Photo sharing, unplugged

Posted by Beth Campbell, Picasa team

Picasa is great for managing photos, but I also use it for ordering prints and photo gifts. A lot of my friends and family prefer to get photos the non-digital way, and Picasa lets me quickly edit photos and albums and then send them to some of the most popular online photo finishers. I just select the pictures I want (hold down the CTRL key to select more than one). Then I click the "Order" button at the bottom of the screen.

I choose the photo finisher I want to use, sign in to that site, and the selected photos are quickly uploaded. From there, shop as usual. Here's a gift a mother could love:
Whether you pick prints or mugs or photo books, it's all about helping you share photos faster and more easily.

Lois Lane Kate Bosworth

Catherine Anne Bosworth was born in Los Angeles, California, but spent a large part of her childhood living all over the United States. Kate and the Bosworth family have lived in San Francisco, Connecticut and Massachusetts. Kate Bosworth loved riding horses, and by the age of 14 she was a champion equestrian. She also liked acting and singing, had done community theater and sung at local fairs.

Kate Bosworth heard of a casting call for girls around her age that could ride horses. Kate attended an open audition in New York and used a family Christmas card photo as her headshot. The movie was a big Hollywood deal called The Horse Whisperer and it starred and was directed by Robert Redford. Kate Bosworth scored the part of Judith, a young rider who gets killed in an awful riding accident. After that, Kate took a little time off from acting to be a regular teenager, but was back on the small screen in 2000 in the short-lived NBC series Young Americans. After that, Kate decided she'd have better luck with the big screen and snagged a role in Remember the Titans and The Newcomers. Her biggest role yet was the lead in an all-girl surf movie called Blue Crush. Kate Bosworth played Anne Marie Chadwick, a great surfer with more than a little self-doubt. The movie snagged Bosworth a ton of attention and she won more movie roles in Wonderland and The Rules of Attraction.

Kate Bosworth's newest leading role is playing Rosalee Futch in Win a Date with Tad Hamilton. Rosalee is a small-town girl who enters an internet contest and wins a date with the hottest celebrity out there - Tad Hamilton (played by Josh Duhamel). Tad Hamilton digs Rosalee, but so does Rosalee's less glamorous buddy, Pete Monash (played by That '70s Show's Topher Grace).

Kate Bosworth's love life has scored even more attention than her movie roles - but that's what happens when you date an elf/pirate. Bosworth is set to marry Orlando Bloom. The smitten couple - who both refuse to discuss details of their romance in interviews - have reportedly been told by their managers to keep news of their engagement under wraps so they don't break the hearts of their adoring fans.

Currently, Kate Bosworth is playing the role of Lois Lane for the upcoming Superman Returns.

Singer/Actress Mandy Moore

Mandy was born April 10, 1984, in Nashua, New Hampshire. At the age of two months she moved to Orlando, Florida. Mandy presently lives in Orlando with her parents, Don and Stacy, her brothers Scott and Kyle and their three cats, Milo, Zoo, and Chloe.

Mandy found her love of singing when she went to a summer musical camp when she was nine years old. Mandy isn't sure where she got the talent but says, "It may have come from my Grandmother. She was a dancer in the theater district of London, the West End."

Mandy became known as Orlando's National Anthem Girl, performing 'The Star Spangled Banner' at several sports events, including Chris Evert's Pro Celebrity Tennis Tournament. Mandy say's "I don't feel I've missed out on anything about growing up because I feel so fortunate. There are so many kids that would love to be doing what I'm doing!"

Mandy is a national spokeswoman for Neutrogena products, and featured in the company's TV and print advertising campaigns. She's is also partnered with the Wet Seal-Contempo to promote its Blue Asphalt product catalog. Mandy appears on the cover of the publication in over 3 million homes and in the advertising for Blue Asphalt Clothing Line.

Mandy rose to celebrity status after touring with N-Sync and the Backstreet Boys. Her debut single, 'Candy', sold half a million copies, many of the sales attributable to a promotional website that registered over 100,000 'hits' a day at its peak. Sales of 'Candy' were enough to convince 550 Music to rush release of So Real, her debut album, before the end of the millennium. The album, I Wanna Be With You, was repackaged with the addition of five new songs, the following June.

