New Spreadsheets fun

Posted by Fuzzy Khosrowshahi, Tech Lead, Google Spreadsheets

The day after we launched Google Spreadsheets, one of the team said, "I can't believe you're already on the (Google) Groups page answering questions." After a late night-launch night? No way. "I'm definitely not posting, and I don't have the time even if I wanted to," I told him. Strangely, someone going by "Fuzzy" and/or "Fuzzy wuzzy" was answering everyone's questions! This unlikely-named person seemed to be very knowledgeable about Google Spreadsheets and spreadsheets in general. Well, the identity of that Fuzzy is still a mystery, but here's my chance to weigh in as myself.

I've been carefully watching the feedback we get on Google Spreadsheets, looking for people who may have discovered a bug or just need help using it. I'm also trying to judge our success in offering the right features. In a recent perusal of our Google Group (where interested people can discuss the product, help each other, and suggest improvements), it occurred to me that our growing body of users is about as diverse as a group can get, in terms of spreadsheet desires (if we can call them that!).

Here's a sampling of what people have been asking for:

• support for Open Document Format (handy for those who use linux-based machines and Open Office products)
  
• a way to force multiple line text in a single cell (like a street address in, say, a spreadsheet for planning a wedding)
  
• currency symbols in addition to $
  
• an option to create PDF files that will print nicely
• the ability to share a spreadsheet with anyone who receives the URL (without having to specify their email address).

This latest release of Google Spreadsheets that we just rolled out does all of these things and more. Here's a list of all the new features. I'm still watching the list of requests grow – and will keep trying to meet those needs -- unless of course the mysterious "Fuzzy wuzzy" beats me to it.

Beautiful Japanese Idol Sayaka Ando

Ando Sayaka was born on 24th May 1981 in Miyagi Prefecture, Japan. This 167cm babe is a popular Japanese gravure idol.

Besides dancing, this stunning asian model loves watching movies and listening to music during her spare time. She has junior high and high school teaching license as well. Yowza!

Students: Get your gadget on

Posted by Samantha Crow, Product Marketing, Google Gadgets

When was the last time you tried to write HTML, build your resume and strut your stuff all at once? Well, now's your chance. We recently launched the Google Gadget Awards, a program designed to challenge U.S. college students to create clever Google Gadgets. It's easy for anyone with even a little bit of web design experience to create one. They can be fun (like one of my personal favorites, this radio gadget), useful (like this to-do gadget), or just really, really simple (like this facts and trivia gadget). And anyone can add the gadgets to their Google personalized homepage or to Google Desktop.

If you're not a university student in the U.S., you can still create Google Gadgets. Although they won't be entered in the Awards, if they're clever enough you just might find them on Google homepages around the world.

Exotic Malaysian TV Hostess: Daphne Iking

Daphne Iking was born on 1978. Daphne rose to prominence as the face on Malaysia's TV reality series, Explorace.

That success has paved the way in establishing her as an in-demand and popular host, both for live events and other TV shows. This exotic beauty can currently be seen every weekday morning hosting the morning show.

Congratulations, Luis von Ahn

Posted by Alan Eustace, VP Engineering

Today our warmest congratulations go out to a notable young computer scientist, Dr. Luis von Ahn of Carnegie Mellon University. Based on his work in cryptography, AI, and natural intelligence, Luis has just been recognized as a Fellow by the MacArthur Foundation, which has granted him a "genius" award.

A major thread of his research is about human computation that can't currently be emulated by computers. (Together with colleagues he developed the CAPTCHA system, which has of course found widespread commercial application in preventing automated-generated spam.) He also works in the area of cryptography known as steganography. Unlike standard encrypted communications, a steganographic message disguises the fact that it contains a secret; one example is a text message subtly embedded in the bits that encode a digital photograph. He's also developing systems for characterizing visual images in ways that can vastly improve their searchability, and which help to build a rich database for exploring human visual cognition. (We've developed the Google Image Labeler based on his groundbreaking work in this area.)

Around here, we like to quote Isaac Newton's phrase about "standing on the shoulders of giants." Clearly, Luis is one of these.

Bigger and better search appliance

Posted by Nitin Mangtani, Product Manager, Google Search ApplianceTeam

We hear you, we hear you -- your company has more documents than ever. That's why today there's a new version of the Google Search Appliance that can handle even more documents, and offers some cool new features to boot. The GB-8008 now searches up to 30 million documents (if you need more, just let us know). And we've added date and number range search plus support for 16 languages. There's more on the enterprise blog.

Time travel

Posted by Mike Samuel, Software Engineer

For a while now, it's been rumored that Google has been working on time travel. Unfortunately, I have to lay these rumors to rest: we've really been working on having "organizing-your-time" travel.

Back in April, we released Google Calendar to the world in English. But that wasn't good enough. So now it's available in 17 new languages: French, Italian, German, Spanish, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Japanese, Korean, Dutch, Portuguese (Brazilian), Russian, Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, Danish, Polish, and English (UK).

We hope this means people in countries across the world will want to organize their daily lives with a fast, easy to use online calendar. Perhaps even better, you can now share calendars and events with people who speak and use Google Calendar in different languages. Schedule calls with your Tokyo office, or schedule that call to your relatives in Amsterdam or Seoul. Changing the language is as easy as a few clicks on your settings page.

As for time travel, maybe someday. After all, we're already on the moon.