Exploring the scholarly neighborhood

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Luiz Barroso, Distinguished Engineer</span><br /><br />Searching for scientific articles on <a title="http://scholar.google.com/" href="http://scholar.google.com/">Google Scholar</a> works especially well when I can find the search terms that are specific enough to narrow down to the subject I'm interested in and yet general enough to not miss relevant articles. When authors use different terminology to refer to the same thing --- which often happens when a field is very young -- this can be less effective. In fact, I've found cases where the seminal paper for a topic does not even use the key terms that are later used to describe it. For example, <a title="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Forbes_Nash" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Forbes_Nash">John Nash's </a>papers that helped define the area of game theory don't refer to the area as <span style="font-style: italic;">game theory</span>.<br /><br />Now there's an additional way to find related work in Google Scholar, which should be helpful in such situations. For every Google Scholar search result, we try to automatically determine which articles in our repository are most closely related to it. You can see a list of these articles by clicking the "Related Articles" link that appears next to each result. The list of related articles is ranked primarily by how similar these articles are to the original result, but also takes into account the relevance of each paper. To go back to the game theory example, clicking on the <a title="http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=related:PPbrwfKFzsMJ:scholar.google.com/" href="http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=related:PPbrwfKFzsMJ:scholar.google.com/">Related Articles</a> link for the first result for <a title="http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=game+theory" href="http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=game+theory">game theory</a> enables users to discover several of Nash's seminal articles.<br /><br />Finding sets of related papers and books is often a great way for novices to get acquainted with a topic. However, we've found that even experts can sometimes be surprised to discover related work in their area of expertise. <br /><br />Think of it as a way to hop from one giant's shoulder to the next!

Exploring the scholarly neighborhood

Posted by Luiz Barroso, Distinguished Engineer Searching for scientific articles on Google Scholar works especially well when I can find ...

Đọc thêm »

School's in

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Dror Shimshowitz, Product Marketing Manager</span><br /><br />Getting ready for the new school year? There's a back-to-school shopping offer at <a href="http://www.google.com/checkout/backtoschool.html">Google Checkout</a>.

School's in

Posted by Dror Shimshowitz, Product Marketing Manager Getting ready for the new school year? There's a back-to-school shopping offer at ...

Đọc thêm »

The multilingual Desktop

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Mendel Chuang, Product Marketing Manager</span><br /><br />No matter what language you speak, you shouldn't have to hunt around for stuff on your computer. That's why there's <a href="http://desktop.google.com">Google Desktop 4</a>, now out of beta in -- count 'em -- 26 languages (hello, Romanian), plus a Japanese beta version.<br /><br />Thanks also to everyone who submitted a gadget for the contest. We'll announce the winners on September 5th. Read more about this on the <a href="http://googledesktop.blogspot.com/2006/08/personalizing-desktops-everywhere.html"> Google Desktop Blog</a>.

The multilingual Desktop

Posted by Mendel Chuang, Product Marketing Manager No matter what language you speak, you shouldn't have to hunt around for stuff on you...

Đọc thêm »

Stardate 0817.06

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Tom Galloway, Technical Writer</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Starbase 24 Commander's personal log.</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I find myself looking forward to my upcoming trip to Earth, specifically Las Vegas...</span><br /><br />Did you ever realize that among many other things, Star Trek predicted blogs? Think about it -- all those "Captain's log" and "personal log" entries that Kirk would make. He was definitely a blogger. And of course the communicator-inspired cell phone design. And the crew was constantly asking the ship's computer for information...sort of like Google.<br /><br />Of course, Scotty and Spock, the engineer and the scientist, certainly were childhood inspirations to many Googlers. Now we've (somewhat) grown up, and often work on things that seem right out of the show: Being able to ask a computer to research a topic and present <a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=star+trek&btnG=Google+Search">relevant results</a>. Putting maps, both human-drawn and photos taken from space, on a <a href="http://www.google.com/gmm/tour.html">personal communicator</a> (OK, cell phone). <a href="http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/search?q=scifi&tags=&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;uq=&ctyp=&scoring=d">Creating 3-D structures and objects</a> and putting them in a shared warehouse for everyone to use (we're still working on making them into solid holograms for a Holodeck). And I'm convinced we've got replicators that restock the snacks in our micro-kitchens.<br /><br />So it all stands to reason that we're hosting a booth at the <a href="http://www.creationent.com/cal/stlv.htm">5th annual Official Star Trek Convention</a> (which celebrates 40 years of the whole enterprise) in Las Vegas. It starts today and runs through Sunday. If you're at the con, please stop by for demos of some of our latest product releases, including a few new ones, often with a particular sci-fi spin. We're also looking for <a href="http://www.google.com/jobs/">applicants</a> to "Google Academy," so please speak up if you'd like to work here. After all -- <a href="http://www.google.com/trekfan">today is a good day to code.</a>

Stardate 0817.06

Posted by Tom Galloway, Technical Writer Starbase 24 Commander's personal log. I find myself looking forward to my upcoming trip to Eart...

