Time waits for no one

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Marius Eriksen, Software Engineer</span><br /><br />My dentist told me I needed to floss more.<br /><br />That's a big demand for a Googler's busy lifestyle. Where do you find the time to floss - less foosball, shorter lunches, skip out on ultimate frisbee? Hardly!<br /><br />This calls out loud and clear for a way to optimize time. One mundane time-waster we all contend with, for example, is waiting for web pages to load. The tantalizing promise of a web page is only seconds away. But even on broadband, the wait's too short to do something else - and just long enough to be irritating. Let's face it, those seconds add up.<br /><br />As you may have noticed, we're slightly obsessed with speed around here. When you search on Google.com, your results are returned to you within fractions of a second. And now comes <a href="http://webaccelerator.google.com/">Google Web Accelerator</a>. After you download it, we hope you'll enjoy that same Google-fast experience across the rest of the web. After all, seconds add up to minutes.<br /><br /><img alt="web accelerator" src="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/media/web_accelerator.jpg" /><br /><br />Dentists everywhere will be smiling.

Time waits for no one

Posted by Marius Eriksen, Software Engineer My dentist told me I needed to floss more. That's a big demand for a Googler's busy life...

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TV treasure hunt

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Dan Zheng, Google Video team </span><br /><br />Before a recent trip to Hong Kong and Taipei, I'd heard that a major Taipei attraction is the food at night markets. So I did a search on <a href="http://video.google.com/">Google Video</a> for <a href="http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=taipei+night+markets">Taipei night markets</a>, and was pleasantly surprised to see that there's a PBS show called "Burt Wolf: Travels & Traditions." And before my trip it aired an episode on Taiwan. The first segment of the show focused on, yes, night markets. Perfect. After watching it, I knew enough to jostle among the locals and eat incredible treats like dou hua, dumplings, squid stew and oyster omelets.<br /><br />We've been working to bring more video content online since we launched Google Video in late January, and have just added <a href="http://video.google.com/video_about.html">12 </a><a href="http://video.google.com/video_about.html">new channels</a> - among them CNN and the Discovery Channel - giving me way more TV info to unearth.

TV treasure hunt

Posted by Dan Zheng, Google Video team Before a recent trip to Hong Kong and Taipei, I'd heard that a major Taipei attraction is the foo...

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It's an honor

<span class="byline-author">Posted by <a href="http://www.lk.cs.ucla.edu/">Len Kleinrock</a><br />Professor, Computer Science Department, UCLA</span><br /><br />Dear Sergey and Larry, I want to extend my personal congratulations to you both on <a href="http://www.amacad.org/news/new2005.aspx">your election</a> to the esteemed American Academy of Arts and Sciences. It is a most well-deserved honor that recognizes your accomplishments and vision both technological and societal. I am proud to have you join us in the <a href="http://www.amacad.org/">AAAS</a>, which has among its members the most accomplished individuals since the Academy was formed in 1780 by some of our nation's founding fathers. Welcome, and congratulations again.

It's an honor

Posted by Len Kleinrock Professor, Computer Science Department, UCLA Dear Sergey and Larry, I want to extend my personal congratulations to ...

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Finally feeling like a local

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Tom Stocky, Product Marketing Manager </span><br /><br />I just moved to the Bay Area a few months ago, so when friends come from out of town, they're pretty underwhelmed with my abilities as a tour guide.<br /><br />But not last weekend. My visitors wanted to have brunch somewhere with "a great view." So I plugged [<a href="http://local.google.com/local?sc=1&hl=en&amp;amp;q=brunch+%22great+view%22&near=san+francisco%2C+ca">brunch "great view"</a>] into <a href="http://local.google.com/">Google Local</a>, and was pleasantly surprised with the results. Not only was brunch delicious, but we had that "great view" my friends were looking for. Best of all, now they actually think I know my way around the city. (At least until they see this.)<br /><br />What's cool about Google Local is that you can go beyond standard categories like restaurant or hotel to search more specifically for things like [brick oven pizza] or [inexpensive hotel]. Very handy, especially if you're a budding tour guide like me.

Finally feeling like a local

Posted by Tom Stocky, Product Marketing Manager I just moved to the Bay Area a few months ago, so when friends come from out of town, they...

