Official Google Australia Blog

Get ready kids ... Doodle 4 Google 2009 is here!

2009-07-08T11:58:00.010+10:00

One of our favourite Google moments of 2007 was announcing the winner of our 'Doodle 4 Google - My Australia' competition. We were overwhelmed by the positive response from teachers around the country, who took the opportunity to ask their students what it meant to be Australian, and then depict that through art and design - and, of course, by the kids who created such vibrant and original works. Our winner, Janelle San Juan of the School of the Good Shepherd in Victoria had the thrill of seeing her Google doodle on the Google Australia home page on Australia Day last year.

The initiative was so much fun, and received such a great response ... that we're doing it all over again! Today we're super excited to announce Doodle 4 Google 2009. All Australian schools are warmly invited to take part in this project which offers young people the chance to have their artwork viewed not just by their teachers and classmates, but by millions of people all across the Internet.

Google doodles are the special "dressed-up" logos we run on our homepage for holidays and other events, and Doodle 4 Google is an opportunity for one Australian child to have his or her doodle displayed on our Australian homepage for one day in 2010 for everyone to see.

This year's theme is "My wish for Australia", and we really want to tap into not only children's creativity, but also what they hope the future of their country might look like.

Judging the initiative will be renowned artists Ken Done and Anne Geddes, and humanitarian Hugh Evans of the Global Poverty Project.

We kicked off Doodle 4 Google today at Melbourne City Council's ArtPlay centre, where an enthusiastic group of five and six year-olds helped us create a beautiful Google doodle to inspire other kids around the country to take part. The kids helped us draw their visions of Australia's future ... from sunshine and good friends to more trees and sea creatures. We were lucky enough to have Melbourne City Councillor Jennifer Kanis and judge Hugh Evans roll up their sleeves and join in the arty fun, alongside budding artists Van, Isobel and Anushka.

The competition is open to Years 1 - 10 students from registered schools. So teachers, if you want to participate, please register your school by 14 August 2009, and all doodles must be submitted by 4 September 2009. Visit the Doodle 4 Google website for a full listing of all contest rules and requirements. And kids ... get doodling!

Posted by Katharina Friedrich, Marketing Manager

Victorian Parliament opens up for question time

2009-07-08T08:52:00.007+10:00

Today, Premier Brumby has joined the video democracy in the cloud and opened up his YouTube channel for question time. Victorians can submit their questions and vote on the ones they want answered.

One issue that may well attract some questions is online access to public data.

Information is becoming a pervasive and free resource, driving the growth of the digital economy worldwide. And yet very useful, publicly funded, non-confidential public sector information (PSI), such as public transport data, still isn't made available to all. With open access to this information there's immense potential for innovative new products and services to be developed here, promoting great social benefits. Google's Victorian bushfires map is a great example, and was only possible because the Victorian Country Fire Authority had the foresight to put an RSS feed on their site.

At Google we're always interested to hear about Government embracing online communications and information sharing. We were pleased to see that the Victorian Parliament recently released the report on its Inquiry into Improving Access to Victorian Public Sector Information and Data with a key recommendation that the Victorian Government establish an Information Management Framework (IMF) with open access to Government information at no or marginal cost.

The Victorian Parliament's inquiry into access of this public information is a great step in the right direction.

Posted by Iarla Flynn, Public Policy and Government Affairs

Johnson Tran at Google for the day

2009-07-07T16:12:00.000+10:00

My name is Johnson Tran and I am 9 years and 9 months old. One of my hobbies is playing as an all-rounder in cricket. Another of my hobbies is using the computer. I use the computer for typing my assignments and homework and for entertaining myself when I am feeling bored. The games that I play when amusing myself are: Chess, Solitaire and if I am at my cousin’s place I use the Internet.

Lansvale Public school is a school where there are many cultures, but are thought of as one. I like coming here because if you need help there are always other students available to help. Here the teachers are kind and fun to be with. The school lets us participate in many different activities such as: PSSA, Gillawarna, UNSW Maths and English competitions. Lansvale Public School is located in Chancery St, Canley Vale NSW and its post code is 2166.

3/4/5 Flares got to go to Google because we have the most Hot Spot Magazine reporters and we have the biggest range of ages across three school grades (which is why we are a multi-age and multi-stage class). Jovanni was looking forward to seeing the lolly jars. The class was looking forward to seeing the friendly staff of Google.

Wednesday 24 June. Today is the day we headed off to the Google Sydney office on a five-star bus! We were in for a very exciting day ahead!

3/4/5F heading off to the Google Sydney office.

The first event that occurred was meeting the Google Workers who would be guiding us today. There were Angelina, Vinzena, Ashleigh and Christine. Christine was the organiser of the entire excursion. Guess what?! Christine helped start the Hot Spot Magazine in the year 2008.

We had a little tour of this Googley place. The place is very green as it uses windows, not air conditioning. There is a mini/micro kitchen in which there are lolly jars. There is Tech Stop where everything is about Technology. Brandan had a go at Wii where he was playing Mario Kart. He only got to play for 30 seconds! There is a lady with the best Googley desk. There is also an underwater experience with all the fish and floor tiles with blue blobs made out of some sort of goo.

We had a short snack before the online treasure hunt. For the online treasure hunt you had to use the internet to answer questions such as: Who was the Australian actor that starred in the movie Wolverine? My buddy told me the answer which was Hugh Jackman. Her name was Mel and she was AWESOME!

I never knew that there was a function that could tell you a word in an entirely different language, probably from the other side of the world. We had to use Google Translate to make the word into Estonian. The result was koel and after that we had to change the first letter into C and into a language that I have forgotten. In the end I got a golden ticket to go to Willy Wonka’s Chocolate factory. NOT! It was for the special surprise that was given out at the end of the day. I wondered what it would be.

