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Calling all developers: $10M Android challenge

Posted by Steve Horowitz, Engineering Director Last week we <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/11/wheres-my-gphone.html">announced</a> the <a href="http://www.openhandsetalliance.com/">Open Handset Alliance</a>, a group of mobile and technology leaders committed to improving the mobile experience and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rYozIZOgDk">Android</a>, the first truly open and comprehensive platform for mobile devices. Today, the team is releasing an early look at the <a href="http://code.google.com/android/">Android SDK</a> for developers interested in building applications for Android. To get things rolling, we've also announced the <a href="http://code.google.com/android/adc.html">Android Developer Challenge</a>, which provides $10 million in awards for developers who build great applications for Android. Read more on the new <a href="http://android-developers.blogspot.com/">Android Developers blog</a> to learn about this exciting mobile platform. With so many brilliant minds striving to design engaging, innovative applications, mobile users around the world (3 billion and counting!) can expect phones equipped with dynamic and unprecedented applications very soon.

Calling all developers: $10M Android challenge

Posted by Steve Horowitz, Engineering Director Last week we announced the Open Handset Alliance , a group of mobile and technology leaders ...

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Crossing team and global boundaries

Posted by Reza Behforooz, Software Engineer In my first month at Google, I complained to a friend on the Gmail team about a couple of small things that I disliked about Gmail. I expected him to point me to the bug database. But he told me to fix it myself, pointing me to a document on how to bring up the Gmail development environment on my workstation. The next day my code was reviewed by Gmail engineers, and then I submitted it. A week later, my change was live. I was amazed by the freedom to work across teams, the ability to check in code to another project, the trust in engineers to work on the right thing, and the excitement and speed of getting things done for our users. Engineers across our offices (and across projects) have access to the same code; I didn't have to ask for anyone's permission to work on this. Since then, I've done my best to use my <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2005/03/enhanced-searching-with-firefox.html">20% time</a> on other projects. A few weeks ago, I noticed that our engineering team in India had launched an on-screen keyboard for <a href="http://labs.google.co.in/indic.html">several Indic languages on Labs</a>. I speak Farsi, and thought it would be useful to make one for myself and ham-zaboonam (that's Farsi for 'people who speak my language'). After launching <a href="http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2007/10/put-yourself-on-map.html">my latest </a><a href="http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2007/10/put-yourself-on-map.html" blog="" post="">project</a> for Google Maps, I emailed M. T. Raghunath, the engineer in India who built out the keyboard Gadgets, to learn how I could make one for Farsi. He had already worked with several language experts to create keyboards in 14 Indic languages and had recently included right-to-left support for <a href="http://www.google.com/ig/directory?q=urdu+on-screen+keyboard&root=%2Fig&dpos=top&url=http://www.google.com/ig/modules/urdu_keyboard.xml">Urdu</a> and <a href="http://www.google.com/ig/directory?q=arabic+on-screen+keyboard&root=%2Fig&dpos=top&start=7&url=http://www.google.com/ig/modules/arabic_keyboard.xml">Arabic</a>, which he created with the help of Googlers from our Hyderabad office. He was excited and pointed me to the code. After a week of iteration, you too can now use the <a href="http://www.google.com/ig/adde?moduleurl=http%3A//www.google.com/ig/modules/farsi_keyboard.xml">Farsi Gadget</a>. Google has <a href="http://www.google.com/support/jobs/bin/static.py?page=about.html&about=locations&src=engusjobs">many engineering offices</a> around the world; I currently work in <a href="http://maps.google.com/?q=720+4th+Avenue,+Kirkland,+WA+%28Seattle+Engineering+Office%29&ie=UTF8&ll=47.678623,-122.196293&spn=0.036523,0.06197&z=14&iwloc=addr&om=1">Seattle</a> and M. T. works in <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&time=&date=&ttype=&q=Vittal+Mallya+Road,+Bangalore,+Bangalore,+Karnataka+India&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=44.388698,58.798828&ie=UTF8&cd=1&geocode=0,12.971119,77.597310&ll=12.971104,77.597294&spn=0.053614,0.057421&z=14&om=1">Bangalore</a>. We have a lot more engineers than a few years ago when I made the changes to Gmail, but I'm happy to relive the same magic I shared with the Gmail team with a Googler across the globe. By the way, <a href="http://www.google.com/ig/adde?moduleurl=http%3A//www.google.com/ig/modules/kashmiri_keyboard.xml">a Kashmiri Gadget is also available</a>, thanks to help from Sarwat Nisa, a Hyderabad-based Googler.

