Via Gary Price:

The two companies (Google and Bell South) plan to announce an agreement today, under which BellSouth Advertising & Publishing Corp.'s close to 2,000 sales people in nine Southeast states will sell online advertising packages featuring Google. The deal, one of the first of its kind, is part of Google's efforts to sell advertising to more small- and medium-size local businesses... BellSouth aims to simplify the process of buying search-related advertising for businesses, by providing flat-rate monthly packages.

Google has added to help users find the main operators

 

		Google Help : Cheat Sheet
OPERATOR EXAMPLE		FINDS PAGES CONTAINING...
vacation hawaii		the words vacation and Hawaii .
Maui OR Hawaii		either the word Maui or the word Hawaii
"To each his own"		the exact phrase to each his own
virus –computer		the word virus but NOT the word computer
Star Wars Episode +1		This movie title, including the number 1
~auto loan		loan info for both the word auto and its synonyms: truck, car, etc.
define:computer		definitions of the word computer from around the Web.
red * blue		the words red and blue separated by exactly one word.
I'm Feeling Lucky		Takes you directly to first web page returned for your query.
CALCULATOR OPERATORS		MEANING		TYPE INTO SEARCH BOX
+		addition		45 + 39
-		subtraction		45 – 39
*		multiplication		45 * 39
/		division		45 / 39
% of		percentage of		45% of 39
^		raise to a power		2^5 (2 to the 5th power)
ADVANCED OPERATORS		MEANING		WHAT TO TYPE INTO SEARCH BOX (& DESCRIPTION OF RESULTS)
site:		Search only one website		admission site:www.stanford.edu (Search Stanford Univ. site for admissions info.)
[#]…[#]		Search within a range of numbers		DVD player $100...150 (Search for DVD players between $100 and $150)
date:		Search only a range of months		Olympics date: 3 (Search for Olympics references within past 3 months; 6 and 12-month date-restrict options also available)
safesearch:		Exclude adult-content		safesearch: sex education (Search for sex education material without returning adult sites)
link:		linked pages		link:www.stanford.edu (Find pages that link to the Stanford University website.)
info:		Info about a page		info:www.stanford.edu (Find information about the Stanford University website.)
related:		Related pages		related:www.stanford.edu (Find websites related to the Stanford University website.)
GOOGLE SERVICES		URL		DESCRIPTION
Google Images				Find images related to your search term.
Google News				Read the most up-to-date news stories about your search term.
Froogle		www.froogle.com		Find sites selling the exact product you're looking for.
Google Groups				Usenet discussion group archive dating back to 1981.
Google Catalogs				Search hundreds of online catalogs.
Google Labs				Test-drive potential future Google products and services.
Blogger		www.blogger.com		Start your own online journal (or 'blog') with this free self-publishing service.

Via

Google today announced it acquired Keyhole Corp., a Mountain View, Calif.-based digital mapping company.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

"With Keyhole, you can fly like a superhero from your computer at home to a street corner somewhere else in the world - or find a local hospital, map a road trip or measure the distance between two points", said Jonathan Rosenberg, vice president, Product Management. "This acquisition gives Google users a powerful new search tool, enabling users to view 3D images of any place on earth as well as tap a rich database of roads, businesses and many other points of interest. Keyhole is a valuable addition to Google's efforts to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful."

With an Internet connection, users enter an address or other location information and Keyhole's software accesses the database and takes them to a digital image of that location on their computer screen. The interactive software then gives users many options, including the ability to zoom in from space-level to street-level, tilt and rotate the view or search for other information such as hotels, parks, ATMs or subways. Unlike traditional mapping technologies, Keyhole creates a dynamic 3D interface for geographic information.

Keyhole's technology combines a multi-terabyte database of mapping information and images collected from satellites and airplanes with easy-to-use software.

Google also announced, effective immediately, a price reduction for Keyhole 2 LT from $69.95 to $29.95.

Keyhole was founded in 2001. Keyhole customers include consumers, large and small businesses and public agencies. Current Keyhole users will benefit from the expanded resources and operational scale made possible by the integration into Google. Their service will continue uninterrupted.

For a free, seven-day trial of Keyhole, please go to www.keyhole.com.

2 weeks after the has been released, Google has just released another new version... still without explaining what's new.

Source:

According to , Google is about to open a software development office in Kirkland (WA) right outside of Seattle and, more importantly, right near Microsoft.

Clearly, this move is intended to steal top talent from the Redmond giant. Especially after recently cutting benefits, Microsoft may have difficulty retaining key people in MS Research and MSN Search.
Amazon, located in Seattle, should also be concerned. Amusing, in some ways, since Amazon just opened an office in Google's backyard. Turnabout is fair play.

