Google Ideas initiative on illicit networks, we’ve created an interactive data visualization of global small arms and ammunition trading to better understand and map the global arms trade.
The tool was produced by Google’s Creative Lab team in collaboration with the Igarape Institute. More than 1 million data points on imports and exports of small arms, light weapons and ammunition between 1992 and 2010 and across 250 states and territories across the world were provided by the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) small arms database. The visualization reveals patterns and trends in imports and exports of arms and ammunition across the world, making it easy to explore how they relate to conflicts worldwide. More of the implications of this data are discussed in this video from the INFO summit hosted by Google Ideas last month:
You can explore these data points by zooming in and out of the globe, clicking on any country to readjust the view, and using the histogram tool at the bottom to see trading patterns over the years. You can see, for example, that the scale of the global trade in ammunition rivals the scale of trade in actual weapons, an insight underexplored by policymakers today in conflict prevention and resolution.
We built this visualization using the open source WebGL Globe on Google’s Chrome Experiments site; since it is open sourced, we hope to see others use the globe as a platform for bringing other complex datasets to life.
Update 8/16/12: This post has been updated to reflect more accurate numbers.
Giving you a better Google
Posted by Unknown
We work every day to create a more seamless, beautiful user experience—to give you a better, easier-to-use Google. This means continuously improving the products we offer, and recognizing when users of one product might have a better experience with another. Over the past year, we’ve made changes to around 50 products, features and services—donating, merging and shutting things down so we can focus on the high-impact products that millions of people use, multiple times a day. Today, we’re announcing a few more changes:
- We introduced Google Apps for Teams in 2008 to allow people with a verified business or school email address to collaborate using non-email applications from Google like Google Docs, Google Calendar and Google Talk. Over time, we realized that Google Apps for Teams was not as useful for people as we originally anticipated. Beginning September 4, 2012, we'll start converting existing Google Apps for Teams accounts into personal Google Accounts, and shutting down Google Apps for Teams. This change does not affect other editions of Google Apps.
- We launched Google Listen through Google Labs in August 2009, to give people a way to discover and listen to podcasts. However, with Google Play, people now have access to a wider variety of podcast apps, so we’ve discontinued Listen. People who have already installed the app can still use it, but after November 1, podcast search won’t function. You can access your podcast subscriptions in Google Reader in the “Listen Subscriptions” folder and download them from the Import/Export tab.
- Google Video for Business is a video hosting and sharing solution that allowed Google Apps for Business and Google Apps for Education customers to use video for internal communication. Starting this fall, we’ll migrate all videos hosted on Google Video for Business over to Google Drive, which has similar storage and sharing capabilities. All migrated videos will be stored for free and will not count against a user’s Google Drive storage quota.
- Finally, Google maintains 150+ blogs and other communications channels about our products and services, and so over time we'll also be closing a number of Google-created blogs that are either updated infrequently, or are redundant with other blogs. This doesn't mean that we'll be sharing any less information—we'll just be posting our updates on our more popular channels.
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