Google users now have more control over their search experience, thanks to our newest addition to Google Web Search: SearchWiki. With this new set of features, users can add, delete, re-sort or comment on search results for any query, to create a set of search results that’s customized just for them.
Just do a web search when logged in to your Google account, and check out all the new tools that are available. Now you can reorder results so that the site you prefer always appears first, delete a link from the search results that seems out of place, add a url so your favorite site always shows up for that search, or post a comment so you can remind yourself about a page’s content or provide recommendations to other users doing the same search.
These notes will only affect your search results pages and do not impact the ranking for other users when they search on Google. But to see even more information about what other users think about a search, check out the "All notes for this SearchWiki" link, which lets you see an aggregated view of which pages have been moved up, deleted or added, as well as the comments users have added for specific sites.
To learn more about SearchWiki please visit our blog post at, or just log in to your Google account and do a search.
Today, Google is announcing the launch of SketchUp 7 and SketchUp Pro 7, the newest versions of our popular 3D modeling software. Whether a user is an architect drafting solar-powered buildings, a video-game designer imagining wild characters in new worlds, or is entirely new to 3D and discovering the basics, SketchUp 7 makes design easy and more intuitive than it has ever been. With many useful new features, SketchUp 7 will not only help users express their ideas better and more easily in 3D, but will allow them to share their work and collaborate more effectively as well.
The creative and technical challenges of 3D can be daunting, and may prevent great projects from ever getting started. SketchUp 7 includes new features designed to make modeling more intuitive, help beginners get going, and enable veteran designers to work more efficiently. Available in both SketchUp 7 and SketchUp Pro 7, Dynamic Components are 3D models that are aware of what they are and behave like the real-world objects they represent. A ‘dynamic’ staircase, for example, knows that it is a staircase, and not just a shape designed to look like a staircase. Using the Scale tool on this staircase will automatically add or remove steps as you make it bigger or smaller. Dynamic Components allow modelers to scale objects without distorting them, configure ready-made components, and simply animate the objects.
SketchUp 7 and SketchUp Pro 7 were designed to make it even easier to share ideas and finished work with other SketchUp and modeling enthusiasts, wherever they may be in the world. Now, the Google 3D Warehouse, an online database of millions of 3D models, can be searched from within the SketchUp 7 component browser, making the process of finding, downloading, and using existing models of anything from the Golden Gate Bridge to a dining room table, even easier. As designs in SketchUp become more collaborative, taking and attributing credit for these models becomes increasingly important. Credits ensure that modelers’ work will be recognized and helps all users better understand the history of design behind each model.
Click image for larger view of 3D Warehouse integration in SketchUp 7 component browser
There are additional powerful features for SketchUp Pro users. LayOut 2, now out of beta, is a tool for creating and sharing professional presentations made from SketchUp models. LayOut 2 allows users to share hard-copies of their work and transfer models from SketchUp to paper, enabling them to print 3D items in a newly dynamic and detailed fashion. SketchUp Pro 7 users can author their own Dynamic Components, creating their own fully customized, interactive 3D models. SketchUp Pro 7 can be purchased online for $495.
Today Google released an update for its iPhone app that allows people to search on Google faster and easier than ever before. This launch builds on our previous version of the Google Mobile App for iPhone to offer two innovative new ways for users to search the web while they’re on the go: by voice and by location.
With the new version of the app, people can conduct a Google search by simply speaking their query into their iPhones. "Voice Search" uses speech recognition technology to transform spoken words into text and then runs the query through Google web search as if it had been typed manually. Additionally, to provide an even faster and more natural experience, when the app is turned on, Voice Search will detect the phone’s movement and activate automatically when you want to do a search. This feature allows you to naturally bring the phone up to your ear and speak your search into the phone, just as if you were talking on the phone.
This update to the Google Mobile App also uses the iPhone’s location detection to further personalize your search results. Now you can just type (or speak) a query like "pizza," "movies" or "weather" and you will receive results tailored specifically to your current location, without having to include a city or zip code in the search.
The voice and location features add to Google Mobile App’s existing tools that allow people to access all of Google’s mobile services from their phone. To learn more, please visit www.google.com/mobile or download the app from the iPhone App Store by searching for "Google Mobile App."
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (November 14, 2008) – Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) announced today that Nikesh Arora, Senior Vice President, Google and President EMEA Operations, will participate in a question-and-answer session at the Eighth Annual Morgan Stanley Technology, Media and Telecoms Conference in Barcelona. The session is scheduled for 3:45 a.m. Eastern Time / 12:45 a.m. Pacific Time on Friday, November 21, 2008.
Google’s innovative search technologies connect millions of people around the world with information every day. Founded in 1998 by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google today is a top web property in all major global markets. Google’s targeted advertising program provides businesses of all sizes with measurable results, while enhancing the overall web experience for users. Google is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia. For more information, visit www.google.com.
Google is a registered trademark of Google Inc. All other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.
Google today launched On-Demand Indexing, a new feature for Google Site Search that allows businesses to quickly incorporate new pages and important site updates into search results on their websites. On-Demand Indexing ensures that site visitors have access to a site’s freshest content, and that businesses have the flexibility to share news, product releases and promotions as they happen.
With On-Demand Indexing:
Site owners get an "Index Now" button to quickly and easily update their site search results with new and updated content.
New pages are searchable within hours – taking no longer than a day to appear within site search results.
On-Demand Indexing has allowed Adobe to easily keep their new online Adobe Community Help up to date, creating a dynamic resource that combines Adobe’s in-depth help centers with the most current resources available online. With Google Site Search, Adobe can selectively index the most relevant results from across their entire online community, and expose these resources directly to their Creative Suite customers – creating a unique tool that spans from the desktop into the cloud.
