Tracking Santa: the backstory

When I look back on four years of tracking Old St. Nick on Christmas Eve, I can't help but smile. The Santa tracker has really come a long way. I always thought NORAD's Santa Tracker was a <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/12/santa-countdown-begins.html" id="bhnc" title="great holiday tradition">great holiday tradition</a>, but I felt like it could have been even better if people could visualize exactly where Santa was on Christmas Eve. So in 2004, shortly after Keyhole was acquired by Google, we followed Santa in the "Keyhole Earth Viewer" — Google Earth's original name — and we called it the "Keyhole Santa Radar." The audience was relatively small since Keyhole was still a for-pay service at that point, and we hosted everything on a single machine shared with the Keyhole Community BBS server. We probably should have had three separate servers to host the Santa tracker — that first year, we had only a portion of a single machine. That night, about 25,000 people kept tabs on Santa and, needless to say, wreaked some havoc on our servers!<br /><br />Over the next two years, our Santa-tracking efforts improved dramatically. By December 2005, Keyhole had become Google Earth and our audience had become much, much larger. Our "Santa Radar" team also grew: we used greatly improved icons from Dennis Hwang, the Google Doodler, and set up 20 machines to serve the tracking information. My colleague Michael Ashbridge took over the software and more than 250,000 people tracked Santa on Google Earth that Christmas Eve. In 2006, Google acquired <a href="http://sketchup.google.com/" id="vpus" title="SketchUp">SketchUp</a>, a 3D modeling software that enabled us to include models of Santa's North Pole workshop and sleigh. We also incorporated a tracking feed directly from NORAD's headquarters, and we were now displaying NORAD's information in Google Earth. That year, more than a million people tracked Santa.<br /><br />In 2007, Google became NORAD's official Santa Tracking technology partner and hosted <a href="http://www.noradsanta.org/" target="_blank">www.noradsanta.org</a>. In addition to tracking Santa in Google Earth, we added a Google Maps tracker and integrated YouTube videos into the journey as well. Now, we had Santa on the map and on "Santa Cam" arriving in several different locations around the world, with commentary in six different languages. The heavy traffic — several millions of users — put Google's infrastructure to the test, but with some heroic work by our system reliability engineers, the Santa Tracker worked continuously.<br /><br />This year, Googler Bruno Bowden is in charge of the Santa software, and we have further upgraded our server capacity. We're hoping this version of the tracker will be the best yet. In addition to our "Santa Cam" footage, geo-located photos from <a href="http://www.panoramio.com/">Panoramio</a> will be viewable in Google Maps for each of Santa's stops that don't include video. We've also included a few new ways to track Santa. With Google Maps for mobile, anyone can keep tabs on him from their <a href="http://www.noradsanta.org/en/trackmobile.html" id="rj47" title="mobile phones">mobile phones</a> (just activate GMM and search for "norad santa"). You can also receive updates from "Bitz the Elf" on Twitter by following <a href="http://www.twitter.com/noradsanta" id="yknm" title="@noradsanta">@noradsanta</a>. And of course, be sure to visit <a href="http://www.noradsanta.org/" target="_blank">www.noradsanta.org</a> tomorrow morning starting at 6:00 am EST when Santa's journey begins. Enjoy, and see you in 2009!<br /><br /><span class="byline-author">Posted by Brian McClendon, Original Google Engineering Elf</span>

Tracking Santa: the backstory

When I look back on four years of tracking Old St. Nick on Christmas Eve, I can't help but smile. The Santa tracker has really come a lo...

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New search-by-style options for Google Image Search

