NORAD Tracks Santa 2009

Announcement
December 23, 2009

Follow Santa’s journey around the world in Google Earth and Google Maps

2008 HIGHLIGHTS

This Christmas Eve, Google will once again partner with NORAD to help track Santa’s journey around the world. As soon as St. Nick and his reindeer take off from the North Pole – reported to be at approximately 2am EST – Santa’s location will appear on both a Google Map and in Google Earth, at www.noradsanta.org. Throughout the day, NORAD will track Santa and regularly update his location, enabling anyone to follow his progress as he makes his way around the globe delivering gifts.

This is the latest chapter in a rich history of Santa-tracking for both NORAD and Google. NORAD first began tracking Santa in 1955 when a misprinted magazine advertisement from Colorado Springs, CO displayed the NORAD (then CONAD) Commander-in-Chief Operations hotline, rather than the ‘Santa hotline’ phone number that was intended. Embracing the holiday spirit, NORAD officials provided callers with the location of Santa’s sleigh, according to their radars, and they’ve done so ever since. First tracked in Google Earth – then "Keyhole Earth Viewer" – by current Googler Brian McClendon in 2004, Google became NORAD’s official technology partner in 2007 displaying Santa’s route in Google Earth and Google Maps.

There are several ways to keep tabs on Santa’s journey this year with NORAD Tracks Santa:

• Google Earth and Maps – Beginning at 2am EST on Christmas Eve, Santa’s location can be tracked on both a Google Map and with the Google Earth Plug-in at noradsanta.org. The Google Earth Plug-in enables users to enjoy the immersive Google Earth experience from within their web browsers. To see Santa in 3D in Google Earth, make sure you have the Google Earth Plug-in installed – it will be activated automatically when you download Google Earth 5.1 – visit noradsanta.org, and click ‘Track Santa in Google Earth’. That’s all there is to it! Have a look at our blog post on the Geo-developer’s blog for more information about our use of the Google Earth Plug-in this year. Users can use the 2-D or 3-D map on the NORAD site to follow his progress over the course of the day, or embed the 2-D Map on their own website to track Santa. Note: Santa will not be trackable this year with the Google Earth client.

• Google Maps for Mobile – Keep tabs on Santa from most mobile phones with Google Maps for mobile. Just open Google Maps on your phone and search for "Santa", or enter m.noradsanta.org in your phone’s browser. For more information about mobile Santa-tracking, have a look at the Official Google Mobile blog.

• YouTube – NORAD’s ‘Santa-cams’ have been positioned to capture footage of Santa zooming through select locations around the world. This footage will be posted on noradsanta.org as it’s captured, and uploaded over the course of the day to the NORAD Tracks Santa channel on YouTube. Be sure to revisit the ‘Videos’ page at noradsanta.org to get the most recent santa-cam footage from NORAD.

• Real Time Search – Given the speed – ‘1 “T” (Twinkle of an eye) maximum climbing speed,’ according to NORAD – of Santa’s sleigh and the virtually countless visits he makes on Christmas Eve, tracking St. Nick can be pretty difficult. One way to keep up with this Christmas Eve activity is with Google’s new Real Time Search. Users can discover public information from micro-blogs such as Twitter and Friendfeed, the latest news articles, blog posts, and other relevant materials about Santa, published to the web in real-time and directly within Google’s search results. See what people on the web are currently saying about Santa, get tweets from @noradsantaand much more.

To learn more about NORAD Tracks Santa, have a look at our Official Google Blog Post

Visit www.noradsanta.org, or m.noradsanta.org, on most mobile phones, to track Santa on Christmas Eve. Enjoy, have fun, and from all of us at Google, happy holidays and happy new year!

Press Contact

Aaron Stein
steina@google.com
(For additional inquiries, access to broadcast-quality b-roll, links to Google site for media)

NORAD Media Center

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Google Web Toolkit Announces New Features

MOUNTAIN VIEW (December 9, 2009) – Yesterday Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) announced the newest version of Google Web Toolkit, an open source development toolkit used by thousands of developers around the world for building and optimizing complex browser-based applications. The drastic improvements in browser speed and capabilities over the past year enable ever larger and richer web applications, but also require better development tools to take full advantage of them. Google Web Toolkit 2.0 is built for these new demands.

New features include:

• Performance Profiling with Speed Tracer: Speed Tracer is a new tool built using modern HTML5 technologies that allows developers to diagnose performance problems in the browser, providing insight that hasn’t been available before about low-level operations deep within the browser.

• Incremental Downloading with Code Splitting: As applications grow larger, developers want to ensure that their applications start as quickly as possible, without requiring application "boot up" time as the code downloads. Code Splitting enables developers to safely and easily slice and dice their application code so that key functionality can load immediately and other features can be loaded later as needed.