“On-Demand Indexing was essential for our recent launch of Adobe Creative Suite 4, the biggest software release in the company’s history,” said Tanya Wendling, senior director for Learning Resources at Adobe. “Google Site Search made it easy to implement search across our Creative Suite product line and online sites, and we are now able to index thousands of new pages and make them available to millions of users worldwide within hours.”
Google Site Search, our cloud-based search solution for business, helps thousands of organizations harness the power of Google.com, and fully customize search to suit their website. Along with the greater control of On-Demand Indexing, site owners get the same ease of use and fast results of Google Site Search, including:
Set up that takes minutes and results returned in less than a second
The ability to promote new or certain types of pages at the top of results
Full customization controls over the look and feel of search
A range of options for phone and email support
For more information about On-Demand Indexing, please visit our blog post. For more information about Google Site Search and Google’s search solutions for the Enterprise, please visit our information page or check out the video below.
Today Google launches Ancient Rome 3D on Google Earth, making it easy and fun to explore the historic city as it stood centuries ago.
Through Google Earth, students, teachers, tourists and historians can:
View a virtual representation of the city in 320 AD at the height of its development as the capital of the Roman Empire.
Fly around the city using Google Earth’s unique navigation.
Explore more than 6700 historic buildings.
Zoom in to discover the detailed interiors of eleven ancient structures including the Colosseum.
Learn about Ancient Rome through information bubbles written by expert historians.
Ancient Rome 3D is one of the most extensive collections of three-dimensional buildings – and the first ancient city – to be found on Google Earth. Within the Ancient Rome 3D layer users can visit the Roman Forum, stand in the centre of the Colosseum, trace the footsteps of the gladiators in the Ludus Magnus, stand on the Rostra, swoop over the Basilica Julia, fly under The Arch of Constantine or even examine the detail on the facade of the Basilica of Maxentius.
To celebrate the educational possibilities for this layer, Google is sponsoring a curriculum contest for K-12 educators in the United States. Teachers in all subject areas are encouraged to submit creative, innovative lesson plans that incorporate the Ancient Rome 3D layer. For more information and contest rules please visit earth.google.com/romecontest.
The project has been developed by Google in collaboration with Past Perfect Productions and the University of California, Los Angeles and the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities (IATH) at the University of Virginia.
To download Google Earth and learn more about the layer, users can visit earth.google.com/rome/. To view Ancient Rome 3D, users should go to the "Layers" panel of Google Earth, select "Gallery," then "Ancient Rome 3D."
By tracking the popularity of certain Google search queries, our engineers have discovered that we can accurately estimate the level of flu in each state, in near real time. Today Google.org launched a tool, Flu Trends, that makes this information accessible to all.
While traditional flu tracking systems take 1-2 weeks to collect and release data, Google search queries can be automatically counted immediately. During the last flu season, we shared our preliminary results with the Epidemiology and Prevention Branch of the Influenza Division at CDC, and together we saw that our search-based flu estimates had a consistently strong correlation with real CDC flu data.
Flu affects millions, and kills hundreds of thousands every year. Early detection is critical to helping health officials respond more quickly and save lives. Flu Trends can help serve as an early-warning system for outbreaks of influenza.
Makes it easy to chat with video and voice right alongside your email
Google today launched Gmail voice and video chat, making it simple for people around the world to chat in high-quality video for free right within Gmail. All you need is a webcam and a small web browser plugin, and you can start video chatting with your friends, family, and coworkers on Gmail and Google Apps. Gmail voice and video chat lets you start a video chat without switching to another application or signing up for another account. And if you don’t have a webcam, you can simply chat by voice. We’ve made it easy enough that your mom – or your employees – will actually use it.
The launch comes as video communication grows in popularity; many of the latest lines of laptops, for example, come with built-in webcams. Businesses stretched across continents and timezones want more face-to-face collaboration among their employees, but in this economic climate, they’re looking for ways to cut travel and IT expenses. Having a meeting with a colleague over video allows communications to continue in person without the expense of traveling there. Whether it’s a coworker demoing a new product, or a first-time grandmother saying hello to her new grandson, sometimes there’s no substitute for speaking to and seeing someone. Google is offering browser-based voice and video chat as a natural extension to webmail and instant messaging, allowing people to choose how they want to communicate at each moment – by email, instant message, voice, or video.
To get started, open a Gmail chat window, click on the "Options" menu at the bottom, and choose "Add voice/video chat," which will walk you through a one-time installation of a free plugin (a quick 2 MB download). When you re-open Gmail you’ll notice your "Options" link in your chat window has changed to "Video & more". Open this menu and click "Start video chat" to see and hear your partner in high-quality video. You can pop out the video and change its size and position, or switch to full screen.
Gmail is the first leading webmail service to include video chat. Gmail voice and video chat is being rolled out over the next day or so on PCs and on Macs. Google Apps customers get this service as well, at no extra charge, and can voice or video chat with any other Gmail or Apps users.
Gmail has always been about more than just email – it’s increasingly a communications hub, always pushing the limits of browser-based applications. Video chat is the latest in a weekly stream of Gmail features that includes, most recently, Gmail Labs (a public testing ground for experimental features like embeddable gadgets, the Forgotten Attachment Detector, and Mail Goggles), a mobile client for Android phones, animated emoticons, and more.
To use voice and video chat, your PC must have Windows XP or a more recent version, or an Intel-Based Mac with Mac OS X v10.4 or later. It works in browsers that support the latest version of Gmail (Google Chrome, Firefox 2.0+, Internet Explorer 7.0, and Safari 3.0).
