Yule Heibel's Library tagged google →  View Popular, Search in Google

Interesting - inner city renewal, courtesy of big tech companies?
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Google’s decision to locate its Pittsburgh operations in the inner city is but one way America’s ever-expanding knowledge economy is changing the real estate sector, something it is expected to continue doing. Not only are high-tech companies looking for unusual spaces that are reflective of their corporate culture, but firms in the knowledge sector are also reviving inner-city neighborhoods, spearheading the drive for sustainability, and even changing the way some new buildings are designed.
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pittsburgh google urban_renewal atlantic_cities

Must re-read this later. Good info.

google google+ socialmedia mike_elgan

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The system’s backbone cable, with a capacity of 6,000 megawatts, equal to the output of five large nuclear reactors, would run in shallow trenches on the seabed in federal waters 15 to 20 miles offshore, from northern New Jersey to Norfolk, Va. The notion would be to harvest energy from turbines in an area where the wind is strong but the hulking towers would barely be visible.

Trans-Elect estimated that construction would cost $5 billion, plus financing and permit fees. The $1.8 billion first phase, a 150-mile stretch from northern New Jersey to Rehoboth Beach, Del., could go into service by early 2016, it said. The rest would not be completed until 2021 at the earliest.

Richard L. Needham, the director of Google’s green business operations group, called the plan “innovative and audacious.”

“It is an opportunity to kick-start this industry and, long term, provide a way for the mid-Atlantic states to meet their renewable energy goals,” he said.
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nyt wind_power google atlantic

Can't remember how/why I came across this article, but Faruk Ates has an interesting perspective:

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Google’s design process—if you can call it that—revolves entirely around engineering-driven solutions and something I will call “data thinking”: present the problem as a mathematical formula like any other, come up with systematic solutions that attempt to solve the problem and its various “problem components” (think individual UI buttons, copy text, visual design and so forth), then employ testing until a final result is produced. We know this is their process from their own words, but the point was long made clear by Doug Bowman when explaining his departure from Google.

What’s pointedly missing from Google’s approach is the human factor: there is no empathy in the process. It lives or dies entirely by the “sword of data” (Doug’s beautifully apt words, not mine), and while that can be a recipe for success—Google is doing quite well in the market—it is rarely a recipe for beauty, taste or comfort. It’s a cold process, almost entirely devoid of any humanity, precisely because it produces results that lack a human touch. There is no personal identity in the end result, because “data” is not a person.
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design design_thinking faruk_ates google

The "Did You Know?" video, which has been making its viral rounds through various social networks. Breathless, admittedly amazing facts, prepare to meet a firehose of information. ("What does it in-form?" is another question...)

youtube education technology google internet video

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Konrad Feldman, a cofounder of San Francisco–based startup Quantcast, sees big business in audience measurement.
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No one really knows how many people visit websites - the measuring tools aren't available, but Quantcast and Google aim to change that.

advertising business_model google page_views quantcast

Lee Siegel presenting at Google, with Q&A following.
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Journalist Lee Siegel visits Google's Mountain View, CA, headquarters to discuss his book "Against the Machine." This event took place on April 28, 2008, as part of the Authors@Google series.
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authors@google google lee_siegel

Tell me again why Victoria is not yet hooked into this? Vancouver transit did it - why not BC Transit in Victoria?

google transit victoria

Google has put the LIFE photo archive online: "Search millions of photographs from the LIFE photo archive, stretching from the 1750s to today. Most were never published and are now available for the first time through the joint work of LIFE and Google."

photo_gallery google history archive_photos reference resources

Because of this particular blog entry at Digital Urban -- and because the YouTube video Digital Urban included no longer worked -- I looked on YouTube for more information and found a couple of really interesting "how-to" videos (see: http://youtube.com/results?search_query=Google+Spreadsheet+API&search_type= ).

The video that prompted the search is called "Google Visualization API on Google Spreadsheets" (see: http://youtube.com/watch?v=8EsFJu6p3P4 ) It's pretty impressive -- even I (non-user of spread sheets and non-techie) sort of get it.

For lots more, see also the Google Visualization API-- Google Code page (see: http://code.google.com/apis/visualization/ ).

I'm posting this mainly for the benefit of a couple of people near and dear to me. They might really get a kick most especially out of this YouTube google video, "Using Google Spreadsheets as a Database in the Cloud" (see: http://youtube.com/watch?v=rWCLROPKug0 ).

visualisation google apps apis