Cardboard creativity

A few months ago, the <a href="http://code.google.com/opensource/">Google Open Source team</a> had an offsite in our Chicago office, and we were looking for something fun, social, and geeky for the teams to do during informal discussions. Before that, my colleague <a href="http://www.azarask.in/blog/">Aza</a> had shown me a cool new thing that he was making called <a href="http://www.bloxes.com/">Bloxes</a> -- interlocking cardboard boxes that were something like giant legos that connected on all six sides. They were actually invented by Aza's father, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jef_Raskin">Jef Raskin</a> (who started the Macintosh project at Apple), and were originally intended to be used to build flexible workspaces (like easily morphable cubicles). Having seen some samples of what you could build with them, I thought it would be fun to order a bunch of Bloxes for the team to build things out of while sitting around chatting and brainstorming.<br /><br />We built a number of interesting things out of the Bloxes that week, but the real fun started after the offsite was over. Several of the Chicago engineers really took to the Bloxes; every week new, fun new sculptures would show up in the lounge. And every week, they would get knocked down (often by the same people who built them up). We decided to match the brown Bloxes with an equal number of white Bloxes, bringing our total to 360. Creativity took it from there -- from a <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/fitz/Bloxes#5282488817741788034">conference room</a> and a <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/fitz/Bloxes#5282489108497303698">giant archway</a> to <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/fitz/Bloxes#5282489367991233714">living room furniture</a>, a pair of <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/fitz/Bloxes#5282489198245989458">giant dice</a>, an <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/fitz/Bloxes#5282490014580054098">office</a>, and <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/fitz/Bloxes">much, much more</a>.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimceng1B1TA2O1PLor4XV4USyweCSYqzTxZ7T7az08n04qMVf_uNJmbjqQvzbrraHnLDSGoRQBZDxjUbOr5Wpn7u2KYUnJhCHja7Uon0_3d5JwE3PUWAWEhfJ2-LFI3SyESHv51tZp2p8J/s1600-h/IMG_0331.JPG"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5288712419989484882" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimceng1B1TA2O1PLor4XV4USyweCSYqzTxZ7T7az08n04qMVf_uNJmbjqQvzbrraHnLDSGoRQBZDxjUbOr5Wpn7u2KYUnJhCHja7Uon0_3d5JwE3PUWAWEhfJ2-LFI3SyESHv51tZp2p8J/s400/IMG_0331.JPG" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" /></a><br />Frequently, engineers wind up building something while discussing a bug or a feature, and it's a great conversation starter when other Googlers walk by and see a work in progress. So, what started as a somewhat quiet lounge with a whiteboard quickly became a must-see stop on the office tour for visiting dignitaries, and even better, an ever-changing public space that's fun to construct, and even more fun to knock down.<br /><br /><br /><span class="byline-author">Posted by Brian Fitzpatrick, Engineering Manager, Chicago</span>

Cardboard creativity

A few months ago, the Google Open Source team had an offsite in our Chicago office, and we were looking for something fun, social, and geek...

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Google at Macworld

After months of anticipation, <a href="http://www.macworldexpo.com/">Macworld 2009</a> is finally here. Throughout the four days of the expo (from now until Jan. 9), more than 100 Googlers from several product teams will be available to demonstrate Google software for the Mac and the iPhone.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRneWmnxYhSYDvxCaUbGFhiBVMd8Dp-JrIV_pSfKYCVLLRtQDrE4xxeyBMIXyYTyMr_DnaejUHDKhl01mzMRRoNDvuySCM-dZcg2OQod6Fb1qia_s8Nqh-5eo6n8iWO_2g3ZpbJceIFEfb/s1600-h/2.JPG"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5288293590403041058" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRneWmnxYhSYDvxCaUbGFhiBVMd8Dp-JrIV_pSfKYCVLLRtQDrE4xxeyBMIXyYTyMr_DnaejUHDKhl01mzMRRoNDvuySCM-dZcg2OQod6Fb1qia_s8Nqh-5eo6n8iWO_2g3ZpbJceIFEfb/s400/2.JPG" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 265px;" /></a><br />Picasa for Mac made its <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/introducing-picasa-for-mac-at-macworld.html">debut</a> yesterday, and you can follow along on the <a href="http://googlemac.blogspot.com/">Google Mac Blog</a> for more details on what we have in store for the rest of the week.<br /><br />If you're going to Macworld, we invite you to stop by. And for those of you who can't make it, many of the demos are available via video at <a href="http://www.google.com/mac/macworld/">google.com/macworld</a>.<br /><br /><span class="byline-author">Posted by Jason Toff, Associate Product Marketing Manager<br /></span>

