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The most wonderful time of the year

Posted by Ben Lewis, Product Manager ... for fans of college basketball, that is. We're only days away from <a title="March Madness" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NCAA_Men%27s_Division_I_Basketball_Championship" id="x6jp">March Madness</a>, and the question is: who's going dancing? Will a Cinderella team pull the upset or will we see a number one seed team as the champion again? These questions and more will be answered over the next few weeks as we watch one of the greatest tournaments in American sports unfold. I'd like to invite you to join the madness of this year's NCAA tournament. Some of our engineer-sports fans and I have developed the <a title="Basketball Bracket Battle gadget for iGoogle" href="http://www.google.com/webmasters/igoogle/basketball.html#utm_source=en-et-googleblog&utm_medium=et&utm_content=en&utm_campaign=googleblog" target="_blank">Basketball Bracket Battle gadget</a> for iGoogle to help you track your picks as the tournament progresses. Use it to compete against your friends and coworkers in a pool, or compete with other Bracket Battle gadget users. You'll be able to make your picks and track your progress without ever leaving your homepage. You can pick your bracket and invite friends to your pool starting on Selection Sunday (March 16th), but feel free to add the gadget to your page anytime starting today. And the madness officially begins on March 20th, so make sure you're all set by then. Come join us for the battle and <a href="http://www.google.com/webmasters/igoogle/basketball.html#utm_source=en-et-googleblog&utm_medium=et&utm_content=en&utm_campaign=googleblog">add</a> the Basketball Bracket Battle to your iGoogle. We'll see you at the dance! <div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.google.com/webmasters/igoogle/basketball.html#utm_source=en-et-googleblog&utm_medium=et&utm_content=en&utm_campaign=googleblog"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5176610975386820946" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOV6rjXm17yr2DOys2E3A1qPVvg8De3lYQ6QWNtv3RsQuYE67Br7xlDxS0cpnY6UZmpGCk42r7hnXrRlBzBZFU3bY93qWftit1ga6IZQzj86vhKeC6NEU7wEC2RYKQyQfuDX4_jPXODD2W/s320/March+Madness.gif" style="cursor: pointer;" /></a> </div>

The most wonderful time of the year

Posted by Ben Lewis, Product Manager ... for fans of college basketball, that is. We're only days away from March Madness , and the ques...

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ARIA For Google Reader: In praise of timely information access

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. The advent of RSS and ATOM feeds, and the creation of tools like <a href="http://www.google.com/reader/axs" target="_blank">Google Reader </a> for efficiently consuming content feeds, has vastly increased the amount of information we access every day. From the perspective of someone who cannot see, content feeds are one of the major innovations of the century. They give me direct access to the actual content without first having to dig through a lot of boilerplate visual layout as happens with websites. In addition, all of this content is now available from a single page with a consistent interface. Until now, I've enjoyed the benefits of <a href="http://www.google.com/reader/axs" target="_blank">Google Reader</a> using a <a href="http://emacspeak.blogspot.com/2007/03/emacs-client-for-google-services.html" target="_blank">custom client</a>. Today, we're happy to tell you that the "mainstream" Google Reader now works with off-the-shelf screenreaders, as well as <a href="http://www.clcworld.net/" target="_blank">Fire Vox</a>, the self-voicing extension to Firefox. This brings the benefits of content feeds and feed readers to the vast majority of visually impaired users. Google Reader has always had complete keyboard support. With the accessibility enhancements we've added, all user actions now produce the relevant spoken feedback via the user's adaptive technology of choice. This feedback is generated using Accessible Rich Internet Applications (<a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-wai-aria-20080204/" target="_blank">WAI-ARIA</a>), an evolving standard for enhancing the accessibility of Web-2.0 applications. WAI-ARIA is supported at present by Firefox -- with future support forthcoming in other browsers. This is one of the primary advantages of building on open standards. We originally prototyped these features in Google Reader using the <a href="http://code.google.com/p/google-axsjax/">AxsJAX</a> framework. After extensive testing of these enhancements, we've now integrated these into the mainstream product. See the <a href="http://googlereader.blogspot.com/2008/03/reader-and-aria-new-way-to-read.html">related post</a> on the Google Reader Blog for additional technical details. Looking forward to a better informed future for all!

