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Celebrate your freedom to read
September 12, 2006
Posted by
Leslie Burger
, President, American Library Association
What was your favorite book when you were in school? Did F. Scott Fitzgerald give you an inside look at a world of glamorous parties where the wealthy fell in love and went home with their feelings hurt? Did Holden Caulfield speak directly to your inner misanthrope? For decades, literary classics such as
The Great Gatsby
and
The Catcher in the Rye
have had a profound impact on millions of readers. Yet every year, there are hundreds of attempts to remove great books from schools and libraries nationwide. Fortunately, the
American Library Association
and many other organizations are fighting back with
Banned Books Week
, taking place this year Sept. 23-30.
For 25 years, libraries and bookstores nationwide have been celebrating the freedom to read during Banned Books Week, which is sponsored by the
American Booksellers Association
, the
American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression
, the
Association of American Publishers
, the
American Society of Journalists and Authors
, the
National Association of College Stores
, and endorsed by the
Library of Congress Center for the Book
.
Now Google has joined the party. At
google.com/bannedbooks
,
you can use
Google Book Search
to explore some of the best novels of the 20
th
century which have been challenged or banned. And while libraries and bookstores around the country celebrate the 25th anniversary of Banned Books Week with special readings, displays, and more, you just might end up with a visit to your local library or bookstore and an old favorite or a new banned book in hand.
Co-op for health information
September 12, 2006
Posted by Dr. Taraneh Razavi, M.D., Staff Doctor
One of my goals in starting
my blog
has been to reliably provide useful health information and advice to a wider audience than just the people I see. As part of this effort, I have been labeling health-related websites that I think are good ones using
Google Co-op
, a beta product that premiered in May. Google Co-op is designed to improve results for searches. If you opt in to my Co-Op profile (and
subscribe
to it), you'll see my labels in your health-related search results.
7 Days in September
September 11, 2006
Posted by Cliff Samaniego, Google Video team
A while ago, New York filmmaker Steve Rosenbaum produced
7 Days in September
which tells the story of a week -- September 11-18, 2001 -- with the help of many filmmakers and a multitude of perspectives. As Rosenbaum
notes
, "Those seven days are full of fear, anger, pain, loss, and a deep sense of community," adding that
7 Days
"isn't meant to be an answer, but rather a sounding board that may help people to ask deeply personal questions." We're honored to share it with you on
Google Video
.
History as it unfolds
September 8, 2006
Posted by Anurag Acharya, Distinguished Engineer
As a teenager, history was the class in which I daydreamed -- the one that required memorization of long lists of kings, of battles, of arcane disputes that led to war. It was something I left behind when I graduated from high school and went on to the "real" things in life.
But history was not done with me. Many years later, I drifted from reading George Orwell's novels
1984
and
Animal Farm
and Arthur Koestler's
Darkness at Noon
to reading more about the Russian Revolution. The evolution of the Bolshevik Old Guard from scruffy revolutionaries fighting a stifling monarchy to becoming ruthless dictators for Stalin's killing machine was fascinating. History had drawn me into its web. History isn't a dry laundry list of the likes of
"Ozymandias"
. It is what everyone in any era
does
, full of rich detail.
And now you can find those contemporary details (and more current ones as always) through a new
archive search
feature of
Google News
. This new feature can help you explore history through archives of news and other information sources. You can search for events, people and ideas, and see how they have been described over time. If you were to seek information on the 1969 moon landing, now you can find original coverage from that year, as well as analysis, news and commentary from the 37 years following.
Based on relevance, the archive results on Google News include freely available articles from sources such as TIME.com, The Guardian and many others, as well as snippets of articles available for a fee or via subscription. These may come from news organizations like The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, and also from news aggregators like AccessMyLibrary.com, ThomsonGale, Factiva, HighBeam™ Research, LexisNexis and others.
In addition to finding the most relevant articles for your query, you can get an historical overview of the results by browsing an automatically created timeline. Articles related to a single story or theme within a given time period are grouped together to enable you to see a broad perspective on the events. The archive search results include articles about an incredibly wide variety of topics, people and events over the last 200 years or so. About kings and battles, yes, but also about athletes and games, political dramas, crimes, romances and much, much else.
History is often presented to us with a viewpoint many years after it happens -- and it's frequently smoothed over in many ways, and for many reasons. Here's hoping archive search in Google News can help you read about history as it has unfolded, and explore and understand the past for yourself.