Many of us use Google Image Search to find imagery of people, clip art for presentations, diagrams for reports, and of course symbols and patterns for artistic inspiration. Unfortunately, searching for the perfect image can be challenging if the search results match the meaning of your query but aren't in a style that's useful to you. So some time ago we launched face search, which lets you limit your search results to only images containing faces (see a search <a href="http://images.google.com/images?q=house">without</a> and <a href="http://images.google.com/images?q=house&imgtype=face&as_st=y">with</a> this option). More recently we also rolled out photo search, which limits results to images that contain photographic elements, ignoring many cartoons and drawings which may not be useful to you (see a search <a href="http://images.google.com/images?q=ireland">without</a> and <a href="http://images.google.com/images?q=ireland&imgtype=photo&as_st=y">with</a> this option).<br /><br />Today we're pleased to extend this capability to clip art and line drawings. To see the effect of these new options, let's take a look at the first few results for "Christmas," one of our most popular queries on Image Search right now.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Photo content</span><br /><br /><a href="http://images.google.com/images?q=Christmas&imgtype=photo&as_st=y" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5281279935014268130" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb_hCbH3XRugU19XBMN_ZbzYnfyX4QTf9-GbS1BhB5uDL-sfDkHmSUIBYaJ7FclcGNM9G8E9VyBitH-ddMC1KeU4Rv8SjhA6JYMZzTlutULi8pn7xyhDs8oYK0YeHRnnIMjWUnc37s4NRQ/s400/Screenshot_photo_4images.png" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 111px;" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">Clip art</span><br /><br /><a href="http://images.google.com/images?q=Christmas&imgtype=clipart&as_st=y" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5281280456576345794" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNVkBGrYpVNjnTiAAFhhjxrLwryaWMqPDZNKLOC-0OANIoYOFFtG2UXoDcoNmH4rRlCmZradh3lvJAzetXyzqE3ULMUyEFOhEtRJNa_q3LWDro3FCuXNubvXrchojJUTxw1MRZ6at8XipY/s400/Screenshot_clipart_4images.png" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 109px;" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">Line drawing</span><br /><br /><a href="http://images.google.com/images?q=Christmas&imgtype=lineart&as_st=y" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5281280315216310546" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5oZuOF8Tr3YRQEH3pgQpZNHut3QCwDeprhVWOyAGazMcZRpdw2c0cNVhk8mYWACEIJ4ahTqFXgKcYqYAaFXtbteQQfKhtVlRBn8laDVptdqVr4onhQsnJnJyZMp7VyVe9dMoZKgX4ICv8/s400/Screenshot_lineart_4images.png" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 120px;" /></a><br />All of these options can be selected from the "Any content" drop down in the blue title bar on any search results page, or by selecting one of the "Content types" on the <a href="http://images.google.com/advanced_image_search">Advanced Image Search</a> page. The good news: no extra typing! In all these examples our query remained exactly the same, we just restricted our results to different visual styles. So whether you're interested <a href="http://images.google.com/images?q=wreath&imgtype=photo&as_st=y">holiday wreaths</a>, <a href="http://images.google.com/images?q=celtic&imgtype=lineart&as_st=y">Celtic patterns</a>, or <a href="http://images.google.com/images?q=office&imgtype=clipart&as_st=y">office clip art</a>, it just became a lot easier to find the images you're looking for.<br /><br /><span class="byline-author">Posted by Sean O'Malley, Software Engineer, Google Image Search</span>

New search-by-style options for Google Image Search

Many of us use Google Image Search to find imagery of people, clip art for presentations, diagrams for reports, and of course symbols and pa...

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Black Googlers Network: building community

