Victorian fires update

<span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" >(Cross-posted from the <a href="http://google-au.blogspot.com/2009/02/victorian-fires-update.html">Google Australia Blog</a>. Here's the <a href="http://google-au.blogspot.com/2009/02/mapping-victorian-fires.html">earlier post </a>on mapping the fires.)</span><br /><br />To follow up <a href="http://google-au.blogspot.com/2009/02/mapping-victorian-fires.html">our post on Sunday</a>, and with the tragedy in Victoria continuing, we've updated our <a href="http://mapvisage.appspot.com/fires/FireMap.html">map of the Victorian fires</a> to incorporate the latest available satellite imagery from the Modis Rapid Response project at NASA/GSFC. You can toggle the button "Show Imagery" to see their most recent satellite imagery of some affected parts of Victoria. The small red polygons indicate that a fire is still burning (as at the time indicated beneath the map — 20 hours ago at the time of posting this).<br /><br />We're continuing to try source the most hi-res imagery and fire data available and will update the map as soon as we get it (much of the satellite imagery is covered by smoke). We'll provide updates on the <a href="http://google-au.blogspot.com/">Google Australia Blog</a>.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJGnQv0d25455R70WsGyKUzuXgrUqoHenXSGZJb5O1vxyCankF_ZvSiNC5jJp-W2hmy8pu4k6oT9qq8EEAghOW8Qj8tbO7-yWHpBhVIPqJlnzp1975KdneM6GJUZmGX9Gz4e5zJPK1vxag/s1600-h/Picture+2%282%29.png"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5301219600136496178" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJGnQv0d25455R70WsGyKUzuXgrUqoHenXSGZJb5O1vxyCankF_ZvSiNC5jJp-W2hmy8pu4k6oT9qq8EEAghOW8Qj8tbO7-yWHpBhVIPqJlnzp1975KdneM6GJUZmGX9Gz4e5zJPK1vxag/s400/Picture+2%282%29.png" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 323px;" /></a><br />This map takes a constantly updating RSS feed from the Country Fire Authority of current fire incidents. To embed this map on your website, click <a href="http://www.gmodules.com/ig/creator?synd=open&url=http://mapvisage.appspot.com/fires/vicfiresgadget.xml">here</a> and then click "Get the Code."<br /><br />We've set up a <a href="http://www.google.com.au/landing/victorianbushfires/">dedicated page</a> (which we are linking to from the front page of google.com.au) that contains the Victorian fires map with imagery and a Google News feed. It also provides a link to the Red Cross Victorian Bushfires Appeal, to which so many Australians are contributing.<br /><br />Our thoughts are with the victims and their families and, like all Australians, we're in awe of the efforts of everyone involved in the rescue and relief operations.<br /><br /><span class="byline-author">Posted by Alan Noble, Raul Vera and Pamela Fox, Engineering team</span>

Victorian fires update

(Cross-posted from the Google Australia Blog. Here's the earlier post on mapping the fires.)To follow up our post on Sunday, and with the tragedy in Victoria continuing, we've updated our map of the V…