Đọc thêm »

More ways to connect and share with Google Talk

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Mike Jazayeri, Google Talk Product Manager</span><br /><br />Millions of you use Google Talk every day to connect with friends, family, and colleagues via chat and calls. Today we're <a href="http://googletalk.blogspot.com/2006/08/its-finally-here.html">releasing a new version</a> of Google Talk that introduces several more ways to share and connect. You can download it <a href="http://www.google.com/talk/">here</a>.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">File transfer</span> - This has consistently been the top <a href="https://services.google.com/inquiry/talk_suggest">requested feature</a>, and we've worked hard to make the experience simple, fast, and fun. You can share any type of file, several at a time if you like. We think the photo sharing experience is especially fun.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Voicemail</span> - The name of this feature doesn't do it justice. Yes, you can now leave voicemails for any of your Google Talk contacts when they don't answer a call, but I think the coolest thing is that you can easily record voice notes and send them to anyone you know by just adding their email address to your contact list -- they don't even have to be running Google Talk. This is a fun and easy way to just say hello, send someone a reminder, or even sing your mom happy birthday! Also, our friends on the Gmail team have added a slick <a href="http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=45756&topic=1565&hl=en">voicemail playback experience</a> within Gmail.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Music status sharing</span> - Show your friends what music you listen to and discover new music that your friends are into (or discover that they spend their entire day listening to <a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=barry+manilow&btnG=Google+Search">Barry Manilow</a>... hmm). We also thought it would be fun for you to see the musical tastes of the broader community. So you now have the option of sharing your music listening history with Google, to be included in the rankings of our new Google Labs project called <a href="http://www.google.com/trends/music">Music Trends</a>.<br /><br />Finally, we have some updates targeted at developers such as support for a new voice codec which we'll talk about in an upcoming post. And now, I'm off to record that message for my mom...

More ways to connect and share with Google Talk

Posted by Mike Jazayeri, Google Talk Product Manager Millions of you use Google Talk every day to connect with friends, family, and colleagu...

Đọc thêm »

Free citywide WiFi in Mountain View

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Minnie Ingersoll, Product Manager</span><br /><br />Today, Google launched a WiFi network in our hometown of Mountain View. Radios hanging on lampposts throughout the city are now broadcasting a "GoogleWiFi" wireless (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/802.11">802.11b/g</a>) signal that brings wireless Internet access to the city's residents, businesses, and visitors. All anyone needs is a laptop or other wireless-enabled device and a web browser to get online. Then Mountain View users can select the "GoogleWiFi" signal, open their web browser and sign in with a free Google Account. To learn more about the network's coverage area and the location of the WiFi radios, we've published a <a href="http://wifi.google.com/city/mv/apmap.html">map</a>.<br /><br />This network is a way for us to give back to and engage with the community where our headquarters are. As the product manager for Google WiFi, it has been has been tremendously rewarding to partner with the local government, the schools, the library, the neighborhood associations, and all of our trusted testers to introduce the power of free, wireless Internet connectivity to the city. I look forward to meeting with more members of the community at upcoming training sessions and ice cream socials :-).<br /><br />Another goal of this network is to promote alternative access technologies by using Mountain View as an example for organizations considering investments in the WiFi arena. We think successful mesh wireless deployments will promote competition, create cheaper access alternatives, and (if done correctly) foster open, standards-compliant platforms for content and service providers to showcase their applications without the hassle of the traditional walled-garden approach.<br /><br />For additional information about Google WiFi, please see our <a title="Frequently Asked Questions" href="http://wifi.google.com/support">Frequently Asked Questions</a>. If you're in the neighborhood, please stop by and give the network a try, or <a href="mailto:mvwifi-support@google.com">RSVP </a>to attend our community training session on August 23. Finally, our special thanks to the city of Mountain View for being such a great partner.

Free citywide WiFi in Mountain View

Posted by Minnie Ingersoll, Product Manager Today, Google launched a WiFi network in our hometown of Mountain View. Radios hanging on lamppo...

Đọc thêm »

Map Search gadget for the homepage

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Tom Stocky, Product Manager</span><br /><br />We just released a <a href="http://google.com/ig/directory?url=mapsearch.xml">Google Map Search gadget</a> for the personalized homepage -- an easy way do local searches and then quickly scroll through the results on a map. You programmers might like to know that this makes use of three Google APIs at the same time: the Google <a href="http://code.google.com/apis/ajaxsearch/">AJAX Search API</a>, the <a href="http://www.google.com/apis/maps/">Google Maps API</a>, and the <a href="http://www.google.com/apis/homepage/">Google Gadgets API</a>. The next challenge? Let's go for four...

Map Search gadget for the homepage

Posted by Tom Stocky, Product Manager We just released a Google Map Search gadget for the personalized homepage -- an easy way do local sea...

Đọc thêm »