fidzu : Google

What did you search for this week? What about everyone else? Starting today, we'll be sharing a regular look back at some of the top trending items on Google Search. Let's dive in.

From afikomen to 1040EZ
People were looking for information on Palm Sunday and Good Friday ahead of Easter; searches for both days were even higher than searches for the Pope himself. Turning to another religious tradition, with Passover beginning on Monday we saw searches rise over 100 percent for Seder staples like [charoset recipe], [brisket passover] and of course [matzo balls]. Alongside these celebrations, U.S. citizens observed another annual rite of spring: taxes were due on April 15, leading to a rise in searches for [turbotax free], [irs] and (whoops) [turbotax extension].

But what made this year different from all other years? A rare lunar eclipse known as the "blood moon," when the Earth's shadow covers the moon, making it look red, and which occurred on Tuesday. There were more than 5 million searches on the topic, as people were eager to learn more. (Hint: if you missed seeing the blood moon this time around, keep your eyes on the sky in October. This is the first lunar eclipse in a "lunar tetrad," a series of four total lunar eclipses each taking place six lunar months apart.)

Say goodbye and say hello
This week marked the first anniversary of last year's Boston Marathon bombing, and commemorations led searches for the term [boston strong] to rise once again. And just yesterday, we were saddened by the passing of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the Colombian writer best known for his masterpiece "100 Years of Solitude"-not to mention responsible for high schoolers across the U.S. knowing the term "magical realism." On a happier note, former First Daughter Chelsea Clinton announced she's expecting.

Entertainment that makes you go ZOMG
"Game of Thrones" fans-at least those who hadn't read the books-were treated to a bombshell in this past Sunday's episode when (spoiler alert) yet another wedding turned murderous. Searches for [who killed joffrey] skyrocketed as people struggled to process the loss of the boy king we love to hate. On the more sedate end of the Sunday TV spectrum, we welcomed back AMC's "Mad Men," which continues to provide viewers with plenty of innuendo, allusion and fashion to chew on-and search for-in between episodes.

The trailer for the highly anticipated film version of "Gone Girl" dropped this week-vaulting searches for [gone girl trailer] nearly 1,000 percent-as did a clip from another book-to-movie remake, "The Fault in Our Stars." Between these two films we expect no dry eyes in June and no intact fingernails come October. At least we've got something funny to look forward to: as news broke this week that Fox 2000 is developing a sequel to the 1993 comedy classic "Mrs. Doubtfire," searches on the subject have since spiked.

And that's it for this week in search. If you're interested in exploring trending topics on your own, check out Google Trends. And starting today, you can also sign up to receive emails on your favorite terms, topics, or Top Charts for any of 47 countries.

Posted by Emily Wood, Google Blog Editor, who searched this week for [gossip girl vulture recaps] and [tron bike lights]

18 Apr 2014 10:23pm GMT

For more than five years, we've provided free and inexpensive teacher professional development trainings in computer science education through Computer Science for High School (CS4HS). In this program, Google provides funding and support for experts to create hands-on professional development training in CS education for K-12 educators. The goal is to arm teachers with the knowledge they need to help their students succeed in the field. The program has already trained more than 12,000 teachers, and reached more than 600,000 students-and we've gotten great feedback over the years (a 95% satisfaction rate!).

It's been a great success, but there is still much more to do. So this year, we're taking the first steps toward extending CS4HS across the globe. We're piloting CS4HS projects in Latin America for the first time-an area where computer science education is often mistaken for computer literacy (think word processing, typing, or changing settings on your operating system rather than robotics or coding a game). We're also introducing eight new online workshops, so teachers no longer need to be located near a CS4HS event to get quality training.

It's not just the "where" we're expanding, but the "when," as well. We're now providing new resources for teachers to get ongoing, year-round help. Our Google+ Community page hosts Hangouts on Air with CS industry leaders, Googlers, and top educators on a regular basis. And we've added a new Resources page with online workshops, tutorials and information on computational thinking, robotics and more. Finally, if you happen to be in the neighborhood at the right time, sign up for one of our in-person workshops available around the world in these locations:

Posted by Erin Mindell Cannon, Google Education Program Manager

17 Apr 2014 6:00pm GMT

Gmail has a new interface for adding images to a message. When you click the "insert images" icon, Gmail now shows all the photos highlighted by Google+ Photos. You'll see all the photos that are displayed here: https://plus.google.com/photos, including Auto Backup photos from your desktop and mobile devices.

Google uses clever algorithms that find your best photos and place them in the "highlights" section, which is displayed by default when you visit Google+ Photos. Gmail only shows these photos, but you can click "X more" to show all the photos from an album (X is the number of photos).

After adding a photo, you can now resize it by dragging on any corner.

Gmail's dialog also includes a section for albums, so you can insert links to your Google+ Photos albums. "Inserted albums are shared via link. Anyone with the link can access the album," explains Google. You can also upload photos or paste URLs. By default, images are inserted inline, but you can also add them as attachments if you click "as attachment" next to "insert images".

"Whether it's photos of your hiking trip or a night out, sending photos to friends and family just got easier. Starting today, you can save time and insert your Auto Backup photos from your phone into Gmail messages on the web using the new Insert Photo button. When you click the button, you'll instantly access all the photos that are backed up from your mobile devices, starting with the most recent," informs Google.

16 Apr 2014 12:53pm GMT

Chrome's app launcher has an interesting way to match results. Let's say you want to open Google Play Music. You can search for google play music, play music or you can just type the the first letter from each word and search for gpm. It also works if you type the first letters from the first word, followed by the first letters from the second word and so on. For example, you can also search for goplm, gplam, gmu.

Another example: launch Mahjong Solitaire by searching for ms.

{ via François Beaufort. }

13 Apr 2014 3:28pm GMT

Google Search not only shows driving directions, it also shows a card for public transit directions. This feature seems to be limited to trains and buses. Another limitation is that this feature only works if you are in the US.

"Find the best route to travel using public transportation without ever leaving the Google Search page. For example, if you're in New York and traveling from Fulton Street to Times Square, you can search [from columbus circle to times square by train] to find information about the next train that's leaving. You can also search for directions between cities, like [seattle to portland by train]," informs Google.

Click the Settings button to specify the date and time for your departure or arrival.

You can also append to your query "arriving by 5 pm" or "departing at 6 pm".

13 Apr 2014 2:35pm GMT

The latest beta release of Chrome 35 for Android added support for casting HTML5 videos. You can now send videos to the Chromecast from any site that uses HTML5 video players, including YouTube.