<span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" >We believe great ideas can come from anywhere and everyone. And we aspire to be an organization that reflects global diversity, because we know that a world's worth of perspectives, ideas and cultures leads to the creation of better products and services. We have more than a dozen employee-driven resource groups, from Gayglers to GWE (Google Women Engineers), that actively participate around the world in building community and driving policy at Google. This is the next post in our <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/transgender-remembrance-day.html">Interface series</a>, which takes a look at valuing people's similarities and differences in the workplace. For more information on how Google fosters an inclusive work environment, visit <a href="http://www.google.com/support/jobs/bin/static.py?page=about.html">Life at Google</a> on our Jobs site. – Ed.</span><br /><br />It's been a busy few months for the Black Googlers Network (BGN). One of our group's core goals is to build a community that keeps us connected, facilitates the sharing of ideas, and participates in community outreach. We sponsored a variety of events this fall across many of our offices, giving us the opportunity to give back and have some fun while doing it.<br /><br />To kick things off, a group of us from the Mountain View, New York, Ann Arbor, Chicago and Atlanta offices, to name a few, rolled up our sleeves for our first annual service trip. We headed to New Orleans in September to aid in the Hurricane Katrina rebuilding efforts. Undeterred by Hurricane Gustav, which unexpectedly hit the coast the week before we arrived, we managed to make some adjustments to flights and itineraries and were some of the first volunteers back into the city.<br /><br />We partnered with the <a href="http://www.stbernardproject.org/">St. Bernard Project</a>, learning everything from how to lay flooring to installing drywall as we worked on three homes. Additionally, we joined a strategy session with <a href="http://www.ideavillage.org/">The Idea Village</a>, helping them kick off their newest initiative, the <a href="http://www.ideavillage.org/vanguardtalent/504ward.php?PHPSESSID=6bda8a2c4989d232d4c9f814cb53d637">504ward Project</a>. The opportunity to serve the community in such a meaningful way while getting to know BGN members was unique. We each put our minds, bodies, and souls into the city and the experience.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE6mYaIM3bUSy2XMYj5ZgAf_ub_SdOQxprTJudjZ7mUObY1t2vAzNHKIulngHzdZfV38GS4lDPxvb-ppLc61jirCEfZCkZmGMxh9fZwH5RCG7Qw6LfqLjs5Up70TRmEVMLFiuz2sfrYFyA/s1600-h/Group+Photo+.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5281279082635779426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE6mYaIM3bUSy2XMYj5ZgAf_ub_SdOQxprTJudjZ7mUObY1t2vAzNHKIulngHzdZfV38GS4lDPxvb-ppLc61jirCEfZCkZmGMxh9fZwH5RCG7Qw6LfqLjs5Up70TRmEVMLFiuz2sfrYFyA/s400/Group+Photo+.jpg" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 286px;" /></a><br /><br />Next, BGN participated in the <a href="http://www.uncf.org/">United Negro College Fund's</a> annual Walk-a-thon in Oakland, CA. Our Google-UNCF partnership also includes an annual scholarship for college students pursing a degree in engineering or computer science, and we're continuing to explore different ways to support and encourage underrepresented students.<br /><br />This month, we're coming together in many of our offices for the holidays, giving ourselves a chance to catch up and take stock of the work we've done over the past year. Not to be slowed down for too long, though, as we will soon begin the exciting process of planning our new initiatives for 2009.<br /><br /><span class="byline-author">Posted by Alexa Bush, University Programs Team</span>

Black Googlers Network: building community

We believe great ideas can come from anywhere and everyone. And we aspire to be an organization that reflects global diversity, because we k...

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Blog gadget 2.0

Back in September we <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/now-read-us-in-gadget-form.html">introduced</a> an iGoogle gadget that makes it possible to read recent posts from all of our corporate blogs, right on your dashboard. With the help of developer Ben Lisbakken, we're ready to roll out the <a href="http://www.google.com/ig/adde?hl=en&moduleurl=www.google.com/ig/modules/google_blogs.xml&source=imag">next version of the gadget</a>, which translates posts into 34 languages. Using <a href="http://translate.google.com/">Google Translate</a>, the gadget gives people all over the world access to posts they might otherwise be unable to read. The default setting translates posts into the language in which your browser is set, but you can also choose from any of our supported languages by going into the "Edit" setting (found in the "Menu" arrow in the right-hand corner). If you want to learn more about <a href="http://googleamericalatinablog.blogspot.com/">Google in Latin America</a> or <a href="http://adwords-ru.blogspot.com/">AdWords in Russia</a>, for example, but haven't had the chance to learn Spanish or Russian, give the gadget a spin. While machine translation is not exact, and we're constantly working to improve the quality, hopefully this new feature lets you get the gist of the post.<br /><br />Here's a list of the supported languages:<br />Arabic, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese, Chinese (simplified), Chinese (traditional), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese<br /><br /><br />Just choose the category of blogs you would like to read and click the "Translate" button.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2fH9Tnaq27rR6DCN37iAu08X7V7iA9F8KgpVhFeZ-PU_lT6ddX-eEtVXQDyZbOTYr-o4JF41cWyZhrUBxfKqNGEVU041eDSYK-B6NHDMTjt-oDZNJNabHnNXFeCkErrtAtip_Rjdg7EYr/s1600-h/Picture+3.png" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5280904983779006178" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2fH9Tnaq27rR6DCN37iAu08X7V7iA9F8KgpVhFeZ-PU_lT6ddX-eEtVXQDyZbOTYr-o4JF41cWyZhrUBxfKqNGEVU041eDSYK-B6NHDMTjt-oDZNJNabHnNXFeCkErrtAtip_Rjdg7EYr/s400/Picture+3.png" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 326px;" /></a><br />The gadget will translate the posts and give you the option to "Revert" back to the original language. And to read the entire blog in translation, just click on the blog title beneath the post.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEincL_YIwbC70TeQ1padAoR-tozMj6b7lJBXj-2qebvEzubg8-BPqnWn16uv_87RX_0ZAcHogY9bLec3mEhGfVqAxa4V9y1gav22ROQz1pnXoaBd2bNjghCmNlVFwJkkLwjSyUfDO-o2w83/s1600-h/Picture+6.png" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5280905275888278626" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEincL_YIwbC70TeQ1padAoR-tozMj6b7lJBXj-2qebvEzubg8-BPqnWn16uv_87RX_0ZAcHogY9bLec3mEhGfVqAxa4V9y1gav22ROQz1pnXoaBd2bNjghCmNlVFwJkkLwjSyUfDO-o2w83/s400/Picture+6.png" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 328px;" /></a><br />We hope you have fun exploring the entire Google blogosphere.<br /><br /><span class="byline-author">Posted by Jordan Newman, Google Blog Team </span>