Mandy is also learning to play guitar with an eye toward writing her own songs. Recently, Mandy has turned her attention to Hollywood with several new film roles, and it is uncertain if this is her new direction of ambition.

More of what I want

Posted by Sean Knapp, Software Engineer

A lot of you have personalized your Google homepage since we introduced it on Labs in May. Since then we've received a ton of great feedback, based on which we've added some new options, including a section for bookmarks, updated the page's look-and-feel, and introduced a way to find and add feeds from wherever you want (which means I can keep up with the latest John Cougar Mellencamp news).

Give the latest rev a try and let us know what you think.

Taiwan's Top Model Lin Zhi Ling to fly home after fall

Taiwanese model Lin Chi-ling, who was injured falling from a horse earlier this month, can fly home from the mainland in a special medical evacuation plane, but only if she stops first in either Hong Kong or Macau.

Lin, Taiwan's top model, was injured July 8 when she fell from a horse while shooting a commercial in the northeastern port of Dalian.

Her mainland doctor has reportedly said Lin suffered from six fractured ribs, but that they would heal naturally.

Her relatives have said they hoped to arrange a special charter to take her home Saturday.

But Mainland Affairs Council official Fu Tung-cheng said Thursday the plane must make a brief stop in Hong Kong or Macau before flying on to Taipei to observe a Taiwanese ban on direct flights.

Lin could stay on the plane when it stops, said Fu.

But Taiwan's CTI Cable News quoted Lin's mother as saying Lin will likely fly in a medical plane to Hong Kong, from where she will transfer to a commercial plane for the flight home.

Lin, the No. 1 supermodel in Taiwan, gets 5 million yuan (US$602,000) per commercial on average, the second-highest paid star in Hong Kong and Taiwan behind Maggie Cheung. She will claim 8.7 million yuan from an insurance company as compensation.

Test drive this hybrid vehicle

Posted by Lars Rasmussen, Maps Engineer

Can't decide between looking at a map of your house or a photo of your house? See both at once with Google Maps' new Hybrid mode, available in the US, Canada, and the UK.

[updated]

Moon Children

Posted by Larry Schwimmer, Software Engineer

This adventure started with my birthday wish on a Post-It note.

So how do you launch a project in one week?

It helps to have a working demo. After our satellite maps integration was completed, Chikai, a Google Earth engineer, had time to make his lunar dream a reality -- sort of. Everyone loved the demo but it gathered moon dust for a few months while Google Earth was being readied.

Until Google acquired Keyhole, Chikai and I both lacked co-workers with the same birthday. Fortunately, someone raised the moon idea again on our birthday. And thus the wish was made. Interestingly enough, several product people are also moon children, which probably helped.

A week later, we've achieved lift-off for Google Moon. It's great to stand on the shoulders of giants, especially the brave and brilliant people at NASA we commemorate and whose data made this possible. And it's energizing to work at a company that can translate a birthday wish into a product in a week.

Even so, we haven't included the Moon's 22 seas, 8 Soviet Luna landings, 3 NASA Ranger impacts, and 7 NASA Surveyor landings. Ah, well. There's always next year.

Staying Alert

Posted by Naga Sridhar Kataru, Software Engineer

If you track information on a batch of discrete topics all the time like I do, managing your inbox is no day at the beach. Monitoring a number of mailing lists for interesting news on, say, [harry potter] or [sony aibo] or [housing bubble] without actually subscribing to what could be hundreds of mailing lists is a daunting task. (And remember, Google Groups also encompasses Usenet groups - even more messages to scan!) There hasn't been an easy way to achieve this in Google Groups except for periodically searching for a given topic to see if there are any new and interesting posts.

Some of us thought it would be cool to offer a feature that does this work for us. Whenever we start thinking like this, it's usually followed by a new product - and that has led to our latest Alerts offering, a beta version of Google Groups Alerts. It monitors the top 50 most recent Google Groups search results that relate to keywords you're interested in. Any new articles posted that match your criteria will be emailed to you, just like Google News alerts. The ideal candidates for Groups Alerts are those that might be discussed in multiple discussion groups. Give it a try and see if you don't save time - and stay current.