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Power to the people

Imagine how hard it would be to stick to a budget in a store with no prices. Well, that's pretty much how we buy electricity today. Your utility company sends you a bill at the end of the month with very few details. Most people don't know how much electricity their appliances use, where in the house they are wasting electricity, or how much the bill might go up during different seasons. But in a world where everyone had a detailed understanding of their home energy use, we could find all sorts of ways to save energy and lower electricity bills. In fact, <a href="http://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/research/energy/electric-metering.php">studies show</a> that access to home energy information results in savings between 5-15% on monthly electricity bills. It may not sound like much, but if half of America's households cut their energy demand by 10 percent, it would be the equivalent of taking eight million cars off the road.<br /><br />Google’s mission is to "organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful," and we believe consumers have a right to detailed information about their <a href="http://www.google.org/powermeter/">home electricity use</a>. We're tackling the challenge on several fronts, from policy advocacy to developing consumer tools, and even investing in smart grid companies. We've been participating in the dialogue in Washington, DC and with public agencies in the U.S. and other parts of the world to advocate for investment in the building of a "smart grid," to bring our 1950s-era electricity grid into the digital age. Specifically, to provide both consumers and utilities with real-time energy information, homes must be equipped with advanced energy meters called "smart meters." There are currently about 40 million smart meters in use worldwide, with plans to add another 100 million in the next few years.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA4PgMlZDopssDtUBl_2WjC92O9WmlU-r5qwtg7ltC5hbmNQxPD86-xjd-idjnR2hhipOKyI4qr3wGy9CtAgFBigiNEaREoV5amoJtCDR6O8c6UZBHEYTioqBjrJqSxRb5cfnySsV7MWSF/s1600-h/Info-graphic.gif"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5301023342469221010" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA4PgMlZDopssDtUBl_2WjC92O9WmlU-r5qwtg7ltC5hbmNQxPD86-xjd-idjnR2hhipOKyI4qr3wGy9CtAgFBigiNEaREoV5amoJtCDR6O8c6UZBHEYTioqBjrJqSxRb5cfnySsV7MWSF/s400/Info-graphic.gif" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 225px;" /></a>But deploying smart meters alone isn't enough. This needs to be coupled with a strategy to provide customers with easy access to energy information. That's why we believe that open protocols and standards should serve as the cornerstone of smart grid projects, to spur innovation, drive competition, and bring more information to consumers as the smart grid evolves. We believe that detailed data on your personal energy use belongs to you, and should be available in an open standard, non-proprietary format. You should control who gets to see your data, and you should be free to choose from a wide range of services to help you understand it and benefit from it. For more details on our policy suggestions, check out the <a href="http://www.google.org/powermeter/cpuc.html">comments</a> we filed yesterday with the California Public Utility Commission.<br /><br />In addition to policy advocacy, we're building consumer tools, too. Over the last several months, our engineers have developed a software tool called <a href="http://www.google.org/powermeter/howitworks.html">Google PowerMeter</a>, which will show consumers their home energy information almost in real time, right on their computer. Google PowerMeter is not yet available to the public since we're <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Dx38hzRWDQ">testing it out</a> with Googlers first. But we're <a href="http://www.google.org/powermeter/contactus.html">building partnerships</a> with utilities and independent device manufacturers to gradually roll this out in pilot programs. Once we've had a chance to kick the tires, we'll make the tool more widely available.<br /><br />There is no one-size-fits-all solution to providing consumers with detailed energy information. And it will take the combined efforts of federal and state governments, utilities, device manufacturers, and software engineers to empower consumers to use electricity more wisely by giving them access to energy information.<br /><br /><span class="byline-author">Posted by Ed Lu, Engineering team</span>

Power to the people

Imagine how hard it would be to stick to a budget in a store with no prices. Well, that's pretty much how we buy electricity today. Your utility company sends you a bill at the end of the month with v…

