Bloggin' down under

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Christine Knight, Maximizer Associate, Google Australia</span><br /><br />To our international friends, Australia can have a rep for Crocodile Dundee jokes, poisonous animals and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pie_floater">meat pies with mushy peas</a>. What you'll find when you visit the new (ish) <a href="http://google-au.blogspot.com/">Google Australia Blog</a> are the real reasons why Google has made a significant investment in Australia. And right now there's a post explaining the special doodle that was on the Google Australia homepage for NAIDOC Week.<br /><br />Both an engineering and sales support hub, our Aussie team is an eclectic mix of people from all walks of life. We're lucky enough to be the home of the original <a href="http://maps.google.com.au/" title="Google Maps">Google Maps</a> team, so we're at the forefront of global product releases. Aussie Googlers don't take ourselves too seriously, we love a good laugh, we're always happy to make fools of ourselves for a good cause (so long as we're <a href="http://www.cricket.com.au/default.aspx?s=3mobiletestseries-australiavengland" title="beating the Poms">beating the Poms</a> in the Ashes).<br /><br />Visit our blog to read about new product launches for our Australian users, musings on life as an Aussie Googler and what the team gets up to in the community. (Also, stop by if you want to see words like "centre", "maximise" and "humour" spelt correctly). We hope to see you there!

Bloggin' down under

Posted by Christine Knight, Maximizer Associate, Google Australia To our international friends, Australia can have a rep for Crocodile Dunde...

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Welcome, Postini team

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Dave Girouard, Vice President & General Manager, Google Enterprise</span><br /><br />We launched <a href="http://www.google.com/a/">Google Apps</a> so that it would be easier for employees to communicate and share information while reducing the hassles and costs associated with enterprise software. Companies are responding: every day, more than 1,000 small businesses sign up for Google Apps.<br /><br />Larger enterprises, however, face a challenge: though they want to deliver simple, useful hosted applications to their employees, they're also required to support complex business rules, information security mandates, and an array of legal and corporate compliance issues. In effect, many businesses use legacy systems not because they are the best for their users, but because they are able to support complex business rules. This isn't a tradeoff that any business should have to make.<br /><br />We realized that we needed a more complete way to address these information security and compliance issues in order to better support the enterprise community. That's why we're excited to share the news that we've agreed to acquire <a href="http://www.postini.com/index.php">Postini</a>, a company that offers security and corporate compliance solutions for email, IM, and other web-based communications. Like Google Apps, Postini's services are entirely hosted, eliminating the need to install any hardware or software. A leader in its field, Postini serves more than 35,000 businesses and 10 million users, and was one of our first partners for Google Apps. Their email and IM management services include inbound and outbound policy management, spam and virus protection, content filtering, message archiving, encryption, and more. We will continue to support Postini's customers and we look forward to the possibilities ahead.<br /><br />Here's the <a href="http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/pressrel/postini_20070709.html">press release</a> announcing the deal, and there's more detail in our <a href="http://services.google.com/blog_resources/postini_faq.pdf">FAQ</a> and on the <a href="http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2007/07/secure-innovation-postini-joins-google.html">Enterprise blog</a>.

Welcome, Postini team

Posted by Dave Girouard, Vice President & General Manager, Google Enterprise We launched Google Apps so that it would be easier for emp...

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Ever more books to read

<span class="byline-author">Posted by T.V. Raman, Research Scientist</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">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.</span><br /><br />As a book lover, I couldn't have been more excited by the advent of electronic books in the early 90s. And with the rise of the Internet, the possibility of being able to discover books online was really exciting.<br /><br />I work on a project at Google called <a href="http://labs.google.com/accessible/">Google Accessible Search</a>, which helps promote results that are more accessible to visually impaired users. Building on that work is today's release of accessible public domain works through <a href="http://www.books.google.com/">Google Book Search</a>. It's opening up hundreds of thousands of books to people who use adaptive technologies such as speech output, screen readers, and Braille displays.<br /><br />I'm extremely enthusiastic about many of our efforts at Google, which ultimately have the potential to make the experience of accessing information for visually impaired users just as easy as it is for those with sight. My reading used to be determined by what was available in a form I could read. But today it's a question of using Google effectively so that I can find the <span style="font-style: italic;">right</span> thing to read. Today's Book Search launch is an excellent example of how technology is truly democratizing access to the world's information.<br /><br />If you have feedback about Google's accessibility services, <a href="http://groups.google.com/group/accessible/">join our group</a> to share tips on what works well and what could be made better.

Ever more books to read

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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All aboard

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Wesley Chan, Product Manager</span><br /><br />We're pleased to announce that we have acquired <a href="http://www.grandcentral.com/">GrandCentral Communications</a>, a company that provides services for managing your voice communications. GrandCentral is an innovative service that lets users integrate all of their existing phone numbers and voice mailboxes into one account, which can be accessed from the web. We think GrandCentral's technology fits well into Google's efforts to provide services that enhance the collaborative exchange of information between our users. <br /><br />GrandCentral offers many features that complement the phone services you already use. If you have multiple phone numbers (e.g., home, work, cell), you get one phone number that you can set to ring all, some, or none of your phones, based on who's calling. This way, your phone number is tied to you, and not your location or job. The service also gives you one central voice mailbox. You can listen to your voicemails online or from any phone, forward them to anybody, add the caller to your address book, block a caller as spam, and a lot more. You can even listen in on voicemail messages from your phone while they are being recorded, or switch a call from your cell phone to your desk phone and back again. All in all, you'll have a lot more control over your phones.<br /> <br />We're really excited to welcome the GrandCentral team to Google. While we're moving their technology over to Google's network, a limited number of invitations will be available to register for a GrandCentral beta account. If you have a U.S. telephone number, you can sign up for an invitation at <a href="http://www.grandcentral.com/">www.grandcentral.com</a>. Current GrandCentral customers will continue to have uninterrupted access to the service.

