About the Unity bandwidth consortium

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Francois Sterin, Manager, Network Acquisitions</span><br /><br />As more and more people conduct online searches and interact with applications like Gmail, Google Earth and YouTube, we've had to think outside the box to create a more scalable, affordable and easy to manage network that meets our users' needs worldwide. One of the biggest challenges we face is staying ahead of our broadband capacity needs, especially across Asia.<br /><br />One of the ways we are addressing this is by working with five other international companies to create a consortium. Collectively we just signed an agreement to build a new high-bandwidth subsea cable system linking the U.S. and Japan (more detail in the <a href="http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/pressrel/20080225_newcablesystem.html">press release</a>). This cable system, named Unity, will address increasing broadband demand by providing more capacity to sustain the unprecedented growth in data and Internet traffic between Asia and the U.S. Our participation in building Unity ultimately helps provide our users with faster and more reliable connectivity.<br /><br />If you're wondering whether we're going into the undersea cable business, the answer is <span style="font-weight: bold;">no</span>. We're not competing with telecom providers, but the volume of data we need to move around the world has grown to the point where in some cases we've exceeded the ability traditional players can offer. Our partnership with these companies is just another step in ensuring that we're delivering the best possible experience to people around the world.

About the Unity bandwidth consortium

Posted by Francois Sterin, Manager, Network Acquisitions As more and more people conduct online searches and interact with applications like...

Đọc thêm »

Searching for the Wisconsin primaries

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Robert Snedegar, Technical Solutions Engineer and Chief Election Tracker</span><br /><br />We're in the midst of a big election season, and of course that means pollsters and pundits have lots to say about where it will all end. I've been curious to see if their predictions match up with trends in online searches. So as my 20% project, I devised a method to track the number of searches for each candidate's name. I wanted to visually represent the trends I found, so I plotted them onto Google Maps to see where the searches were concentrated. It's fascinating to see how people in a region have turned to the Internet to engage in the primaries.<br /><br />Last Tuesday during the Wisconsin primary, the maps for Democratic queries (blue) and Republican queries (red) in Wisconsin turned out slightly different than each other. The circles are proportional to the amounts of search terms that contained the name of a Democratic or Republican candidate. Of course, the data includes queries for both positive and negative keywords for each.<br /><br />From the data, we can see that Democratic candidates were searched more often in Madison, while Republican candidate queries were more widely dispersed throughout the state:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtQDkqyzPewGxQHLr3nyEmrApkhi5dKXTNPO6db0beoSimcWSmGbCmWZ291Abd0ZIhhWKF7D_aRelBBbldJXezZ28hglqg5_DaGar7-d3PhBC9VKlfwR60FGthi11zZWnUF6RnjBFvdKUK/s1600-h/wisconsin+dem.PNG"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5171072170453415138" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtQDkqyzPewGxQHLr3nyEmrApkhi5dKXTNPO6db0beoSimcWSmGbCmWZ291Abd0ZIhhWKF7D_aRelBBbldJXezZ28hglqg5_DaGar7-d3PhBC9VKlfwR60FGthi11zZWnUF6RnjBFvdKUK/s320/wisconsin+dem.PNG" style="cursor: pointer; width: 212px; height: 217px;" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6aHbKkP13JU0NQmkmfHBkVnG3i15bbLzd3pr9VY-zb0Gkn43HSCmg65Aiq9CbH8d4vAkWf-GT1yzPjvJoLk1wJRE_zd2jOjGIe-lcnkYKMNx_Fg_rc9qa8Cpa2GtwgPkaBZ0EpZVNGsW3/s1600-h/wisconsin_repub.PNG"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5171073905620202738" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6aHbKkP13JU0NQmkmfHBkVnG3i15bbLzd3pr9VY-zb0Gkn43HSCmg65Aiq9CbH8d4vAkWf-GT1yzPjvJoLk1wJRE_zd2jOjGIe-lcnkYKMNx_Fg_rc9qa8Cpa2GtwgPkaBZ0EpZVNGsW3/s320/wisconsin_repub.PNG" style="cursor: pointer; width: 214px; height: 217px;" /></a><br /><br />We'll continue to study interesting search trends as they apply to election queries and share other findings with you.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Update:</span> Corrected title.