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The rowboat and the cloud

Late last month a young man named Oliver (Olly) Hicks climbed into his boat, the <span style="font-style: italic;">Flying Carrot</span>, and set out from Recherche Bay in Tasmania, Australia on the <b><a href="http://virginglobalrow.com/" style="color: rgb(85, 26, 139);" target="_blank" title="Virgin Global Row"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Virgin Global Row</span></a></b>, his attempt to become the first person to row solo around the entire globe. We jumped at the chance to offer our products to help Olly, both because we think this inspiring quest is eminently worth supporting and because we can't imagine how anyone else could more aptly illustrate the power of the web.<br /><br />You see, although he'll be alone throughout his two-year adventure, Olly's water-resistant laptop and satellite uplink will keep him perpetually connected to the "cloud." So the <span style="font-style: italic;">Carrot</span>, though just 24 feet long, will fit countless millions of books, videos, photographs, songs and websites -- not to mention many of the world's web users. You and I, from the comfort of our own computers, will be able to map Olly's progress, read the blog items he writes, enjoy the pictures and videos he uploads, ask him questions and vote on which ones he should answer, and follow along in the <a href="http://earth.google.com/ocean/">newest version of Google Earth</a>, where his trip is part of an expedition layer focused on the world's oceans.<br /><br />And Olly, in turn, can rest assured that everything he does on the web will be safely stored there forever, even if his laptop happens to take a swim. The cloud will be there for him, as it is for everybody who lives, works and plays online.<br /><br />So, bon voyage, Olly. We're rooting for you, and we hope the rest of the world does, too.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE9yFMmeyw9Vvn1ZPsRPynRSe9A5TQVW5dAdlxp5oEHG6o7oTTLCkFf7gX0iH_kvjXSZsUxblsOl3VbRKdMyUf7KKq9gTf2RwVAW1t7dMsY1YBgL1XlCQBeNJa9XlGElbd_FxNIIX-noM6/s1600-h/Picture+2.png"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5300885487349397970" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE9yFMmeyw9Vvn1ZPsRPynRSe9A5TQVW5dAdlxp5oEHG6o7oTTLCkFf7gX0iH_kvjXSZsUxblsOl3VbRKdMyUf7KKq9gTf2RwVAW1t7dMsY1YBgL1XlCQBeNJa9XlGElbd_FxNIIX-noM6/s400/Picture+2.png" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 298px;" /></a><br /><br /><span class="byline-author">Posted by Andy Berndt, Managing Director, Google Creative Lab</span>

The rowboat and the cloud

Late last month a young man named Oliver (Olly) Hicks climbed into his boat, the Flying Carrot, and set out from Recherche Bay in Tasmania, Australia on the Virgin Global Row, his attempt to become th…

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Students share their Apps stories

You might remember <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/appy-trails.html">reading</a> about our trip "<a href="http://www.google.com/apps/bus">App to School</a>," when we hit the road in our retro biofuel bus to visit ten universities across the U.S. One of our main goals of this trip was to hear from the technology experts themselves -- the students -- about how they are using tools like Gmail, Google Docs, Google Calendar, Google Sites, and Google Talk in interesting ways to be more effective on and off campus.<br /><br />Luckily we had a video camera along for the ride, and we filmed a bunch of students telling their stories. We'll share one of these videos a week for the next few months on the <a href="http://googleforstudents.blogspot.com/">Google Students blog</a>, so you can hear from the students themselves and hopefully learn a few new ways to use these products.<br /><br />Here's one student who uses Calendar to manage lab studies with his classmates:<br /><object height="295" width="480"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Auqou1zRZnM&hl=en&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Auqou1zRZnM&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="295"></embed></object><br /><br />If you want to make sure you catch all the latest videos and stay up to date about other news and tips for students, you can <a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/GoogleStudentBlog">subscribe</a> to the Student blog. Can't wait another week to see more videos? Check out our <a href="http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=655FDD3AF048626E">playlist</a>. And if you have your own story to share, we encourage you to upload it as a response.<br /><br /><span class="byline-author">Posted by Miriam Schneider, Associate Product Marketing Manager</span>

Students share their Apps stories

You might remember reading about our trip "App to School," when we hit the road in our retro biofuel bus to visit ten universities across the U.S. One of our main goals of this trip was to hear from t…

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Calendar and contact syncing for iPhone and Windows Mobile devices