Google at Macworld

After months of anticipation, Macworld 2009 is finally here. Throughout the four days of the expo (from now until Jan. 9), more than 100 Go...

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Introducing Picasa for Mac (at Macworld!)

Sometimes I find it hard to describe Picasa without sounding like a late-night infomercial for a multi-bladed thingamabob: "It's a photo organizer! A photo editor! A web-savvy photo sharing and management system in just one tiny package!"<br /><br />We try hard to avoid hyperbole around here, but it's true that <a href="http://picasa.google.com/">Picasa software</a>, working together with <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/home">Picasa Web Albums</a>, can help with <a href="http://picasa.google.com/features.html">nearly every aspect</a> of owning and operating a digital camera. And because many of us take pictures in order to share them, we try to make sure Picasa does a great job of getting your favorite photos online, where friends and family can enjoy them too. In Picasa 3, that means <a href="http://googlephotos.blogspot.com/2008/09/closer-look-at-picasa-3-beta.html">powerful new features</a> like automatically syncing changes between the photos on your computer and what you're sharing online, useful privacy controls integrated into the software on your PC, easier notifications, and more.<br /><br />And today, we're releasing <a href="http://picasa.google.com/mac/">Picasa for Mac</a>. While we've previously offered both a standalone Picasa Web Albums <a href="http://picasa.google.com/mac_tools.html">uploader</a> and an <a href="http://picasa.google.com/mac_tools.html">iPhoto plugin</a> for Mac users, Picasa for Mac finally brings all of the advanced sharing and sync features of Picasa to the millions of Mac OS X users who use Picasa Web Albums. Not to mention the "it-slices-and-dices" feature list that covers everything from color balance to collages.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMSffk1U035sZeXJtgO2F29wIu6XxvYCIXMle34C0Qco2u0m2IMekpgl4fJekPWupcgHXM4kNa3Yp73z4qiwB2rHlGLLFjyg6dBSq27_6O134JMZJsUpw7Dio3lTPr6B5uzjD0GcZJd5gV/s1600-h/Picasa_Uploading_blogsize.png"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5287922620079719842" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMSffk1U035sZeXJtgO2F29wIu6XxvYCIXMle34C0Qco2u0m2IMekpgl4fJekPWupcgHXM4kNa3Yp73z4qiwB2rHlGLLFjyg6dBSq27_6O134JMZJsUpw7Dio3lTPr6B5uzjD0GcZJd5gV/s320/Picasa_Uploading_blogsize.png" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 237px;" /></a><br />Picasa for Mac looks and works much like Picasa on other platforms, and offers trademark Picasa features — such as non-destructive editing, and the ability to keep track of photos anywhere on your hard drive, then automatically account for new images as you add them.<br /><br />Right now, Picasa for Mac is still in Google Labs, but we very much wanted to get an early version out to folks attending Macworld (you can learn more about this beta release at the <a href="http://googlephotos.blogspot.com/2009/01/announcing-picasa-for-mac.html">Google Photos blog</a>). To run Picasa, you'll need an Intel-based Mac running Mac OS X 10.4 and above. We hope you'll give it a spin, and give us your feedback in person — members of the Picasa engineering team will be conducting demos at <a href="http://googlemac.blogspot.com/2008/12/google-at-macworld-expo.html">Google's Macworld booth</a> all week (you can also check out the video tour below).<br /><br /><object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/NDKFjc3_wrk&hl=en&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/NDKFjc3_wrk&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="344" width="425"></embed></object><br /><br /><span class="byline-author">Posted by Susanna Leng, Software Engineer</span>

Introducing Picasa for Mac (at Macworld!)