Japanese R&B Singer Namie Amuro

Namie Amuro was born on September 20, 1977 in Okinawa, Japan to a Japanese father and Italian-Japanese mother. She attended the Okinawa Actors School at the young age and made her musical debut as part of a group called Super Monkeys when she was in 8th grade.

The group went through a few member changes as it gradually grew in popularity. It became increasingly obvious that Namie Amuro was the most popular member of the band. Its name was changed to Namie Amuro and Super Monkeys, with Namie as the main act.

Namie caught the eye or prominent music producer Tetsuya Komuro. He took her under his wing and nurtured her solo career. Soon Namie became the bona fide "Queen of J-pop" (J-pop=Japanese pop). Thousands of young girls in Japan copied her hair and fashion sense.

In 1999 she returned to the pop scene, but soon received news of her mother's death. She again took a short break for mourning.

In 2002, Namie fully immersed herself into the Japanese R&B scene releasing music under the psuedonym, SUITE CHIC. Under the SUITE CHIC project she collaborated with several of Japan's popular hip hop and R&B artists. They released two singles, an original album and one remix album before ending the project in 2003.

From November 29th, 2003 to May 15th, 2004 she performed throughout Asia on the "Namie Amuro SO CRAZY" tour featuring BEST singles 2003-2004, where she wrapped it up with 3 concerts in Seoul, South Korea. She was the first major Jpop artist to hold a concert in the country. Currently, she's on the "Namie Amuro Fanclub" tour. Her single GIRL TALK / the SPEED STAR, was released on October 14, 2004.

Recently, She donated 10 million yen to UNICEF to be given to child victims of the Dec 26 earthquake and tsunami in Sumatra. Amuro made the donation after performing at the charity event "MTV Asia Aid" held in Bangkok. Previously, she donated 5 million yen to the Taiwan Child Support Foundation and 5,000 won to the Korea Council of Social Welfare, 1,000 won of which went to help child victims of a deadly train blast in North Korea.

Finding great ramen nearby

Posted by Ken Tokusei, International Product Manager

You may have seen our Local and Maps products that help you find businesses and maps throughout the US, Canada and the UK. We've just added Local and Maps services in Japan.

You think Tokyo is expensive? Maybe, but you can still find a number of venues serving a 1000-yen combo lunch near Shinjuku.

Of course, Local and Maps Japan are designed to work with Japanese language, but even if you don't know Japanese, I'm sure you can appreciate why we developed it with some particulars in mind for Japanese users. Many Japanese live and work around train stations, for example, and refer to neighborhoods defined by their proximity to them. So we made sure they can search for businesses easily and refer to location by station names. After all, no one wants to walk 10 miles from a station, just to grab a $10 lunch!

Race Queen Miho Yoshioka

Born on February 3 1980 in Osaka, Yoshioka began her career as a Race Queen for Mario International then became a spokesmodel for companies like Suntory (Shinjiro Torii), Japan's leading producer and distributor of western-style liquor products. She quickly moved on to TV and radio work in commercials and on the NHK educational television series ITALIAN LANGUAGE CLASS.

In the past few years her face has appeared on the covers of most of Japan's major manga and tabloid magazines and she has been the subject of nearly a dozen lingerie, fashion, and swimsuit photo books, one of which sold more than 10 thousands copies on its first day of sale. The most recent volume is MELLOW AND MYSTERIOUS MIHO, a special collection of "erotic" but sweet modeling pics from Italy, Australia, and Japan. This memorial tribute from Kouki Nishiea, Shogakukan has been announced as her last swimsuit photo book now that she has turned her attention to acting.

Her first movie is GANRYU ISLAND (Ganryujima), the latest adaptation of the legend of Musashi Miyamoto. She also stared in the movie, GODZILLA x MOTHRA x MECHAGODZILLA: TOKYO SOS.

Thanks for playing

Posted by Matthew Vosburgh, Google Video Software Engineer

Google Video searches a rapidly growing database of network TV shows and uploaded material. We show text and picture info for everything, which is great when you want to know how often they mention cereal or Superman on Seinfeld, for instance. For some material, you can also play the actual video. That's how I know that this guy Eric has a cool cat.