Wave is an online messenger where you can communicate with others by typing messages. We were THE FIRST STUDENTS IN THE UNIVERSE TO USE THE ONLINE COMMUNICATIONS TOOL CALLED WAVE! We had to write a creative piece using Wave. Google gave us a selection of different topics to choose from. Some topics were: Ankor Wat, Antarctica or you could make up your own. My story was about a helicopter ride demolishing everything and everyone but Mel and me! The result was 1,000,000 deformed, fat, ugly, obese, beastly aliens! I found Wave very interesting and fun because other people could change your messages after you had clicked done. I found it easy to use.

Johnson speaking about his Wave story.

The last event was an afternoon full of sports. We played Captain Ball which was a game where you had to throw the ball to everyone in your group and the last person in line needs to get the ball and run to the front and do the whole procedure again. Other games were a three-legged race and the egg and spoon race. I found them all fun because it was challenging and it was funny when people kept on falling down when they tried to run in the three-legged race.

You don’t have to just be good at technology to work at Google; they have cooks, engineers and many more jobs there too, I discovered!

Guess what?! Everything was for free for the 3/4/5F students! Thanks Google! We got a Googley goodies bag containing: a Google USB, Google hat, Google T-shirt, Google pen, Google notebook, Google stickers and Google watch. Yes, a Google watch saying YouTube on it! My USB didn’t work at first and then I fixed it unexpectedly.

Lansvale students and Google buddies.

On behalf of 3/4/5 Flares, we thank you for the effort that Google has put in to make this very special day possible. Thank you.

Posted by Johnson Tran, 3/4/5F, Lansvale Public School

GoogleServe: Think global, act local

2009-07-07T15:10:00.000+10:00

Googlers are known for their love of food, technology and, particularly in Sydney, sport. Occasionally we get the chance to share the things we love with others in the community, such as during our annual GoogleServe week. GoogleServe is a chance for Googlers around the world to take a time off from their regular jobs to give back to the community. Each office organises local projects where Googlers can volunteer their time.

This year, our Sydney GoogleServe team organised three events:

Primary School Tech Skills Day
We invited class 3/4/5F from Lansvale Public School, in Sydney's south-west, to visit the Sydney Google office for a day of developing IT skills and games. The 29 students were buddied up with Googlers to complete an online treasure hunt and were taught to use Wave for a collaborate creative writing project. Our visiting class particularly enjoyed the outdoor games afternoon, seeing our pet fish in the "underwater" section of the office, and learning how to communicate with each other online through Wave.

Googlers and Lansvale students unite

Google Grantees Education Session
We hosted eleven organisations who are part of our Google Grants program at the Google offices for educational sessions. The Google Grants program gives non-profit organisations free AdWords advertising in order to reach more people online. The representatives from each organisation received basic AdWords training, an optimisation session with a Google account strategist, and a presentation on how non-profits can make use of YouTube to reach a wide community.

Redfern "The Block" Sports Afternoon
We partnered with World Vision and Redfern Community Centre to host an afternoon with indigenous students in Redfern, specifically those who live in and around an area known as "The Block". The Block is an area of approx 1000sqm that is heavily populated by indigenous Australians and has a history of crime, drug use and violence. Many of the activities offered through the community centre are aimed at supporting local youths, with projects focused on teaching them self respect, self confidence, and leadership. A group of approx 15 Googlers were shown the fantastic work that youth workers are doing with young people in the area, which was then followed by a tour of the surrounding neighbourhood, a game of oz-tag with the locals, and a BBQ. It didn't take long for both groups to agree that a re-match was in order, and we hope to bring the young people across to Pyrmont soon for an office visit and a repeat game of oz-tag!

Oz-tag commences!

If you're looking for ways to volunteer in your community, Go Volunteer can help you find opportunities in your local area.

Posted by Christine Knight, GoogleServe Australia Leadership Team

Making Google Maps even more useful with real estate search

2009-07-06T07:48:00.004+10:00

Ever since Google Maps launched in Australia in February 2007, we've been committed to adding more and more useful and up-to-date information to make it a truly valuable resource for Australians. From within Google Maps you can now search for a local plumber or chemist; get driving directions to a friend's place; check out the location of a restaurant before making a booking with Street View; view terrain and satellite data for a given area; and even plan travel using public transport in some cities in Australia.

And the pace of innovation around Google Maps hasn't slowed. We recently added Monorail and Light Rail transit information to Google Maps in Sydney; and introduced a pretty neat way of navigating around Street View images that has inspired some of our users to very cool creative endeavours.

Today we're adding a feature to Google Maps in Australia that we think will make Maps an even more invaluable resource to Aussies as they go about their busy lives. Increasingly, people are heading online when looking for a new house to rent or buy, and from today, we're adding the ability to search for properties on Google Maps. We've worked with partners across the real estate industry to provide up-to-date listings, which you can search for directly from the Google Maps search box.

You can check it out by entering a search like 'real estate crows nest' and clicking through to search real estate listings. A marker will appear on the map for every available listing, using our new search results feature, so you can get a really good idea of the distribution of the properties for sale or rent. This also means you can perform a search and see all the properties for sale close to, for example, a local school you're interested in your kids attending. You can click on each marker and each small circle to get more detailed information about the property, including the listing agent's website and contact details.

It's also easy to refine your search further by criteria like bedrooms, bathrooms, garaging and price. And if you decide that Seaforth is more your speed, you can pan the map to another area entirely to see the listings there, and the map will automatically update, without typing anything new.

This isn't the only resource available for your new home search. You can use Street View on Google Maps to check out the neighbourhood before driving to an open home; use driving directions to find out exactly how to get there; and transit information to work out what your new commute might be if you went ahead and moved house.

