Google Earth voter guide

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Hans Riemer, Political & Issues Director, Rock the Vote</span><br /><br />The 2004 election saw <a href="http://blog.rockthevote.com/2004/12/and-what-election-it-was.html">a big rise</a> in voter participation, particularly among the young generation. From my perch at <a href="http://www.rockthevote.com/home.php">Rock the Vote</a>, I believe one reason the trend is finally moving in the right direction is the rise of such Internet tools as <a href="https://secure5.ctsg.com/rtv/ovr/indexNoPop.asp?ms=rtv_nonpop">online voter registration</a>. So I jumped at the chance to tell you about the new U.S. Election Guide in <a href="http://earth.google.com/">Google Earth</a>.<br /><br />If you’ve already turned on the guide as a layer in Google Earth, you might already have noticed the patriotic stars now adorning the U.S. map. There’s one for every congressional district. Click on the star and it opens a set of links to useful voter tools. First, you can click to register to vote. I love this because so many people still think that in order to register, you need help from a government employee or political activist. Wrong. You can register yourself to vote by getting your forms online and sending them in by mail. Spread the word!<br /><br />Second, there are links to news, web and photo searches for candidates for the U.S. House and Senate races on November 7. Now, I think a squirrel could figure out which way to go on our presidential candidates and political parties. But an educated vote does require some Google searching, especially when candidates try so hard to blur the differences.<br /><br />This is a promising direction for Google and I hope it’s the start of something big. I’m looking forward to the day when voter participation tools are ubiquitous online -- and for those of you with any inclination to get involved, there’ll be nothing standing in your way.

Google Earth voter guide

Posted by Hans Riemer, Political & Issues Director, Rock the Vote The 2004 election saw a big rise in voter participation, particularly...

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Eureka! Your own search engine has landed!

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Shashi Seth and R.V. Guha, Google Co-op team </span><br /><br />Wouldn't it be cool if you could easily build a search engine on your blog or website tailored to the topics and areas you know and love the most? You're not alone if you'd like that -- we've heard from partners large and small, and users across the web who want access to the Google search platform, and want to customize and make it their own.<br /><br />We're thrilled to tell you that the search for your own search engine is over. Today we are launching the <a href="http://google.com/coop/cse">Google Custom Search Engine</a>. As you might imagine, it's a simple and straightforward product to use and understand. In a matter of minutes you can create a search engine that reflects your knowledge and interests; looks and feels like your own; and, if you choose, you can make money from the traffic you receive through Google's AdSense program. You can even invite your friends and trusted community members to add to and help build your search engine. <br /><br />Finding specific information has never been so easy, and there's no programming knowledge or cost involved. We worked with a few initial partners to demonstrate the power of the customization features. Check out the search engine <a href="http://www.realclimate.org/">RealClimate.org</a> built to better connect their users to the environmental science information they are looking for. Intuit created a search engine for their <a href="http://www.jumpup.com/">JumpUp.com</a> site, finding that it met the needs of their small business customers. But the Custom Search Engine is not just for businesses. Since Shashi is passionate about wine, he created a "wine search engine" and put it on his <a href="http://grapejooz.blogspot.com/">wine blog</a> so his friends can search for wine-related topics from there. <br /><br />You can build a Custom Search Engine on any topic you like. <a href="http://google.com/coop/cse">Give it a try.</a>

Eureka! Your own search engine has landed!

Posted by Shashi Seth and R.V. Guha, Google Co-op team Wouldn't it be cool if you could easily build a search engine on your blog or web...

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The rebirth of cool

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Silas Reyes, Webmaster, Mobile team</span><br /><br />Have you ever been involved in a project that you've seen evolve from an idea to a work in progress to a full-fledged product? I just had that experience with <a href="http://www.google.com/mobile/">mobile.google.com</a>. If you visited that URL yesterday, you would have seen some pretty basic information presented in a fairly simple format. Today you'll find a streamlined layout and some new ways to learn about Google's mobile offerings. Want to take a live test run of the traffic feature on <a href="http://www.google.com/mobile/gmm/index.html">Google Maps for mobile</a>? Or maybe figure out how to stay on top of your <a href="http://www.google.com/mobile/gmail/index.html">Gmail using your phone</a>? We've included video tutorials or emulators for every service or application, and we've designed the pages in such a way as to make it easy to learn more about the mobile offerings you're interested in. You can even have Google send a link to your mobile device via a text message that will help you start using Google mobile services with just a few clicks. You just enter your mobile number on the desktop version of <span style="font-weight: bold;">mobile.google.com</span> and we'll text you the link.<br /><br />My favorite part of the site is probably the <a href="http://www.google.com/mobile/sms/index.html">Google SMS demo</a>. I think this SMS search is one of the coolest out there, and I'm always urging my friends and family to give it a try. The demo shows you firsthand just how useful and easy to use SMS is, with more than a dozen sample queries to try out and a search box for typing in your own. In fact I'm playing around with it now -- did you know that you can use Google SMS to get the address of an Ethiopian restaurant in Chicago, the exchange rate for dollars to baht, a weather forecast for Wamego, Kansas, or the score of the latest MLB playoff game?<br /><br />Anyway, if you haven't already, head over to this new improved site and give it a whirl. And as always, don't be shy about <a href="http://www.google.com/support/mobile/bin/request.py">sending us feedback</a> -- we're always looking for ways we can make it even better.