• Declarative UI with UiBinder: Team projects benefit from a workflow that allows smooth collaboration between designers and developers. UiBinder is a new declarative UI framework in Google Web Toolkit which enables rapid design iteration and a clean separation between presentation layer and application logic.

"The web is getting more powerful as an application platform and ever improving developer tools are playing a key role in this growth," said Andrew Bowers, Product Manager at Google. "Google Web Toolkit’s performance and productivity enhancements have been tried and tested over the past year with Google teams that are pushing the boundaries of web apps – products like Google Wave and AdWords 3.0."

"We use Google Web Toolkit for all our Java-based internal apps", said Ben Fried, Google Chief Information Officer. "It’s a great tool for Enterprise-class Java GUI development, and we build our most sensitive and critical corporate systems with it. In addition to the big benefits in developer productivity GWT offers, the future-proofing and browser independence you get out of the box mean that we’re protected from the problems caused by browser-specific bugs and exploits."

Because GWT is developed as an open source project, many companies have already started taking advantage of the new features we’re premiering today. Google has worked in coordination with MediaBeacon™, DotSpots™, Red Hat™, InterContinental Hotel Group™, and many more.

“It is great to see a toolkit that provides developers with a way for creating rich internet applications without a lot of the traditional overhead. GWT provides nicely greased rails for us to develop interactive sites, which translates to an enhanced guest experience.”

Keith Credendino, in reference to the development of HolidayInn.com
Director, Distribution & Guest Technology
InterContinental Hotels Group

"DotSpots saw major code size improvements after the release of GWT 2.0. We shaved 20% off the code size by recompiling and even more once we started using Code Splitting. The new development mode available in GWT 2.0 has revolutionized the way we work with GWT. In previous versions, our development environments were limited to a single browser on our machine. We can now debug any browser running on the current machine, as well as browsers running on other platforms in virtual machines."

Matt Mastracci
Chief Technology Officer
DotSpots

"As part of the upstream for JBoss Enterprise BRMS we have included a project called Drools Guvnor which uses GWT-based GUIs, editors, and tools to aid in the management of large numbers of rules and provides a centralized repository for Drools Knowledge Bases. Guvnor has been based on GWT since GWT first came out."

Rich Sharples
Director, Product Management
Red Hat

To learn more about Google Web Toolkit, and to watch the video of last night’s Campfire One announcement, visit code.google.com/gwt. Additionally, the Google Web Toolkit team will be at the Google I/O conference in May (code.google.com/events/io).

About Google Inc.

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.

Media Contact:

Google Press Center
press@google.com
+1.650.930.3555

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Google, Google Web Toolkit are trademarks of Google Inc. All other company and product names may be trademarks of the companies with which they are associated.

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Google to Host Educational Webcast

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (December 3, 2009) – Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) announced that it will host its second educational webcast for investors, financial analysts, and members of the press. This educational webcast will focus on Google’s display advertising business, including the Google Content Network, YouTube, and DoubleClick, presented by senior members of the respective teams.

The event will be held on Tuesday, December 15, 2009 at 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time / 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time. The webcast will be available at investor.google.com, and a replay will be available on the same website.

About Google Inc.
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.

Contacts:

Maria Shim
Investor Relations
650.253.7663
marias@google.com

Jane Penner
Corporate Communications
650.214.1624
jcpenner@google.com

Rob Shilkin
Corporate Communications
212.565.4091
rshilkin@google.com

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Google is a trademark of Google Inc. All other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.

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Google Announces 2009 Year-End Zeitgeist

Announcement
December 1, 2009

Today, Google announced its annual Zeitgeist, a look at 2009 through the collective eyes of the world on the web. This year’s Zeitgeist offers a unique perspective on the year’s major events and hottest trends from almost 50 countries across the globe. We dug through billions of aggregated search queries and discovered what got people typing away into the Google search box – from the latest fads in exercise and diet to shocking news in the celebrity and entertainment world, and from vital issues like swine flu, the economy and politics all the way to unique searches in several major U.S. cities.

You can find more information on this year’s top trends by visiting our 2009 Year-end Zeitgeist website, as well as our blog post on the announcement.

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Google to Present at the Barclays Capital Global Technology Conference

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (December 1, 2009) – Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) announced today that Matthew Glotzbach, Director, Product Management, will participate in a question-and-answer session at the Barclays Capital Global Technology Conference in San Francisco. The session is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Eastern Time / 10:30 a.m. Pacific Time on Wednesday, December 9, 2009.

To access the live audio webcast of the session, please visit investor.google.com/webcast.html.

About Google Inc.

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.

Contacts:

Maria Shim
Investor Relations
650.253.7663
marias@google.com

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Google is a trademark of Google Inc. All other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.

Read more »