One advantage of storing information online is being able to access it from anywhere, on any device. Last year we released <a href="http://www.google.com/mobile/blackberry/sync.html" id="py8n" style="color: rgb(85, 26, 139);" title="a tool">a tool for Blackberry devices</a> to sync Google Calendar and Gmail contacts with the pre-installed calendar and contacts applications. Today, we're offering more people easy access to their information on the go with two-way calendar and contacts sync for iPhones and Windows Mobile devices, and two-way contacts sync for mobile devices that support <a href="http://www.google.com/support/mobile/bin/answer.py?answer=98258">SyncML</a>. This will be a particularly handy improvement for people who regularly use Google tools, like corporate employees, university students, and busy families. <br /><br />For iPhone and Windows Mobile devices, Google Sync allows you to get your Gmail contacts and Google Calendar events onto your phone. Sync uses push technology, which means that any changes you make to your calendar or contacts from the browser or phone will be reflected on your device within minutes. For phones that support SyncML, the tool will allow you to get your Gmail contacts onto your phone. For all of these devices, synchronization happens automatically over the air, without having to manually sync your phone. The connection is always on, which means your information is always up-to-date, no matter where you are or what you're doing.<br /><br />Getting started is easy. You can configure Google Sync directly from your device. The instructions and capabilities vary for different phones, so check out our Help Center for <a href="http://www.google.com/support/mobile/bin/answer.py?answer=139195" id="w9eh" style="color: rgb(85, 26, 139);" title="more information">device-specific information</a>. If you're a <span style="border-collapse: collapse;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><a href="http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/index.html#utm_medium=et&utm_source=official-google-blog-sync" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 204);" target="_blank" title="Google Apps">Google </a><a href="http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/index.html#utm_medium=et&utm_source=official-google-blog-sync" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 204);" target="_blank" title="Google Apps"><span style="text-decoration: none;">Apps</span></a></span></span> user, Google Sync must be <a href="http://www.google.com/support/a/bin/answer.py?answer=135937">enabled</a> for your domain by your administrator.<br /><br />Following our credo to launch early and iterate, we're introducing Google Sync in beta. Before you begin, we encourage you to review a few known issues for the <a href="http://www.google.com/support/mobile/bin/answer.py?answer=139635" id="yru2" title="iPhone">iPhone</a> and <a href="http://www.google.com/support/mobile/bin/answer.py?answer=139655" id="sa1_" title="Windows Mobile">Windows Mobile</a> devices. Also, please keep in mind that Google Sync will replace all existing contacts and calendar information on your phone, so make sure to back up any important data before you get started. You can find out more information on backing up your data in the Help Center. <br /><br />To try Sync, visit <a href="http://m.google.com/sync" id="s7qz" title="Google Sync">m.google.com/sync</a>, and check out our video tour below.<br /><br /><object height="295" width="480"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Kt_-qHczCMg&hl=en&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Kt_-qHczCMg&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="295" width="480"></embed></object><br /><br /><span class="byline-author">Posted by Marcus Foster, Product Manager, Google Mobile </span>

Calendar and contact syncing for iPhone and Windows Mobile devices

One advantage of storing information online is being able to access it from anywhere, on any device. Last year we released a tool for Blackberry devices to sync Google Calendar and Gmail contacts wit…

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Eye-tracking studies: more than meets the eye

