Googillion

Monowheel: Crazy Invention from the past

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 16:24:00 +0000

"A short surviving film clip of the latter shows the difficulty in making a smooth ride – even at fairly constant speed – without the occupants gerbilling back and forth inside the wheel. It has even said to have knocked someone over during this test-run because of the inadequate steering system. The project was soon abandoned after that. The last known news from the project was a finished model of a five-seating Dynosphere with an enclosed glassed-in cabin, complete with bumpers and headlights."

Link

Man gets caught in an elevator!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 10:47:00 +0000

"Max Silvestri Gets Trapped in an Elevator" is an interesting and meaningful video added on 236.com!
"May 1, 2008 - From a 41-hour nightmare to 6 minutes of delight. Max Silvestri, guys. "The Lives of Elevators"- New Yorker."

A multi-dimensional puzzle

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 12:56:00 +0000

An interesting map of Tokyo Metro's Shibuya Station as a multi-dimensional puzzle.

Link

Over 8 Million Downloads of Firefox 3

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 08:31:00 +0000

Well, Mozilla has made its job awesome. Firefox 3 has been downloaded close to 8,3 Million in a 24 hour period.

And the finale countdown:

See what's next after Firefox 3.
Photos from Firefox 3 release week.

How David Copperfield Flies

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 10:58:00 +0000

This video shows you the levitation trick of David Copperfield.

The Story of 12 Knives

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 10:35:00 +0000

24 photo-etchings of the knives which tell a story, reveal an issue that the viewer will need to interact with, to come closer and actually stand between them to get the sense of them.

SeeqPod: Great Playable Search Engine

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 10:23:00 +0000

SeeqPod is the most satisfying way to find, play, and enjoy playable Web content.

Google Doodle: Father's Day

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 08:45:00 +0000

"Father's Day is a celebration inaugurated in the early twentieth century to complement Mother's Day in celebrating fatherhood and male parenting, and to honor and commemorate fathers and forefathers. Father's Day is celebrated on a variety of dates worldwide and typically involves gift-giving, and special dinners to fathers and family-oriented activities. In 2008, it will be celebrated on June 15th in most countries."
Google celebrates father's day from today because some countries like Austria and Belgium celebrate this day by June 14(Second Sunday of June). Google probably will keeps the doodle until tomorrow, so the most countries celebrate father's day by June 15.

Google Doodle Japan: Yasunari Kawabata

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 08:47:00 +0000

Today, Google Japan celebrates the birthday of Yasunari Kawabata how was a Japanese short story writer and novelist whose spare, lyrical, subtly-shaded prose won him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1968, the first Japanese author to receive the award. His works have enjoyed broad international appeal and are still widely read.

Google Winner of The Prince of Asturias Awards 2008

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 15:30:00 +0000

The Prince of Asturias Awards is a series of annual prizes given in Spain by the Fundación Príncipe de Asturias to individuals, entities, organizations or others from around the world who make notable achievements in the sciences, humanities, or public affairs.
This year The Prince of Asturias Awards has been awarded the Internet giant Google as the best Internet search engine of all time in the category of communication and humanities.
The jury, which announced the win yesterday, justified the decision that Google is the "best search engine" a "gigantic cultural revolution" that allows access information without ideological, economic or linguistic barriers.
Last years winners of Prince of Asturias Awards were former US vice President Al Gore and singer song writer Bob Dylan.

Sergey Brin Will Fly Into Space

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:22:00 +0000

Google co-founder Sergey Brin has put down a $5-million deposit for a seat aboard a Russian spacecraft, tourism company Space Adventures. From 2011 Space Adventures will send paying customers into space.
Space Adventures is a U.S. company, which organizes flights with a Russian Soyus to the ISS. By now five space tourists joined to such missions. From 2011, the company will start with its own rocket into space. The New York Times has already paid Brin 5 million U.S. dollars for the flight.
The chief of The Russian Federal Space Agency Anatoly Perminov makes the company from 2010 no places available to flight to the ISS, but there has been given places to Space Adventures by October 2008 and April 2009.
The exact date of Brin's flying into space is still not known. It is also unclear how much he still must pay.

"I am a big believer in the exploration and commercial development of the space frontier, and am looking forward to the possibility of going into space," Brin said in a statement released by Space Adventures.(Los Angeles Times)

Directly Sharing YouTube Video with orkut

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 12:53:00 +0000

YouTube recently has added a orkut sharing button to the list of sharing thumbnails. Previously, you had to copy & paste the video URL to post the clips to your orkut favorite videos. Now you can simply share your favorite videos using orkut sharing button directly from YouTube.
Previously, YouTube promoted only 2 social networks - Myspace and Facebook - so now with adding the orkut thumbnail.