To connect to a Chromecast, you need to play a video in fullscreen, click the cast icon and select a Chromecast device. You can then change the volume, fast forward or switch to a different video. YouTube's mobile site has support for the TV queue, so you can add videos to the queue instead of playing them right away.

The Chromecast integration is not perfect, there are some bugs that need to be fixed, but it's nice to see that you can cast almost any video right from the mobile browser, without having to install other apps and wait for the developers to integrate their apps with Chromecast.

Chrome 35 for Android also adds support for undoing tab closing, Samsung's multi-window feature and fullscreen videos with subtitles and HTML5 controls. Here's a video that shows the undo close tab feature in action, courtesy of Android Police:


{ Thanks, Sterling. }

11 Apr 2014 6:35pm GMT

Google Translate now lets you edit translations. Click the "Improve" icon below the translation, edit the text and click "Contribute". Google shows this message: "Your contribution will be used to improve translation quality and may be shown to users anonymously".

Until now, you could only click the words from the translations and pick one of the alternate translations offered by Google.

{ Thanks, Emanuele Bartolomucci. }

11 Apr 2014 12:02pm GMT

By default, installing apps outside of the Google Play Store is disabled on most Android phones. If you try to install an APK file, you'll see a warning and you'll have to check an option in the Settings to enable app sideloading.

Just in case you install APK files, Google Play Services includes a feature that verifies apps when you install them. It blocks potentially harmful apps and it has been used more than 4 billion times. The anti-malware feature is now a lot more powerful: it now monitors apps even after installing them.

"We're rolling out a new enhancement which will now continually check devices to make sure that all apps are behaving in a safe manner, even after installation. In the last year, the foundation of this service - Verify apps - has been used more than 4 billion times to check apps at the time of install. This enhancement will take that protection even further, using Android's powerful app scanning system developed by the Android security and Safe Browsing teams."

Apparently, Android is more secure than you would think. "We've found that fewer than 0.18% of installs in the last year occurred after someone received a warning that the app was potentially harmful," mentions Android's blog.

QZ.com reported last year that the percentage was 0.12% and that "0.001% of app installations on Android are able to evade the system's multi-layered defenses and cause harm to users". 95% of the phones have Verify Apps enabled by default and 0.5% of app installs from unknown sources receive a warning. Just because you receive a warning doesn't mean that the apps are actually dangerous: 40% of the warnings are for apps that root your device, another 40% are for fraudware apps that send premium SMS messages and another 15% of the warnings are for commercial spyware.

10 Apr 2014 6:42pm GMT

A few months ago, I was about to buy 2 Sonos wireless speakers, but I realized that Sonos doesn't support Google Play Music. That was unfortunate, especially considering that Play Music doesn't even have a public API. The good news is that Google Play Music now integrates with Sonos.

"Now available around the world, you can stream directly to Sonos from within the Google Play Music app on your Android device, or simply stream Google Play Music from your Sonos app to any Sonos player throughout your home," mentions the Sonos blog. "Enjoy all the features of your Google Play Music app in Hi-Fi sound by playing directly to Sonos from Android devices. Use the Google Play Music app to start a song in any room and control the volume without ever leaving the app. For full access of all your music services and multi-room control, use the Sonos app to stream all the music you love to any room."

Google Play Music uses the same "cast" icon that's also used for connecting to Chromecast. Apparently, Play Music's catalog now has 22 million songs, more than before, but still less than the 37 million songs from Apple's iTunes Store.

10 Apr 2014 5:46pm GMT

There's a new YouTube experiment that changes the video player's size, depending on the browser window's size. When resizing Chrome's window, YouTube switches from 360p to 480p and to 720p, while the player gets bigger.

Here's the same video in a larger player (480p) and an almost fullscreen player (720p) on a 1080p display:

Here's the regular YouTube interface. The screenshot shows a maximized Chrome window on a 1080p display, just like the previous screenshot:

YouTube's "stats for nerds" show the size of the player ("dimensions") and the video resolution:

The nice thing is that the player resizes automatically and you don't have to click a button. It's the power of responsive design. The YouTube player still has a "large player" button, but it only moves the right sidebar and centers the player.

How to try the new interface? If you use Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari or Internet Explorer 8+:

1. open youtube.com in a new tab

2. load your browser's developer console:

* Chrome or Opera 15+ - press Ctrl+Shift+J for Windows/Linux/ChromeOS or Command-Option-J for Mac

* Firefox - press Ctrl+Shift+K for Windows/Linux or Command-Option-K for Mac

* Internet Explorer 8+ - press F12 and select the "Console" tab

* Safari 6+ - if you haven't enabled the Develop menu, open Preferences from the Safari menu, go to the Advanced tab and check "Show Develop menu in menu bar". Close Preferences and then press Command-Option-C to show the console.

* Opera 12 - press Ctrl+Shift+I for Windows/Linux or Command-Option-I for Mac, then click "Console".

3. paste the following code which changes a YouTube cookie:

document.cookie="VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE=E_OLzg3yeLw; path=/; domain=.youtube.com";window.location.reload();

4. press Enter and close the console.

To go back to the regular interface, use the same instructions, but replace the code from step 3 with this one:

document.cookie="VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE=; path=/; domain=.youtube.com";window.location.reload();

{ Thanks, Maurice Wahba. }

06 Apr 2014 9:32am GMT

Google Keep has recently added a few new features. You can now upload images and Google automatically performs OCR and indexes the text, so you can quickly find images by searching for a few words from the images. This is not the smart visual search feature from Google Drive and Google+ Photos, but it's still useful. You can also transcribe the text, so that you can actually extract the text from the image. Another options lets you "make a copy" of a note.

If you click the 3-dot menu icon from a note that includes a list, you can change list settings. New list items can be added at the top or at the bottom and checked items can be moved to the bottom. By default, the changes also apply to new lists, but you can uncheck this setting.

Here's what happens after enabling "move to the bottom" for checked items:

When you delete a note, it's now moved to the Trash and it will be permanently removed after 7 days. Go to the Trash to empty it or restore some of the notes you've accidentally deleted.

The Android app was also updated with support for multiple accounts, a yellow action bar that changes color with notes and the same new features from the desktop interface.

04 Apr 2014 2:12pm GMT

Last week, I mentioned that you can customize Google's app launcher, but the feature didn't work well: changes weren't saved. Now it works well and you can reorder the apps using drag and drop, but only if you're signed in to your Google Account. You can also add new shortcuts: go to Google Keep, Google Sites, Play Music, Webmaster Central, Google Voice, Google Patents, Google Groups, click the app launcher icon and then click "Add a shortcut".