Sometimes I find it hard to describe Picasa without sounding like a late-night infomercial for a multi-bladed thingamabob: "It's a...

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Google blogging in 2008

Every year right about now we round up our blogging activity across Google. Ready? Here goes.<br /><br />This is our 368th post of the year on the main Google blog, which is 23% more than in 2007. In addition to more posts, we are thrilled to know that we have many more readers now — 78% more, to be exact. The number of unique visitors jumped from 6,738,830 last year to more than 12 million (12,000,723) in 2008. And readers are coming from all over: the UK, Canada, India, Australia, Germany, France, Spain, Japan and beyond. The top non-Google referrers are Yahoo, Digg, Reddit, Lifehacker and Slashdot.<br /><br />We posted quite a bit about new products (10) and new product features (56), but nothing caused as much excitement as our <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/fresh-take-on-browser.html" id="i2dv" title="earlier-than-planned unveiling of Google Chrome">earlier-than-planned unveiling of Google Chrome</a>. This post alone had 1,735,093 unique visitors and generated 12% of our total-year pageviews on the blog! There was also the much-anticipated announcement of the <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/first-android-powered-phone.html" id="cisc" title="first Android-powered phone">first Android-powered phone</a>. And people enjoyed reading about our <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/what-makes-design-googley.html" id="drm:" title="design philosophies">design philosophies</a>. Who knew a little change to a <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/06/one-fish-two-fish-red-fish-blue-fish.html" id="ebks" title="favicon">favicon</a> would generate such interest?<br /><br />But it wasn't all just product news; there was much else to cover in 2008. To mark Google's 10th birthday, we took a moment to reflect on the enormous impact the Internet has had on people's lives since our founding. Some of our in-house experts <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/search/label/Google%20at%2010" id="l.5c" title="share their thoughts">shared their thoughts</a> on how various technologies will evolve in the next 10 years.<br /><br />Like many of you, we were on the edge of seats watching all of the U.S. election action. We posted 27 times about political subjects, providing information about <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/wrapup-google-election-info.html" id="g0x4" title="voting tools">voting tools</a>, <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/02/superdelegate-layer-in-google-earth.html" id="oonu" title="how the political process works">how the political process works</a>, and <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/top-searches-on-election-day-part-3.html" id="m0-o" title="what was on people's minds">what was top of mind</a> on Election Day. It's clear that technology will be playing an <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/06/elections-in-internet-era.html" id="wdvh" title="even bigger role">even bigger role</a> in politics in years to come.