Crossing team and global boundaries

Posted by Reza Behforooz, Software Engineer In my first month at Google, I complained to a friend on the Gmail team about a couple of small ...

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Congrats to Google scholarship winners

Posted by Ricardo Jenez, Engineering Director Google aspires to be an organization that reflects our global audience by supporting a diversity of perspectives, ideas and cultures, which is one reason we created scholarship programs with both the <a href="http://www.uncf.org/scholarships/scholarDetailSGA.asp?id=84">United Negro College Fund</a> and <a href="http://scholarships.hispanicfund.org/applications/subsectionID.1,pageID.123/default.asp">Hispanic College Fund</a>. These programs provide $5,000 to both undergraduate and graduate students who have demonstrated academic excellence in the fields of computer science and computer engineering. They're meant to encourage students to excel in their studies and become active role models and leaders. It's our hope that these programs also help dismantle barriers that keep women and minorities from entering computing and technology fields. (<a href="http://www.google.com/jobs/scholarships" id="brc4">Read more</a> about the various Google scholarship programs.) A few other Googlers and I recently volunteered to help select the winners for this year's round. We were inspired reading the scholarship applications; in fact, we identified with the difficulties that these students faced in order to get a great education. Now it's time to congratulate the 33 winners. This accomplished group of men and women demonstrated excellence in the field of computer science and made significant contributions to their communities. Each person receive $5,000 towards their studies, and they're all invited to attend our annual scholarship weekend, held at our Mountain View headquarters next spring. 2007 Google United Negro College Fund Scholarship Winners <blockquote><ul><li>Christopher Clark, University of California, Los Angeles</li><li>Linda Mmayi, American Inter-Continental University</li><li>Delvin Kelleybrew, Howard University</li><li>Andrew Pryor-Miller, University of California, Los Angeles</li><li>Nia Bradley, Howard University</li><li>Kieran Jordine, Albany State University</li><li>Shanna-Shaye Forbes, University of Texas, Austin</li><li>Tanisha Washington, CSU Long Beach</li><li>Kalifa Llewellyn, Howard University</li><li>Jason Mars, University of Virginia</li><li>Hans Anderson, Massachusetts Institute of Technology</li></ul></blockquote>2007 Google Hispanic College Fund Scholarship Winners <blockquote><ul><li>Nicole Ameche, University of California, Irvine</li><li>Garrett Brown, University of Michigan</li><li>Lina Cordero, CUNY City College</li><li>Carolina Gomez, Georgia Institute of Technology</li><li>Sonny Hernandez, University of Southern California</li><li>Juan Lang, University of California, Davis</li><li>David Mireles, University of Texas, El Paso</li><li>Josh Morales, University of Texas, Pan American</li><li>Omar Oropeza, University of Texas, Brownsville</li><li>Hillaury Perez, University of Houston</li><li>Isaac Persing, University of Arizona</li><li>Christian Roca, Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science & Art</li><li>Adelein Rodriguez, University of Central Florida</li><li>Jose Romero-Mariona, University of California, Irvine</li><li>Amanda Ryan, Victoria College</li><li>Marlies Santos Deas, Miami Dade Community College</li><li>Caio Soares, Auburn University</li><li>Christopher Soghoian, Indiana University, Bloomington</li><li>Oscar Tapia, New Jersey Institute of Technology</li><li>Yuly Tenorio, University of California, Berkeley</li><li>Pablo Guikubi Vanwoerkom, Indiana University, Bloomington</li><li>Joshua Zuniga, Oregon State University</li></ul></blockquote>

Congrats to Google scholarship winners

Posted by Ricardo Jenez, Engineering Director Google aspires to be an organization that reflects our global audience by supporting a diversi...

