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Super models wanted

Posted by John Hanke, Director, Google Earth & Maps That’s right, Google is looking for the hottest models on the planet. They can come from any city in the world, and they can be any height, but they must be interesting to look at, well-made and lightweight. Of course, by "lightweight" we mean that the file size should be reasonably small. If you’re confused, you may not have heard about the recent updates of Google Earth, Google SketchUp, and the 3D Warehouse. With these launches, all the pieces are now in place for contributors to the 3D Warehouse to see their creations show up in Google Earth for all the world to see. Here’s how it works: 1. Download <a href="http://sketchup.google.com">Google SketchUp</a>. Create a 3D model of something in your neighborhood, city or state -- your house, your business, your favorite restaurant, or the statue of Buckminster Fuller in the center of town. Be sure to geo-locate your model in Google Earth. 2. Upload your model to the <a href="http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/">3D Warehouse</a>. Don’t forget to put your name on it (if it shows up in Google Earth, you’ll want the credit). 3. Download the most recent version of <a href="http://earth.google.com">Google Earth</a> (a necessary step, as older versions don’t support super models). Launch Google Earth, go to the 3D Buildings folder under the Layers tab in the lefthand sidebar, and activate the “Best of 3D Warehouse.” Then fly to the location of the model you submitted. It might be there! If you don’t find it, keep checking -- sometimes it takes several weeks for models to appear in Google Earth. In the meantime, visit “Best of 3D Warehouse” to see some that have made the cut. (<a href="http://sketchup.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=57057&hl=en">Here are the guidelines for building "super" models</a>.) Fly to Denver CO, Boulder CO, New York, NY and Calgary, Canada to start. Then investigate other cities to see if they contain 3D buildings yet. In short, 3D modelers, Google Earth is your palette; Google SketchUp is your brush. Show the world what you've got! Update: Added a short list of cities already featuring "best of" models.

Super models wanted

Posted by John Hanke, Director, Google Earth & Maps That’s right, Google is looking for the hottest models on the planet. They can come ...

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A field trip to Google

Posted by Jenna Warman [We often host visitors in Google offices. Just recently, as part of a Chamber of Commerce program, a group of Seattle-area high school students visited our Kirkland office. The point of such visits is to inspire teens to think about working in technology some day. Here's a firsthand report from Jenna Warman, a student at Lake Washington High School. - Editor.] I had no idea there was a <a href="http://www.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=720+4th+Avenue+98033&ie=UTF8&z=13&ll=47.678449,-122.19595&spn=0.071196,0.144882&om=1&iwloc=addr">Google campus located in Kirkland</a>, but recently 35 of us filed off the bus and into the large brown building. As the large metal doors slid open, we all fell out of the elevator and took in our very first sights of Google. What I liked most about the Google building were the different Google <a href="http://www.google.com/intl/en/holidaylogos.html">Doodles</a> all along the walls and the lava lamps in the reception area that were Google colors. Then we met some of the Google workers, who showed us their current projects they had been working on, such as Google Maps and Google Talk. I had never known about Google Talk or Gmail until then. After that they each grabbed a small group of kids and led us up and down the hallways showing us the different offices and mini kitchens. My tour guide explained that at Google the employees do not just sit in their offices all day -- they walk around and visit each other. The environment and atmosphere seemed warm, welcoming and friendly. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTkMxw4R4HyN2p_xBeBXJZNfd4Z-Gvxw6UAGOkbNKr4jQEc0WI1jha1MHM7KY-fSrK9xLEUj6h8aLar8a2Q8c8HVkcBH-3yVPwWTAy50QJzLhOUhDcZ6_kj1qZveN01Z-Sq1-qXHj4Tmbl/s1600-h/Kirkland_HS_google+tour+(2).JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5016230953367873234" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTkMxw4R4HyN2p_xBeBXJZNfd4Z-Gvxw6UAGOkbNKr4jQEc0WI1jha1MHM7KY-fSrK9xLEUj6h8aLar8a2Q8c8HVkcBH-3yVPwWTAy50QJzLhOUhDcZ6_kj1qZveN01Z-Sq1-qXHj4Tmbl/s320/Kirkland_HS_google+tour+(2).JPG" style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" /></a> When the tours were finished we all piled into the reception area again and we all squished together to take a group photo so we could always remember our wonderful visit to Google. But wait, it did not end there -- we got back on the bus and were driven to Carillon Point where we would be eating lunch with many different people with many different and interesting jobs. We had the privilege to listen to <a href="http://www.museumofflight.org/Display.asp?Page=050921DunbarAnnouncement">Dr. Bonnie Dunbar</a> talk about her exhilarating adventures up into outer space and the Museum of Flight. Listening to this amazing and courageous woman explain about the different experiences she had in space, about the telescope they were working on the space station, it kind of made me want to become an astronaut. After that, it was time to go back to school and brag about what an amazing opportunity we'd gotten, and all of the wonderful things we saw and learned about at the Google campus. The last thing that I have to say is thank you to all of the people that gave me this wonderful opportunity. I hope other young students will be able to experience something like this during their high school career.