<br /><br />Of course, we had some fun too: We kept our long-standing April Fools' Day tradition going with the announcement of <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/announcing-project-virgle.html" id="bscl" title="Project Virgle">Project Virgle</a>; we covered <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/10/traveling-by-zip-line.html" id="nrcu" title="new ways to get around">new ways to get around</a> the Googleplex and the masterminding of a <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/08/reinventing-wheel.html" id="t.ll" title="giant Ferris Wheel">giant Ferris wheel</a>; and we raised our glass to a couple who <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/06/i-got-married-with-google.html" id="wj_3" title="got married with Google">got married with Google</a>.<br /><br />And the Google blog network keeps on growing: 44 new blogs launched this year, for a total of 127 active company blogs. A few highlights: eight new developer blogs (the <a href="http://google-opensource.blogspot.com/" id="z3w9" title="Open Source blog">Open Source blog</a> is shining star, with 370,000 unique visitors since its start in February), and 22 new ads-related blogs, nearly half of which are in languages other than English (there are AdSense blogs in <a href="http://zht-adsense.blogspot.com/" id="nyxr" title="Traditional Chinese">Traditional Chinese</a> and <a href="http://adsense-ru.blogspot.com/" id="ou1v" title="Russian">Russian</a>; and AdWords blogs in <a href="http://adwords-da.blogspot.com/" id="xenz" title="Danish">Danish</a>, <a href="http://adsense-de.blogspot.com/" id="v-ib" title="Deutsch">German</a>, <a href="http://adwords-tr.blogspot.com/" id="mqe:" title="Turkish">Turkish</a>, <a href="http://adwords-fr.blogspot.com/" id="dja7" title="French">French</a>, <a href="http://adwords-ru.blogspot.com/" id="n3-1" title="Russia">Russian</a>, <a href="http://adwords-ko.blogspot.com/" id="um7l" title="Korean">Korean</a>, <a href="http://adwords-se.blogspot.com/" id="ye50" title="Swedish">Swedish</a>, <a href="http://adwords-no.blogspot.com/" id="xan1" title="Norway">Norwegian</a>, <a href="http://adwords-fi.blogspot.com/" id="btu6" title="Finland">Finnish</a>, and <a href="http://adwords-al.blogspot.com/" id="xef:" title="Spanish">Spanish</a>). There's even an Analytics blog in <a href="http://analytics-fr.blogspot.com/" id="nm7w" title="French">French</a>. And we also welcomed three new regional blogs, for <a href="http://googleindia.blogspot.com/" id="v3.o" title="Google India">India</a>, <a href="http://google-africa.blogspot.com/" id="djhv" title="Google Africa">Africa</a>, and <a href="http://google-ukraine-blog.blogspot.com/" id="oanb" title="Google Ukraine">the Ukraine</a>. Sharing information with people wherever they are in whatever language they speak is a priority for us, and each of these new blogs helps us get a little bit closer to this goal. If the total number of Google blogs makes your head spin, don't worry. We've developed a new <a title="blog directory" href="http://www.google.com/press/blogs/directory.html#tab0" id="bvyh">blog directory</a> and <a title="gadget" href="http://www.google.com/ig/adde?hl=en&moduleurl=www.google.com/uds/gadgets/google_blogs/google_blogs.xml&source=imag" id="njop">gadget</a> to help you more easily track news and updates from us.<br /><br />We're looking forward to another robust year of keeping you informed of all the goings-on at Google. In the meantime, we wish you and yours a very happy New Year.<br /><br /><span class="byline-author">Posted by Susan Straccia, Google Blog Team<br /></span>