The rebirth of cool

Posted by Silas Reyes, Webmaster, Mobile team Have you ever been involved in a project that you've seen evolve from an idea to a work in...

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Heading to the X Prize Cup

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Brian McClendon, Engineering Director, Google Earth</span><br /><br />Heading to the desert to watch rockets launch and jets fly is fun all by itself. Doing it as part of an outdoor space exposition, with multimillion dollar prizes to help accelerate space development, is even better!<br /><br />I'll be going to the <a href="http://www.xprizecup.com/">Wirefly X PRIZE Cup</a> in Las Cruces, New Mexico this weekend and it promises to be a blast! It turns out the XPRIZE Cup organizers are using Google Earth to share all kinds of information about space. Models of spacecraft and space stations, locations of launch sites, space centers all over the world, and even the <a href="http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showthreaded.php/Cat/0/Number/236293/an/page/page/0/vc/1">locations of the moon trees</a> (from seeds taken to the moon during Apollo).<br /><br />Not only that, but we have helped create a <a href="http://www.xprizecup.com/xpcin3d.php">3-D model</a> of the X PRIZE Cup event in Google Earth, or you can watch <a href="http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3601259033251221893">this video</a>.<br /><br />If you're coming to Las Cruces, come to the Google booth, where we will demonstrate the Google Earth content in person. Or see it now at this <a href="http://earth.google.com/xprizecup2006/">special Google page</a> dedicated to what's happening at the Wirefly X PRIZE Cup.<br /><br />Space <span style="font-style: italic;">is</span> the final frontier, and many of us here at Google would like to join the adventure. Besides, if these X PRIZE events are successful, we may finally be able to go to space ourselves and take some of our own satellite photos for Google Earth!

Heading to the X Prize Cup

Posted by Brian McClendon, Engineering Director, Google Earth Heading to the desert to watch rockets launch and jets fly is fun all by itsel...

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Eric and the NAE

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Vint Cerf, VP and Chief Internet Evangelist</span><br /><br />Eric Schmidt was formally inducted as a member of the <a href="http://www.nae.edu/nae/naehome.nsf/weblinks/CGOZ-6SPQWF?OpenDocument">National Academy of Engineering</a> this past Sunday at the National Academies building in Washington, D.C. Upon receipt of this well-deserved honor, Eric was warmly greeted and high-fived. Congratulations, Eric -- your Googlers are proud of you!

Eric and the NAE

Posted by Vint Cerf, VP and Chief Internet Evangelist Eric Schmidt was formally inducted as a member of the National Academy of Engineering ...

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Looking for Google Talk stories

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Lewis Lin, Product Marketing Manager</span><br /><br />Wanted: Stories about how you use Google Talk. <a href="http://googletalk.blogspot.com/2006/10/tell-us-how-you-talk.html">Details here</a>.

Looking for Google Talk stories

Posted by Lewis Lin, Product Marketing Manager Wanted: Stories about how you use Google Talk. Details here .

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Corporate solar is coming

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Robyn Beavers, Corporate Environmental Programs Manager</span><br /><br />Epic games of beach volleyball, urban indoor workspaces infused with natural light, enthusiasm for the outdoors – at Google, we've always taken advantage of the sun. And now we're ready to use the sun yet another way: to create clean electricity.<br /><br />Soon we plan to begin installation of 1.6 megawatts of solar photovoltaic panels at our Mountain View campus. This project will be the largest solar installation on any corporate campus in the U.S., and we think it's one of the largest on any corporate site in the world. The panels will cover the roofs of the four main buildings of the Googleplex, and also those of two additional buildings across the street.<font> There will also be a portion of this installation on new solar panel support structures in a few parking lots. The amount of electricity that will be generated is equivalent to powering about 1,000 average California homes. We’ll use that electricity to power several of our Mountain View office facilities, offsetting approximately 30% of our peak electricity consumption at those buildings.<br /><br />To tackle this ambitious project, we're partnering with <a href="http://www.eispv.com/">EI Solutions</a>. The installation of clean and renewable power represents a first step in reducing our environmental impact as a company. We believe that improving our environmental practices is not only our responsibility as a corporate citizen, but good business planning -- a <a href="ftp://www.nerc.com/pub/sys/all_updl/docs/pressrel/LTRARelease-10-2006.pdf">new report</a> from the North American Electric Reliability Council suggests that demand continues to outstrip power supply by a considerable margin. And of course by saving electricity (not to mention producing clean renewable energy), we also <a href="http://yosemite.epa.gov/oar/globalwarming.nsf/UniqueKeyLookup/SHSU5BNMF3/$File/businesscansave.pdf"> save money</a>. In fact, we believe this project demonstrates that a large investment in renewable energy can be profitable. <br /><br />If the business community continues to increase investments and focus on energy efficient and renewable power generation technologies, we have a good feeling that our future will be bright. If you're interested, visit the <a href="http://www.solarelectricpower.org/">Solar Electric Power Association</a>.

Corporate solar is coming

Posted by Robyn Beavers, Corporate Environmental Programs Manager Epic games of beach volleyball, urban indoor workspaces infused with natur...

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