Google.ru celebrates 60th anniversary of Stanislaw Lem first book

The Astronauts (in Polish Astronauci) is the first science fiction novel by Polish writer Stanisław Lem published as a book, in 1951. Today Google.ru published a doodle to celebrate this date.

[caption id="attachment_907" align="aligncenter" width="411" caption="60th anniversary of Stanislaw Lem first book"][/caption]

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Google Voice in Gmail

Google Voice has become a part of Gmail. You'll need to install the Google voice and video chat plug-in. Calls to the U.S. and Canada will be free. International calling rates are available here. Dialing a phone number works just like a normal phone. Just click “Call phone” at the top of your chat list and dial a number or enter a contact’s name.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="521" caption="Google Voice in Gmail"][/caption]

FFmpeg 0.6 with WebM support

New version of FFmpeg codenamed "Works with HTML5" is released. It is first version that supports Google's newly released libvpx library for the VP8 codec and the Matroska demuxer was extended to support to WebM container.

WebM is an open, royalty-free, media file format designed for the web. WebM defines the file container structure, video and audio formats. WebM files consist of video streams compressed with the VP8 video codec and audio streams compressed with the Vorbis audio codec. The WebM file structure is based on the Matroska container.

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Google announces WebM open media format

At Google I/O conference: WebM, a new project that will attempt to offer a standard, open format for audio and video on the web.

WebM includes:

• VP8, a high-quality video codec we are releasing today under a BSD-style, royalty-free license


• Vorbis, an already open source and broadly implemented audio codec


• a container format based on a subset of the Matroska media container

[caption id="attachment_627" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="WebM Project"][/caption]

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Google changes name to Topeka

Early last month the mayor of Topeka, Kansas stunned the world by announcing that his city was changing its name to Google.
The unusual move is a response to Google's new "Fiber for Communities" program. Google is going to install new Internet connections in unannounced locations, giving those communities Internet speeds 100 times faster than those elsewhere, with data transfer rates faster than 1 gigabit per second. Mayor hoped the proclamation would catch Google's attention. Guess what, today Google officially changed it's name to Topeka to honor this gesture. No info on which municipalities are chosen to participate in our experimental ultra-high-speed broadband project.

[caption id="attachment_588" align="alignnone" width="558" caption="Google has officially changed our name to Topeka."][/caption]

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Google Maps now offers biking directions!

As an every day commuter I am really happy to see this happening. The bike directions take a lot of factors into consideration:
designated bike lanes, tries to avoid areas with lots of hill climbs and drops, busy roads and intersections. In giving estimates on trip times, Google uses an average person at an average Body Mass Index level, peddling up and down the terrain. Let's take a look at my usual morning route. I checked it with GPS logger and it is 9 miles which takes me about 35 minutes. According to Google Maps it is 11.6 mi and takes 1 hour. This feature is still in beta so I hope they will make some improvements :-)

[caption id="attachment_549" align="alignnone" caption="Bicycle directions on Google Maps"][/caption]

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Picnik Acquired by Google

Popular web-based photo editing service Picnik was acquired by Google. Picnik does a great job of cropping and touching up photos, and it comes with a lot of fun effects. It looks like nothing changes today. They will keep supporting existing partners, including Flickr and Facebook. I just wonder how they going to merge it with with Picasa?

[caption id="attachment_535" align="alignnone" caption="picnik.com"][/caption]

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Full Screen Weather Map

Map displays temperatures as measured from stations across Weather Underground's extensive reporting areas, but you can also switch to Precipitation and Cloud views (you can even play back cloud or precipitation movement over time). In the bottom-left of the window you get an overview of current conditions and a four-day forecast.


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Picasa 3.5 available for download

Basically it's about name tags that have been available in web version for a while. It  scans all the photos in your collection, identifies the ones with faces, and groups photos with similar faces together.  It will also sync back and forth with online albums so if you already got name tags there all will be imported to your local collection.

Other features include geotags and integration with Goggle Maps. You can easily set album or photo geographic  locations.  Tag management has been improved which makes it more interesting alternative to commercial photo management software. last but not least is simplification of import, upload and sharing. You can actually do this in one step.

Google Flu Trends

Google Flu Trends showing the prevalence of flu outbreaks across America. it uses aggregated Google search data to estimate flu activity in your state up to two weeks faster than traditional systems.Flu-related search terms are tracked to estimate when and where the flu happens, with data going back to 2003.



They have found a close relationship between how many people search for flu-related topics and how many people actually have flu symptoms. Of course, not every person who searches for "flu" is actually sick, but a pattern emerges when all the flu-related search queries from each state and region are added together. They compared query counts with data from a surveillance system managed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and discovered that some search queries tend to be popular exactly when flu season is happening. By counting how often we see these search queries, we can estimate how much flu is circulating in various regions of the United States.

The data is tracked by state, so you can check and prepare when the flu starts to pick up in your area.

Back Up Your Files to Google Docs Automatically

Webmonkey details how to automatically back up your files to Google Docs using a Python script.

Google Gadgets for Linux

Google Desktop is a desktop search application that runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux. But the Linux version has always been a bit behind the curve. While all three clients let you search the web or files on your computer, the Mac and Windows versions have long supported Google Gadgets, which are desktop widgets that let you do everything from checking the weather to controlling your media player software.

Now Google has released an update that brings gadgets to Google Desktop for Linux.

FriendConnect

Google launched its entry into the growing field of programs that attempt to share your "social graph" -- your collection of friends and relationships -- across many social networks. The program is called Friend Connect, and it's starting with a handful of sites, including Facebook, Plaxo and Hi5. Friend Connect is also going to support applications under OpenSocial, Google's social network application platform that has been around since last November.

Google Maps Predicts Traffic Conditions

Google Maps can now predict traffic information for any day of the week and time of the day, based on past conditions. By default, if you click on the Traffic button in a supported area from the US, Google Maps shows real-time traffic information.

Search Engines Unite On Unified Sitemaps System

In alphabetical order, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo have agreed to all support a unified system of submitting web pages through feeds to their crawlers. Called Sitemaps, taking its name from the precursor system that Google launched last year, all three search engines will now support the method.

Search Engines Unite On Unified Sitemaps System

From YouTube to the iPod

For these folks and for anyone else who’s wondered how to archive YouTube video, here’s the answer. Follow this quick step-by-step process for retrieving YouTube content to display on your Mac or iPod.

From YouTube to the iPod - O'Reilly Mac DevCenter Blog

Picasa for Linux

Picasa is a free software download from Google. Now available for Linux!

So, how does it work? Picasa for Linux runs the current Windows version of Picasa using a carefully tested version of Wine, an open-source implementation of the Windows application-programming interface (API). Wine runs on top of the X Window System and Linux or Unix. But it’s not a Windows emulator; instead, it provides a Windows API middleware layer that enables Windows programs to run on Linux without the slowing effects of OS emulation or a virtual machine.