Check out the video below for more information on how we're making it easy to find real estate listings on Google Maps in Australia. It's part of our commitment to bringing the most useful and relevant information to Google Maps users in Australia, and we'll keep working on this to make it even more useful over time.

Posted by Andrew Foster, Product Manager

Toolbar, now with advanced translation

2009-07-01T16:25:00.003+10:00

(Editor's note: This is a cross-post from the Official Google Blog. We know Australians love to travel, so a great use of this new Toolbar feature might be to help plan your next trip. Booking hotels in Asia, flights in Europe and information on areas off the beaten track; all now easily translated with one click).

If you saw this text on a webpage, how would you figure out what it means?

Если вы читаете этот текст, вы, вероятно, уже говорите по-русски. Однако миллионы людей не знают русского и не могут прочитать миллионы русскоязычных веб- страниц.*

You would likely need to translate manually via our language tools or in Toolbar. Today we're excited to announce that translations will be even easier with the newest release of Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer. We have been working with the Translate team to make translations a faster and more integrated part of your browsing experience.

The Translate feature automatically detects if the language of a webpage you're on is different from your default language setting and allows you to translate it. With one click, you can now instantly translate the page and all of its text will appear in the new language.

Language detection happens only on your computer, so no information is sent to Google until you choose to translate a page. You can find more details about how the feature works in our help centre.

If you go to another page in the same language, you will continue to see translations rather than have to translate one page at a time. And if the page has dynamic content, like Google Reader, you'll get translations in real-time. Finally, if you frequently translate pages in the same language, Toolbar will let you translate that language automatically without any extra clicks in the future.

The new Translate feature is available in all international versions of Toolbar, including English, and the translation service supports 41 different languages: Albanian, Arabic, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Filipino, Finnish, French, Galician, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian and Vietnamese.

Download Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer to try it out for yourself. We'll add this feature to Toolbar for Firefox soon, too.

* In case you don't speak Russian, we translated the paragraph above for you using our translation engine:

If you are reading this text, you probably already speak in Russian. However, millions of people do not know Russian and cannot read the millions of Russian language webpages.

Posted by Jerry Tang and Dick Sites, Software Engineers

Free Google Message Security for primary and secondary schools with Google Apps Education Edition

2009-07-01T07:23:00.002+10:00

Since we launched Google Apps in 2006, thousands of schools, businesses and organisations globally have adopted Google's cloud-based communication and collaboration tools - helping them increase productivity and effectiveness, reduce cost, and increase security. In fact, we announced today that more than four million students worldwide are using Google Apps in their classrooms.

Here in Australia and New Zealand, educators are embracing cloud computing, helping them achieve a wide range of learning outcomes and, most importantly, making learning fun.

Earlier this year, the New South Wales Department of Education followed the lead of the University of Waikato, the University of Auckland, and Macquarie University when they successfully migrated 1.2 million students to Google Apps. At the completion of the project, Stephen Wilson (the Chief Information Officer at the NSW DET) said: "Gmail has been working flawlessly, particularly considering that we could roll it out in a few months. It’s going fantastically and without a hitch”. Soon after, the the University of Adelaide migrated 16,000 students to Google Apps at no cost to the University.

Google Apps has proved popular at smaller schools across Australia and New Zealand too. "With Google Apps we've been able to offer communication and collaboration resources to our students and teachers which rival that of any school in the world ... all without having to worry about servers, maintenance and other overheads," says Michael Merrylees, Principal at Christ the King Anglican College in Cobram, Victoria. "Our students and teachers use Google Apps every day; like any good communication and collaboration system it simply disappears into the background, working without a hitch day after day."

As a company that's committed to constant innovation, we'd like to make it even easier for primary and secondary (K12) schools to use our tools. Today we're announcing that Google Message Security will be offered free to current and new eligible K12 Google Apps customers that opt-in to Google Message Security – powered by Postini – by July 2010. Google Message Security lets administrators limit messages based on who they're from, who they're going to, or the content they contain. Message rules can be applied to groups of users, making it easy to customise the scheme for different groups (for instance younger students, older students, and teachers).

And to further support primary and secondary education, we're launching the Google Apps Education Community site for educators and students to share and learn more about Google Apps, as well as the Google Apps Education resource centre with more than 20 classroom-ready lesson plans. We're committed to providing even more educational resources in the future - watch this space!

Posted by Andrew Mitchell, Google Apps Team

Aussie developers at Google Wave API Day

2009-06-25T10:54:00.001+10:00

The Sydney-based Google team proudly previewed Google Wave to developers at Google I/O at the end of May. We wanted to celebrate this launch with Aussie developers and kickstart a thriving local Wave community, so we held an all day hackathon in the office last Friday. About 80 developers attended the event, representing media companies like Fairfax and Telstra, nearby universities like UNSW and UTS, open-source projects like Jetty, and everything in between. After a day of talks, brainstorming lunches and a good five hours of hacking, 25 developers (or teams, as many came with their colleagues or made new friends) were ready to show off their demos.

The most common types of demos were games - Hangman, Connect 4, Boxes, Competitive Tetris, Werewolf, Zork, "World's Simplest Game", "World's 2nd Simplest Game" - and search - cheap flights, Flickr, OZ TV listings, tours, definitions, acronyms. Several developers experimented with the mobile platform, with two gadgets performing geolocation on the iPhone (one using the browser's geolocation property, the other using the native app capabilities), and a robot proxying Wave requests on the Android. We also saw a few moderating bots (thinking about swearing on Wave? think again!) and a bot that kindly agrees with everything you say (even if you swear!). The crowd favourites, voted on at the end, were Napkin Gadget - a collaborative Flash app for doodling, Syntaxy - a robot that adds syntax highlighting to Python code, and Pong - a gadget demonstrating low latency lag between clients.