YouTube now promotes orkut as well as the other ones, even though Google owns orkut.

Easter Egg appearing in Google Reader

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 09:37:00 +0000

Do you use Google Reader? Open your Google Reader and try out the following buttons to see what happens in your Reader:

up up down down left right left right b a

You will see the appearance of an Easter egg on the right side of the reader.

You will also see "Ninja!" written in the search box.

50 Ways to Use Google Chart API

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 18:51:00 +0000

College@Home posted an useful article about how Google Chart API can be used in different interesting ways, so a list of 50 links where you can get useful details and tutorials to learn about Google Chart API.
With Google Chart API you can create maps, weather charts, tracking charts, meteorological wind graphic, pure data and much more. You can also create interface to use with Google Chart API or even having fun with it, so everything you need to know about Google Chart API.

Google OS

Google Doodle: Dragon Boat Festival

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 11:23:00 +0000

Today, Google homepage in China celebrates the Dragon Boat Festival.
"The "Duanwu Festival" is a Chinese traditional and statutory holiday. It is a public holiday in mainland China and in Taiwan, where it is known as the "Duanwu Festival". It is also a public holiday in Hong Kong and Macau, where it is known as Duen Ng Festival. Its alternative name in English is "Dragon Boat Festival", after one of the traditional activities for the holiday."

Here are Google Doodles from 2005:

and 2000:

YouTube New Feature: Video Annotations

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 10:29:00 +0000

YouTube just added a new feature that allows you to add interactive commentary to your videos. Video Annotations(as a beta feature) let you add background information, create stories and link to related YouToube videos, channels or search results from within a video. Video Annotations are completely controllable, so you can control where/when the annotations appear and disappear or turn them off.
Adding annotations is simple. Once you logged in and started playing one of your video, you will see "Add Annotations" button on the right side of the player. Clicking on the button brings you to the editor where you can add annotations. After finishing adding annotations, just publish your video and preview.

Here's is an example video published with annotations.

YouTube Video Annotations
YouTube Help center

Google Doodle: First Air Balloon Flight

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 08:52:00 +0000

Today, Google's celebrating the first form of flight that dates to June 1783. The hot air balloon(globe airostatique), the oldest successful human-carrying flight invented by two brothers Joseph-Michel Montgolfier and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier. "The brothers succeeded in launching the first manned ascent to carry a young physician and an audacious army officer into the sky."

Google Site Search Announcement

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 20:47:00 +0000

Today, Google announced Google Site Search, a hosted search solution that takes advantage of the Custom Search platform to integrates features that offer high quality search for site visitors of any website. Google Site Search lets the site owners implement search functionality that is familiar and useful to their visitors. The new service increases more satisfaction for your website and visitors, showcases your relevant products and much more.
As with Google Press Center, Google Site Search offers four new features as follows:

Enhanced index coverage: comprehensive search results on any website by crawling and indexing more content, even pages deep within a site;
Synonyms: website owners can add their own custom synonym dictionary (a search for [cd] would include [certificate of deposit] in search results);
Date biasing: site owners can influence search results based on the age of documents (e.g., a recent product datasheet is weighted more heavily than older product documents);
Top results biasing: specific sections of the site (such as the product catalog) appear at the top of search results
Full customization of the look & feel: site owners can fully customize the search results interface to integrate with the unique look and feel of their sites.

Learn more about Additional Features
Google Custom Search Blog
The Official Google Blog
Official Google Enterprise Blog

Link Latte 3

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 12:48:00 +0000

Muxtape: An online mix tape-making service - Muxfind lets you to search through the muxtapes created by others in order to discover new artists, songs, and muxtapes.

Borders: A bookstore, a competitor of Barnes and Nobles that finds new ways to help customers create richer and more satisfying lives through knowledge and entertainment.

Skyfire: The mobile web browser that allows users to experience the web as they would on a PC.

illumio: A feed reader that finds news and blogs that match your interests.

Freebase: The first product of semantic web company Metaweb, is an open, semantically marked up database of information.

TruCast: Allows companies to monitor Internet buzz by analyzing blogs, social networks, consumer opinion and review sites, bulletin boards, discussion forums, newsgroups, and online news sites to determine what's being said and how engaged customers are with the company's brand.

MediaDefender: Is a company that acts on behalf of other media companies to muck up P2P and file sharing networks.

LastGraph: Lets you explore your last.fm listening history.

ReadBag, Instapaper, LaterLoop, LinkRiver are quick and easy bookmarklets to save links for later.