There's no way to remove shortcuts, but you can always drag them to the second page, so they're out of the way.

Here are the default apps in the US:

I also found a strange issue: some of the shortcuts are greyed out and nothing happens when you click them. It may have something to do with using the US interface outside the US.

04 Apr 2014 10:41am GMT

A few days ago, Google removed the experimental SMS feature from Gmail Labs, which was launched back in 2008. "As of April 1, 2014, sending SMS messages to phone contacts through Chat in Gmail will be discontinued for all supported mobile operators. All existing users can opt in to Hangouts and select to receive messages in SMS settings," informs Google.

If you're in the US or Canada, you can send SMS from Google Voice. You can also switch to Hangouts and "continue receiving SMS messages as follow-me (i.e. if you're offline and receive a Hangout message, you'll get an SMS message)."

Google says that "by streamlining our services, we're able to focus on creating the best possible products for our users," but I suspect that Google wants to discontinue Gmail Chat and switch all the users to Hangouts.

Unfortunately, the SMS feature from Hangouts is more limited and supports less countries. When clicking this link, I get this message: "We're sorry, the feature you are looking for is currently only available in a limited number of countries."

There are plenty of other ways to send SMS online. You can use the SMS feature from Yahoo Mail or Yahoo Messsenger, use MightyText, which has a nice web app, browser extensions, an Android app and also integrates with Gmail.

{ Thanks, Beta Aly and Michael Hardt. }

04 Apr 2014 10:22am GMT

Today we're joined by Dr. Jane Goodall, primatologist and founder of the Jane Goodall Institute and Roots & Shoots program. In this post, Dr. Goodall shares her thoughts on how today's technology can enable more people around the world to make a difference in their communities. Join Dr. Goodall for a celebratory Birthday Hangout on Air today at 11 a.m. PDT/2 p.m. EDT. -Ed.

When I first set foot on the shores of Lake Tanganyika in 1960 to study chimpanzee behavior, I carried with me notebooks, pencils and a pair of second-hand binoculars. I was, at the time, a young woman with no scientific training, but had a strong passion for learning about animals in Africa. In later years I founded the Jane Goodall Institute, dedicated to preserving the habitat of chimpanzees and other animals worldwide.

Today, the mapping technology available to all of us is completely changing the potential for animal and environmental research. My trip in 1960 would have looked quite different today. You have much more power at your fingertips, and you don't even have to leave your home. Tools like Google Earth let you visit the shores of Lake Tanganyika with just a few keystrokes. And in Gombe, local villagers are using Android smartphones and tablets, in conjunction with Google Maps Engine and Earth Engine, to monitor changes in the forest habitat that affect chimpanzee populations. Technology makes it so easy for people to find and share information and to understand the world around them. And once we understand, we can start to foster positive change.

That's one of the reasons we started the Roots & Shoots program to connect young people with the knowledge and tools they need to solve problems in their communities. The projects undertaken by these young people help them learn important science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) skills while developing real leadership capabilities. Today, Roots & Shoots is launching a new community mapping tutorial for young people to help them use digital mapping technology to identify and address needs in their community. If you're an educator, we offer online professional development to help you fit our youth leadership model into your classroom and curriculum. You can sign up for the Roots & Shoots MOOC to learn more.

Today, on my 80th birthday, my wish is for young people around the world to think about the ways you can use technology to learn more about the wonderful world we share. Then, to take action, and inspire others to do the same. You have the power to do so much more than I did in 1960, to spark change I could only imagine back then. And you can do it no matter where in the world you are.

Posted by Dr. Jane Goodall

03 Apr 2014 1:00pm GMT

Gmail Skins is a site with nice pictures you can add to Gmail as custom themes. The site was built by Greg Bullock, from the Gmail team.

You can sort photos by date, title or popularity, select a category like macro, water or nature, find your favorite image and set it as a Gmail background. There are two options: light themes and dark themes.

The site also lets you upload your own photos to the gallery. "Only upload images which you own.
Only images which are 1) mega-awesome and 2) sufficiently large will be published."

{ Thanks, Greg. }

01 Apr 2014 6:56pm GMT

If you use a custom Gmail theme, you can share it with other people. Unlike regular Gmail themes, custom themes use the picture you've selected, so you can generate a permalink that allows other Gmail users to quickly switch to your theme.

Just go to Gmail's Themes page, go to the "custom themes" section and pick "share your theme" if you already use "custom light" or "custom dark". If you don't use them, click "custom light"or "custom dark" and select a background image.

You can share your theme by email, using Google+ or you can simply copy the URL generated by Gmail. Here's an example.

When someone clicks the URL, Gmail will show a "theme change confirmation" dialog.

01 Apr 2014 12:23pm GMT

2 of the 36 Gmail Shelfies photos celebrate Gmail's 10th anniversary. Happy birthday, Gmail! It's been an amazing journey so far.

Gmail Shelfies use a simple URL pattern:

https://ssl.gstatic.com/ui/v1/icons/mail/themes/trending/bg_slot_1_2560x1600_1396040832.jpg
https://ssl.gstatic.com/ui/v1/icons/mail/themes/trending/bg_slot_2_2560x1600_1396040832.jpg
... (replace _2_ with _3_, _4_, ..., _35_, _36_) ...
https://ssl.gstatic.com/ui/v1/icons/mail/themes/trending/bg_slot_36_2560x1600_1396040832.jpg

01 Apr 2014 8:10am GMT

Google+ Auto Awesome is all about fun surprises that bring your photos to life. And whether it's Benedict Cumberbatch at the Oscars or Michelle Obama at the White House, a celebrity photobomb is the ultimate surprise, turning an ordinary photo into something extraordinary.

Now with Auto Awesome Photobombs, you too can get a celebrity photobomb-no red carpet required. We're starting with surprise appearances by +David Hasselhoff, everyone's favorite crime-fighting rockstar lifeguard.

The Hoff rides the waves in Big Sur

The Hoff enjoys a breezy afternoon by the San Francisco Bay

Upload a new self-portrait, or a group photo with friends, and leave some room for The Hoff. He might just make your photo a little more #Hoffsome.

Posted by Erik Murphy-Chutorian, Staff Software Engineer and Avid Photobomber

01 Apr 2014 2:50am GMT

Google is about to launch its second Windows Phone app. This time, Google picked a service that was used by a few million users until it was discontinued last year: Google Reader.

While the new app won't be able to show the latest news from your feeds, it's a clear sign that Google started to embrace Microsoft's mobile platform. Apparently, Google was about to launch the app in January 2013, but developers were busy updating Google's apps for Android and iOS. A week ago, someone found the app and decided it's a good idea to release it. The application lets you login to your Google account and shows this message: "Google Reader has been discontinued. We want to thank all our loyal fans. We understand you may not agree with this decision, but we hope you'll come to love these alternatives as much as you loved Reader."