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I, Googlebot

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Ben Rathbone, Hardware Operations</span><br /><br />Data centers are not the most visually stimulating environments, and Google's are no exception. After all, they house computers, and the walls, ceilings, and floors are invariably stark white, or some minor monochromatic variation. So imagine this dream scenario for me: I'm a painter, apart from my day job as a data center technician, which keeps me busy swapping out parts and running cable. And we'd just set up a new Google data center in an undisclosed location.<br /><br /><i>Hardware Ops colleague 1</i>: "So, we basically own this space and can do anything we want, right?"<br /><br /><i>HO 2</i>: "Yup."<br /><br /><i>HO 1</i>: "We should get a big old Google banner in here, or paint one on the wall. Even cooler, we should paint a mural. Hey, Ben, you like to paint, why don't you do something?"<br /><br />Though I didn't take this challenge too seriously at first, I couldn't help playing around with some ideas. If you've been in a data center, you know there is a lot of wire, and racks with stacks of servers in them. I had some experience running websites and had seen evidence of the Googlebot hitting my own websites. Some kind of robot icon could be a neat starting point. Then I pondered the question: what does Google do? The grossly simplified answer that I came up with is Google connects the world with the Internet.<br /><br />It all snapped into place: the idea of a robot, connecting a world with the Internet, with wires, that connect to big cabinets of computers. It was not hard then to make the leap to representing the internet as a world, or globe, made up of pages. So I drew up a design and the manager said, "That's great. Go for it."<br /><br /><img alt="mural1" src="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/media/mural1.jpg" /><br /><br />Then, while everyone was away for the annual ski trip, I started by taking the basic drawing, drawing a grid over it, and translating the units of the grid to the wall.<br /><br /><img alt="mural2" src="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/media/mural2.jpg" /><br /><br />I did the initial drawing with charcoal pencil, which was easy to remove with an eraser. I used a regular carpenter's level, held up to the wall, to get all the lines straight. Once I had the drawing down, I used masking tape to stencil out certain shapes. This allowed me to rapidly paint into those shapes, and when I pulled off the tape, I got very clean and straight lines.<br /><br /><img alt="mural3" src="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/media/mural3.jpg" /><br /><br />The whole thing took 70 hours of work. It's 8' high x 22' long.<br /><br /><img alt="mural4" src="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/media/mural4.jpg" /><br /><br />Now our data center isn't so stark anymore - and I'm looking for another empty wall.

I, Googlebot

Posted by Ben Rathbone, Hardware Operations Data centers are not the most visually stimulating environments, and Google's are no excepti...

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It's a wonderful town

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Craig Nevill-Manning, Engineering Director </span><br /><br />I suspect that when people think of New York, they think of Wall Street finance, Broadway shows, fashion, TV news. Probably "innovative software development" doesn't spring to mind. But hidden away in a Times Square high-rise, more than 80 software engineers are coding up some exciting Google products. If we told you *everything* we're working on, it'd spoil the surprise (hint: keep an eye on <a href="http://labs.google.com/">Google Labs</a>). Recently, we've launched <a href="http://www.google.com/googleblog/2005/04/just-facts-fast.html">Google Q&A</a>, <a href="http://www.google.com/googleblog/2005/04/from-lost-to-found.html">My Search History</a>, <a href="http://www.google.com/help/features.html#definitions">Web Definitions</a>, and <a href="http://local.google.com/">Local Search</a>, including the <a href="http://local.google.co.uk/">UK version</a> earlier this week.<br /><br />In fact generally we focus on the next generation of Google's crawling and indexing technology. We've got hard-core statisticians pondering how to measure search quality more accurately, and a slightly nutty project that we think might revolutionize the way that we organize and search structured information.<br /><br />It's not all work, work, work, though. We have a large three-story atrium, so it's axiomatic that we have several radio-controlled blimps - some with cameras - and a gyroscopically-stabilized four-rotor helicopter that can definitely take folks by surprise. And although breakfast, lunch and dinner are provided (we seem to have lost the ability to forage for ourselves) and two on-site masseuses (Manhattan can be a little intense), it's nice to get off site from time to time.<br /><br />Which means a trip to the Empire State Building, of course. We've taken a group photo of the team standing on our 19th floor terrace from the observation deck of the ESB -- we calculated that this requires an effective focal length of 3000mm, which is just right for an astronomical telescope and a digital SLR.<br /><br /><img alt="wonderful_town.jpg" src="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/media/wonderful_town.jpg" /><br /><br />So we're a little geeky for New York City, but it <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">is</span> supposed to be a melting pot, isn't it? And we're right next to <a href="http://www.bryantpark.org/amenities/wireless.php">Bryant Park</a>, home of one of the world's first free public 802.11b networks, which we sponsor. Somehow that seems appropriate for a bunch of hackers trying to organize the world's information.<br /><br />It almost goes without saying that we're hiring like mad, what with our insatiable appetite for great software architects and coders. If the Bright Lights of the Big City are blinking at you, check out our <a href="http://www.google.com/jobs/newyork.html">New York jobs</a>.

It's a wonderful town

Posted by Craig Nevill-Manning, Engineering Director I suspect that when people think of New York, they think of Wall Street finance, Broadw...

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From lost to found

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Avni Shah, My Search History team </span><br /><br />How many times have you used Google to find an obscure funny website or fun facts about "The Wizard of Oz," but then got distracted by other web pages and tasks? I know - me too. Wouldn't it be great to find them again, and for that matter review all your Google searches over time? Which is exactly why we built <a href="http://www.google.com/searchhistory ">My Search History</a>.<br /><br />When you're signed in to your <a href="http://www.google.com/accounts">Google Account</a>, you can use My Search History wherever you go. An additional bit of fun: try the handy calendar to check the level of your Google activity on a given day, or see related searches you've done over time. Look for the link in the upper right corner of your Google web search home page and results pages.

From lost to found

Posted by Avni Shah, My Search History team How many times have you used Google to find an obscure funny website or fun facts about "Th...

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