Because lots of people have asked for a way to just find the results with playable video, I've added two radio buttons below the search box on Google Video. To get the stuff you can actually play, click on "playable video" before you search.

Demoing SMS

Posted by Maurice Sidi, Software Engineer

Since joining Google as an intern a few months ago, I’ve enjoyed over 300 Google meals, done over 20 loads of laundry, and actually launched something. My interactive demo for Google SMS lets you send SMS queries from your computer to Google and preview the results you’d actually get on your phone. You can use Google SMS to look up local business listings, weather conditions, movie showtimes, stock quotes, and more, using any major U.S. or UK carrier. Give it a try.

p.s. Congrats to my colleagues for getting Google SMS out of Labs!

Telenovela Star Gabriela Spanic

Gabriela Elena Spanic Ulterra was born in Ortiz, the state of Guarico in Venezuela on December 10th, 1973. She has a twin sister Daniela, a younger sister Patricia and one brother, Antonio. The Spanic family is traditional Croatian-Venezuelan family. Her father moved with her grandparents from Croatia to Venezuela back in 1947. Gaby attended psychology classes for a year, but her real passion was always acting. She attended acting classes at "Luz Columbia Theatre research Centre". Later on she took different courses at the "Training Centre of Professionals Communication", as well as in the "Free Workshop for the actors" She also got into modeling attending "Herman's Institute". Gaby knew that modeling would bring her into the acting business. She was elected Miss Guarico on 1992 and Miss Body in the "Miss Venezuela International" beauty pageant.

Like many famous actors, Gabriela started to appear as an extra and later she gained smaller parts in Venezuelan telenovelas. For Venezuelan TV station VENEVISION she gained number of triumphs. Gaby appeared in a small role in telenovela ROSANGELICA (1991), where she played Karla, then in MUNDO DE FIERAS and LA LOBA HERIDA (1992), among others. Little by little, the producers started to pay close attention to her. MORENA CLARA came in 1993, where she showed all of her talent as bitchy Linda Prado. This role opened the doors for her MARIA CELESTE (1994).

Gabriela gained her first lead role in COMO TU NINGUNA (1994 / 1995) and she became internationally recognized. Her partner on the show was Venezuelan actor Miguel de Leon. Gabriela didn't like Miguel at first. She thought that he looked like a doll on a cake. As the filming continued further, Gaby realized that she felt more and more for him. By the time the novela finished, they become a couple. They broke up with their previous partners. COMO TU NINGUNA became one of the best telenovelas made in Venezuela. It was sold in over then 80 countries and translated to many different languages.

Now 25 years old, Gabriela Spanic was on her way to superstardom. She was now an internationally recognized figure of adoration and admiration by many people. As a reward, TELEVISA offered her an exclusive 3-year contract to make two more telenovelas for them. In 1999, Gaby was offered to participate in another big TELEVISA production, called POR TU AMOR, side by side another big star of Mexican TV dramas, Saul Lisazo. She got to play the girl named Maria del Cielo.

Gabriela's 3-year contract with TELEVISA expired in May of 2001 and she still didn't sign a new one, unlike her husband Miguel who signed for 3 years as well. Gaby would like to stay with TELEVISA in the future, even though she's open to work in other countries as well, but now she wants to dedicate all of her energy to become a mother. She is planning to take two years of absence from TV to enjoy the life as a wife and a future mother in her colonial style house in Mexico City. She also wants to dedicate her time to her hobbies, cooking, and her dogs, Vampi & Linda. No matter what the future has in store for our Gaby, she has managed to made a name for herself and we can be certain about one thing: We still didn't see the last from GABRIELA SPANIC...

Home on the numrange

Posted by Tom Stocky, Product Marketing Manager

More than once I've wanted to search for something that involved a range of numbers - and I just discovered that I can. It turns out you can use two periods (no spaces) to have your search include multiple numbers that form a range. For example, if you wanted to search for inventions of the late 19th century, you could use inventions 1850..1899. I discovered this feature when I was trying to track down the hottest recorded temperature on Earth. I knew it happened in Death Valley, but couldn't remember what it was. I found it by searching for death valley 130..140 degrees.