Imagine that you need a refresher on how to tie a tie. So, you decide to type [how to tie a tie] into the Google search box. Which of these results would you choose?<br /><br /><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5297226899518548434" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ3zxth2piK3LXkTi_GBpK47lDI5N86_bWUTURY5k8uzVuBoceKedp39isy1Rs3ZgclIxwvUThArfmrUBUzto3M8Vcfk7H9sM4y7vnsQ5P78GWDeV63aw2ihudo6MndmhAZgDLgUzCEMRu/s400/1-howtotieatie.jpg" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 382px; height: 400px;" /><br />Where did your eyes go first when you saw the results page? Did they go directly to the title of the first result? Did you first check the terms in boldface to see if the results really talk about tying a tie? Or maybe the images captured your attention and drew your eyes to them?<br /><br />You might find it difficult to answer these questions. You probably did not pay attention to where you were looking on the page and you most likely only used a few seconds to visually scan the results. Our User Experience Research team has found that people evaluate the search results page so quickly that they make most of their decisions unconsciously. To help us get some insight into this split-second decision-making process, we use eye-tracking equipment in our usability labs. This lets us see how our study participants scan the search results page, and is the next best thing to actually being able to read their minds. Of course, eye-tracking does not really tell us what they are thinking, but it gives us a good idea of which parts of the page they are thinking about.<br /><br />To see what the eye-tracking data we collect looks like, let's go back to the results page we got for the query [how to tie a tie]. The following video clip shows in real time how a participant in our study scanned the page. And yes, seriously — the video is in real time! That's how fast the eyes move when scanning a page. The larger the dot gets, the longer the users' eye pauses looking at that specific location.<br /><br /><object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/w29DrEEsqT4&hl=en&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/w29DrEEsqT4&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />Based on eye-tracking studies, we know that people tend to scan the search results in order. They start from the first result and continue down the list until they find a result they consider helpful and click it — or until they decide to refine their query. The heatmap below shows the activity of 34 usability study participants scanning a typical Google results page. The darker the pattern, the more time they spent looking at that part of the page. This pattern suggests that the order in which Google returned the results was successful; most users found what they were looking for among the first two results and they never needed to go further down the page.<br /><br /><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5297226902585795138" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH5AuBvxX4x9tc6hjlMcoVB-rrWOqXh__FcYZDY-AxgHx09-F98z_Lp0xiUoMVDIArMWJYKL1w0lhrGeH8LxkS_zfEH62L_pY-zGVN61xC2aRngLBvA4bll1lmDewHLxrrMI-5DUskaEH0/s400/2-goldentriangle.jpg" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 374px; height: 400px;" /><br />When designing the user interface for <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/05/universal-search-best-answer-is-still.html">Universal Search</a>, the team wanted to incorporate thumbnail images to better represent certain kinds of results. For example, in the [how to tie a tie] example above, we have added thumbnails for Image and Video results. However, we were concerned that the thumbnail images might be distracting and disrupt the well-established order of result evaluation.<br /><br />We ran a series of eye-tracking studies where we compared how users scan the search results pages with and without thumbnail images. Our studies showed that the thumbnails did not strongly affect the order of scanning the results and seemed to make it easier for the participants to find the result they wanted.<br /><br />The thumbnail image seemed to make results with thumbnails easy to notice when the users wanted them (see screenshots below — page with the thumbnail image on the right)...<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ2q3FuqakUGfxLkKrz47Uk_oKuEh7ilNWFC6lBTxBnI1tLmoamtMDBtAAyCn_AKOZqEepNHsZU07n1p5NVQJOHANVmL3Z3FoiC2IeC30Y1uZTL4231V57Yb8p2d5EzHzsn5BCRk56YKCT/s1600-h/3-aninconvenienttruth.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5299742939311627346" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ2q3FuqakUGfxLkKrz47Uk_oKuEh7ilNWFC6lBTxBnI1tLmoamtMDBtAAyCn_AKOZqEepNHsZU07n1p5NVQJOHANVmL3Z3FoiC2IeC30Y1uZTL4231V57Yb8p2d5EzHzsn5BCRk56YKCT/s400/3-aninconvenienttruth.jpg" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 142px;" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><div style="text-align: center;">Click the images to  view them larger.<br /></div></span><div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div>...and the thumbnails also seemed to make it easy for people to skip over the results with thumbnails when those results were not relevant to their search (page with the thumbnail on the right).<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd4dlQKPJZm8KK0ccza5j3tg0p2HzJycQRMC1s_rT_w5bZ66JiAPZ2Bc-ZF22UyUQypBoeqrwjQfYObRNDs6JEAgRebfVdLk2OdiiTBulM-FZRSY29iXE3JZahXpEr7mpS9Pjx-K6pSZQ4/s1600-h/4-bees.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5299742942596031810" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd4dlQKPJZm8KK0ccza5j3tg0p2HzJycQRMC1s_rT_w5bZ66JiAPZ2Bc-ZF22UyUQypBoeqrwjQfYObRNDs6JEAgRebfVdLk2OdiiTBulM-FZRSY29iXE3JZahXpEr7mpS9Pjx-K6pSZQ4/s400/4-bees.jpg" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 155px;" /></a><br /></div><div>For the Universal Search team, this was a successful outcome. It showed that we had managed to design a subtle user interface that gives people helpful information without getting in the way of their primary task: finding relevant information.<br /><br />In addition to search research, we also use eye-tracking to study the usability of other products, such as <a href="http://news.google.com/">Google News</a> and <a href="http://images.google.com/">Image Search</a>. For these products, eye-tracking helps us answer questions, such as "Is the 'Top Stories' link discoverable on the left of the Google News page?" or "How do the users typically scan the image results — in rows, in columns or in some other way?"<br /><br />Eye-tracking gives us valuable information about our users' focus of attention — information that would be very hard to come by any other way and that we can use to improve the design of our products. However, in our ongoing quest to make our products more useful, usable, and enjoyable, we always complement our eye-tracking studies with other methods, such as interviews, <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/art-of-field-study.html">field studies</a> and <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/04/this-is-test-this-is-only-test.html">live experiments</a>.<br /><br /><span class="byline-author">Posted by Anne Aula and Kerry Rodden, User Experience Researchers</span></div></div>