All aboard

Posted by Wesley Chan, Product Manager We're pleased to announce that we have acquired GrandCentral Communications , a company that prov...

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Google and health care

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Missy Krasner, Product Marketing Manager</span><br /><br />In a world of 24/7 news cycles, a summer weekend can bring considerable -- and unanticipated -- excitement. Take for example the <a href="http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/07/01/google-takes-on-michael-moore">reaction</a> we've just seen to an item on our new health advertising blog. Frankly, we were surprised by the pickup, but perhaps we shouldn't have been. We've been <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/06/this-blogs-mo.html">proponents of corporate blogging</a> for some time, despite the significant communication challenges that obviously arise from having many voices from all parts of our company speak publicly through blog posts. In this case, the blog criticized Michael Moore's new film "Sicko" to suggest how health care companies might use our ad programs when they face controversy. Our internal review of the piece before publication failed to recognize that readers would -- properly, but incorrectly -- impute the criticisms as reflecting Google's official position. We blew it.<br /><br />In fact, Google does share many of the concerns that Mr. Moore expresses about the cost and availability of health care in America. Indeed, we think these issues are sufficiently important that we invited our employees to attend his film (nearly 1,000 people did so). We believe that it will fall to many entities -- businesses, government, educational institutions, individuals -- to work together to solve the current system's shortcomings. This is one reason we're deploying our technology and our expertise with the hope of improving health system information for everyone who is or will become a patient. Over the last several months, we have been blogging about our thinking in this area. See: <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/11/health-care-information-matters.html">November 30, 2006</a>, <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/03/how-do-you-know-youre-getting-best-care.html">March 28</a>, <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/05/putting-health-into-patients-hands.html">May 23</a>, and <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/06/is-there-doctor-in-family.html">June 14, 2007</a>.<br /><br />In the meantime, we have taken steps on our own to address the failures we see in our health care system. In our case, the menu of health care options that we offer our employees includes both direct services (for example, on-site medical and dental professionals in certain locations) as well as a range of preventive care programs. It's one of the ways we're attempting to demonstrate corporate responsibility on a major issue of our time.

Google and health care

Posted by Missy Krasner, Product Marketing Manager In a world of 24/7 news cycles, a summer weekend can bring considerable -- and unanticipa...

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1-800-GOOG-411: now with maps

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Arnaud Sahuguet, Product Manager, and Mike LeBeau, Software Engineer</span><br /><br />In case you hadn't heard, a few months back we launched <a href="http://www.google.com/mobile/goog411/index.html">1-800-GOOG-411</a> (1-800-466-4411) in the U.S. It's a free telephone service that lets you search for businesses by voice and get connected to those businesses for free.<br /><br />Today, your GOOG-411 experience just got better: during your call to GOOG-411, just say "map it", and you'll get a text message with the details of your search plus a link to a map of your results right on your mobile phone.<br /><br />Try it out, and add us to your phone book while you're at it. Let us know what you think either by <a href="mailto:labs+goog411@google.com">emailing us</a> or by joining our <a href="http://groups.google.com/group/goog411/">discussion group</a>.

1-800-GOOG-411: now with maps

Posted by Arnaud Sahuguet, Product Manager, and Mike LeBeau, Software Engineer In case you hadn't heard, a few months back we launched 1...

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Google Desktop now available for Linux

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Mendel Chuang, Product Marketing Manager</span><br /><br />Just a few months after Google Desktop became <a title="available for the Mac" href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/04/search-your-mac-with-google-desktop.html">available for the Mac</a>, I'm happy to tell you it's now available for Linux users too. <a title="Google Desktop for Linux (beta)" href="http://desktop.google.com/linux/">Google Desktop for Linux</a> makes searching your computer as easy as searching the web with Google. Not only can you rediscover important documents that have been idling on your hard drive for years, but you can also search through emails saved in Gmail or other applications. All office files, including documents and slides created with OpenOffice.org can be easily found. Since some Linux users are program developers, Google Desktop was designed with the ability to search source code and information contained in .pdf, .ps, .man and .info documents. It also features the Quick Search Box ,which you can call up by pressing the Ctrl key twice. Type a few letters or words into the search box and your top results pop up instantly. Keeping with a global focus, you can use it in English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean --and it works with many versions of Linux too.<br /><br />With this launch, Google Desktop is now available for <a title="Windows" href="http://desktop.google.com/index.html?platform=win">Windows</a>, <a title="Mac" href="http://desktop.google.com/mac/index.html">Mac</a>, and <a title="Linux" href="http://desktop.google.com/linux/">Linux</a>. Try it out now and read more on the <a title="Google Desktop Blog" href="http://googledesktop.blogspot.com/2007/06/desktop-for-linux.html">Google Desktop Blog</a>.

Google Desktop now available for Linux

Posted by Mendel Chuang, Product Marketing Manager Just a few months after Google Desktop became available for the Mac , I'm happy to te...

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