And the Desktop Gadget winners are…
September 5, 2006
Posted by Mendel Chuang, Product Marketing Manager
With all the great entries we received for the
Google Desktop Gadget Contest
, we've learned that there are some very talented developers out there. Amongst all the gadgets submitted, these three really stood out:
diGGGadget
by Marius and Yannick Stucki – Stay on top of the latest stories from digg.com. Click on a few buttons and you'll know why we think it's so great. It also takes advantage of our advanced APIs to enable sharing news with friends plus personalization based on your interests.
Multiplayer Reversi Game
by Turhan Aydin – Immerse yourself in the fun game Reversi with this visually rich gadget. Not only can you play against the computer, but this gadget takes advantage of our Google Talk API so that you can also play with your friends.
Day/Night World Clock
by Beatrix Gottanka – We couldn't have designed a better world clock. Not only does this clock show you the local time, but there's also a map that indicates whether it's night or day at any given hour. And if you want options, this gadget has them.
For more on the winners and the honorable mentions, read the
Google Desktop Blog
, and don't forget to check out all the
other great gadgets
you can add to your desktop.
TED talks on Google Video
September 1, 2006
Posted by Cliff Samaniego, Google Video team
TED stands for
Technology, Entertainment & Design
. For more than 15 years TED has produced a conference notable for its eclectic and stimulating mix of thinkers, leaders and doers from many fields. Traditionally, about 1,000 TEDsters gather each February at an exclusive invitation-only program in Monterey, California. Until recently, most of us could only read about TED or these talks -- but now talks are
available online via Google Video
, as well as at the
TED site
.
The goal for making these talks public isn't to sell more seats (TED 2007 is already sold out); under TED Curator Chris Anderson, the idea is simply to find the widest possible audience for these provocative presentations. The first batch of eight include Al Gore's compelling story of climate crisis; Hans Rosling's inspired interpretation of global public health statistics; Sir Ken Robinson's vision for an education system that values creativity; MacArthur Foundation prize-winner Majora Carter's commitment to environmental justice; storyteller Julia Sweeney's quest for a sensible faith; architect Joshua Prince-Ramus' tour of the new Seattle Public Library; Tony Robbins' roadmap for human potential; and David Pogue's unforgettable technology-inspired show tunes.
And do check back for more: we'll continue to add talks to Google Video regularly, pulling primarily from TED 2006 and TEDGlobal, but we'll also feature a number from previous years.
The TED Talks video series was edited specifically for the micro-screen with closer shots and faster cuts. To ensure the widest possible audience, the talks are also released under a
Creative Commons license
so that non-commercial sites are free to re-post them in their entirety. However you partake of them, we hope you're as inspired by TED as we are.
55 Ways to Have Fun With Google
September 1, 2006
Posted by Philipp Lenssen, Google Blogoscoped
It's time for a little guest post from Germany -- thanks, Google, for inviting me over! I'm the author of a blog on Google (
Google Blogoscoped
), and this year I've written a book called
55 Ways to Have Fun With Google
. In it, I present Google-related riddles, games, cartoons, search tips, stories, and miscellaneous insights (no programming skills needed -- and most of the time, you don't need to be close to a computer, either).
You'll learn about such things as the giant Japanese Google painting, the man who traveled the world looking for Googlewhacks, advanced tips for Google-searching, how Google News can screw up in funny ways, or the Google Image prediction trick. There's a great German word for this -- "Wunderkammer," a cabinet of curiosities.
The book is self-published with
Lulu.com
, an interesting service. Basically, Lulu allows you to upload your Microsoft Word or OpenOffice Writer file along with your cover, and then convert it to a print-on-demand book. If you pay a little extra, your book will also appear on Amazon. The process ain't free of headaches but I gotta say, it's worth it. Lulu will also make sure the book's findable through
Google Book Search
.
Self-publishing is already an interesting experiment on its own, but I chose to take an alternative route with copyright as well.
55 Ways
can be copied, remixed and shared under a
Creative Commons license
, and the full text is available as a free download. People have already converted it to websites, and there's a group effort going on to translate the full book into Chinese! Some people told me making the book available for free will stop people from buying the "offline" version ... well, here's your chance to prove them wrong :)
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