All in all, it was a fantastic day. We loved meeting so many developers and seeing your great ideas come to life, and we're looking forward to watching the Australian Wave community grow. For information on upcoming developer events (and more Wave hackathons) in the Sydney area, subscribe to our developer events mailing list. In the meantime, check out this slideshow of photos from the day:

Wave API Day

Posted by Pamela Fox, Developer Relations

An Ode to Google

2009-06-21T14:29:00.004+10:00

We know there are some happy Google users out there, but they're not always moved to poetry ... unlike Natalie (pictured below), whose spontaneous 'Ode to Google' we liked so much that we just had to share ...

An Ode to Google
By Natalie

The only one I can turn to when times get tough;
Or when I want to find out why that patch of skin on the back of my left thigh has become a little rough.

Sometimes I just wanna find out the simple things, like how to mentally recover from kissing my colleague at work drinks last night;
And other times I delve into the more complex, like how to change the bulb for my bedroom light.

Even to my most specific questions, you always have an answer;
Whether I ask “How do I make my Elton John sweater ‘off the shoulder’?”, or “Who the hell is Tony Danzer?”

You always know just what to say;
You’ve never made me feel annoying, or told me to ‘just go away!’.

You’ve linked me to some of the best and directed me away from all of the rest;
Provided visual stimulation for significant events, taught me how to self-examine my own breasts.

My sanity (questionable) has been maintained; our relationship OBVIOUSLY pre-ordained;
My love for you is undeniable, your existence in my life undoubtedly vital.

So, next time I want to find out the answers to life’s most nagging questions:
why Tyra Banks hasn’t been axed yet/
whether or not you pronounce the ‘B’ in debt;
why the English are so grumpy/
why tracksuit pants make me (but not my best friend) look frumpy...

I know who I will turn to, and that is you,
Google.

Nice work Natalie!

Posted by Annie Baxter, Google Communications

How to get ready for the new interface

2009-06-12T16:04:00.003+10:00

By now you probably know that we've been working on a new interface for AdWords to help you save time managing your account and get even better results from your campaigns.

We've built a number of new features that make managing your campaigns faster and easier: more graphs to track your performance over time, integrated reports that provide ready access to detailed search and content network data, and faster editing to help you make changes quickly.

You've probably received an email from us letting you know that your account will be converted to the new interface in the coming weeks. Today we have two release updates to share with you: we've recently made the new interface available to everyone who uses AdWords Standard Edition, and we've begun the migration process with a small number of accounts.

In our email, we stated that you would have at least 30 days before we update your account. This 30 day period is a minimum; in fact, most advertisers will have more than 30 days before their accounts are upgraded. We're taking a gradual and deliberate approach to ensure a smooth transition, and we won't upgrade your account until we're confident that the new interface meets your advertising needs.

So, how should you prepare for the transition to the new interface? First, the single most important resource to help you get up to speed is the new interface microsite. Here you can find short videos explaining the benefits of the new interface, a before and after guide, and even a short quiz you can take to make sure you're ready for the changes.

Next, if you haven't explored the new interface yet, now is a good time; try it by signing in to your AdWords account. If you notice any issues that make it difficult to manage your campaigns in the new interface, please let us know right away by submitting feedback.

If you've already sent us feedback on the new interface, thank you! We're listening closely to your comments and are working to fix the problems you've reported. Examples of top issues we're working on are wide pages that require too much scrolling, and slow load times for some types of browsers and Internet connections.

We've already made a number of changes in response to your feedback, and this week we've released updates to the new interface that address many of the top issues we've heard. And we're not done yet; we'll continue to make ongoing improvements to the new interface over time.

For those of you who joined the beta test early, we hope you like how the new AdWords interface has improved. And for those of you just getting started, we hope you're already noticing a few of the ways the new interface can help you get more out of your AdWords campaigns.

Posted by Jeremy Wood, Product Specialist Team

Sydney student on shortlist for Google Photography Prize ... and opportunity to get creative with Chrome

2009-06-12T10:42:00.003+10:00

Today we announced the 36 shortlisted candidates for the Google Photography Prize, including one winner from Australia. We launched the competition in collaboration with the Saatchi Gallery to find talented student photographers and give them online and offline exposure. Over 3,500 entries were received from 82 countries, including Australia, India, Moldova, Poland, Ghana, France, Germany, Chile, Peru, Mexico, the US, the UK and Saudi Arabia.

The shortlist of the thirty-six top entries is now open to an online public vote here. The top six vote-getters will be flown to London for the opening night of an exhibition of their work at the Saatchi Gallery, and the ultimate winner will be decided by a panel of respected art critics and artists, including Idris Khan, Martin Parr, Michael Hoppen, Susanna Brown, Tim Marlow and Mariella Frostrup.

Shortlisted candidate Fleur Audet, a student at the University of New South Wales, submitted six winning images that reflect her everyday experiences.

"I approached developing my entry for the iGoogle Photography Competition much like I approach a lot of my work: without too much thought and with gut instinct. Within 10 minutes of reading the guidelines for the competition I’d chosen 5 photos that I liked the most, which I’d decided would be my simple selection criteria. My thought process was something along the line of ‘If I like them, hopefully other people will too." Fleur explains.

"The inherent theme in my photographs is of the everyday and the commonplace. It’s hard to describe the incredible allure of the everyday photograph. They are passing moments often disregarded in their mediocrity and familiarity, I find myself drawn to them. It’s looking over your fence into your neighbour’s backyard on an autumn afternoon and seeing leaves in their pool and thinking - I must record it."

The six winning submissions will be available for millions of Google users around the world to display on their personalised iGoogle homepages, and given a special exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery. The overall winner will also receive £5,000 and an invitation to spend a day with renowned photographer Martin Parr.

