Mac Gmail Notifier update

Posted by Greg Miller, Software Engineer

It's high time for us to release a small update for our Gmail Notifier for Mac (OS X). We've added a few things of our own and got some ideas from users too. Some of the changes are:

• it's a universal binary, so it will run natively on PowerPC and Intel Macs;

• it will notify you when a new version is available and automatically upgrade itself; and...drum roll, please...

• it has new icons (we know it's what you've asked for!).

Also, as many of you know, the Gmail Notifier supports plug-ins, and one of our users wrote a cool plug-in called Gmail+Growl that displays visual Growl notifications when new mail arrives. Very cool and worth checking out. So download the Mac Gmail Notifier once again, and we'll take care of the rest.

Spring is the season for love (and data)

Posted by AC Narendran & Katie Jacobs Stanton, Google Finance team

Alfred, Lord Tennyson wrote, "In the Spring, a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love." In the spring at Google, a geek's fancy turns to thoughts of ... charts and data. So to mark this vernal equinox, we introduce to you Google Finance.

It all started as a small project led by a few engineers in Bangalore and later joined by more engineers and finance enthusiasts in Mountain View and New York . We have different backgrounds, work in different time zones, and, at the start of this project, had never met in person. But we shared the same goal: to improve the search experience for financial information. We hope Google Finance lives up to that aim by offering a fresh perspective on company-related searches. To begin with, you no longer have to remember a ticker or mutual fund symbol. Just search for a company or mutual fund by name and you'll quickly see all the relevant information.

But perhaps Google Finance's most important innovations take place after you've found the company in question. You'll find interactive charts that enable you to zoom through different time periods, headlines mapped right on the charts and are based on Google News, which means you're seeing unbiased and relevant results from more than 4,500 English-language news sources. And you'll get insightful comments from bloggers about public and private companies, plus Discussion Groups moderated by enthusiastic community advocates, which should foster some quality exchanges about the companies you care about.

Google Finance is an early-stage beta product. We hope to expand and improve this service over time, and your feedback will be a big part of that. So do let us know what you think.

Judge tells DoJ "No" on search queries

Posted by Nicole Wong, Associate General Counsel

Google will not have to hand over any user's search queries to the government. That's what a federal judge ruled today when he decided to drastically limit a subpoena issued to Google by the Department of Justice. (You can read the entire ruling here and the government's original subpoena here.)

The government's original request demanded billions of URLs and two month's worth of users' search queries. Google resisted the subpoena, prompting the judge's order today. In addition to excluding search queries from the subpoena, Judge James Ware also required the government to limit its demand for URLs to 50,000. We will fully comply with the judge's order.

This is a clear victory for our users and for our company, and Judge Ware's decision regarding search queries is especially important. While privacy was not the most significant legal issue in this case (because the government wasn't asking for personally identifiable information), privacy was perhaps the most significant to our users. As we noted in our briefing to the court, we believe that if the government was permitted to require Google to hand over search queries, that could have undermined confidence that our users have in our ability to keep their information private. Because we resisted the subpoena, the Department of Justice will not receive any search queries and only a small fraction of the URLs it originally requested.

We will always be subject to government subpoenas, but the fact that the judge sent a clear message about privacy is reassuring. What his ruling means is that neither the government nor anyone else has carte blanche when demanding data from Internet companies. When a party resists an overbroad subpoena, our legal process can be an effective check on such demands and be a protector of our users.

Courtside seats, without the court... or the seat

Posted by Qi Ke, Software Engineer

Starting today you can get up-to-the-minute sports scores and schedules using Google SMS on your mobile device. Just text message a school or team name to 46645 (GOOGL). "Why?" you ask? Because:

1. The big game is on tonight, and while your cable was cut 3 weeks ago, you've still got a recliner couch and a pair of battle-worn, nacho cheese-stained text messaging thumbs
2. Your newly purchased tickets make the nosebleeds feel like a fireside chat, and you lent your binoculars to your ornithologist cousin
3. You recently secured a new job, and you need to look like you're preoccupied with important business at all times
4. The love of your life dragged you to the ballet on game day, and made you leave your 60-inch liquid crystal TV at home
5. It's time for your family reunion (and the playoffs) again, and you don't have the heart to tell your relatives that you majored in basket... weaving
6. The restraining order filed against you by multiple sports professionals mandates that you find a way to "look but not touch"
7. When it comes to your personal sports soundtrack, you prefer the Crazy Frog to the National Anthem
8. You've developed an allergic reaction to commercial time-outs (or even commercials, for that matter)
9. It's triple over time, and your too-cute-to-say-no nephew wants pizza from a restaurant six blocks from the stadium
10. The BIG DANCE!
    

Stay in Ctrl Ctrl

Posted by Tomas Gunnarsson, Google Desktop Software Engineer

Three months ago, I came up with an idea that makes it easier for users to find what they're looking for: a search box in the middle of the desktop. It's very accessible -- all you have to do is press your Ctrl key twice. After some experimentation, people are telling us they like it and use it. That's why we're adding it to Google Desktop (coming out of beta today). Give the Quick Search Box a try. We hope you find it handy.

A new home for @Last Software

Posted by Jeff Martin, Product Marketing Manager

I was sitting at the breakfast table this morning, drinking a cup of coffee while I looked out at the snow. It was pretty much like any other winter morning, except — it wasn’t. When I went to sleep last night, I was employed by a small start-up called @Last Software. This morning, although I’m going to the same office, sitting at the same desk, and seeing the same people, I’m going to work as a Google employee. (Here’s the official announcement.)

As I sipped my coffee, I thought of a fellow I met on the last day of Macworld in January. It was six minutes before the end of the show when he walked into our booth. He had never seen SketchUp before. I started to give him a demo to give him an idea of what the software can do and how it works. Two or three minutes in, he interrupted me. “Can I buy a copy of SketchUp now?” I said sure. Then: “How about two?” No problem, I said.

It’s often like that. People see SketchUp and they love it. Now that we’re part of Google, how many of those ah-ha moments will happen every day? Already we’ve had hundreds of users create 3D content in SketchUp and place their models in Google Earth. (A free plug-in enables you to do this.) What will that virtual world look like when tens of thousands of users are doing the same?

Our little company was founded six years ago with the grand vision of bringing 3D to everyone; now that goal is truly within reach. No second cup of coffee for me — contemplating the possibilities is exciting enough.

Sketchup already has a plug in that allows you to export 3D models into Google Earth. If you've got Google Earth (you do, right?), then check out a few 3D examples (these are KMZ files):

Statue of Liberty
SketchUp headquarters
Google Mountain View campus

It costs $495, but we’d like everyone to have a SketchUp experience, so you can download a free 8-hour trial version here.

Mars attracts

Posted by Chikai Ohazama, Google Earth team

We here on Earth have long held a fascination with the planet Mars. From Percival Lowell's sketches of its surface, to the countless books and movies that revolve around it, we've spent millenia studying and day-dreaming about our nearest neighbor in the solar system.

In that tradition, NASA researchers Noel Gorelick and Michael Weiss-Malik from Arizona State University worked with us to combine Google Maps technology with some of the most detailed scientific maps of Mars ever made.

In commemoration of Lowell's birthday, we're pleased to bring you Google Mars. Explore the red planet in three different ways: an elevation map shows color-coded peaks and valleys, a visible-imagery map shows what your eyes would actually see, and an infrared-imagery map shows the detail your eyes would miss.

We hope you enjoy your trip to Mars.