Google blogging in 2008

Every year right about now we round up our blogging activity across Google. Ready? Here goes. This is our 368th post of the year on the main...

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A grateful season

The holidays are a time for giving, and Googlers across the globe have found some creative ways to give back to their communities this season. From raising money and crafting greeting cards to building gingerbread houses and giving blood, Googlers from east to west have been busy spreading good cheer. We've highlighted just a few of these efforts here, and we're looking forward to many more opportunities to give back in the new year.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">London</span><br />The UK engineering recruitment team started to plan its annual Secret Santa gift exchange. But as they began thinking about last year, they realized that hardly anyone on the team could remember what they'd received, let alone given. Instead of spending 10 pounds on gag gifts, they decided to use the money to make a difference. After discovering that a local children's hospital was in desperate need of gifts, they quickly raised enough money to buy a Nintendo Wii gaming console for one of the wards.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSFyn3HehvUGeWbfnS2wnjwjLsUkqzYz87kd9jy_kUSfVweV_5sCGsudDW5o8rtek7y5SlUp61K-aTeE9B8WqK9tWuXjEoyO0cvCIpxpHkHvF3HcxCVFepT7oPaO796ZWRa1GnxtJHYKsB/s1600-h/charity1.png"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5283113547345885586" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSFyn3HehvUGeWbfnS2wnjwjLsUkqzYz87kd9jy_kUSfVweV_5sCGsudDW5o8rtek7y5SlUp61K-aTeE9B8WqK9tWuXjEoyO0cvCIpxpHkHvF3HcxCVFepT7oPaO796ZWRa1GnxtJHYKsB/s320/charity1.png" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 260px;" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Mexico City</span><br />In the past, Google has held a "Doodle 4 Google" contest in the <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/05/we-have-doodle-4-google-national-winner.html">US</a>, the <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/11/history-is-cool-for-school.html">UK</a>, and <a href="http://google-au.blogspot.com/2007/11/doodle-4-google-winner-is.html">Australia</a>, inviting kids K-12 to submit a homepage doodle inspired by a particular theme. This year <a href="http://googleamericalatinablog.blogspot.com/2008/12/doodle-4-google-una-mirada-mxico-travs.html">Mexico</a> held its first such contest (theme: "the Mexico we want"). For each doodle submitted, Google donated to a non-profit that works to eradicate childhood malnutrition in Mexico. In total, more than 70,000 kilos (154,000 pounds) of food and aid were donated. Winner, Ana Karen Villagómez, was recently recognized in a ceremony in Mexico City; her doodle (pictured below) will appear on the Google homepage on January 6.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCk4dyYpwc_IqV_ixuBxpw9rnZB3zIOJ9OOb8r9sLZDZrLAGN8zLc62dTxtb0KB1h8ErhrqBYHR1AnQd4h98gYpyo2Vt-2AArgMDWqATmbAnvQyE9eYyr66C1j0-NGykD39EMp-yqNcBsO/s1600-h/charity6.png"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5283113758068957122" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCk4dyYpwc_IqV_ixuBxpw9rnZB3zIOJ9OOb8r9sLZDZrLAGN8zLc62dTxtb0KB1h8ErhrqBYHR1AnQd4h98gYpyo2Vt-2AArgMDWqATmbAnvQyE9eYyr66C1j0-NGykD39EMp-yqNcBsO/s320/charity6.png" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 215px;" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Boston and beyond</span><br />Boston Googlers delivered gifts to some very grateful students at a local school and spent the morning reading and playing with the children. The Chicago office held its first-ever holiday blood drive, donating 36 units of blood. And the Ann Arbor office held a "CANstruction" competition, creating sculptures out of canned food, personal items and baby items, which were all later donated.<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhO7LhYlq6MPNmWv1UV7FMMmKCfdgBsIOffYLDBN6OERusc-GGVo2cFgnYnI9Q181rL7lkqgPnA-X_6HYEZeaNshoVNW6A8uTyqtP-HPMa0rdsPfLfcRfEnm-VXZiQC-vujb42mDydHEzMw/s1600-h/Picture+1.png"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5283112215131956802" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhO7LhYlq6MPNmWv1UV7FMMmKCfdgBsIOffYLDBN6OERusc-GGVo2cFgnYnI9Q181rL7lkqgPnA-X_6HYEZeaNshoVNW6A8uTyqtP-HPMa0rdsPfLfcRfEnm-VXZiQC-vujb42mDydHEzMw/s320/Picture+1.png" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 239px;" /></a><br />We hope that your holiday season is filled with plenty of time to slow down and reflect on what's important to you, and that you too feel inspired to find ways to give back to your own community in the new year.<br /><br /><span class="byline-author">Posted by Eileen Duffy and Sarah Falck, AdWords Account Associates</span>

A grateful season

The holidays are a time for giving, and Googlers across the globe have found some creative ways to give back to their communities this seaso...

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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 title="great holiday tradition" href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/12/santa-countdown-begins.html" id="bhnc">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 title="SketchUp" href="http://sketchup.google.com/" id="vpus">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 title="mobile phones" href="http://www.noradsanta.org/en/trackmobile.html" id="rj47">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 title="@noradsanta" href="http://www.twitter.com/noradsanta" id="yknm">@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 onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://images.google.com/images?q=Christmas&imgtype=photo&as_st=y"><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 onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://images.google.com/images?q=Christmas&imgtype=clipart&as_st=y"><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 onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://images.google.com/images?q=Christmas&imgtype=lineart&as_st=y"><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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