Another project we're announcing today is an opportunity to get really creative with the Chrome logo ... we're inviting people to film themselves building the logo any way they want. We've created some inspirational ideas which you can check out below... and you can find more info here. Have fun!

Posted by Katharina Friedrich, Product Marketing Manager

Supporting National E-Security Awareness Week

2009-06-09T17:27:00.004+10:00

Once again, this year we're proud to partner with the Australian Government for National E-security Awareness Week, between 5–12 June 2009. We share a commitment to helping you secure yourself and your information on the internet.

The week is designed to raise awareness of the steps that you can take to keep yourself and your family secure online. If you do nothing else all week, stop for a moment to come up with a better, stronger password for your personal online accounts and transactions.

For advice on passwords, and other e-security information, go to www.staysmartonline.gov.au

Google has a large number of initiatives to help keep you and your computer secure (many of which are detailed on our official Online Security Blog and Australian Google Safety Tips Page). For example:

In conjunction with Stop Badware.org, we place warnings in our search results for websites that our testing has determined to host or distribute badware. If you search for a site that Google has determined to be potentially dangerous, you will see a warning in the search results.

Earlier this year we launched the Australian Safety Centre on YouTube, containing straightforward online safety tips and resources from experts and prominent Australian safety organisations including Bravehearts, Reach Out, Kids Helpline, NetAlert.gov.au and Cybersmart Kids Online.

We offer all Australians a free collection of software (Google Pack), which contains Norton Security Scan and Spyware Doctor Starter Edition, to detect and remove viruses, worms, spyware, adware, trojans and keyloggers.

Posted by Iarla Flynn, senior public policy manager Australia

Google monitors influenza trends in Australia

2009-06-04T06:01:00.003+10:00

As the flu season kicks off in the southern hemisphere, we're announcing the launch of Google Flu Trends for Australia and New Zealand.

Google Flu Trends, which launched in the US last year, resulted from our observation that certain flu-related search queries are common during flu season, and that searches for flu-related topics are closely correlated to the actual spread of flu. If we tally each day's flu-related search queries, we can estimate how many people have a flu-like illness.

While some traditional flu tracking systems may take days or weeks to collect and release data, Google search queries can be counted immediately. As a result, Google Flu Trends can be updated daily and may provide early detection of flu outbreaks.

To create Google Flu Trends for Australia, we worked with historical seasonal flu data from the Victorian Infectious Diseases Reference Laboratory (VIDRL), as well as our own anonymised, aggregated historical search data, to build a flu model for the state of Victoria. We then extrapolated this model to produce flu models at a national and state level for the rest of Australia, apart from Tasmania and Northern Territory for which we don't have a large enough volume of search queries to be accurate.

Upon building this model, we found that our historical Google search data correlated well with the VIDRL's historical data in terms of flu activity in past years. As the season unfolds this year, we'll be watching to see how well our flu model performs compared with these existing surveillance systems.

Influenza is thought to generate hundreds of thousands of GP visits in Australia every year, and thousands of serious illnesses and sometimes even deaths. Early detection is critical to helping health officials respond more quickly and save lives.

We hope this information complements existing flu surveillance efforts and proves useful for individuals and public health organisations

Posted by Annie Baxter, Google Communications

Girls @ Google Day

2009-06-03T18:22:00.005+10:00

Who said computer science is for boys? Not the 90 girls from six schools who descended on the Google office in Sydney today for our very first Girls @ Google Day.

As part of our diversity K-12 initiative we invited students and teachers from top performing high schools in the areas of computer science, ICT & software design in Sydney to participate in a morning of product demos and algorithm design interactive sessions. We gave them a true taste of what it's like to work in technology.

And these girls rocked! They shared their views on computer science and the Internet with Googlers and each other, and asked very savvy questions around what it's like to work at Google, how studying ICT can open many new avenues of opportunity that were previously unavailable, and demystifying the idea that ICT is just for boys.

The morning was aimed at supporting high school girls in ICT disciplines and to encourage them to continue with these areas of study through HSC and beyond. With so many girls in attendance it was a great chance for them to network, share their ideas on computer science, and get to know a little bit more about what it's like to work in the industry. We hope we've left them with lasting inspiration and passion for computer science, and we look forward to seeing them back at Google again soon.

Isa Notermans, Diversity & People Programs Specialist

New Australian gadgets, updated iGoogle

2009-06-03T11:03:00.005+10:00

iGoogle, Google's personalised homepage, lets you create customised pages with snippets of information including games, news, and video (these snippets are known as “gadgets”) from across the web, without having to bring up each site individually. It brings you immediate, at-a-glance access to the information you search for regularly across the web, on a single page.

From today, we're making it even easy to find a child care provider, check petrol prices, and get the latest Australian news, business headlines, league and aussie rules results, with the latest version of iGoogle. We've worked with News Digital Media to create four new gadgets for Australian iGoogle users:

news.com.au gadget collates news headlines from news.com.au, including breaking news, blogs and video content
The Australian Business gadget keeps Australians up to date with the latest business news and market information
LeagueCentral gadget offers the latest league news, analysis and results from The Daily Telegraph’s team of rugby league experts
SuperFooty gadget will offer the latest footy and SuperCoach news as it happens (coming soon)

Australian child care search engine CareforKids.com.au has also created a gadget that makes it easy to search for child care vacancies and find information on child care providers near you, including fees, testimonials and maps. According to a recent survey conducted by CareforKids.com.au, nearly one in five parents take more than a year to find appropriate child care, so this gadget should help make the search a lot easier and provide vital additional information to parents all over Australia.