A field trip to Google

Posted by Jenna Warman [We often host visitors in Google offices. Just recently, as part of a Chamber of Commerce program, a group of Seattl...

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Kirkland calling

Posted by Narayanan Shivakumar, Director, Seattle-Kirkland R&D Center When we set up an R&D shop in downtown <a href="http://maps.google.com/?q=720+4th+Avenue,+Kirkland,+WA+%28Google+Kirkland%29">Kirkland, Washington</a> two years ago, we hoped to attract the best talent in the Pacific Northwest -- folks who are serious about their coffee and don't especially want to move to Silicon Valley. Since then we've attracted many engineers who were tickled silly about working on large clusters of several thousands of machines, not to mention shipping web and client-based consumer apps used by millions of people. In the last two years, our Kirkland engineering team has conceived and launched a dozen products ranging from core search product improvements to Ads Optimization, Sitemaps and Webmaster Central, plus such consumer applications as Google Talk, Chat, Pack, Video, Music Trends, and mobile SMS. (<a href="http://www.google.com/intl/en/jobs/google_wa_product_listing.pdf">Here's a summary</a> of what we've done out of the Kirkland office.) But it's not all work -- there's the food. Like a single day's lunch menu this week: roasted turkey breast, chili red bean patties, scalloped potatoes, roasted cranberry & Satsuma orange salad, classic clam chowder, carrot and coriander soup. You really can't operate in the Seattle area without offering good food, of course, so we offer as much good fuel -- fresh, healthy, and, whenever possible, locally-grown -- as it takes! So if you're an engineer, UE expert or product manager who loves coffee (not to mention the mountains and the sea) -- and you want to have a great time while you're building world-changing products, please consider our <a href="http://www.google.com/support/jobs/bin/topic.py?loc_id=1123&dep_id=1173">Northwest outpost</a>. <a href="http://www.google.com/support/jobs/bin/topic.py?loc_id=1123&dep_id=1173"> </a>

Kirkland calling

Posted by Narayanan Shivakumar, Director, Seattle-Kirkland R&D Center When we set up an R&D shop in downtown Kirkland, Washington t...

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Latin American Code Jam opens

Posted by Berthier Ribeiro-Neto, Engineering Site Director Programmers from Latin America and the Caribbean ready to test their coding skills against the region's best can register now for <a href="http://www.google.com/codejamlatinamerica">Google Code Jam Latin America</a>. The top 50 contestants win an all-expenses-paid trip to our Brazilian engineering office in <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Belo+Horizonte,+Brazil&ie=UTF8&amp;amp;z=5&ll=-19.932041,-43.945312&spn=27.286788,29.970703&om=1&iwloc=addr">Belo Horizonte</a> to compete in the finals. Registration is open until January 23, when the first round of the competition begins -- spread the word! <a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7609/900/1600/813636/CodeJam_LatAm.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7609/900/320/465501/CodeJam_LatAm.jpg" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" /></a>

Latin American Code Jam opens

Posted by Berthier Ribeiro-Neto, Engineering Site Director Programmers from Latin America and the Caribbean ready to test their coding skill...