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Google Earth for 557 boxing champs

Posted by Kevin Willer, Head of Central Region Development Recently, a group of Chicago Googlers who are passionate about sports came together to find ways to support Chicago's bid for the 2016 Summer Olympic Games. We got in touch with folks from World Sport Chicago, who had recently agreed to organize the <a href="http://www.worldboxingchicago.org/" id="r-.v" title="AIBA World Boxing Championships">AIBA World Boxing Championships</a>, and asked them how Google technology could help support this local event with global reach. Together, we came up with an idea to educate fans about the boxers and their home countries through an <a href="http://aibaworldboxing.googlepages.com/aiba_world_boxing_championship.kml" id="tu_h" title="Google Earth information overlay">information overlay</a> on <a href="http://earth.google.com/">Google Earth</a>, embedding select information about each boxer and their sponsoring country in pop-up windows across the globe. Then we took this idea further by matching up our software with <a href="http://www.accenture.com/Global/Services/Accenture_Technology_Labs/Services/SeeingTheBigPicture.htm?c=ad_07grusglbpsgs_0607&n=Accenture_Interactive_sL05Accenture_Interactive_accenture_interactive_network" id="ubcg" title="Accenture's Interactive Wall Technology">Accenture's Interactive Wall Technology</a> to make the information even more lively. The Accenture Interactive Wall literally put the power of Google Earth at one's fingertips, so that people could manipulate the globe using their hands. Thousands of fans visited this display during the championships and we're pleased we could play a part in developing this learning tool for them. <div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYOgbC_du-p0-kdZMvGWh5w-cFx9on00K7BTtTv0MTFphk4I-Ocwtq_AhbLt7a2thn39o4G4QU3StcdhYIwDjBDzkxjKut0ljKAjdYIfRdAycU9ncOPD1GKz7cEYYWwiw4oGBlEGvIu_8S/s1600-h/Google+Earth+Overlay.jpeg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5130544957364943234" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYOgbC_du-p0-kdZMvGWh5w-cFx9on00K7BTtTv0MTFphk4I-Ocwtq_AhbLt7a2thn39o4G4QU3StcdhYIwDjBDzkxjKut0ljKAjdYIfRdAycU9ncOPD1GKz7cEYYWwiw4oGBlEGvIu_8S/s200/Google+Earth+Overlay.jpeg" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" /></a>Here's Chris Lobdell in front of the interactive wall. </div> When members of the Mongolian boxing team visited and asked how it worked, a volunteer helped them learn the controls, and they were quickly off to explore the planet. In a few seconds, they made their way to Mongolia, and were able to locate the gym back home where they had trained in for these very championships. They were amazed at the technology and the ease of use in finding their homes. Chris Lobdell, one of our customer solutions engineers, worked closely with Bruno Bowden from the Google Earth team to build this interactive mashup. Using boxer profile information provided by the USOC, Chris merged the profile for each boxer and coach with data about the represented country (population, land mass and currency). Googlers love a challenge, and this was an interesting one, especially considering the short timeframe in which it needed to be done, the massive information overlay development, and the integration with Accenture's display.

Google Earth for 557 boxing champs

Posted by Kevin Willer, Head of Central Region Development Recently, a group of Chicago Googlers who are passionate about sports came togeth...

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With a little help from your friends

Posted by Cristin Frodella, Product Manager, Education Initiatives Ever feel like your first idea isn't always your best idea, or that brainstorming with a friend really helps to inspire you? Similarly, when you're writing an essay or a short story, why would your first draft be the best one -- wouldn't you always want to take advantage of input from your pals? Revision writing is a critical piece of the writing process, and more and more, teachers are using the concept of working with a "writing buddy" to help make writing more fun and collaborative, and to teach students the importance of having support throughout the creative process. <a title="http://www.google.com/educators" href="http://www.google.com/educators" target="_blank">Google for Educators</a> and the talented writers at <a style="font-style: italic;" title="http://www.weeklyreader.com" href="http://www.weeklyreader.com/" target="_blank">Weekly Reader</a> have buddied up on a lesson about revision writing, having worked with teachers all over the country to come up with tips and checklists for incorporating buddy writing in the classroom. Our online word processing tool, <a href="http://docs.google.com/">Google Docs</a>, helps students create their first drafts, brainstorm with and inspire their peers, all while keeping track of each and every comma change, word replacement and new stroke of genius along the way. Come <a href="http://www.google.com/educators/weeklyreader.html">check out the lesson</a>, grab a few hints on using Google Docs and introduce your kids to buddy writing. We suspect their collaborations will get your creative juices flowing, too.