The new gadgets coincide with the rollout of an updated version of iGoogle for Australia. The main feature of the updated version is canvas view gadgets, letting you expand a gadget to access more content so you can read news, play games and watch videos in full screen, all on your personalised iGoogle page. For example:

News - the new news.com.au gadget expands into canvas view, showing you additional news headlines, the latest video news, and most popular stories
Sport – the SuperFooty and LeagueCentral gadgets will expand into canvas view, giving you more information on your favourite teams as well as expert opinion and video
Games and fun - the Sudoku gadget lets users play full-page sudoku puzzles -- there are thousands of puzzles to choose from -- without squinting at 6 point font
Communication/tools - with the Gmail gadget, you can now perform simple actions on Gmail without leaving your iGoogle page, like sending or replying to emails
Petrol price tracker - this popular gadget expands into canvas view, making it easier than ever to check out the locations of the most price-friendly pump near you

We've also made some other changes to the iGoogle interface, like replacing the tabs with left-side navigation, so you can jump from one canvas view to another with just one click.

There are around 60,000 gadgets and 200,000 feeds available in our public directory for people to add to their iGoogle page, and more than 2,000 iGoogle themes currently available, including themes designed by Australian artists. So what are you waiting for? Get started with iGoogle and set up your own personalised homepage today.

Posted by Katharina Friedrich, Product Marketing Manager

Google Australia opens the doors to our new office

2009-06-01T16:29:00.006+10:00

It was a big day for us here at Google Australia - the Governor-General, Ms Quentin Bryce AC, officially opened our new Google Australia headquarters at a ceremony in Sydney. Around 350 Aussie Googlers will be based in the 6-Star Green Star-designed Workplace6 building in Pyrmont.

Our new office contains a number of Australian-themed areas, including offices with picnic benches, fish tanks, Australian flora, the beach-themed "Cafe Esky" and a games room named "The Rissole". It's in an architectural style that can best be described as "Googley".

The new headquarters represent a milestone in the history of Google in Australia, which started with a single employee selling Google AdWords from her lounge! So we marked the occasion by announcing some new services in conjunction with local organisations ... we're working with Fairfax Media to digitise archival copies of newspapers, including the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, dating back to the late 1800s and early 1900s. This means that Australians can now get free access to Australia's rich journalistic heritage through Google News and Google Search.

We also announced that public transit information for Sydney's light rail and monorail network (Metro Transport)and Canberra's bus network (ACTION buses) will be available in Google Maps later in June. Users of Google Maps in these areas will be able to easily access public transport schedules, routes, and plan trips using local public transport options.

We've put together a video showing our move to the new office and some of the hard work that went into setting it up ... plus a very special finishing touch that we asked the Governor-General to sign to officially declare our office open. Enjoy!

Posted by Alan Noble and Karim Temsamani, Google Australia

Went Walkabout. Brought back Google Wave.

2009-05-29T09:01:00.004+10:00

Today we gave developers attending the Google I/O event in San Francisco an early preview of Google Wave, ahead of public launch (and it received a standing ovation).

Google Wave was developed by the Sydney-based Google team that created Google Maps, used by millions of people worldwide. Led by Lars and Jens Rasmussen and operating as a remote start-up within Google, under the codename "Walkabout", the Aussie team focused on improving the way communication and collaboration works for users on the web.

They developed Google Wave, equal parts conversation and document, where people can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.

Australian developers will be able to learn more at Google Wave API Day, June 19th, taking place at Google's Sydney office.

(Editor's note: The rest of this blog is cross-posted from our Official Google Blog).

Back in early 2004, Google took an interest in a tiny mapping startup called Where 2 Tech, founded by my brother Jens and me. We were excited to join Google and help create what would become Google Maps. But we also started thinking about what might come next for us after maps.

As always, Jens came up with the answer: communication. He pointed out that two of the most spectacular successes in digital communication, email and instant messaging, were originally designed in the '60s to imitate analog formats — email mimicked snail mail, and IM mimicked phone calls. Since then, so many different forms of communication had been invented — blogs, wikis, collaborative documents, etc. — and computers and networks had dramatically improved. So Jens proposed a new communications model that presumed all these advances as a starting point, and I was immediately sold. (Jens insists it took him hours to convince me, but I like my version better.)

We had a blast the next couple years turning Where 2's prototype mapping site into Google Maps. But finally we decided it was time to leave the Maps team and turn Jens' new idea into a project, which we codenamed "Walkabout." We started with a set of tough questions:

Why do we have to live with divides between different types of communication — email versus chat, or conversations versus documents?
Could a single communications model span all or most of the systems in use on the web today, in one smooth continuum? How simple could we make it?
What if we tried designing a communications system that took advantage of computers' current abilities, rather than imitating non-electronic forms?

After months holed up in a conference room in the Sydney office, our five-person "startup" team emerged with a prototype. And now, after more than two years of expanding our ideas, our team, and technology, we're very eager to return and see what the world might think. Today we're giving developers an early preview of Google Wave.

A "wave" is equal parts conversation and document, where people can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.

Here's how it works: In Google Wave you create a wave and add people to it. Everyone on your wave can use richly formatted text, photos, gadgets, and even feeds from other sources on the web. They can insert a reply or edit the wave directly. It's concurrent rich-text editing, where you see on your screen nearly instantly what your fellow collaborators are typing in your wave. That means Google Wave is just as well suited for quick messages as for persistent content — it allows for both collaboration and communication. You can also use "playback" to rewind the wave and see how it evolved.

As with Android, Google Chrome, and many other Google efforts, we plan to make the code open source as a way to encourage the developer community to get involved. Google Wave is very open and extensible, and we're inviting developers to add all kinds of cool stuff before our public launch. Google Wave has three layers: the product, the platform, and the protocol:

The Google Wave product (available as a developer preview) is the web application people will use to access and edit waves. It's an HTML 5 app, built on Google Web Toolkit. It includes a rich text editor and other functions like desktop drag-and-drop (which, for example, lets you drag a set of photos right into a wave).
Google Wave can also be considered a platform with a rich set of open APIs that allow developers to embed waves in other web services, and to build new extensions that work inside waves.
The Google Wave protocol is the underlying format for storing and the means of sharing waves, and includes the "live" concurrency control, which allows edits to be reflected instantly across users and services. The protocol is designed for open federation, such that anyone's Wave services can interoperate with each other and with the Google Wave service. To encourage adoption of the protocol, we intend to open source the code behind Google Wave.