Blog gadget 2.0

Back in September we introduced an iGoogle gadget that makes it possible to read recent posts from all of our corporate blogs, right on you...

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Jean Bartik: the untold story of a remarkable ENIAC programmer

<span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">This guest post was written by <a href="http://www.eniacprogrammers.org/team.shtml">Kathy Kleiman</a>, who discovered the ENIAC Programmers 20 years ago and founded the ENIAC Programmers Project to record their stories and produce the first feature documentary about their work. More at <a href="http://www.eniacprogrammers.org/">www.eniacprogrammers.org</a>. – Ed.</span></span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;">"For many years in the computing industry, the hardware was it, the software was considered an auxiliary thing."</span><br /><span>– Jean Bartik</span><br /><br />For more than 50 years, the women of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ENIAC" id="u_h2" title="Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer">Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer</a> (ENIAC) were forgotten, and their role in programming the first all-electronic programmable computer and creating the software industry lost. But this fall, old met young, and a great computer pioneer met today's Internet pioneers. It happened in Silicon Valley and it happened at Google.<br /><br />A little over a month ago, the <span style="font-style: normal;"></span><a href="http://www.computerhistory.org/" id="ehp1" title="Computer History Museum">Computer History Museum</a> (CHM) in Mountain View honored <span style="font-style: normal;"></span><a href="http://www.computerhistory.org/fellowawards/index.php?id=121" id="rmhv" title="Jean Bartik">Jean Bartik</a> with its Fellows Award. This lifetime achievement award recognized her work as a programmer of the ENIAC and leader of the team to convert ENIAC to a stored program machine.<br /><br />The Fellows Award was a rousing celebration of Bartik, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Metcalfe" id="pzs7" title="Bob Metcalfe">Bob Metcalfe</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linus_Torvalds" id="d5ju" title="Linus Torvalds">Linus Torvalds</a>. The next night, Bartik returned to CHM to discuss her life story in <span style="font-style: italic;">An Evening with Jean Jennings Bartik, ENIAC Pioneer</span>. More than 400 people attended. They laughed at Bartik's descriptions of the ENIAC Programmers' exploits and enjoyed her stories of “Technical Camelot,” Bartik's description of her days at Eckert and Mauchly Computer Corporation in the 1950s. This video captures the evening:<br /><br /><br /><object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/buAYHonF968&hl=en&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/buAYHonF968&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="344" width="425"></embed></object><br /><br /><br />During the Q&A session, one audience member asked: “If you were working today, where would you want to work?” Without hesitation, Bartik replied “Google!” with a huge smile. Googlers in the audience cheered.<br /><br />Two days later, Bartik and I went to Google. We were met by our hosts, Ellen Spertus, Robin Jeffries, Peter Toole and Stephanie Williams, and whisked onto the campus past scrolling screens of Google searches and beach volleyball courts.<br /><br />In the cafeteria, two dozen Google Women Engineers joined us. They pushed their chairs close to Bartik and leaned in to catch every word. Bartik regaled them with stories of computing's pioneers – the genius of John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert, co-inventors of the computer, and the ingenuity of Betty Holberton and Kay Mauchly Antonelli, fellow programmers and software creators. She shared the joys and struggles of those who created the computer industry.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg99o0QrJzZpIx327u3suSKI6b7Y06wCuOs3R1ZsKwQEXwvx64kx7Bg1k1Yr80_kEv48GwTXHRoytyzsBFGLhKwFg7LwjcQ3WO3caHWSFekeczFf6enBJ88pH79K8u-98MmBoV00gOLB4qi/s1600-h/3004710116_088c72cf4e.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5280828104092704754" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg99o0QrJzZpIx327u3suSKI6b7Y06wCuOs3R1ZsKwQEXwvx64kx7Bg1k1Yr80_kEv48GwTXHRoytyzsBFGLhKwFg7LwjcQ3WO3caHWSFekeczFf6enBJ88pH79K8u-98MmBoV00gOLB4qi/s320/3004710116_088c72cf4e.jpg" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 213px;" /></a><br /><br />After lunch we toured the campus. Bartik enjoyed seeing where Googlers program work and the videoconferencing equipment they use to talk with colleagues around the world.<br /><br />It is a visit we will never forget, and for me, its own moment in history. Twenty years ago, I discovered the ENIAC Programmers and learned their untold story. I founded the ENIAC Programmers Project to record their histories, seek recognition for them and produce the first feature documentary of their story. Our <a href="http://www.eniacprogrammers.org/" id="krs3" title="website">website</a> provides more information about the documentary, WWII-era pictures and an opportunity to help change history. The stories Bartik shared with Googlers that day belong to the world.<br /><br /><span class="byline-author">Posted by Kathy Kleiman, Founder, ENIAC Programmers Project</span>