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A year in Google blogging

Posted by Karen Wickre, Google Blog team The <a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs=hxh&q=define+googol&btnG=Search">definition of "googol"</a> is a number, and Google lives by numbers. So how else should we look back over the year but with numerical bits? Here goes: This post marks the 294th time this year you're reading a post from us -- that's nearly 100 more posts than in 2005. In the last 12 months, we unveiled 24 new products here. We wrote up 128 product upgrades, new features and how-to-use-it items. We told you about 7 acquisitions. We blogged about policies or issues 23 times, on subjects including Google in China, how Book Search works, click fraud, and Net Neutrality. Google.org yielded 7 posts, and 29 times we said various services are available in many countries and languages. Then there was a <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/03/pug-speak.html">pug</a>, Google's custom <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/08/i-scream-for-google-ice-cream.html">It's It</a>, our compelling <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/04/cupids-algorithms.html">matchmaking service</a>, and a nearly-cosmic <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/08/stardate-081706.html">Stardate</a>. More for the numerically inclined: 7.6 million unique visitors generated nearly 15 million pageviews this year. Aside from the U.S. and UK, readers come from India, Australia, France, Germany, Japan, Italy and the Netherlands. Which sites send us the most readers? The top non-Google referrers this year are the influential <a href="http://www.digg.com/">Digg.com</a> and <a href="http://www.slashdot.org">Slashdot</a>. But we didn't just hope that readers would come to us. We also launched company blogs in <a href="http://googlechinablog.com/">China</a>, <a href="http://googlejapan.blogspot.com/">Japan</a>, <a href="http://googleitalia.blogspot.com/">Italy</a>, <a href="http://googlebrasilblog.blogspot.com/">Brazil</a>, <a href="http://googlemexicoblog.blogspot.com/">Mexico</a>, <a href="http://googlepolska.blogspot.com/">Poland</a>, and <a href="http://googlerussiablog.blogspot.com/">Russia</a> (and more are coming in 2007). We also launched AdSense-specific blogs for publishers who speak <a href="http://adsense-nl.blogspot.com/">Dutch</a>, <a href="http://adsense-de.blogspot.com/">German</a>, <a href="http://adsense-pt.blogspot.com/">Portuguese</a> and <a href="http://adsense-es.blogspot.com/">Spanish</a>. Product teams also started up quite a roster of new blogs covering everything from <a href="http://googlecustomsearch.blogspot.com">Custom Search Engines</a> to <a href="http://booksearch.blogspot.com/">Google Book Search</a> to our <a href="http://googlemac.blogspot.com/">Mac</a> and <a href="http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/">Enterprise</a> endeavors. If you want to keep current with nearly 40 corporate blogs we now publish, here's the <a href="http://www.google.com/reader/public/atom/user/10949413115399023739/label/officialgoogleblogs">Atom feed</a>, the <a href="http://www.google.com/reader/shared/user/10949413115399023739/label/officialgoogleblogs-all?c=CPXP5cj_rIkC">Google Reader share</a> option, and the <a href="http://www.google.com/reader/public/subscriptions/user/10949413115399023739/label/officialgoogleblogs">OPML file</a> (English language blogs only). Which posts caught your eye? Apart from the front page, these were among the most popular: <ul><li><a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/01/google-earth-in-mac-world-pc-too.html">Google Earth for Macs </a></li><li>our (classic?) 2005 explanation of <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2005/09/googlebombing-failure.html">how "Googlebombing" works</a></li><li><a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/08/download-classics.html">downloading public domain books</a></li><li><a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2005/08/sign-up-for-gmail.html">Gmail open signup</a> (from August 2005, but apparently word kept spreading)</li><li>the <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/03/writely-so.html">Writely acquisition</a> (now part of Google Docs & Spreadsheets)</li></ul>It wasn't all fun, though; there was the time the blog <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/03/and-were-back.html">disappeared</a>. (Of course, that was before the <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/12/bloggers-new-bag-of-tricks.html">recent Blogger revamp</a>.) But even if real-time, all-too-human goof-ups make it a bit harrowing on occasion, the fact is a company blog is the fastest way to reach out. So we hope you continue to enjoy the rich stew we aim to serve. And before long, perhaps you can begin leaving comments directly. We're working on that. Meanwhile, our very best for a satisfying 2007 to you and yours. Update: Clarified the fact that the number of posts increased by 100 over a year.