So, this leaves one big question we need your help answering: What else can we do with this?

If you're a developer and you'd like to roll up your sleeves and start working on Google Wave with us, you can read more on the Google Wave Developer blog about the Google Wave APIs, and check out the Google Code blog to learn more about the Google Wave Federation Protocol.

If you'd like to be notified when we launch Google Wave as a public product, you can sign up at http://wave.google.com/. We don't have a specific timeframe for public release, but we're planning to continue working on Google Wave for a number of months more as a developer preview. We're excited to see what feedback we get from our early tinkerers, and we'll undoubtedly make lots of changes to the Google Wave product, platform, and protocol as we go.

We look forward to seeing what you come up with!

Posted by Lars Rasmussen, Software Engineering Manager

More Search Options and Updates from our Searchology Event

2009-05-13T11:12:00.005+10:00

(Editor's note: This is partially cross-posted from our Official Google Blog).

Today we hosted our second Searchology event, to update our users, partners, and customers on the progress we have made in search and tell them about new features. Our first Searchology was two years ago, when we were excited to launch Universal Search, a feature that blended results of different types (web pages, images, videos, books, etc.) on the results page. Since then Universal Search has grown quite a bit, adding new types of results, expanding to new countries, and triggering on ten times as many queries as it did when we launched it.

But as people get more sophisticated at search they are coming to us to solve more complex problems. To stay on top of this, we have spent a lot of time looking at how we can better understand the wide range of information that's on the web and quickly connect people to just the nuggets they need at that moment. We want to help our users find more useful information, and do more useful things with it.

Our first announcement today is a new set of features that we call Search Options, which are a collection of tools that let you slice and dice your results and generate different views to find what you need faster and easier. Search Options helps solve a problem that can be vexing: what query should I ask?

Let's say you are looking for forum discussions about a specific product, but are most interested in ones that have taken place more recently. That's not an easy query to formulate, but with Search Options you can search for the product's name, apply the option to filter out anything but forum sites, and then apply an option to only see results from the past week.

The Search Options panel also gives you the ability to view your results in new ways. One view gives you more information about each result, including images as well as text, while others let you explore and iterate your search in different ways. It's available from the search results page, by clicking 'Show options'.

Check out a video tour here:

We think of the Search Options panel as a tool belt that gives you new ways to interact with Google Search, and we plan to fill it with more innovative and useful features in the future.

We also announced today an update to Sky Map: an Android app that lets you view a labelled map of the sky that adjusts to both your location and the movements of your mobile device. The app uses GPS and Compass data, as well as the Date/Time, to determine what celestial objects the device is facing at a given moment. If it is pointed towards Venus, for example, you'll see a labelled map of the sky with Venus and the objects surrounding it on your screen. We hope lots of Australians make use of the wonderful clear skies of the southern hemisphere to try this app out.

Posted by Jack Menzel, Group Product Manager, and Annie Baxter, Google Australia

Google Analytics Seminars for Success

2009-05-08T15:20:00.002+10:00

Google Analytics is a free service that helps you learn more about where your visitors come from and how they interact with your site. It helps you write better ads, strengthen your marketing initiatives, and get the most out of your website.

Now, for the first time in Australia, website owners and operators can attend the Google Analytics Seminars for Success, to be held in Sydney and Melbourne in May and June 2009. The seminars are run by online marketing consultancy Mangold Sengers, and will provide intensive professional development for individuals and teams from all types and sizes of organisations.

MELBOURNE DATES
Day 1: Thursday 14 May 2009
Day 2: Friday 15 May 2009
Time: 9:30 am to 5:00 pm
Location: Melbourne Business School,
200 Leicester Street, Carlton
Cost: $349.00 per day (inc. GST)

SYDNEY DATES
Day 1: Thursday 4 June 2009
Day 2: Friday 5 June 2009
Time: 9:30 am to 5:00 pm
Location: UNSW CBD Campus, Level
6, 1 O’Connell Street, Sydney
Cost: $349.00 per day (inc. GST)

For more information go to http://www.mangoldsengers.com/google-seminars

Posted by Shyam Govardhan, Customer Solutions Engineer

Making Google Australia a great place to work

2009-04-29T16:43:00.001+10:00

Innovation and user focus are a core part of Google Australia's philosophy and our team strives to keep up with the high standards set by our technical and sales colleagues. We try to create the best possible workplace, so that all our Australian employees can be productive and passionate at work. Whether it's "20% time" for our Australian engineers to work on new projects, creating a flat culture of "open doors and open debate", or ping-pong tournaments against media agencies, we believe that the right work environment leads to great work, which benefits our Australian users and partners.

So, we're thrilled that the Great Place to Work™ Australia Institute and BRW Magazine have put us at Number 1 on the list of Great Places to Work in Australia.

You may not know, but our Australian office started in a Sydney lounge room in 2002! Since those beginnings, we've invested in our Australian operations very substantially and now have nearly 350 employees in our Sydney headquarters.

A question we get asked quite a bit - "are you still hiring"? The answer is "yes". You can find out more about what it's like to work at Google and see jobs that are open in Australia here. We're looking for software engineers to work in Sydney on global products like Google Maps, and various other online applications. We also have positions on our sales teams, as more and more Australian businesses are turning to the Internet as a cost-effective way to market and grow their businesses in tough economic times.