Tchotchkes cubed

Posted by Michael Krantz, Google Blog Team

Every time I pass this cube I wonder why my own work space looks so lame.

Japanese Singer Aya Matsuura

Matsuura Aya is a female Japanese popular music artist who was born on June 25, 1986 in Himeji, Hyogo Prefecture. She had originally tried out to be a member of Morning Musume but didn’t make the cut. However, Morning Musume’s producer and creator Tsunku spotted her talents and decided to make her a soloist in Hello! Project, the umbrella artists’ group that includes Morning Musume and other performers.

Asides from a successful solo career, Aya Matsuura (nicknamed Ayaya) has also done numerous collaborations with other members of Hello! Project, including one-time group Gomattou with Maki Goto and Miki Fujimoto, the “Folk Song” series which feature Yuko Nakazawa and other H!P artists, as well as Hello! Project’s summer shuffle groups (Ayaya was placed in 3-nin Matsuri for 2001, Odoru 11 in 2002, and Salt 5 in 2003).

Recently stunning her fans with her red hot mature image, Matuura Aya is all set to unleash her first ever hit compilation via BEST 1! All the tracks on this superb LP have been selected by devoted fans from all the 55 songs Aya has so far released. Her 5th single Peach-colored Solitary Love that was released in 2002 received the highest rating. If you'd like to listen to this incredible smash as well as 15 other Aya classics including GOOD BYE Remarkable Boy and Yeah! Happy Holiday as well as the bonus track Method of Possibility (New Version) just reach out for this first class collection!

The platypus of the Internet

Posted by Justin Voskuhl, Tech Lead

It’s surprising what natural selection will produce – for instance, a platypus. How could something with such a seemingly discombobulated set of attributes be fit for survival in the hostile natural world? I had a similar reaction when I first heard about the XUL programming language, used to create the Firefox browser and the plethora of extensions that the Internet ecosystem is creating around it. Strange concept, using JavaScript, which is used to write code that works *in* a browser, to create the browser *itself*. As with the platypus, it’s not until we saw XUL in action that we realized how well suited for survival this product of Internet evolution is.

Not that long ago, the Google Firefox Toolbar team met for the first time - and now we've built the Google Toolbar for Firefox in 10 languages for three operating systems (Windows, Mac and Linux). Self-congratulatory urges aside, we marvel at how well-suited this platypus was to our task. For a small team that had never worked together, or used XUL, to create a product quickly that works across languages and platforms from a single ~250K download - that's good stuff, if you ask me.

In the interest of brevity (already compromised by how long I've gone on), we also tip our hats to the folks at the Mozilla Foundation for making it so easy for us to look good. ;-)

200 ngultrums? What a deal!

Posted by Bret Taylor, Product Manager

Want to see how your much Brazilian real will get you in Malaysia, or how the US dollar is holding up relative to the euro? You’re in luck -- Google's calculator feature now supports currency conversion.

[Updated URL]

The O.C.'s Mischa Barton

She was born Mischa Anne Barton on January 24, 1986 in London, England, UK. Mischa moved to the US at a young age and experienced her childhood here.

Now, at the age of 18, Mischa has developed an extensive filmography and theatrical resume that will surely make her one of the most sought after young actresses of her generation. Her feature film debut occurred in 1998 with the critically lauded Sundance favorite "Lawn Dogs" opposite Sam Rockwell. Her hailed performance was followed by "Pups," a modern day version of "Bonnie & Clyde" for filmmaker Ash ("Bang"). She has since racked up key roles in the 1999 Blockbusters "The Sixth Sense" with Bruce Willis and Haley Joel Osment, and "Notting Hill," with Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant.

Barton has subsequently completed work on an additional six features. They include this Summer's "Lost and Delirious" opposite Piper Perabo for Lions Gate and "Julie Johnson" with Courtney Love and Lili Taylor (Fall); both of which premiered at Sundance. Also in the can is "Skipped Parts" with Jennifer Jason Leigh and Drew Barrymore, "Tart" with Melanie Griffith and Dominique Swain, "Paranoid" with Jessica Alba.