Searching for the Wisconsin primaries

Posted by Robert Snedegar, Technical Solutions Engineer and Chief Election Tracker We're in the midst of a big election season, and of c...

Đọc thêm »

Supporting cluster computing in the research community

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Christophe Bisciglia, Senior Software Engineer, Google Research and James French, Program Director, National Science Foundation</span><br /><br />Research and development is the foundation of innovation in the technology industry, and both Google and the National Science Foundation (NSF) are committed to making substantial investments in computer science research and education to ensure that our students, faculty and scientists remain on the leading edge of computing<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> and have the tools necessary to make significant advances</span>. As the technology industry moves into an exciting new phase of massively scaled, highly distributed computing, academic users have expressed a need for resources to engage and explore this emerging model, which is already responsible for many "internet-scale" applications that we now take for granted. That's why we're excited to announce that the NSF will use resources made available via Google and IBM's Academic Cluster Computing Initiative (ACCI) to reach the broader research community and explore new applications for massively scaled, highly distributed computing.<br /><br />In October of 2007, Google and IBM <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/10/let-thousand-servers-bloom.html">announced</a> the first pilot phase of the ACCI, which granted several prominent U.S. universities access to a cluster of thousands of processors running Apache's Hadoop, an open source distributed computing platform inspired by Google's file system and MapReduce programming model. (There's a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBrDPRlplyo">YouTube video</a> showing how students and faculty at the University of Washington have made use of the cluster.) Encouraged by these results, we sought out ways to extend the reach of this technology, and given its prominence in national research funding, the NSF emerged as a natural partner. For decades, the NSF has engaged the U.S. research community by setting research agendas and encouraging the development and adoption of disruptive technology, and this partnership will encourage a broader range of academic researchers to develop innovative new methods of data analysis using the unique advantages of massively parallel systems architecture - without the massive infrastructure costs usually associated with large-scale computer clusters.<br /><br />Starting this year, the NSF will work to evaluate project proposals from academic researchers across many disciplines and select some of the most interesting and promising projects to receive ACCI computational grants. More details, including information on how to apply for access to these resources via the NSF's Cluster Exploratory (CluE) program, will be posted soon on the <a href="http://www.nsf.gov/">NSF site</a>.

Supporting cluster computing in the research community

Posted by Christophe Bisciglia, Senior Software Engineer, Google Research and James French, Program Director, National Science Foundation Re...

Đọc thêm »

Our secret sauce

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Hal Varian, Chief Economist</span><br /><br />I was recently a guest columnist on the <a href="http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/13/bring-your-questions-for-google-economist-hal-varian/">Freakonomics Blog</a>. There were several interesting questions from the readers, but one was quite striking:<br /><br /><div style="margin-left: 40px;"><span style="font-style: italic;">"How can we explain the fairly entrenched position of Google, even though the differences in search algorithms are now only recognizable at the margins? Is there some hidden network effect that makes it better for all of us to use the same search engine?"</span><br /></div><br />It seems that a lot of people are trying to figure out why Google has done so well. The difficulty is that the typical economic forces at work in many technology businesses that lead to entrenchment don't seem to explain our success. Let's take a look at the usual culprits.<br /><br /><b>Supply side economies of scale.</b> This refers to the fact that a larger business may enjoy a cost advantage. The problem is that though there probably are some scale advantages, they get played out at a reasonably small scale. There are plenty of data centers out there and plenty of people that know how to run them efficiently.<br /><br /><b>Lock-in. </b> The idea here is that when users have a high cost of switching to an alternative provider, they can be charged high prices that reflect the fact that they are effectively locked in to a single provider. But if you look at Google's business, the competition is only a click away. Users can trivially switch search engines. Most of our large customers also advertise on other search engines. And most publishers get their ads from a variety of providers, including their own sales force. So there are very small costs of switching to an alternative search engine for users, advertisers, and publishers.<br /><br /><b>Network effects.</b> This refers to a phenomenon where the amount that people are willing to pay for a service depends on the number of people that have already adopted a service. The classic example is a fax machine: the amount that I am willing to pay for a fax machine depends on how many of my correspondents already have one. But this doesn't fit the Google case either: my decision to use Google is irrelevant to other users. It's true that advertisers want to advertise where there are lot of users but that doesn't affect the amount that they are willing to pay on a <i>per user</i> basis. The value of a user to an advertiser depends on how likely he or she is to buy, not how many users there are. A small website about knitting could be a great place to advertise yarn and could charge rates far higher for such ads than a much larger site.<br /><br />If it isn't economies of scale, lock-in, or network effects, what is it that explains Google's success?<br /><br />The answer, at least in my opinion, is a much older economic concept called "learning by doing" that was first formalized by Nobel Laureate Kenneth Arrow back in 1962. It refers to the widely-observed phenomenon that the longer a company has been doing something, the better it gets at doing it.<br /><br />Google has been searching the web for nearly 10 years, which is far longer than our major competitors. It's not surprising that we've learned a lot about how to do this well. We're constantly experimenting with new algorithms. Those that offer an improvement get rolled into the production version; the others go back to the drawing board for refinement.<br /><br />So I would argue that Google really does have a better product than the competition -- not because we have more or better ingredients, but because we have better recipes. And we are continuously improving those recipes precisely because we know the competition is only a click away. We can't fall back on economies of scale, or switching costs, or network effects, to isolate us from the competition. The only thing we can do is work as hard as we can to keep our search quality better than that of the other engines.