A year in Google blogging

Posted by Karen Wickre, Google Blog team The definition of "googol" is a number, and Google lives by numbers. So how else should ...

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How we came up with year-end Zeitgeist data

Posted by Artem Boytsov, Software Engineer The <a href="http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/zeitgeist.html">Zeitgeist</a> is "the spirit of time." This is why when we come up with the <a href="http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/zeitgeist2006.html">lists of top searches on Google.com for 2006</a>, we do not simply retrieve the most frequently-searched terms for the period -- the truth is, they don't change that much from year to year. This list would be predominated by very generic searches, such as "ebay", "dictionary", "yellow pages," "games," "maps" -- and of course, a number of X-rated keywords. These are constants, and although unquestionably popular, we don't think they actually define the Zeitgeist. Instead, we looked for those searches that were very popular in 2006 but were not as popular in 2005 -- the explosive queries, the topics that everyone obsessed over. To come up with this list, we looked at several thousand of 2006's most popular searches, and ranked them based on how much their popularity increased compared to 2005. ("Bebo", for example, had very little traffic in 2005.) We also gave a bit higher score to searches with more traffic. Similarly, our "what is" and "who is" lists are not necessarily the absolute most frequent searches, but rather those that best represent the passing year. A final note: there was some confusion over the use of descriptors like "most popular" and "fastest-gaining" in <a href="http://www.techmeme.com/061219/p49#a061219p49">media reports</a> about our Zeitgeist. We've edited the <a href="http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/zeitgeist2006.html">2006 Year-End Zeitgeist</a> description to be more accurate on this point: "we compared frequent queries this year against 2005 to see what sorts of things were top of mind." We hope you enjoyed our year-end Zeitgeist as much as we enjoyed working on it!

How we came up with year-end Zeitgeist data

Posted by Artem Boytsov, Software Engineer The Zeitgeist is "the spirit of time." This is why when we come up with the lists of t...

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Speech-friendly textual directions from Google Maps

Posted by T.V. Raman, Research Scientist From time to time, our own <a href="http://emacspeak.sourceforge.net/raman/">T.V. Raman</a> 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. Google Maps and its associated local search is a quick and easy means of locating businesses and obtaining directions. Most people who use it already seem to enjoy the graphical interface with its extremely reactive GUI. But when using spoken output, this visual richness can get in the way of quickly listening to the results of a maps query. As an alternative, Google Maps also provides a simple to use a textual interface that serves up directions very efficiently when working with a screenreader or a Braille display. This alternative view into Google Maps is here, at the <a href="http://maps.google.com/?output=html">Textual Maps UI</a> (http://maps.google.com/?output=html). It's extremely useful for blind and visually impaired users, as well as an effective solution for those times when you're at a non-graphical display and need to quickly look up a location. Just type a simple English query of the form start address to end address and quickly get the information you're looking for. Though we added this option to enhance the accessibility of Google Maps for blind and low-vision users, perhaps others will find this alternative view a useful addition to their maps arsenal.

Speech-friendly textual directions from Google Maps

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...

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