Tech Fun

Google’s looking out for us.

Official Google Blog: Time to “Free the Airwaves”
When it comes to opening these airwaves, we believe the public interest is clear. But we also want to be transparent about our involvement: Google has a clear business interest in expanding access to the web. There’s no doubt that if these airwaves are opened up to unlicensed use, more people will be using the Internet. That’s certainly good for Google (not to mention many of our industry peers) but we also think that it’s good for consumers.

… which is that people who don’t already use Google Docs refuse to fill out these forms. Unfortunately, because it’s a brilliant idea.

The official update feed from the Google Apps team: Google Docs makes it easier to set up and share a new form

Google Docs users can now select ‘Form’ from the ‘New’ item menu to customize and send an interactive form. Form submissions are automatically recorded in a sp

readsheet.

A brilliant idea, although there are a couple of possible downsides, such as the one mentioned in the title, and the possibly egregious iPhone overseas roaming charges.

Official Google Blog: Translations on your iPhone
Have you ever been traveling and suddenly realized that you didn’t know how to ask the taxi driver to take you to your hotel? It’s happened to us too, so the mobile team has put together an iPhone interface for Google Translate,

This makes me want to sell my Google stock. Why in the world should this be on the official Google blog with its global circulation? The culture of cutesy simulated youth is way too embedded in this company. When does adolescence end? 30? 35? when you vest?

Official Google Blog: Reinventing the wheel
About a month ago, we found out that our team, along with all of Offline Ads, would be moving from our comfortable 4th floor cubicles in New York City all the way up to the comparatively uninhabited 6th floor. It was definitely a change of pace from the Manhattan-esque bustle of our old space to a quieter, more Brooklyn-esque feel.

… [picture of K'nex ferris wheel]

OMG. What a stressful move.

This struck an irritating note as my wife and I are in the midst of looking for our social security cards and marriage certificate.

<

a href=”http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/08/tackling-information-overload-10.html”>Official Google Blog: Tackling information overload, 10 million documents at a time
Imagine the last time you misplaced an important document right when you needed it most: your plane ticket the day of a flight; your driver’s license before the morning commute; the warranty on your radio just as the speakers begin to crackle. A frustrating circumstance, perhaps, but a manageable one given the relatively limited landscape of one’s personal items.

…

As for finding your driver’s license, you’re on your own. Learn more about our search solutions for businesses.

I’ll be fearlessly candid and say that it continues to be a source of intense frustration for me, as a member of Ann Arbor’s tech community, that Google’s Ann Arbor office is, to all appearances, solely a Google Adwords “call center.” I’m sure they use email a lot more than the phone, but the basic concept, and the basic nature of the jobs, is the same. It’s galling that Google’s offices in other cities seem to have “real” developer and product jobs, but the Ann Arbor office sounds like a sort of AdWords ghetto. It might as well be a catalog call center. Until that changes, Google’s contribution to the Ann Arbor economy will be mostly in terms of maintaining the (already super low) unemployment rate by soaking off smart young people. A2 Googlers, I’d be delighted to learn I’m wrong …

Official Google Blog: Hello from A2

Inside our walls, you’ll find a team that’s committed to our AdWords advertisers — from identifying potential advertisers, to assisting current ones with day-to-day challenges, to strategizing with others for the future. That’s who we are. We’d love to have you join us.

Google overcomes a key sticking point for information professionals.

Official Google Blog: More transparency in customized search results
Today, we’re rolling out a new feature in Google Web Search that will help you better understand how your search results are already customized.

Very funny!

Blind Taste Test Shows XP Users Love Vista - Webmonkey

Microsoft took a play from beverage marketing this month with a blind taste taste of Windows Vista. Company researchers rounded up XP-loving Vista skeptics in San Francisco to try out what they claimed was a new operating system, which they code-named Mojave. After taking the OS for a spin, the guinea pigs were let in on the secret: they were drinking straight-off-the-shelf Windows Vista. The taste-testers were overwhelmingly positive.

Here’s a JPEG version of this insanely cool image, created by supercomputer.

Dinosaur supertree

What is the importance of this discovery?
Two things. We have made one of the biggest supertrees yet attempted - with 440 species. The more species you include, the more possible trees might exist - for 440, the number is huge, more than the number of atoms in the Universe. A year or two ago, this wouldn’t have been possible, but now, with ever-faster and larger computers, problems like this can be tackled. Second, we have used statistical approaches for the first time to determine the real pattern of dinosaurian evolution and to test for times of unusually high rates of diversification.

What is a supertree?
A supertree is a tree made up from many ’source’ trees, the original published trees. In this case, we tracked down 155 published trees, some of which covered only a family, others a larger group. These are then combined to produce the best fitting single solution. Of course, the source trees, published by dozens of palaeontologists around the world, include all sorts of conflicts and disagreements. So the supertree methods have to find ways to find the ‘majority’ or strongest verdict.

A WordPress plugin.