Our secret sauce

Posted by Hal Varian, Chief Economist I was recently a guest columnist on the Freakonomics Blog . There were several interesting questions f...

Đọc thêm »

The art of science and engineering

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Michael Weiss-Malik, Software Engineer</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" >(Cross-posted on the <a href="http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2008/02/art-of-science-and-engineering.html">Google Lat Long Blog</a>.)</span><br /><br /><a title="Google Moon" href="http://moon.google.com/" id="x_-6">Google Moon</a> and <a title="Google Mars" href="http://mars.google.com/" id="qvro">Google Mars</a> are great examples of products that required much more than pure software engineering to produce. There was quite a bit of science, and even a little bit of artistry, that went into <a title="their" href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/03/mars-attracts.html" id="av9n">their</a> <a title="creation" href="http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2007/09/new-moon.html" id="l_-t">creation</a>. They both expose large volumes of imagery and information in simple and accessible designs, and it turns out that I'm not the only one who thinks that they qualify as art in this regard.<br /><br />New York's <a title="Museum of Modern Art" href="http://www.moma.org/" id="h6rf">Museum of Modern Art</a> has honored both products by including them in their exhibition <a title="Design and the Elastic Mind" href="http://www.moma.org/exhibitions/exhibitions.php?id=5632&ref=calendar" id="qq3y">Design and the Elastic Mind</a>, which opens to the public on February 24th. The exhibit showcases objects and systems that pair modern design with innovations in science and engineering in creative ways. Google Moon's Apollo landing <a title="interactive 360-degree panoramas" href="http://www.google.com/moon/#lat=0.656869&lon=23.470613&zoom=19&apollo=a11/10" id="d8y7">panoramas</a> and Google Mars' imagery of the largest <a title="canyons" href="http://www.google.com/mars/#lat=-10.487811&lon=-71.103515&zoom=4&q=valles%20marineris" id="j7yx">canyons</a> and <a title="volcanoes" href="http://www.google.com/mars/#lat=17.811456&lon=-133.242187&zoom=4&map=visible&q=olympus%20mons" id="gv5:">volcanoes</a> in the solar system were intended to do exactly that, by applying Google Maps technology to places that are out of this world.<br /><div><br /></div>We're delighted that MOMA saw fit to include us in their lineup, and recommend the show to anyone living in or visiting the New York area. It runs through May 12th.

The art of science and engineering

Posted by Michael Weiss-Malik, Software Engineer (Cross-posted on the Google Lat Long Blog .) Google Moon and Google Mars are great exampl...

Đọc thêm »