Jean Bartik: the untold story of a remarkable ENIAC programmer

This guest post was written by Kathy Kleiman , who discovered the ENIAC Programmers 20 years ago and founded the ENIAC Programmers Project t...

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Picasa 3 (and name tags) go global

A few months back, we announced <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/introducing-picasa-30-and-big-changes.html">some pretty big upgrades</a> to Picasa and Picasa Web Albums for English-speaking users in the U.S. On the PC side, we rolled out a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rskC6c_5L1M">brand-new version of Picasa</a>, with a <a href="http://googlephotos.blogspot.com/2008/09/closer-look-at-picasa-3-beta.html">slew of new tools</a> like effortless web sync, movie editing, and photo-retouching capabilities. On the web, we launched "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teeGF-w5Cpw">name tags</a>," a new feature that automatically helps organize your photo collection based on who's in each of your pictures.<br /><br />Today, just in time for your holiday snapshots, these changes (and more!) are available in all of the 38 languages we currently support. If you've been waiting to try the new photo-collage feature in Picasa, or been curious to see how clustering technology can automatically find similar faces across your photo collection, now's the time to <a href="http://picasa.google.com/thanks.html">download Picasa 3.1</a> or opt in to name tags on Picasa Web Albums.<br /><br />Of course, having a truly global audience sharing and commenting on photos is one of the things that makes Picasa special. The people and places you'll spot on our <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/explore#">Explore page</a> attest to this, as do the multilingual comments users receive on their most popular public albums. That's why we just launched automatic comment translation on Picasa Web Albums, which harnesses Google Translate to make sure you know that "美麗的落日" means "<span style="font-style: italic;">Beautiful sunset</span>!"<br /><br />In fact, if you look closely, you'll see that we've recently rolled out a number of other small but meaningful changes across Picasa Web Albums, in all 38 languages -- ranging from <a href="http://googlephotos.blogspot.com/2008/12/improved-sharing-international-name.html">improved sharing to better video playback</a>. Swing by the <a href="http://googlephotos.blogspot.com/">Google Photos blog</a> to learn more about what's new.<br /><br />(Or, if you speak British or American English, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Brazilian or European Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Turkish, Danish , Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish, Bulgarian, Catalan, Croatian, Czech, Greek, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Romanian, Serbian, Slovakian, Slovenian, Tagolog, Thai, Vietnamese, or Ukrainian, just visit <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/">Picasa Web Albums </a>and see for yourself!)<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq-fqx0Zjwg7eNFGIsCnEYThiEiSv1u40Kc6UNj0aaMj8o29QFsYXTU3rG45zKY-TmfJ9mL5hAqyaRDFkJosrmhxu2EFsMoTW62KBxuawq1km3CbalASyFrNL4m4UJO1UJwlVVWjhwlY5F/s1600-h/thai_picasa.png" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5280549863100484418" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq-fqx0Zjwg7eNFGIsCnEYThiEiSv1u40Kc6UNj0aaMj8o29QFsYXTU3rG45zKY-TmfJ9mL5hAqyaRDFkJosrmhxu2EFsMoTW62KBxuawq1km3CbalASyFrNL4m4UJO1UJwlVVWjhwlY5F/s400/thai_picasa.png" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 290px;" /></a><br /><br /><span class="byline-author">Posted by Jason Cook, Product Marketing Manager</span>