It's simple, minimalist and pretty late, just like Windows Phone.

31 Mar 2014 9:57pm GMT

To celebrate 10 years of Gmail, Google will launch a special Gmail interface that takes you back to 2004, when Gmail was launched. The retro interface doesn't include a contact manager, drafts, a rich text editor and other advanced features. Gmail will only show the most recent messages, since the storage is limited to 1GB.

Source: Kevin Fox

Update: This is a joke for April Fools' Day 2014.

31 Mar 2014 9:11pm GMT

While we've always known how important transparency is when it comes to government requests, the events of the past year have underscored just how urgent the issue is. From being the first company to disclose information about National Security Letters to fighting for the ability to publish more about FISA requests, we've continually advocated for your right to know.

Today, we're updating our Transparency Report for the ninth time. This updated Report details the number of government requests we received for user information in criminal investigations during the second half of 2013. Government requests for user information in criminal cases have increased by about 120 percent since we first began publishing these numbers in 2009. Though our number of users has grown throughout the time period, we're also seeing more and more governments start to exercise their authority to make requests.

We consistently push back against overly broad requests for your personal information, but it's also important for laws to explicitly protect you from government overreach. That's why we're working alongside eight other companies to push for surveillance reform, including more transparency. We've all been sharing best practices about how to report the requests we receive, and as a result our Transparency Report now includes governments that made less than 30 requests during a six-month reporting period, in addition to those that made 30+ requests.

Also, people have been asking about how we respond to search warrants in the U.S., so we've created an entertaining video to explain in plain language how this process works. We apply the same rigorous standards presented in this video to every request we receive, regardless of type.

You deserve to know when and how governments request user information online, and we'll keep fighting to make sure that's the case.

Posted by Richard Salgado, Legal Director, Law Enforcement and Information Security

27 Mar 2014 3:00pm GMT

Since getting online, Green Mountain Bee Farm in Fairfax, Vt. experienced a 5x increase in sales, and Christine Fitzpatrick Hair and Makeup in Birmingham, Mich. attracted 50 percent more clients. Getting online can make a big difference for small businesses-and stronger businesses makes for stronger communities. Online businesses are expected to grow 40 percent faster and create twice as many jobs as those that aren't online,* but more than half of America's small businesses currently don't have a website.

That's the inspiration behind Get Your Business Online Week, when we come together with local partners to get businesses in our communities online and growing. Starting today, we'll broadcast free virtual workshops for business owners, available to anyone with an Internet connection. Here's a glimpse of what you can look forward to:

• Conversations with businesses that have prospered online, like Barkbox, GoldieBlox and Dollar Shave Club
• Step-by-step demos on building a website and getting found on Search and Maps
• Interviews with small business experts like SmallBizLady Melinda Emerson
• Workshops on Google tools for businesses (Google Apps, Google Trends, Google Alerts), online advertising (AdWords), and measuring your success online (Analytics)
• Free help and advice from experts over Helpouts by Google

We're also teaming up with small business organizations across the country including local chambers of commerce, Small Business Development Centers and SCORE chapters to host live broadcasts of our trainings. You can find a screening closest to you on our website.

We're excited to welcome small business everywhere to join us for this special week. Even if you don't own a business, we encourage you to take part by spreading the word and inviting your favorite businesses to sign up.

See you on the web!

Posted by Amber Shapiro, on behalf of the Get Your Business Online team

*Source: BCG Report, "The Connected World: The $4.2 Trillion Opportunity," March 2012

24 Mar 2014 4:00pm GMT

The Google Journalism Fellowship connects students interested in using technology to tell stories in new ways to the organizations that are pushing the boundaries of newsgathering and reporting. Over 10 weeks, Fellows work on projects ranging from building interactive news apps to researching stories, finding data and writing code. In this post, one of last year's Fellows, Jan Lauren Boyles, shares her perspective on the benefits of the program and what this year's Fellows stand to get out of it. -Ed.

At first, I thought it was just my imagination.

In the middle of my exams for my doctorate at American University last year, I got a call from the Pew Research Center offering me a Google Journalism Fellowship. Low on sleep, my first thought: "Was this offer all just a reverie, rendered by my foggy mind?"

In some ways, it turned out that that call really was the beginning of a dream.

I had applied for the Fellowship because I wanted to work with the brightest minds in media research and broaden my understanding of the intersections between journalism and technology. I was thrilled to work with leading experts at Pew Research to collect and analyze data that examined how social media is transforming the way Americans consume and share news. I also had a chance to learn from Google's own mapping and data visualization specialists. But I never imagined we'd also shadow an editorial meeting at The Miami Herald, discuss the future of news with Knight Foundation staff, talk directly with news startup leaders and take part in a design sprint at a CIR/Google conference around data and the news.

Many of the inaugural class of Google Fellows has gone on to carve out careers in the newsrooms of the 21st century. The Fellowship helped me land a full-time position at the Pew Research Center's Journalism Project as a research associate-a dream job, where I'll use various research methods-from surveys to content analysis to good ol' reporting-to help examine how news and information functions today. One key project that I'll work on this year will be a deep examination of the flow of local news in society today.

Now a new class of Google Fellows gets a chance to fulfill their own dreams. These 11 students are people to watch-young scholars, computer scientists and practitioners who will likely create new journalism products and platforms that will change our engagement with news in the digital age.

This year's organizations and Fellows are:

• Center for Investigative Reporting - Emmanuel Martinez, University of Southern California and Suyeon Son, Northwestern University
• Committee to Protect Journalists - Rachael Levy, CUNY Graduate School of Journalism
• Investigative Reporters & Editors - Aram Chung, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
• Nieman Journalism Lab - Liam Andrew, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Pew Research Journalism Project - Alex T. Williams, University of Pennsylvania, Annenberg School for Communication
• Poynter - Benjamin Mullin, California State University, Chico
• PRI.org - David Conrad, University of Pennsylvania, Annenberg School for Communication
• ProPublica - Yue Qiu, Columbia Graduate School of Journalism
• Sunlight Foundation - Stan Oklobdzija, UC San Diego
• Texas Tribune - Jessica Hamel, UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism

Congratulations to this year's Fellows! We look forward to the energy you'll bring to the host organizations this summer-and to watching your dreams become a reality.