ARIA For Google Reader: In praise of timely information access

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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Google I/O: Advancing the web as a platform

Posted by Tom Stocky, Senior Product Manager, Developer Products We spend a lot of time, especially within our Developer Products team, talking about how to build applications for the web. After all, Google was born on the web, and over time we've gained tons of experience with AJAX and other technologies to build apps like Gmail, Google Maps, Google Calendar and Google Docs. Along the way, we've seen the power of collaborative web apps and become very familiar with the pain points of building them. To share that knowledge, we <a href="http://google-code-updates.blogspot.com/2008/03/announcing-google-io.html">just announced</a> Google I/O -- a two-day developer gathering to be held May 28-29 in San Francisco. We want to move the web forward as a platform, and continue to invest in projects like Google Gears, OpenSocial, and the Google Web Toolkit to further that effort. If you're a developer, we hope you're interested in learning more about Google APIs and joining this conversation about moving the web forward. For details and registration, please visit the <a href="http://code.google.com/events/io/">Google I/O</a> site.

Google I/O: Advancing the web as a platform

Posted by Tom Stocky, Senior Product Manager, Developer Products We spend a lot of time, especially within our Developer Products team, talk...

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YouTube finds its way into Spore

Posted by Eric Mauskopf, Sales Engineer, YouTube Partnerships It's no secret that YouTube has embraced user generated video since its inception. Armed with a video camera and an Internet connection, anyone is able to contribute. We're seeing more and more videogames starting to incorporate user generated content into the gaming experience -- so we often ask ourselves, why not similarly empower gamers to share their experiences with each other? Enter Spore, the much anticipated game from Electronic Arts and Maxis, which lets players create their own alien creatures, import their creations into the game world, and upload video of their creatures' moves directly to YouTube from within the game. Additionally, all of the YouTube community can enjoy: Spore's own <a href="http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=57960">YouTube Channel</a>, which will showcase the most popular videos of creatures fans and gamers create. <div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhO_pcECV4Ure-NQd6xYptuPjriwiVUJKSlxwebROZk9r8ufDsNOnUOZHmINXhiDsS8TM8dRhSh7mcVfnbue-Ml-kyMZvnv07bRC3BqNSVhrOHxLmBMfV3b1XLOSaVSNNtsu8p41aKa3Ske/s1600-h/YT_Spore1.gif"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5176488616063525170" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhO_pcECV4Ure-NQd6xYptuPjriwiVUJKSlxwebROZk9r8ufDsNOnUOZHmINXhiDsS8TM8dRhSh7mcVfnbue-Ml-kyMZvnv07bRC3BqNSVhrOHxLmBMfV3b1XLOSaVSNNtsu8p41aKa3Ske/s320/YT_Spore1.gif" style="cursor: pointer;" /></a> </div> The creature creator is core to the Spore game experience, and seamlessly integrates with YouTube. It will be released within the commercial game and as a standalone free download for PCs prior to the game’s launch. We anticipate that millions of creatures will be created, many of which will be cropping up on YouTube. <div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIsqA4PCqLgX8-Scw7b5w57Lp34-_iOIv7GaEZzC_lgxfhClRXBhNeR35Qo5K9GT7tNaj291Pr4nm3fLFvjbYPNBOQRTeBhOwET0LLif7tT4B-TILsw9G80F1m9cZV9GhCQfdyLHbctAq8/s1600-h/YT_Spore2.gif"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5176488817926988098" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIsqA4PCqLgX8-Scw7b5w57Lp34-_iOIv7GaEZzC_lgxfhClRXBhNeR35Qo5K9GT7tNaj291Pr4nm3fLFvjbYPNBOQRTeBhOwET0LLif7tT4B-TILsw9G80F1m9cZV9GhCQfdyLHbctAq8/s320/YT_Spore2.gif" style="cursor: pointer;" /></a> </div> Spore’s integration with YouTube was made possible using the latest release of the <a href="http://code.google.com/apis/youtube">YouTube Data API</a>, which is now publicly available and open to all developers. Here's a glimpse of what you can create: <object height="355" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/WGJOlq6-upY&hl=en"><param name="wmode" value="transparent"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/WGJOlq6-upY&hl=en" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" height="355" width="425"></embed></object>

YouTube finds its way into Spore

Posted by Eric Mauskopf, Sales Engineer, YouTube Partnerships It's no secret that YouTube has embraced user generated video since its in...