Picasa 3 (and name tags) go global

A few months back, we announced some pretty big upgrades to Picasa and Picasa Web Albums for English-speaking users in the U.S. On the PC ...

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Gingerbread architecture for all

<span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" >(Cross-posted from the <a href="http://sketchupdate.blogspot.com/2008/12/gingerbread-architecture-for-all.html">Google SketchUp Blog</a>)</span><br /><br />Chilly weather, hot chocolate, holiday celebrations... I'm proud to kick off our sweetest <a href="http://sketchup.google.com/" id="fm97" target="_blank" title="SketchUp">SketchUp</a> modeling challenge ever: the first annual Google SketchUp Gingerbread House Design Competition. To make it a little easier to design the gingerbread house of your dreams, I modeled a blank house to get you started. Go ahead and <a href="http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=539a3e1c5487720d45f5590ac69325a5" id="mfj1" target="_blank" title="download">download</a> it from the 3D Warehouse, then follow the instructions in the file.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDZ1HMQi1co10ZSr52PlkqWEZbQpmqH02VypGcxlBUpwygle21hBeiyNJLn3OBvtTBd_DXmln3NbfmwXI3ZHajbrqSKsvwpUA1doWZuv2VWzJr4gvbPO2w1sLRZuDcJB32Rtt36mfQzDYq/s1600-h/Gingerbread+House.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5280207571539506418" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDZ1HMQi1co10ZSr52PlkqWEZbQpmqH02VypGcxlBUpwygle21hBeiyNJLn3OBvtTBd_DXmln3NbfmwXI3ZHajbrqSKsvwpUA1doWZuv2VWzJr4gvbPO2w1sLRZuDcJB32Rtt36mfQzDYq/s400/Gingerbread+House.jpg" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 286px;" /></a><br /><br />I also built a <a href="http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/cldetails?mid=4a805adbfc4a25d945f5590ac69325a5&ct=mdcc" id="vncw" target="_blank" title="selection of decorations">selection of decorations</a> (candy canes, gumdrops, wafer roof tiles) that you can use to spiff up your model. Of course, you're welcome to do anything you like; it's your masterpiece. When you're finished, don't forget to label your gingerbread house with the tag "gingerbread2009" and upload it to the 3D Warehouse. The competition deadline is January 4th at midnight, Pacific Standard Time.<br /><br />This undertaking is all about having fun with SketchUp, so the prizes will be glory based. (What did you expect: a gingerbread flat-screen TV?) We'll award the following prizes, and announce the winners here and on the <a href="http://sketchupdate.blogspot.com/" id="uahe" target="_blank" title="SketchUpdate">SketchUpdate</a> about a week after the competition closes on January 4th.<br /><ul><li> 1st, 2nd and 3rd place – for the best overall gingerbread houses in the collection</li><li> The 'Sprinkles' Prize – for the best additions to the base model (the crazier, the better)</li><li> The 'Swirl' Prize – for the best use of <a href="http://sketchupdate.blogspot.com/2008/11/more-about-dynamic-components.html" id="d1xy" target="_blank" title="Dynamic Components">Dynamic Components</a> in the model</li><li> The 'Sweet-tooth' Prize – for the most creative use of a single candy ingredient in a model</li></ul>If you're looking for inspiration, take a gander at what folks did with <a href="http://sketchupdate.blogspot.com/2008/01/santas-going-to-need-bigger-garage.html" id="xqze" target="_blank" title="Santa's sleigh">Santa's sleigh</a> last year. Have fun, and happy holidays.<br /><br /><span class="byline-author">Posted by Aidan Chopra, Product Evangelist<br /></span>

Gingerbread architecture for all

(Cross-posted from the Google SketchUp Blog ) Chilly weather, hot chocolate, holiday celebrations... I'm proud to kick off our sweetest ...

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