At age nine, Barton began her promising career in New York Theatre with a lead role in Tony Kushner's "Slavs!" She soon segued into the lead role of Emma Hattrick in James Lapine's "Twelve Dreams" at the renowned Lincoln Center. Among her varied stage credits are "Where the Truth Lies" and "One Flea Spare," both of which took place at the New York Shakespeare Festival.

No stranger to television, Barton had a short run in 1994 on "All My Children", playing the character of Corvina Lang in flashbacks. She also portrayed the title role of Frankie alongside Joan Plowright in the recent Showtime feature "Frankie and Hazel" for producer Barbra Streisand's Barwood Films. After spending time on location in Australia filming the Disney telefilm "Ring of Endless Light"; Mischa returned to the US to a guest starring role in the popular television drama "Once and Again." Her next stop was the UK and Luxembourg to shoot the horror/thriller "Octane", which is set to be released this year. Currently Mischa is working on the set of the Fox series, "The O.C."

When Mischa isn't working she enjoys relaxing with her family and friends. She enjoys spending alone time with her boyfriend and "The O.C." co-star, Benjamin McKenzie. A native to Manhattan, Mischa resides to her home their with and her family which includes her parents and two sisters.

Sounds of summer

Posted by Hunter Walk, Product Manager

Googlers like music. We play in bands. We've got live music at our lunch BBQs. We've even been known to break into song at company meetings. But our secret sauce is the proximity of Google's Mountain View office to Shoreline Amphitheatre, a popular outdoor concert venue. They've got a full slate of shows each summer and sometimes I'll just hang out at the outer extremes of our campus, letting the tunes drift over the hills to my ears.

But while barely audible summer hits are nice, the fringe benefits of having rock stars so close to the office can sometimes pay off in more surprising ways. When Coldplay performed at Shoreline a couple of years back, it was an excellent excuse for some of the band - together with lead singer Chris Martin's inamorata, Gwyneth Paltrow - to come by and visit Google.

And with Coldplay returning to Shoreline this summer might we expect another visit from Gwyneth and her husband? Maybe. But I'm secretly hoping we get a different musical luminary walking the halls at Google this summer because, well, Ozzfest does come to Shoreline in August.

S Club 7's Rachel Stevens

Rachel was born April 1978, in Great Britain. She is a North London native and a performing member of S Club 7. Formerly a model, Rachel has always been a singer and actress, and originally decided to pursue a career in fashion design.

Since all S Club 7 members had singing and acting experience, an innovative marketing concept was created to exploit their talents. A TV show that would display their bubbliness, pop sound and youthful energy, was created. This TV show that was used as a platform to promote their records.

The group S Club 7 was organized by former "Spice Girls" manager Simon Fuller, who seems to have a knack for building pop wonders from obscurity. The group came together from over 10,000 candidates, and the smartest thing they have done since the band was formed was hand over business & creative control to their manager, Simon Fuller. This has been worth millions.

Rachel has gone from winning a modeling contest, to a celebrity star in only a very short time. Rachel is known as the "Fashion Addict" and has always been interested in fashion. She attended the London school of Fashion where she received her degree. She also attended a drama school, where she studied singing, dance, and acting.

As for talent, the girls are pros. And Rachel, a former model who has acting and singing experience, performs a very sexy role. Rachel does her best to make sure that there are more than just 15-year-old boys tuning in to see her shows. It's no doubt that Rachel and the club of 7 hasn't seen the end of her success.

Rachel is a major shopaholic, and yet is softly spoken, and very trustworthy. She enjoys games like football, yet also enjoys the smell of freshly baked bread, R&B music, Matthew McConaughey, EastEnders, and her wonderful dog, Rocky.

Looking for Ian Turner (updated)

Posted by Matt Cutts, Software Engineer

Last week I got back from the WebmasterWorld conference in New Orleans. I just found out that Ian Turner, a well-known moderator and search engine optimizer, hasn't been seen since last weekend. If you've seen Ian more recently, could you contact his family? There's more information here.

Everyone is hoping that he's safe and sound somewhere.

Update: Ian's okay! He lost his passport, but he's doing fine in Atlanta.