Posted by Siobhan Lyndon and Sara Ramstrom, People Operations

Google Australia business stimulus offer

2009-04-23T09:12:00.002+10:00

Owner of Australian mobile coffee cart business Cafe in a Box, Michael Wilcocks, has said: "For every $1 I spend on Google AdWords I've received at least $50 in sales. It's been the best investment I've made. My customer base has grown 85% due to online advertising."

Sound good? We think so.

At Google, we want to help propel the Australian digital economy. Encouraging more Australian businesses to connect with customers online is a major part of that vision.

In the current economic climate, more Australians than ever before are heading online to research products and services, with search engines central to online navigation, research and comparison shopping.

We're today announcing a business stimulus offer, to help Australia's 1.88m small and medium-sized enterprises speed up in the economic slowdown. We're offering a free $75 search marketing campaign, to help Australian businesses reach new customers and drive sales.

Thousands of businesses are already embracing the benefits of measurable, cost-effective and targeted advertising programs such as Google AdWords. Those who have not yet dipped their toes in the AdWords water can take advantage of our $75 stimulus offer at google.com.au/stimulus.

Even if you're a small business that doesn't have an e-commerce platform on your site, you can benefit from this offer. Research shows that many Australians are doing their research online and then heading in-store to buy - for example, Monash's Australian Centre for Retail Studies has found that 50 per cent of Australian shoppers research their retail purchases online before they get to the store to buy.

For existing AdWords advertisers, we're offering two special master classes to help you improve the performance of your search marketing campaigns. A select number of existing advertisers that attend the seminars will receive a free, tailored campaign "optimisation" from a Google expert to drive better results and increased sales.

We hope lots of Australian small businesses will take up today's offer and learn how easy it is to use the web to grow their businesses.

Posted by Julian Persaud, Head of Online, Google Australia

@googledownunder on the Twitter train

2009-04-22T15:43:00.002+10:00

If you're a Twitter user, you can get even more news from Google Australia by following our updates here.

We will, of course, continue to blog, but keep an eye on Twitter for tweets about upcoming events, news from Google Australia and around the world, and other technology-related bits and pieces we think you might find interesting.

And if you like what we have to say, try following Google's other Twitter feeds - @google, @googleatwork, and @adsense to name a few.

See you there!

Posted by Annie Baxter and Lucinda Barlow, Google Australia communications team

Google App Engine Features Launch and Developer Event

2009-04-16T09:45:00.002+10:00

Last week, the Google App Engine team held a Campfire in Mountain View to celebrate their first birthday and announce several new and useful App Engine features. We introduced support for Java and other JVM-compatible languages, cron jobs, database import, and access to secure firewalled data. Several of our Sydney engineers were heavily involved in this launch: Anthony Baxter was the lead engineer on the cron jobs feature and our other engineers worked on the integration with Google Apps. The photo below shows some of the team, proudly wearing their App Engine t-shirts.

To celebrate the launch here in Sydney and to kickstart developers using the new features, we're holding a special developer event on the evening of April 27th with talks from our pictured Sydney engineers. More information and a registration link for the event is available on our Google Developer Events Sydney site. Sign up quickly as space is limited. While you're there, why not also sign up for our mailing list to find out about upcoming developer events? Hope to see you at one soon.

Posted by Pamela Fox, Google Developer Programs Engineer

Online publishers: Attend the Ad Manager webinar

2009-04-15T11:39:00.003+10:00

We're committed to helping Australian publishers make money from their content, through a number of programs including AdSense and related advertising tools. A little over a year ago, we announced the beta release of our ad serving and management solution, Google Ad Manager. As a hosted ad management tool for publishers selling ads directly on their sites, it helps to sell, schedule, deliver and measure all directly-sold and network-based inventory. Over the past year, Google Ad Manager has helped our publisher partners from all over the world to increase revenue, cut serving costs and save time managing ad campaigns.

We're excited to announce the first Google Ad Manager webinar specifically for publishers in Australia and New Zealand. The webinar will be an introduction to Ad Manager for those wanting to learn more about how the technology can help optimise their advertising revenue, and will feature a live demo.

Special features of Ad Manager include its simple user interface, the ability to forecast inventory availability and the option to consistently deliver the best ad by enabling integration with AdSense.

The web seminar will be held live on Wednesday, 22nd April. Interested publishers can register for the one-hour event here.

Look forward to seeing you there.

Carrol Lapsys, Business Development team

Scholarships for women studying ICT

2009-04-02T12:57:00.003+11:00

Supporting the communities in which we work has always been important to Googlers. Consequently we’re happy to announce that applications are now open for the 4th annual Google Australia and New Zealand Anita Borg Scholarship.

We've simplified the application process this year, and it will remain open until June 1, 2009. Scholars and finalists will be selected on the basis of their academic strength, demonstrated leadership and community involvement. Scholars also receive a financial stipend.

In addition, we invite all finalists and scholars to an all-expenses paid networking retreat in our engineering centre in Sydney. The retreat provides an opportunity for students to connect; form friendships; discuss new technologies, opportunities and challenges; and participate in fun activities with their peers and industry professionals. Over the past three years, we've hosted close to 50 finalists and scholars studying computer science and related technical fields from 20 different Australian and New Zealand universities. We’ve been pleased to see the community grow year on year, with past alumni establishing student and industry networking groups in their home states, organising state-wide events for girls at high school, and becoming emerging leaders in industry and academia.

Check out the profiles of last year's scholars and finalists to find out which ones might be similar to you.

Applications close June 1, 2009. For complete details, please visit www.google.com.au/anitaborg.

As ever we look forward to expanding the scholarship, so please feel free to share details with others who might be interested!

Will Blott, Talent & Outreach Programs Manager, Google Australia & New Zealand