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Eye-tracking studies: more than meets the eye

Imagine that you need a refresher on how to tie a tie. So, you decide to type [how to tie a tie] into the Google search box. Which of these results would you choose?Where did your eyes go first when y…

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See where your friends are with Google Latitude

How often do you find yourself wondering where your friends are and what they're up to? It's a pretty central question to our daily social lives, and it's precisely the question you can now answer using Google Latitude.<br /><br />Latitude is a new feature for Google Maps on your mobile device. It's also an iGoogle gadget on your computer. Once you've opted in to Latitude, you can see the approximate location of your friends and loved ones who have decided to share their location with you. So now you can do things like see if your spouse is stuck in traffic on the way home from work, notice that a buddy is in town for the weekend, or take comfort in knowing that a loved one's flight landed safely, despite bad weather.<br /><br />And with Latitude, not only can you see your friends' locations on a map, but you can also be in touch directly via SMS, Google Talk, Gmail, or by updating your status message; you can even upload a new profile photo on the fly. It's a fun way to feel close to the people you care about.<br /><br />Fun aside, we recognize the sensitivity of location data, so we've built fine-grained privacy controls right into the application. Everything about Latitude is opt-in. You not only control exactly who gets to see your location, but you also decide the location that they see. For instance, let's say you are in Rome. Instead of having your approximate location detected and shared automatically, you can manually set your location for elsewhere — perhaps a visit to Niagara Falls . Since you may not want to share the same information with everyone, Latitude lets you change the settings on a friend-by-friend basis. So for each person, you can choose to share your best available location or your city-level location, or you can hide. Everything is under your control and, of course, you can sign out of Latitude at any time. <a href="http://youtube.com/watch?v=u9H4xaTspaQ">Check out this video</a> to learn more about the privacy features.<br /><br />Finally, since we'd like you to be able to use Latitude with <font style="font-style: italic;">any</font> of your friends, we've been working hard to make it available to as many people as possible. Today, Latitude is available in 27 countries, and we hope to add more soon.<br /><br />Ready to share your location? If you have a mobile smartphone, visit google.com/latitude on your phone's web browser to download the latest version of Google Maps for mobile with Latitude. Latitude is available on Blackberry, S60, and Windows Mobile, and will be available on Android in the next few days. We expect it will be coming to the iPhone, through Google Mobile App, very soon.<br /><br />No smartphone? No worries. Visit <a href="http://google.com/latitude">google.com/latitude</a> on your desktop or laptop to install the Latitude iGoogle gadget and share your location right from your computer. If you have <a href="http://gears.google.com/">Google Gears</a> installed in your browser (you do by default if you use Google Chrome), you can automatically share your location; otherwise, manually set your location to let your friends know where you are.<br /><br />Visit the <a href="http://googlemobile.blogspot.com/2009/02/locate-your-friends-in-real-time-with.html">Google Mobile blog</a> for more details, and check out the video below to see Latitude in action.<br /><br /><object height="295" width="480"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Q-Oq-9enE-k&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Q-Oq-9enE-k&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="295"></embed></object><br /><br /><font class="byline-author">Posted by Vic Gundotra, VP Engineering, Google mobile team</font>

See where your friends are with Google Latitude

How often do you find yourself wondering where your friends are and what they're up to? It's a pretty central question to our daily social lives, and it's precisely the question you can now answer usi…

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