Posted by Jan Lauren Boyles, Research Associate at Pew Research Center's Journalism Project

21 Mar 2014 9:27pm GMT

Your email is important to you, and making sure it stays safe and always available is important to us. As you go about your day reading, writing and checking messages, there are tons of security measures running behind the scenes to keep your email safe, secure, and there whenever you need it.

Starting today, Gmail will always use an encrypted HTTPS connection when you check or send email. Gmail has supported HTTPS since the day it launched, and in 2010 we made HTTPS the default. Today's change means that no one can listen in on your messages as they go back and forth between you and Gmail's servers-no matter if you're using public WiFi or logging in from your computer, phone or tablet.

In addition, every single email message you send or receive-100 percent of them-is encrypted while moving internally. This ensures that your messages are safe not only when they move between you and Gmail's servers, but also as they move between Google's data centers-something we made a top priority after last summer's revelations.

Of course, being able to access your email is just as important as keeping it safe and secure. In 2013, Gmail was available 99.978 percent of the time, which averages to less than two hours of disruption for a user for the entire year. Our engineering experts look after Google's services 24x7 and if a problem ever arises, they're on the case immediately. We keep you informed by posting updates on the Apps Status Dashboard until the issue is fixed, and we always conduct a full analysis on the problem to prevent it from happening again.

Our commitment to the security and reliability of your email is absolute, and we're constantly working on ways to improve. You can learn about additional ways to keep yourself safe online, like creating strong passwords and enabling 2-step verification, by visiting the Security Center: https://www.google.com/help/security.

Posted by Nicolas Lidzborski, Gmail Security Engineering Lead

Cross-posted from the Official Gmail Blog

20 Mar 2014 4:43pm GMT

Superheroes, cliff divers, fearless reporters or pop icons-whatever you like to watch, Chromecast makes it easy to bring it from a phone, tablet or laptop to the biggest screen in your house: the TV. Since announcing Chromecast in the U.S., we've grown to include more of your favorite apps and websites. Those numbers will continue to grow, and we want to bring Chromecast to more people around the world. Today Chromecast is available in an additional 11 countries-Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and the U.K.

In addition to your favorite apps like YouTube, Google Play Movies, Google Play Music and Netflix (where available), we're working with local content providers to bring even more of the movies and TV shows you love to Chromecast. Apps will start rolling out today, and include BBC iPlayer in the U.K.; France TV Pluzz and SFR TV in France with CANALPLAY coming soon; and Watchever in Germany with Maxdome coming soon. So instead of huddling around your laptop to watch Sherlock solve the next crime or getting caught up on all the workplace drama in Stromberg, you can cast it, sit back, and watch together on the big screen.

Chromecast will keep getting better. We recently opened up Chromecast to developers, and in a few short weeks more than 3,000 developers worldwide have signed up to bring their apps and websites to Chromecast. You'll soon have more TV shows, movies, videos, sports, music and games to choose from. Stay up-to-date on the latest apps that work with Chromecast at chromecast.com/apps.

So if you're in one of these 11 countries, look for Chromecast starting today at Amazon, Google Play, Currys PC World, Elkjøp, FNAC, Saturn, Media Markt and other retailers.

Happy casting!

Posted by Mario Queiroz, Vice President of Product Management, Chromecast

19 Mar 2014 12:03am GMT

Most of us are rarely without our smartphones in hand. These powerful supercomputers keep us connected to the world and the people we love. But we're only at the beginning; we've barely scratched the surface of what's possible with mobile technology. That's why we're so excited about wearables-they understand the context of the world around you, and you can interact with them simply and efficiently, with just a glance or a spoken word.

Android Wear: Information that moves with you
Today we're announcing Android Wear, a project that extends Android to wearables. And we're starting with the most familiar wearable-watches. Going well beyond the mere act of just telling you the time, a range of new devices along with an expansive catalogue of apps will give you:

• Useful information when you need it most. Android Wear shows you info and suggestions you need, right when you need them. The wide variety of Android applications means you'll receive the latest posts and updates from your favorite social apps, chats from your preferred messaging apps, notifications from shopping, news and photography apps, and more.
• Straight answers to spoken questions. Just say "Ok Google" to ask questions, like how many calories are in an avocado, what time your flight leaves, and the score of the game. Or say "Ok Google" to get stuff done, like calling a taxi, sending a text, making a restaurant reservation or setting an alarm.
• The ability to better monitor your health and fitness. Hit your exercise goals with reminders and fitness summaries from Android Wear. Your favorite fitness apps can give you real-time speed, distance and time information on your wrist for your run, cycle or walk.
• Your key to a multiscreen world. Android Wear lets you access and control other devices from your wrist. Just say "Ok Google" to fire up a music playlist on your phone, or cast your favorite movie to your TV. There's a lot of possibilities here so we're eager to see what developers build.

Developer Preview
If you're a developer, there's a new section on developer.android.com/wear focused on wearables. Starting today, you can download a Developer Preview so you can tailor your existing app notifications for watches powered by Android Wear. Because Android for wearables works with Android's rich notification system, many apps will already work well. Look out for more developer resources and APIs coming soon. We're also already working with several consumer electronics manufacturers, including Asus, HTC, LG, Motorola and Samsung; chip makers Broadcom, Imagination, Intel, Mediatek and Qualcomm; and fashion brands like the Fossil Group to bring you watches powered by Android Wear later this year.

We're always seeking new ways for technology to help people live their lives and this is just another step in that journey. Here's to getting the most out of the many screens you use every day-whether in your car, in your pocket or, very soon, on your wrist.

Posted by Sundar Pichai, SVP, Android, Chrome & Apps

18 Mar 2014 3:55pm GMT

Today, residents of Vancouver, Canada, will notice a new addition to their scenic waterfront: an interactive artwork on one of the largest textile sculptures ever. The piece, entitled Unnumbered Sparks, is a collaboration between artist Janet Echelman and Google Creative Director Aaron Koblin, as part of TED's 30th annual conference.

Echelman is known for building sculptures that respond to the forces of nature-wind, water and light-and this project is no exception. Made from ultralight fibers, the sculpture soars from the roof of a skyscraper over the water and walkways near the Vancouver Convention Center (site map). As visitors collaborate via mobile devices, they create colors and ripples that move over its surface.

What's not obvious to the public is when you look at the sculpture, you're actually looking at a web browser. The interactive lighting is actually one giant Chrome window, stretched across the 300-foot long sculpture with the help of five high-definition projectors. To interact, visitors open a website using Chrome or other modern mobile browser on their smartphone or tablet. After selecting a color, they use their fingers to trace paths along the surface of their device, which are then projected onto the sculpture in real-time as colorful beams of light. The result is a crowd-controlled visual experiment on a giant, floating canvas.