With a little help from your friends

Posted by Cristin Frodella, Product Manager, Education Initiatives Ever feel like your first idea isn't always your best idea, or that b...

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The road to better path-finding

Posted by Barry Brumitt, Software Engineer Way back at the end of 2005, Google Maps' driving directions were on par with other sites, providing basic driving directions in a few seconds. But the nature of the existing system made it nigh impossible to make it faster, add new features, or improve the quality of the routes. And better directions can yield tangible real-world benefits by saving people time and fuel, alleviating frustration, and making travel more pleasant. For all these reasons, it made sense to take a fresh look at the problem and to try to reinvent things such that we could provide a service markedly superior to the status quo. It's important to us to solve big problems. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dijkstra%27s_algorithm" id="mnbi" title="automatically finding good routes">Automatically finding routes</a> quickly is a hard problem -- especially at a global scale (there are several hundred million road segments worldwide). Even if a routing program is needed to only look at 10% of the map and only examine each segment for a microsecond, it would take tens of seconds to compute a path. Route-finding has to be done automatically because it would be impossibly time-consuming to compute the best routes between all pairs of locations by hand. Fortunately, we have the tools, technologies, and expertise that make it easier to tackle such hard problems and to build systems for searching large data sets quickly. A small group of engineers (of which I was a part) created the Google Maps route-finding project in <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&time=&date=&ttype=&q=kirkland,+WA&ie=UTF8&z=13&iwloc=addr&om=1" id="y:4i" title="Kirkland, WA">Kirkland, WA</a> with the hope of building a world-class system for route-finding. This is the first project I've worked on at Google, and it has given me the opportunity to learn all about the infrastructure we have to build and launch products and features. We started with the geographic data sets already in use by other groups at Google. Then we designed, built, tested, and deployed a complete route-finding solution in under 12 months. Commutes across the <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&time=&date=&ttype=&q=from:+23rd+%26+Union,+Seattle,+WA+to:+720+4th+Ave,+Kirkland,+WA&sll=47.678334,-122.195177&sspn=0.025225,0.042572&ie=UTF8&z=13&om=1">520 Bridge from Seattle</a> became a favorite test query. As someone with a background in path planning and robotics, it's been great to work on a problem with such substantial theoretical and practical aspects. It took 10 months of hard work, thousands of <a href="http://research.google.com/archive/mapreduce.html">MapReduce</a> passes, and an uncountable number of lattes to complete. And 'complete' doesn't really capture it. Our new route-finding system is hundreds of times faster: it can find and describe a <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&hl=en&geocode=15854922615829077343,54.943430,-162.533090&time=&date=&ttype=&saddr=Alaska+Marine+Hwy%2FCold+Bay-False+Pass+Fry+%4054.943430,+-162.533090&daddr=24.546967,-81.802654&mra=dme&mrcr=0&mrsp=1&sz=14&sll=24.545093,-81.798363&sspn=0.065661,0.085144&ie=UTF8&ll=48.341646,-122.871094&spn=96.207841,174.375&z=3&om=1">cross-continental shortest path</a> in well under a second. Shorter paths can be found proportionately faster. As evidenced by our '<a href="http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2007/06/its-click-drag-situation.html">draggable directions</a>' launch earlier this year, this kind of performance fundamentally changes your Maps experience. It's now possible for you to change your route by simply dragging it or its endpoints. (<a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&hl=en&geocode=9791209313822906849,47.589300,-122.257610&time=&date=&ttype=&saddr=47.613223,-122.302208&daddr=I-90+E+%4047.589300,+-122.257610+to:720+4th+Ave,+Kirkland,+WA&mra=dme&mrcr=0&mrsp=0&sz=13&sll=47.603732,-122.250538&sspn=0.101044,0.170288&ie=UTF8&z=13&om=1">Here's an example</a> of the above route adjusted to use I-90 instead of WA-520.) No other planning service provides this feature, and it would have been impossible to ship without the massive speedup provided by the system we created. In the last few months, we've also added other features, like '<a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&hl=en&geocode=1755982661155317002,47.612970,-122.302710&time=&date=&ttype=&saddr=23rd+Ave+%4047.612970,+-122.302710&daddr=720+4th+Ave,+Kirkland,+WA&mra=cc&dirflg=h&sll=47.603732,-122.250538&sspn=0.101044,0.170288&ie=UTF8&ll=47.675097,-122.24556&spn=0.201812,0.340576&z=12&om=1">avoid highways</a>' and '<a href="http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2007/08/how-long-will-it-take-at-rush-hour.html">estimated time-in-traffic</a>.' Plus, we now cover about 50 countries worldwide. We've raised the bar for what a route-finding system can and should provide. We're pleased with what we've built, and you can expect further improvements in the coming months. Just recently, the Google Maps route-finding team moved to our new <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&time=&date=&ttype=&q=fremont,+wa&ie=UTF8&ll=47.657815,-122.351689&spn=0.02431,0.042572&t=h&z=15&iwloc=addr&om=1">Fremont</a> Engineering office. I'm happy to report we don't have to <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&hl=en&geocode=1755982661155317002,47.612970,-122.302710%3B16925305443141195884,47.649580,-122.349740&time=&date=&ttype=&saddr=23rd+Ave+%4047.612970,+-122.302710&daddr=47.648954,-122.350488&mra=dme&mrcr=0&mrsp=1&sz=17&dirflg=h&sll=47.648361,-122.350552&sspn=0.00631,0.010643&ie=UTF8&ll=47.634627,-122.325211&spn=0.050492,0.085144&z=14&om=1">commute</a> across Lake Washington at all anymore. In fact, nearly half the team cycles in every day! And <a href="http://www.google.com/support/jobs/bin/static.py?page=why-wa.html">we're always looking</a> for great people, so if any of this sounds like the kind of challenge you'd be up for, we'd love to hear from you.