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International development & technology: What's working and what's new

Posted by Sonal Shah, Head of Global Development Initiatives, Google.org and Bob Boorstin, Washington Director of Policy Communications Last month, Google and Google.org hosted more than 80 technology decisionmakers from international development non-profits for an interactive discussion at our Washington D.C. office. Over lunch, case study presentations and hands-on sessions, participants discussed the ways technology is changing the landscape of international development -- and how to take advantage of new tools for fundraising, communication, data visualization, and online collaboration. Speakers highlighted the benefits of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing" id="h9x4">cloud computing</a> and demonstrated how to display data on maps and interactive graphs with products like <a title="Google Earth" href="http://www.google.com/earth/outreach/" id="um5h">Google Earth</a> and <a title="Trendalyzer" href="http://www.gapminder.org/world/" id="zj2i">Trendalyzer</a>. A representative from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum discussed how the Museum created a <a href="http://www.ushmm.org/maps/projects/darfur/" id="k5to" title="Darfur Layer">Darfur layer</a> on Google Earth that gives "publicly accessible evidence of destruction to help visually refute claims of minimal collateral damage from war." The YouTube breakout session explored how cheap video cameras paired with an on-the-ground presence can help document and spread awareness of ongoing crises abroad. Participants even made their own videos to talk about how the Internet is changing the development world: <object height="355" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/5v02QS69F1w"><param name="wmode" value="transparent"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/5v02QS69F1w" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" height="355" width="425"></embed></object> Special thanks to our friends at the <a href="http://www.theirc.org/" id="ycg4" title="International Rescue Committee">International Rescue Committee</a>, <a href="http://www.mercycorps.org/" id="m-do" title="MercyCorps">MercyCorps</a>, and the <a href="http://www.ushmm.org/" id="homs" title="US Holocaust Memorial Museum">U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum</a> for sharing stories of their experiences in taking advantage of new technologies. For those who are interested, we're posting the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=0C7A75D936163C8C" id="pafl">presentations on YouTube</a>. We hope that this event will be the first of many discussions, workshops, and other public events we hold with non-profits in our new D.C. space.

International development & technology: What's working and what's new

Posted by Sonal Shah, Head of Global Development Initiatives, Google.org and Bob Boorstin, Washington Director of Policy Communications Last...

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We've officially acquired DoubleClick

Posted by Eric Schmidt, Chairman and CEO I'm pleased to share the <a title="news" href="http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/pressrel/20080311_doubleclick.html" id="ios8">news</a> that we completed our acquisition of DoubleClick today. Although it's been nearly a year since we <a title="announced" href="http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/pressrel/doubleclick.html" id="ayqy">announced</a> our intention to acquire DoubleClick last April, we are no less excited today about the benefits that the combination of our two companies will bring to the online advertising market. Because we have been waiting for regulatory approval for our acquisition, we've been limited by law in the extent to which we could conduct detailed integration planning to map our way forward. That work will begin in earnest now. Although we don’t have detailed plans to announce today, we will communicate regularly with you about our progress in integrating our two companies. An immediate task we’ll undertake over the next few weeks is matching and aligning DoubleClick employees with our organizational plan for the business. This will involve determining the right staffing levels for all functions and will ensure that we have the right people assigned to the right responsibilities within Google. We plan to complete this process in the U.S. by early April. Outside the U.S., the steps we will propose are subject to consultation with employee representatives where applicable, and of course any decisions will be made in accordance with local law. The exact timing of the process outside the U.S. will vary based on the needs and requirements of each region. As with most mergers, there may be reductions in headcount. We expect these to take place in the U.S. and possibly in other regions as well. We know that DoubleClick is built on the strength of its people. For this reason we’ll strive to minimize the impact of this process on all of our clients and employees. Advertisers and publishers who work with us have long asked that we complement our search and content-based text advertising with display advertising capabilities. DoubleClick gives Google the leading platform for display advertising, enabling us to rapidly bring advances to the market in technology and infrastructure that will dramatically improve the effectiveness, measurability and performance of digital media for publishers, advertisers and agencies. As the combination of Google and DoubleClick delivers better, more relevant display ads, we're also looking forward to delivering an improved online experience to users. Because user trust is paramount to the success of our business, users will continue to benefit from our commitment to protecting user privacy following this acquisition. And our scale and infrastructure mean that users will also be spending less time waiting for web pages to load. Ultimately, we believe that by combining our advertising network with DoubleClick's display ad serving products, and by investing resources in the display ad business, we will be able to help publishers and advertisers generate more revenue. That in turn will fuel the creation of even more rich and diverse content for Internet users everywhere.

We've officially acquired DoubleClick

Posted by Eric Schmidt, Chairman and CEO I'm pleased to share the news that we completed our acquisition of DoubleClick today. Although...

