It's a wonderful town

Posted by Craig Nevill-Manning, Engineering Director

I suspect that when people think of New York, they think of Wall Street finance, Broadway shows, fashion, TV news. Probably "innovative software development" doesn't spring to mind. But hidden away in a Times Square high-rise, more than 80 software engineers are coding up some exciting Google products. If we told you *everything* we're working on, it'd spoil the surprise (hint: keep an eye on Google Labs). Recently, we've launched Google Q&A, My Search History, Web Definitions, and Local Search, including the UK version earlier this week.

In fact generally we focus on the next generation of Google's crawling and indexing technology. We've got hard-core statisticians pondering how to measure search quality more accurately, and a slightly nutty project that we think might revolutionize the way that we organize and search structured information.

It's not all work, work, work, though. We have a large three-story atrium, so it's axiomatic that we have several radio-controlled blimps - some with cameras - and a gyroscopically-stabilized four-rotor helicopter that can definitely take folks by surprise. And although breakfast, lunch and dinner are provided (we seem to have lost the ability to forage for ourselves) and two on-site masseuses (Manhattan can be a little intense), it's nice to get off site from time to time.

Which means a trip to the Empire State Building, of course. We've taken a group photo of the team standing on our 19th floor terrace from the observation deck of the ESB -- we calculated that this requires an effective focal length of 3000mm, which is just right for an astronomical telescope and a digital SLR.



So we're a little geeky for New York City, but it is supposed to be a melting pot, isn't it? And we're right next to Bryant Park, home of one of the world's first free public 802.11b networks, which we sponsor. Somehow that seems appropriate for a bunch of hackers trying to organize the world's information.

It almost goes without saying that we're hiring like mad, what with our insatiable appetite for great software architects and coders. If the Bright Lights of the Big City are blinking at you, check out our New York jobs.

From lost to found

Posted by Avni Shah, My Search History team

How many times have you used Google to find an obscure funny website or fun facts about "The Wizard of Oz," but then got distracted by other web pages and tasks? I know - me too. Wouldn't it be great to find them again, and for that matter review all your Google searches over time? Which is exactly why we built My Search History.

When you're signed in to your Google Account, you can use My Search History wherever you go. An additional bit of fun: try the handy calendar to check the level of your Google activity on a given day, or see related searches you've done over time. Look for the link in the upper right corner of your Google web search home page and results pages.

Google does Grimsby, Gateshead and Glasgow

Posted by Richard Boardman, Usability Analyst

Sometimes it's hard being a Brit in Silicon Valley. Have you tried to find a decent pint, authentic fish and chips or well-made bowler hats in northern California lately? (Okay, the last one isn't a priority.) There's also that feeling of being left out when new technology gets launched in the U.S. before it reaches the rest of the world.

Take Google Local and Google Maps, for example - innovative local business search and beautiful interactive maps. However, as per the barrage of emails I got from mates back home: New Orleans, Anchorage and Beverly Hills are all very well, but what about London, Cardiff, and Belfast?

I guess my colleagues got tired of my moaning, so I'm delighted to introduce Google Local UK and Google Maps UK. The Google UK office and a few of us homesick Brits in California have been helping out with the development.

Engineer: Why are the streets in the UK such a mess?

Me: Sadly, the ancient Britons, Romans and Vikings had a different idea of urban planning than do we moderns.

Product Manager: Manchester's not that important, is it?

Me: It is if you're a Mancunian! (So watch it, lad.)

Give it a go: your fish and chips in Plymouth, theatres near Piccadilly Circus, and haggis in Inverness await.

P.S. We Brits also love our text messaging, so all this info (and more) can be found on the go by texting your (UK) queries via Google SMS.

Bird view

Posted by Michael Krantz, Google Blog team

Okay, we know we're always saying that this product and that product are cool, but seriously: Google Maps are cool. And in the few weeks since we added Keyhole satellite imagery, we've enjoyed watching netizens inventing ingenious ways to play with Maps, and thought we'd share a few of our favorites.

We'll begin with a sampling of our favorite views. The Photoshopped White House roof is soooo last week, but the airplane graveyard may never get old. We're impressed by Dave's work -- but even more so by Luecke's. And of course, people are always finding a few surprises.

But the real jewels are the various Google Maps collections. This is a nice aggregation of views, and the Google Sightseeing blog might eventually be even better. This guy's marriage of Google Maps and Craig's List real estate ads had our engineers saying "Wow." Speaking of engineers, our own Nelson Minar came up with this visualization of where people did the most Maps searching on April 6th. And on the high art front, the Memory Mappers are creating nothing less than a new literary form. Cool.

P.S. Go Sox!

Mom says so, that's why

Posted by Tom Stocky, Product Marketing Manager

As my mom's unofficial tech support hotline, I got a call from her today with a problem: She had a tracking number for a package, but didn't know who the shipper was.

Me: "Just plug it into Google."
Mom: "But Tom, I don't know what company shipped it."
Me: "Just plug in the number itself, Mom. It's cool. See what happens."

Google didn't let me down. She got a link to the USPS website with her tracking info - the one she hadn't checked. Next time you have a mystery package en route, try it yourself.

Mom: "We need to tell people about this." Yes, Mom. Google Search By Number.

Google wants your video

Posted by the Google Video Team

You worked hard making your video; you deserve an easy way to put it in front of millions of potential viewers. That's the idea behind today's announcement of the Google Video Upload Program, which lets you upload your video to Google for free. Eventually your work will be included in Google Video, where users will be able to search, preview, play and purchase it. We're accepting digital video files of any length and size. So if you have a video - or hundreds of videos - that you want the world to see, show us what you've got, and stay tuned.

Mobile? Get Local

Posted by Abhijit Kalamkar, Software Engineer

It's so irritating when I leave the driving directions behind, or have to find another restaurant to try when my favorite is booked. I may be forgetful, but now at least there's Google Local for mobile. If your phone/device supports XHTML, you'll get the same results for search terms plus maps and driving directions. Here's your bookmark: http://mobile.google.com/local.

And on the Google SMS front, there's now access to driving directions. Send a text message query with your start address, the word 'to' followed by your end address to 46645 ('GOOGL' on most phones) to get step-by-step directions from point A to point B. (An example: to get directions from Newark Airport to the Empire State Building, send 'ewr to 350 5th ave ny'.)