Googlified

The Google Code team released add two new APIs to the AJAX API family this week, the Visualization API and Language API. The Google Visualization API enables users to use the API to create visualizations from raw data using SQL-like queries with the API and it is integrated into Google Spreadsheet so that you can include the visualizations in the Spreadsheet.

The other one, Google Language API, offers language translation and detection for all the languages that Google Translate supports - currently at 13 language and 29 language pairs. Basically, they stole the idea that I stole from them. :) Of course, they got everything covered.

The FTC clears our acquisition of DoubleClick - Official Google Blog

Earlier today, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) cleared our acquisition of DoubleClick. This is obviously excellent news for both companies, and I would like to comment on its significance and what it means for us going forward.

A happy ending for Google and DoubleClick, but not so much for ____ (insert your own words/phrases here).

Security Reminder - Orkut Blog

This week, the orkut team discovered that a user had exploited a bug in our scrapbook feature. As a result, many of you likely received scraps from friends of yours that they actually didn’t send, and friends may have received scraps that appeared to come from you.

Mac OS X Dashboard widget security issue - Google Mac Blog

A security vulnerability in [has been found in our Gmail, Blogger, and Search History widgets], and we’ve updated the widgets to fix the issues. To make sure you’re covered, please download the new versions of your widgets.

Picasa Web Albums on the iPhone - Google Photos Blog

Today, we’re happy to tell you about an extra bonus for iPhone users who visit the mobile version of Picasa Web Albums. You’ll see that we’ve completely redesigned and optimized the interface specifically for iPhones.

Haere Mai! Google Maps lands in New Zealand - Official Google Blog

Today we’re pleased to announce the full launch of Google Maps in New Zealand. Although we’ve offered basic mapping in New Zealand for some time, today we’re unveiling a localised and customised site for our users in New Zealand.

No more excuses for being late - Google Mobile Blog

Starting today, you can use Google Sync for mobile to synchronize your BlackBerry handheld with Google Calendar. Simply go to http://m.google.com/sync in your mobile browser to download and install the Google Sync for mobile application.

Earth From Above - Official Google Blog

French photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand’s beautiful images of the planet have become a coffee table favorite across the world. Today we are excited to present a new Google Earth layer of nearly 500 of his images, many taken from hot air balloons and all taken from above the earth.

Let your photos on Picasa Web Albums be search-able on Google Image, learn how to program applications for Android, find a Google knit winter hat in Harajuku, correct your address(es) on Google Maps, and don’t forget to submit your questions in videos to the Republican presidential candidates in the upcoming CNN/YouTube Debate. :)

Tips for Google Reader Search - Google Operating System

Tips for using the new (but with many limitation) Google Reader search feature brought to you by Ionut from Google OS.

Interview: Talking to Google Desktop - Blog About the Web

Resident Google Desktop expert Teo interviews engineers from the Google Desktop team: James Yum and Mihai Ionescue, “who talked about the past, present and feature of Google Desktop.” Great interview. :)

Crazy Questions at Google Job Interview - Tihomir Nakov

Title says all. (I nailed a few good ones nonetheless. :D)

You know you’re a Google fanboy when… - Google Blogoscoped Forum

Forum member Sohil started the discussion with “What are your Google fanboy moments?” Jump over there and join the discussion. :)

Hope that you had a great weekend. :)

Blogger Adds Robots.txt - gSpy

If you use Google Sitemaps for your Blogger and you are seeing a sudden increase in the number of links being blocks by robots.txt, don’t panic as it is not anything you did wrong. It is all because Blogger is adding robots.txt by default recently.

Opening up Google Print Ads - Official Google Blog

We’ve announced that we’re extending Google AdWords to newspapers for most U.S. advertisers. To learn more, visit the Google Print Ads™ site, or read about it on the Inside AdWords blog.

Ten new languages - Docs & Spreadsheets Blog

We’re now available in Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish, Czech, Ukrainian, Hungarian, Thai, Vietnamese, and Indonesian. To change your default language, click the “Settings” link from the top right of your document list.