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How Google keeps your information secure

Posted by Douglas Merrill, VP of Engineering As many of you know, we spend a lot of time around here thinking about new products to help you run your life more efficiently, whether that’s organizing email in a better way, sharing pictures with friends, or collaborating in real time on documents. What you may not know is that we also spend a lot of time thinking about the security that goes into those products, and more specifically the ways we can protect you and your private information. While the chances are that you'll never have a security problem, we take security very seriously, and that's why we have some of the best engineers in the world working here to secure information. Much of their work is confidential, but we do want to share some of the ways we're protecting your data. There are a few things you should know about how we handle confidential information: <ul><li>Philosophy: First is our <a href="http://www.google.com/corporate/security.html" id="j192" title="philosophy">philosophy</a>. At Google, security is a continuous process. We don't just "check" a product for security before we launch it -- we are thinking about security before the product is even created, and we are building it in throughout the product's development. Also critical is our belief in layered protection. It's much like securing your house. You put your most private information in a safe. You secure the safe in your house, which is protected with locks and possibly an alarm system. And then you have the neighborhood watch program or the local police monitoring your neighborhood. It's very similar at Google. Our most sensitive information is difficult to find or access (the safe). Our network and facilities (the house) are protected in both high- and low-tech ways: encryption, alarms, and other technology for our systems, and strong physical security at our facilities. And finally, we've learned that when security is done right, it's done best as a community (the neighborhood); we encourage everyone to help us identify potential problems and solutions. Researchers who work at security and technology companies all over the world are constantly looking for security problems on the Internet, and we work closely with that community to find and fix potential problems.</li></ul><ul><li>Technology: These layers of protection are built on the best security technology in the world. While we employ products developed by others in the security community, we build a lot of our security technology ourselves. Some of the most innovative components of our security architecture focus on automation and scale. These are important to us because we're handling searches, emails, and other activities for millions of users every day. To keep our security processes a step ahead, we automate the way we test our software for possible security vulnerabilities and the way we monitor for possible security attacks. We're also constantly seeking more ways to use <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encryption" id="o7ve" title="encryption">encryption</a> and other technical measures to protect your data, while still maintaining a great user experience.</li></ul> <ul><li>Process: In addition to technology, we have a set of processes that dictate how we secure confidential information at Google and who can access it. We carefully manage access to confidential information of any sort, and very few Googlers have access to what we consider very sensitive data. This is in no small part because there's very little reason for us to provide that access -- most of our processes are automated, and don't require much human intervention. Of course, the limited number of people who are granted access to sensitive data must have special approval. And while we hold ourselves to a very high standard, we also work to ensure that our processes meet (and in many cases exceed) industry standards. These include audits for <a href="http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=107_cong_public_laws&docid=f:publ204.107" id="uask" title="Sarbanes-Oxley">Sarbanes-Oxley</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAS_70" id="uc6_" title="SAS 70">SAS 70</a>, <a href="https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/" id="czo3" title="PCI (payment card industry) compliance">PCI (payment card industry) compliance</a>, and more. By working with independent auditors, who evaluate compliance with standards that hold hundreds of different companies to very rigorous requirements, we add another layer of checks and balances to our security processes.</li></ul> <ul><li>People: The most important part of our approach to security is our people. Google employs <a href="http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Security/The-15-Most-Influential-People-in-Security-Today/1/" id="d4xl" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" title="some of the best and brightest">some of the best and brightest</a> security engineers in the world. Many of our engineers came from very high-profile security environments, such as banks, credit card companies, and high-volume retail organizations, and a large number of them hold PhDs and patents in security and software engineering. As you can imagine, our engineers are smart and curious and are on the lookout for security anomalies and best practices in the industry. Our engineers have published hundreds of academic papers on technically detailed topics such as <a href="http://research.google.com/archive/provos-2008a.pdf" id="x:h7" title="drive-by downloads installing malware">drive-by downloads that install malware</a> (PDF file) or <a href="http://taviso.decsystem.org/virtsec.pdf" id="plvy" title="hostile virtualized environments">hostile virtualized environments</a>. (You can find some of these papers <a title="here" href="http://research.google.com/pubs/papers.html#category14" id="to:9">here</a>.) What's more, we cultivate a collaborative approach to security among all of our engineers, requiring everyone to pass a coding style review (which enables us to control the type of code used here and how it's used in order to prevent software problems) and ensuring that all code at Google is reviewed by multiple engineers so that it meets our software and security standards. </li></ul>And throughout the company, we use our own products. That means we protect your information with the same security that we use to protect our own company emails and documents. And while we continue to innovate with our products, we'll also continue to innovate in the world of security. For more on our approach to security, visit our <a title="security and product safety site" href="http://www.google.com/corporate/security.html" id="b:bc">Security and Product Safety page</a>.

How Google keeps your information secure

Posted by Douglas Merrill, VP of Engineering As many of you know, we spend a lot of time around here thinking about new products to help you...

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