ABC News on Google Earth 4.3 Application

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 11:47:00 +0000

Today, The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) has just announced the launch of ABC Earth - a content layer, which features live stories and archived content including video, audio and text as a layer in Google Earth 4.3 application.
If you already have installed Google Earth 4.3 and want to get started viewing the ABC content, then simply click on the ABC Earth link. The ABC layer will automatically open in the Google Earth including national news, video news, stories from 50 years of national and international news and much more.
"With the recent launch of Google Earth 4.3, reading the news and soaring over some of Australia’s finest architecture has never been so fun and easy (and filled with sunshine). The search for new ways to see the world never ends, and we look forward to the new perspectives to come."

The Official Australia Blog

Announcement of VFS/YouTube's Scholarship Competition Winners

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 10:26:00 +0000

As with my last post, VFS the Canada's premier post-secondary entertainment arts institution and YouTube just announced the winners of one-of-a-kind scholarship competition - a three-minute video making about the theme "What Matters To You".
A couple of weeks ago VFS announced the top ten finalist whose videos were to vote until May 27. YouTube also mentioned to announce for three winners who will receive full-tuition scholarship to one of VFS's world-class programs. Today, after a week voting, YouTube announced the three winners of the VFS/YT Scholarship Competition:

Jorge Rolando Caneda Estrada(Digital Design)
Stefan Ramirez Perez(Foundation Visual Art & Design)
Christopher Harrell(Digital Design)

Here's a playlist of three winners' videos:

The YouTube Blog

Google changed its favicon

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 30 May 2008 15:59:00 +0000

Google has just changed its uppercase “G” favicon to a lower-case “g” favicon shows in address bar, in browser's tabs and in the list of bookmarks.

Old favicon New favicon

As with standard size of favicons, the new favicon is 16x16 and hosted under "favicon.ico".

A little bit focusing on why Google changed its favicon makes a lot of sense: Google loves numbers, Google plays with numbers, Google is aiming to be a sense of something that never ends, so the philosophy of eternity and infinity. Regarding this the new favicon interprets infinity "∞". It's just chosen because it was easy to rotate an "8" character by 90° when typesetting was done by hand. The symbol is sometimes called a "lazy eight", evoking the image of an "8" lying on its side.
What Google actually has done is to re-rotate(turn back) the symbol to earlier version, so "∞" to "8" as it was. Beyond this, the "8" interprets the lower-case favicon "g".
Another interpretation is that the infinity symbol is a clear depiction of the hourglass turned 90°. Obviously, this action would cause the hourglass to take infinite time to empty thus presenting a tangible example of infinity. The invention of the hourglass predates the existence of the infinity symbol allowing this theory to be plausible.

Well, Google never ends ...

Google New Feature for Football Fans

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 30 May 2008 14:44:00 +0000

Google introduces some new features added to Google Maps for football fans. Now you can keep track of the events of the tournament using the new Google European Football Championship 2008 Fan Map. You can also create your own football map and feel free to share it with friends and other fans.

The Google Fan Map is currently available for following countries: UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Netherlands, Czech Republic, Russia, Poland, Austria, Switzerland and Sweden.
"The 2008 European Championship lasts for 23 days this year, which means 23 days of thrills, hopes, tears and cheers. To celebrate those 23 days, Google and YouTube have put together a fan kit, so you can share your passion for football with thousands of other fans from around the world!"

Google LatLong Blog
Google Maps Help Center

Google Visualization API beyond Google Spreadsheets

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 30 May 2008 12:46:00 +0000

Google announced opening up the Google Visualization API beyond Google Spreadsheets and adding more capabilities for developers.
"The Google Visualization API lets you access multiple sources of structured data that you can display, choosing from a large selection of visualizations. The Google Visualization API also provides a platform that can be used to create, share and reuse visualizations written by the developer community at large."

Concerning Google I/O developer conference, Google added some new features for the Google Visualization API:

A JavaScript interface to create add-hoc data tables on the client.
The new interface allows developers to create non Gadget-ized visualizations.
The AJAX API introduces another cool new capability.

Visualization Gallery
Code Examples

Orkut launched Themes for orkut addicts

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 30 May 2008 11:10:00 +0000

Orkut officially launched orkut themes which are still not live for all users, but you can choose from different themes depending on your choice even if your profile has not been provided by this feature yet.
Orkut themes seem to be similar to iGoogle themes, so the most of them were created for iGoogle.

If the new feature isn't available for your profile yet and you want to see the new themes, you can install Greasemonkey userscripts from Orkut Plus blog to have a feel of orkut themes.