Watch this short documentary to get a quick look at the work involved in creating this project:


Art and technology are continuously evolving together, and we hope that this project showcases the opportunity for mobile devices and the web to play a part in that evolution. We all carry devices in our pockets that have the power to connect with people around the world, but rarely do we get a chance to use this incredible power to connect and create with the people standing next to us. With Unnumbered Sparks, we hope to turn strangers into collaborators, working together to create a single piece of art on this amazing canvas.

Posted by Jenny Ramaswamy, Google Creative Lab

17 Mar 2014 11:04pm GMT

Having launched Google Drive just two years ago, we're excited that so many people are now using it as their go-to place for keeping all their files. Whether it's all the footage of your kids' baseball games, the novel you're working on, or even just your grocery list for the week, we all have files that are too important to lose. Today, thanks to a number of recent infrastructure improvements, we're able to make it more affordable for you to keep everything safe and easy to reach on any device, from anywhere.

We've lowered the price of our monthly storage plans to $1.99 for 100GB (previously $4.99), $9.99 for 1TB (previously $49.99), and $99.99 for 10TB, with even more storage available if you need it. How big is a terabyte anyway? Well, that's enough storage for you to take a selfie twice a day for the next 200 years and still have room left over for… shall we say… less important things. Like before, storage continues to work across Drive, Gmail and Google+ Photos. And, of course, the 15GB plan remains free.

You can sign up for one of these new Google Drive plans at www.google.com/settings/storage. If you already pay for storage, you'll automatically move to a better plan at no additional cost. You can visit the storage purchase page to make a change or review your account, and see the Help Center for more information on these simpler storage options.

Posted by Scott Johnston, Director of Product Management

13 Mar 2014 5:00pm GMT

On the 25th anniversary of the World Wide Web, we're pleased to share this guest post from Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the web. In this post he reflects on the past, present and future of the web-and encourages the rest of us to fight to keep it free and open. -Ed.

Today is the web's 25th birthday. On March 12, 1989, I distributed a proposal to improve information flows: "a 'web' of notes with links between them."

Though CERN, as a physics lab, couldn't justify such a general software project, my boss Mike Sendall allowed me to work on it on the side. In 1990, I wrote the first browser and editor. In 1993, after much urging, CERN declared that WWW technology would be available to all, without paying royalties, forever.

This decision enabled tens of thousands to start working together to build the web. Now, about 40 percent of us are connected and creating online. The web has generated trillions of dollars of economic value, transformed education and healthcare and activated many new movements for democracy around the world. And we're just getting started.

How has this happened? By design, the underlying Internet and the WWW are non-hierarchical, decentralized and radically open. The web can be made to work with any type of information, on any device, with any software, in any language. You can link to any piece of information. You don't need to ask for permission. What you create is limited only by your imagination.

So today is a day to celebrate. But it's also an occasion to think, discuss-and do. Key decisions on the governance and future of the Internet are looming, and it's vital for all of us to speak up for the web's future. How can we ensure that the other 60 percent around the world who are not connected get online fast? How can we make sure that the web supports all languages and cultures, not just the dominant ones? How do we build consensus around open standards to link the coming Internet of Things? Will we allow others to package and restrict our online experience, or will we protect the magic of the open web and the power it gives us to say, discover, and create anything? How can we build systems of checks and balances to hold the groups that can spy on the net accountable to the public? These are some of my questions-what are yours?

On the 25th birthday of the web, I ask you to join in-to help us imagine and build the future standards for the web, and to press for every country to develop a digital bill of rights to advance a free and open web for everyone. Learn more at webat25.org and speak up for the sort of web we really want with #web25.

Posted by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Inventor of the World Wide Web

12 Mar 2014 4:00am GMT

Tobi Mueller started coding when his grandfather, who works in IT, gave him access to a spare PC. It was a sweet 286 machine which Tobi learned to program with the then-popular teaching language Pascal. He eventually became interested in free and open source software, but it was Google Summer of Code (GSoC) that helped transform Tobi into the free software contributor he is today.

Tobi was a GSoC student in 2007 for GNOME, a free software desktop environment. He's been a regular contributor to the GNOME community ever since-and in 2012, Tobi was elected to the GNOME Foundation board of directors.

Tobi is one of more than 7,500 students who have participated in Google Summer of Code program over the past nine years. Every summer, GSoC participants work with various organizations in the open source community, building important technical skills and gaining workplace experience. Students aren't the only ones who benefit; their projects also give back to the open source community. Karen Sandler, GNOME's executive director, told us how Google Summer of Code "encourages and empowers" new contributors and helps "invigorate projects."

So if you're a university student looking to earn real-world experience this summer, we hope you'll consider coding for a cool open source project with Google Summer of Code. We're celebrating the 10th year of the program in 2014, and we'd love to see more student applicants than ever before. In 2013 we accepted almost 1,200 students and we're planning to accept 10 percent more this year.

You can submit proposals on our website starting now through Friday, March 21 at 12:00pm PDT. Get started by reviewing the ideas pages of the 190 open source projects in this year's program, and decide which projects you're interested in. There are a limited number of spots, and writing a great project proposal is essential to being selected to the program-so be sure to check out the Student Manual for advice. For ongoing information throughout the application period and beyond, see the Google Open Source blog.

Good luck to all the open source coders out there, and remember to submit your proposals early-you only have until March 21 to apply!

Posted by Carol Smith, Google Open Source team

10 Mar 2014 7:00pm GMT

Picture the women in your life-the women you admire. Your grandma. Your daughter. Toni Morrison. Maria Klawe. Temple Grandin. Malala. Somaly Mam. International Women's Day is an opportunity to celebrate these phenomenal women and all the others around the world-to recognize their impact on society, and to focus on what still needs to be done to achieve gender equality. Today, Google is joining in and showcasing inspiring women of the past and present through a series of events, new content on the Cultural Institute and-of course-a doodle. Join us in celebrating women worldwide!

Celebrating technical women on stage at global Women Techmakers events
To help increase visibility, community and resources for technical women, we're launching a series of 100+ Women Techmakers events in 52 countries to celebrate and support passionate techmakers around the world. Starting today and throughout March, the event series will feature panel discussions with talented female technology leaders, hands-on career planning workshops, networking opportunities and more. To learn more about the program and find an event near you, visit g.co/womentechmakers.