We go round and round - Inside AdSense

This week, we’ve added a new dimension for publishers in customizing these ad formats. You’ve long been able to customize the size and colors of your ad units; now, you can also customize the shape by selecting between square, slightly rounded, or very rounded corners.

Why we’re buying DoubleClick - Official Google Blog

Since Google has never played in [display advertising], acquiring DoubleClick will enable us to complement our search and content-based advertising capabilities. Its products and technologies will help to improve online advertising for consumers, advertisers and publishers.

Custom Search Engine APIs - Custom Search Blog

With Linked CSEs, you designate a CSE specification URL with each search request (as a hidden form field in your search box HTML code). Google retrieves the CSE specification from the URL when your user searches in the CSE. We cache and refresh the results so that only the first search to your CSE incurs any delay.

Welcome to Google, Geoff Davis! - Limi.net

Plone luminary and all-around-excellent dude Geoff Davis accepted an offer to work with us as a User Experience Researcher (at Google).

How a six-month-old startup got bought by Google - The Startup Game

So how did the pair, who met while working at Go Daddy, end up making a product (which, incidentally, was still in private beta) that Google had to snatch up? Here’s a look at how Zenter did it.

Finding your community - Google Custom Search Blog

Google Custom Search Engine now has a new feature that allows users to search other Custom Search Engines. Powered by Google Base.

[photo from GeoffDavis.net]

Google to build data center in Iowa - BusinessWeek (AP)

Google Inc. will build a $600 million data center in western Iowa, Gov. Chet Culver announced Tuesday.

Pay-Per-Action Beta Expanding Globally - Inside AdWords

Starting today, advertisers who use AdWords conversion tracking and receive more than 500 conversions from their CPC or CPM campaigns in the most recent 30-day period will be invited to join this beta test, on a rolling basis. Eligible advertisers will see an alert in their AdWords account informing them that they can now try the PPA beta.

U.S. general: Google Earth danger to security - MSNBC (Reuters)

The head of U.S. Air Force intelligence and surveillance on Thursday said data available commercially through online mapping software such as Google Earth posed a danger to security but could not be rolled back.

There’s something living under our noses - SketchUp Blog

May is Mustache Month at Google, and (as you can see above) members of the Boulder office did us proud. Over the course of several weeks, these guys made serious, relationship-affecting sacrifices to grow out their lip gerbils. As it was also a contest, the rest of the office voted on winners in three categories.

How long should Google remember searches? - Official Google Blog

After considering the Working Party’s concerns, we are announcing a new policy: to anonymize our search server logs after 18 months, rather than the previously-established period of 18 to 24 months.

Introducing Placement Performance reporting on the Google content network - Inside AdWords

Today, we’re beginning a phased launch of the Placement Performance report, a new type of AdWords report that gives advertisers increased transparency into their performance on the Google content network. The Placement Performance report provides site-by-site performance metrics — including clicks, impressions, cost, and conversion data — for domains or URLs in the content network where your ads have appeared.

Google Earth users outnumber Brazil’s population - CNet

More than 200 million people have downloaded Google Earth […] . That’s just under the population of Indonesia at roughly 233 million and the United States at just more than 301 million. Brazil’s population falls short of Google Earth users with 188 million residents.

Google Earth KML Gallery - Google LatLong Blog

Since Google Earth was launched, users have been exploring our world and creating content overlays (KML files) to share their explorations with others. We’re now highlighting these KML files in the new Google Earth Gallery.

CIC Joins Google’s Library Project - Google Press

The number of libraries participating in the Google Book Search Library Project just got a whole lot bigger with today’s addition of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC). […] Google will work with the CIC to digitize select collections across all its libraries, up to 10 million volumes.

New Imagery for Google Earth - June 2nd! - GEarthBlog

Google has just released new imagery for Google Earth. Most of the UK is now in high resolution. It appears there are many new strips of Digital Globe satellite photography in many parts of the world.

Flickr gets native KML savviness - OgleEarth

[Flickrer Dan Catt] reveals that Flickr’s API can now be asked to return KML via URL attributes. It’s still a work in progress, but it is a welcome return to seamless interaction between Flickr and KML.