The road to better path-finding

Posted by Barry Brumitt, Software Engineer Way back at the end of 2005, Google Maps' driving directions were on par with other sites, pr...

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Bloggers blog, readers donate, students benefit, tomatoes dance

Posted by Josh Mendelsohn, Program Manager Back in early October <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/10/got-blog-help-student.html">we announced</a> our support for the Blogger Challenge put on by <a href="http://www.donorschoose.org/" id="peke">DonorsChoose.org</a>. Now that October has come to a close, it's time to recognize what DonorsChoose, 100+ bloggers and their readers have accomplished: they've raised $420,000 for classroom projects, which will benefit more than 75,000 students in low-income communities. We promised a nod to those who helped raise the most money for students, so without further ado, here are the Blogger Challenge categories and winning blogs: <ul><li>Lit Liberation: <a href="http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2007/10/04/karmic-capitalist-should-i-wait-until-im-rich-to-give/" id="uczo">Tim Ferriss</a></li><li>Technology: <a href="http://www.avc.blogs.com/" id="jhyf">Fred Wilson</a></li><li>General: <a href="http://www.tomatonation.com/" id="vw8j">Sarah Bunting</a></li><li>Topical/Local: <a href="http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/" id="z4hk">Maxwell Gillingham-Ryan</a> </li><li>Science: <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/" id="s8ze">PZ Myers</a> </li></ul>We extend our gratitude and congratulations to these winners and all of the participating bloggers for making this a success. Of course, we all owe thanks to their readers for supporting students. Sarah Bunting of Tomato Nation took this to heart and thanked her readers in her own (tomato) way -- enjoy! <object height="355" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/c7QbpRaLwnw&rel=1"><param name="wmode" value="transparent"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/c7QbpRaLwnw&rel=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" height="355" width="425"></embed></object>

Bloggers blog, readers donate, students benefit, tomatoes dance

Posted by Josh Mendelsohn, Program Manager Back in early October we announced our support for the Blogger Challenge put on by DonorsChoose....

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