Shining a light on women in history and their collective impact
The Google Cultural Institute is launching Women in Culture, a new channel featuring exhibits that tell stories of women-some familiar and some lesser-known-and their impact on the world. Starting today, you can browse 18 new exhibits, from both new and existing Cultural Institute partners, including:

• Showcasing Great Women by The National Women's Hall of Fame
• Makers by WETA (Makers.com: the largest video collection of women's stories ever)
• Frida Kahlo: ¡Viva la vida! by Museo Dolores Olmedo
• Pioneering Musicians: Women Superstars of the Early Gramophone Era by Archive of Indian Music
• Pathways to Equality by the National Women's History Museum
• The Struggle for Suffrage by English Heritage
• Profiles for Peace by the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security
• This Mad, Wicked Folly: Victorian American Women by the Meserve-Kunhardt Foundation
• World Changing Women by Vital Voices
• The painting Black Mesa Landscape, New Mexico / Out Back of Marie's II contributed by the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum

Since history has so often been biased, leaving out or sidelining contributions from women, the channel is also integrated with the rest of the Cultural Institute collections, making it easier for people to discover even more amazing stories about women throughout history.

A homepage homage
Women have been underrepresented in the history-telling of almost all fields: science, school curricula, business, politics-and, sadly, doodles. In addition to our continued effort for doodle diversity and inclusion, today's truly International Women's Day doodle features a host of more than 100 inspiring women from around the world, including the President of Lithuania, a brave Pakistani education activist, the most recorded artist in music history, an ever-curious explorer and dozens more.

Happy International Women's Day!

Posted by Kyle Ewing, People Operations

08 Mar 2014 8:00am GMT

At age 40, my mom quit her job to start an employment agency for people with disabilities. Over the next few years and without a college degree or any formal funding, she grew her business to employ more than 30 people and serve thousands of clients.

Though to me she's one-of-a-kind, it turns out there are other women like my mom out there. According to the National Association of Women Business Owners, women make up 30 percent of U.S. business owners and employ nearly 7.8 million workers. Even though women-owned enterprises operate with far less capital, in the venture-backed tech industry, they produce 12 percent higher returns. That means that not only is supporting women in business the right thing to do, it's also the smart thing to do.

In an effort to find new ways to advance female entrepreneurs, this week Google for Entrepreneurs is committing $1 million in aggregate to 40 startup-focused organizations, challenging them to increase the representation of women in their respective tech communities. From simply changing the times of events to accommodate busy moms to teaching young girls to see themselves as entrepreneurs, 40 of our partner communities will soon launch new programs and outreach initiatives to encourage women founders. We're calling this collective effort #40Forward. Here are a few highlights from our global community:

• 1871 in Chicago is launching a new accelerator program for women founded or co-founded companies that's more flexible and family-friendly, with a customized plan for each startup.
• Gaza Sky Geeks in Gaza is providing rewards for women attending startup events to demonstrate the economic value of them getting involved in tech to their families.
• Startup Grind chapters all over the world are hosting Women Take the Stage fireside chats featuring successful women business leaders in their communities.
• Outbox in Uganda is launching a year-long training to teach young women programming and entrepreneurial skills.
• Astia is increasing female entrepreneurs' access to capital by creating monthly opportunities for women-led companies to pitch to world-class investors.

Along with our 40 partners, we hope to create more inclusive networks and to move the needle for entrepreneurs like my mom-and young women like me who aspire to be like her. Follow and participate in the conversation throughout the month of March using #40Forward on Google+ and Twitter.

Posted by Bridgette Sexton Beam, Global Entrepreneurship Manager

05 Mar 2014 5:00pm GMT

In January, my 30 day challenge was to limit my social media. That was a productive month. In February, my 30 day challenge was to eat more slowly. I did that by counting to ten between chewing bites of my food. I tend to wolf down my food, which doesn't give my stomach time to […]

26 Feb 2014 8:41am GMT

Okay, I'm calling it: if you're using guest blogging as a way to gain links in 2014, you should probably stop. Why? Because over time it's become a more and more spammy practice, and if you're doing a lot of guest blogging then you're hanging out with really bad company. Back in the day, guest […]

20 Jan 2014 7:51pm GMT

Today I made a Bluetooth garage door opener. Now I can open my garage from my Android phone. There's a short how-to YouTube video from Lou Prado. Lou also made a website btmate.com that has more information, and you can watch an earlier howto video as well. The project itself was pretty simple: - Acquire […]

28 Dec 2013 12:39am GMT

I'll keep it short: this week when you donate for cancer research, I'll match your donation (up to a limit of $5000 total for all donations). We've already raised almost $8,000 dollars to help stop cancer, but I'd love to get to $10,000 or even higher. If anyone has ever wanted to take money out […]

16 Dec 2013 5:57pm GMT

I like to set myself different challenges every 30 days. In October 2013, I tried to eat better and exercise more. I did alright on that, but without a specific daily goal, I had a hard time deciding how well I did. I mostly got back into the habit of exercising daily, so that was […]

02 Dec 2013 5:45am GMT

A few years ago, I asked on my blog what people would like from Google's free webmaster tools. It's pretty cool to re-read that post now, because we've delivered on a lot of peoples' requests. At this point, our webmaster console will alert you to manual webspam actions that will directly affect your site. We've […]

21 Nov 2013 3:44pm GMT

For the folks that don't know, I've been out for a couple weeks and I'll be on vacation the rest of November. If you've tried to contact me recently and haven't heard back, that's probably the reason. Added: if you enjoy watching our webmaster videos, you can follow @googlewmc to hear as soon as we […]

20 Nov 2013 9:46pm GMT

On April 21st, 2014, I'm going to run the Boston Marathon. If you want to show your support, please donate to a good cause for cancer research. Anyone who wants to give is welcome. So many people have been affected by cancer, including members of my own family. The Dana-Farber Cancer Institute funds basic and […]

04 Nov 2013 3:38pm GMT

For Halloween 2013 I decided to be the Dread Pirate Roberts from the movie The Princess Bride: I even grew a slight moustache to help make the character believable: But to be clear, I wasn't just any old Dread Pirate Roberts. I decided to be the Silk Road Dread Pirate Roberts. So if you want […]

31 Oct 2013 3:03pm GMT

Someone recently asked me how I manage my to-do list, so I thought I'd write up the software that I use. Fundamentally I use Google Tasks as the backend, but with extensions and apps that improve on the basic functionality in Google Tasks. Chrome I use a couple different extensions for Chrome: - Better Google […]

26 Sep 2013 4:10pm GMT

The Emperor instructed the gardener to set up the new court's garden. "I want you to plant five trees growing the Crataan fruit," the Emperor said, "Because we asked people what fruit they like best, and most named the Crataan fruit!" The gardener replied, "Emperor, that is excellent thinking! But let me make some suggestions: First, how about we make one of the five trees bear the Muran fruit. Only one out of ten citizens loves it, but those peculiar citizens tend to love multiple times as much!" "Second," the gardener continued, "How about we make one of the five trees bear the Dratean fruit. No one loves it, but that's because no one knows it yet!" "Third," the gardener said, "How about we leave one spot in the garden empty. Who knows what new type of tree we'll discover that we can put there in the fut ...