A pilot with the Cleveland Clinic for health information access

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Alan Newberger, Engineering Manager</span><br /><br />I suffer from poor eyesight and intense seasonal allergies, but I'm thankful that health issues occupy just a small portion of my life. Even though I'm rather healthy, I sometimes find myself needing access to accurate health information. I can get a long way by searching for health facts online, but I also need to incorporate what I find with my own history of conditions and treatments. I didn't even realize I <i>had</i> allergies until my early twenties -- for more years than I care to admit, I'd forget that the "cold" I came down with in April was suspiciously similar to the one I had at exactly the same time the year before. I've often been overwhelmed when trying to determine or track a condition, because my personal record of health information is either nonexistent, or it's spread on forms and receipts from (at least) a dozen doctors and five insurance companies.<br /><br />Working as an engineer here on the health team, I've been excited to participate in building tools that will help me and others manage our personal health information more effectively. Many innovators in the healthcare industry have worked hard to make results of doctor visits, prescriptions, tests and procedures available digitally. By using the <a href="http://code.google.com/apis/gdata/">GData protocol</a> already offered in many Google products, and supporting standards-based medical information formats like the Continuity of Care Record (CCR), our health efforts will help you access, store and communicate <i>your</i> health information. Above all, health data will remain yours -- private and confidential. Only you have control over when to share it with family members and health providers.<br /><br />This week, we hit another important milestone. We launched a pilot with a medical institution committed to giving patients access to their own medical records: <a href="http://cms.clevelandclinic.org/body.cfm?id=227&action=detail&ref=815">The Cleveland Clinic</a>. A large academic medical center, Cleveland is one of the first partners to integrate on our platform. Because of their size and reach with patients who already have access to their medical records online, Cleveland has been a great partner for us to test out our data sharing model. Patients participating in the Cleveland pilot give authorization via our AuthSub interface to have their electronic medical records safely and securely imported into a Google account. It's great to see our product getting into the hands of end users, and I look forward to the feedback that the Cleveland patients will provide us. <br /><br />Cleveland is just the first of many healthcare providers that will securely send medical records and information via Google APIs at your request. We've been hard at work collaborating with a number of insurance plans, medical groups, pharmacies and hospitals</span>. While this pilot is open initially to just a few thousand patients, I see it as an important first step to show how Google can help users get access to their medical records and take charge of their health information.

A pilot with the Cleveland Clinic for health information access

Posted by Alan Newberger, Engineering Manager I suffer from poor eyesight and intense seasonal allergies, but I'm thankful that health i...

Đọc thêm »

AdSense for video now in beta

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Shamim Samadi, Product Manager and Ryan Hayward, Product Marketing Manager</span><br /><br />In a very short time, watching videos online has become a common pastime, and the imagination of artists and other content owners continues to fuel this trend. Meanwhile, across the industry, advertisers and video publishers continue to look for the best solution that balances the needs of video fans with the need for video sites to generate the revenue that enables them to continue to be creative as they grow.<br /><br />Enter, stage left: the AdSense for video beta. This approach takes the same non-intrusive InVideo ad format used on YouTube and extends it across video partner sites on the Google Content Network. This enables advertisers to run a single campaign across the largest network of online video content.<br /><br />Unique to AdSense for video are text overlay ads contextually targeted to a combination of signals in your videos and on your site. With these overlay ads, the user's experience is not interrupted; users determine how much they want to interact with the ad.<br /><br />We have two major goals: to make it easier for publishers to monetize video online, and for advertisers to learn how to reach the video community. Towards these ends, today we're also launching a single destination with an overview of various options to expand online video opportunities called <a href="http://www.google.com/ads/videoadsolutions/">Google Video Advertising Solutions</a>. We hope this will be your starting point to understand how to leverage the Google Content Network and YouTube to make the most out of the online video experience. You can also see our overview videos for <a href="http://www.google.com/ads/videoadsolutions/advertiser.html">advertisers</a> and <a href="http://www.google.com/ads/videoadsolutions/publisher.html">publishers</a> -- because isn’t video the best way to experience video?<br /><br />We've been working with a number of video partners (e.g. popular destinations like BobVila.com, eHow, MyDamnChannel, ExpertVillage, PinkBike, TheNewsRoom, and social video aggregators like Revver, blip.tv, and GodTube). And we're also working with several key video platform solution solutions like Brightcove, Yume, Tremor Media, and Eyespot Network, who have plugged our ads into their platforms.<br /><br />There are some criteria that publishers have to meet to participate in AdSense for video, which you can learn about on the <a href="http://adsense.blogspot.com/2008/02/fueling-creativity-in-online-video-with.html">Inside AdSense blog</a>.<br /><br />As with many things we do around here, we’ll keep testing various ad formats, iterate and expand, so keep an eye on us.

AdSense for video now in beta

Posted by Shamim Samadi, Product Manager and Ryan Hayward, Product Marketing Manager In a very short time, watching videos online has become...

Đọc thêm »