26 Aug 2011 12:12pm GMT

For those of you who've been wondering whether I had turned to stone, fallen into a bottomless pit, or been climbing the Himalaya... no, none of that is true, even though you probably did notice I'm not actively blogging about Google here anymore*! Just now, a new iPad app I've been working on called Color Sound Machine went live, and this -- and all the other apps and games at Versus Pad** -- are actually what I am doing while not blogoscoping. *I've drafted unpublished posts explaining much more about past, present and future of Blogoscoped, and the history of Google news reporting, but ... oh, for now le ...

15 Aug 2011 4:00pm GMT

One of the earliest specialist services provided by Google was reverse phone number lookup. If you used the "phonebook:" or "rphonebook:" operators together with a 10-digit US phone number, Google would show you the owner of that phone number, unless the number was unlisted. Google no longer provides that service. Not surprisingly, there was no press release marking the closure, but Google employee Daniel Russell has acknowledged the closure of the service in his blog. He hints at the possible pressures leading to the shuttering of the service: "As you can imagine, this was an endless source of hassles for people (who were surprised to see themselves searchable on Google) and for Google (who had to constantly de ...

25 Feb 2011 11:23am GMT

This website would take the top headlines from a tech or political site for that day -- at first just from Reddit (you gotta start somewhere), but later, from other sites too, in aggregated form, similar to Techmeme, but across different topics you can navigate to from the frontpage (entertainment, politics, technology etc.). It would present them in some sort of list of headlines with a link to the discussion source. Below every headline on the frontpage there's an expandable chat box window. You log-in once into the site and then you can expand any one of these chat boxes, and see who's in there, and read the chat log, and join yourself with remarks by typing them in a box, similar to IRC and others. The chat wouldn't be a replacement of the discussion going on at the other site, but an addition to it. One benefit: a discus ...

16 Dec 2010 2:55pm GMT

Two groups have a text chat using a web interface, arguing about a certain topic. For Group B to reply to what Group A says, each member of Group B proposes a sentence. Then, each member of Group B quickly votes on which sentence of another member of their group they like best. (You don't have to propose a sentence, and you don't have to vote on one; both proposing a sentence as well as voting on one are time-limited to just a certain amount of seconds, though.) Then, the highest-voted sentence will be shown to Crowd A as answer. Crowd A now goes through the same process to formulate a reply directed at Crowd B, and so on. To join, you can pick any of the two crowds based on reading the chat log, provided this group hasn't reach its limit of X members (beyond just group size that limit may also depend on how active current me ...

16 Dec 2010 7:26am GMT

If you're using the Google Chrome developer channel (or Firefox 4 Beta) have a look at the new Body Browser to explore a body in 3D. [Via Google OS.]

16 Dec 2010 2:17am GMT

MBegin in the forum writes: I ran home for lunch today and was VERY pleasantly surprised to find a Cr-48 Chrome OS Notebook at my doorstep!! -Thanks Google! I took a few quick pics and I'll post more about my experiences later... Feel free to bug MBegin with questions in this post's comments, just in case he finds time to get around answering them!

10 Dec 2010 5:23am GMT

Using open source technologies from Google, could someone create a tablet that would let you add both Chrome Web Store apps/ web apps in general, as well as Android Market place apps, and you as user wouldn't even need to bother much about which comes from where as you'd only see a single merged Store, and apps would all be added to a nice homescreen with icons like on the iPad, and apps would always open full-screen no matter if the app maker made it that way or not, and Flash would work too? And would anyone want that thing?

09 Dec 2010 12:40pm GMT

Watching evolution is fun, especially when it happens right around you, and happens so fast. A mutation we saw yesterday was a new animal scientists gave the name "Chrome OS Notebook", but it's surrounded by other smart animals of all kinds and shapes. What do they fight for? Their nature are our offices, living rooms, cafes and parks; their food are our individual interests. Computing devices: the more we have, the less we notice them. Sneaky things, changing the color of their skin on different backgrounds... we don't even know they're computers anymore! The sneakier they fade in, the more likely they'll hunt down our interest when it appears. You're in your room, and you just had the idea of going to a cafe to read a newspaper, and perhaps chat with some friends. You can now hear small leafs crack, the surroundin ...

08 Dec 2010 5:17am GMT

If you find Google's Instant Previews feature as useless as I do -- you know, those images popping up near search results, often similarly unwanted (when triggered by a wrong click) as Snap site previews -- maybe this User script is for you. I use several machines and browsers, though, so always installing add-ons when Google rolls out something unwanted is suboptimal in the long run (opening links in a new window is something else I don't like, for instance, and whenever I disable it -- even if I would do so across browsers and machines -- it'll come back the next time I empty my cache, because Google thinks that's best for people located in China; another feature which I practically never use is the left-hand side bar... perhaps one day we'll need a Simple Google add-on to get r ...

17 Nov 2010 3:08am GMT

Google's newest Question and Answer service is Google baraza beta, launched on 25 October 2010. Baraza is offered in English and French, although Google's links to the French questions aren't working for me. Baraza operates on a Points basis. You get 20 points for signing up, and 4 points each day you log in. If you are already logged into your Google account, there isn't actually any signup process. Your name and photo from your Google profile are automatically used, although you can change your username and avatar if you like. Asking a question costs 5 points, and you earn 5 points for choosing a "best answer" for your question, so you can use the service on an ongoing ...

16 Nov 2010 4:20am GMT

15 Nov 2010 8:26am GMT

Here's a fully playable web demo of my new free iPad two-player game Knights vs Knightesses... it runs in Google Chrome and Safari. Note the graphics load much slower than the iPad app because it's online. If you're interested, the full source is viewable. It's all JavaScript because I'm using the PhoneGap wrapper for this one.

12 Nov 2010 7:00am GMT

The release of a massive but not complete Geocities archive made me wonder about all the past stuff we probably can't recover anymore (and the usage of stylesheets over time makes design changes so easy that they're also easily undocumented) -- so my question: Which of your lost websites would you most love to get back?

04 Nov 2010 2:58am GMT

Click the MapCrunch Go button and you'll be transported to a random (Google Street View covered) place in the world. [Via Reddit.]

24 Oct 2010 6:42am GMT