Google has had a sales team up in the Seattle area for a while. But Jeff Dean Google is opening a branch office for software engineers here in the Seattle area.

Google officially released the Google Desktop Search, an application allowing the user to search for documents on its own computer.

Here is the official press release:

Google Inc. today announced a beta desktop search application that enables users to search their email, files, web history, and chats. Called Google Desktop Search, this new application makes it possible for users to find information on their computers as fast and easily as they can search the web with Google.

"Google Desktop Search brings the power of Google to your personal information on your own computer. As easily as searching Google, you can instantly search your files, local email, the web pages you have seen, and more," said Larry Page, Google's co-founder and president of products." It's free, installs quickly, and keeps completely up to date. Google Desktop Search represents a quantum leap in access to your own information."

Google Desktop Search is a lightweight, free, downloadable application that brings Google search to information on your computer. The application operates locally on the user's computer, where it provides the following capabilities:

• Find email, files and more. Users can search across their email and a wide range of files and information such as email in Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express; files in Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, and text; website history in Internet Explorer; and instant message chats in AOL Instant Messenger.
• Searches fast like Google. Google.com can search billions of web pages in a fraction of a second. Google Desktop Search is built with the same technology, and it can search a single hard drive in even less time.
• Easy access to desktop results via Google.com Search. Google Desktop Search enables users to search both their computer and the web simultaneously. When users search through Google.com (either from the homepage or the Google Toolbar), Google Desktop Search runs the same search in parallel on the user's computer. If Google Desktop Search finds relevant results, those results are added to the Google.com search results page. This means, users don't need to decide before they search whether to search the web or their computer. From a single start point, they get both.
• Fresh, dynamic results. Unlike traditional computer search software that updates once a day, Google Desktop Search updates continuously for most file types. When a user downloads a new email in Outlook, for example, it can be found within seconds using Google Desktop Search.

As with all Google products, Google Desktop Search is designed from the ground up to respect user privacy. When a user chooses to search simultaneously across his or her computer and Google.com, the computer's content is not made accessible to Google, or to anyone else, without the user's express permission. Users can select what information they want to have searched, and easily remove information whenever they want.

Google Desktop Search is available at . It is currently available for Windows XP and Windows 2000 Service Pack 3 and above. It requires a minimum of 128MB of RAM, and a 400MHz (or faster) Pentium processor is recommended. Google Desktop Search is available in English today and there are plans to make it available in other languages.

Google Sergio Sancho, a computer science student at the University of Buenos Aires won the Google Code Jam, Google's annual computer programming competition, which comes with a $10,000 first prize. Sancho competed against a total of 7,500 top programmers from around the world for first place. A second place prize of $7,000 went to Po-Ru Loh, a mathematics student at Caltech. Third prize of $5,000 was awarded to Reid Barton, a math major at MIT, and fourth place and $3,000 went to Tomasz Czajka, who is studying for a doctorate in computer science at Purdue University. Additional cash prizes went to the other top 50 finalists, who are working or studying in the United States and in 16 other countries, from Scandinavia to central Europe to Hong Kong, Korea, Australia and New Zealand. Google flew all finalists to its Mountain View, Calif. headquarters this week to compete in the championship round. In 2003, Jimmy Mardell of Stockholm, Sweden, took home the grand prize.

This is the second year of the Google Code Jam, which is produced in conjunction with TopCoder, the leader in online programming competition, skills assessment and competitive software development. The Google Code Jam is a celebration of the art of computer science, and signals to programmers everywhere the value Google places on excellent coding.

The competition, which began began Sept. 1, attracted 7,500 participants from more than 100 countries. All entrants participated in an initial qualification round, and 500 of those went on to a two-round competition field. The top 50 scorers from round two of this phase came to Google for the finals. All of the programming for any round could be done in Java, C++, C# or VB.NET.

Read also Alan Eustace's (Google's Director of Engineering) post in

PR Weaver's comment: we couldn't find information about the precise content of the applications built by the finalists...

Do you want to see Google's future? Check out by John Markoff, Technology Reporter for The New York Times.

Source:Abakus blog

Google may be really working on a browser project...

Google said that it was engaged in developing technology that was aimed at bringing about improvements in web browsers.

There has been much speculation. But our work is focussed on improving the browsing experience, Google co-Founder and President (Technology) Sergey Brin told reporters here.

The world's most popular search services outfit touched off a flurry of speculation that it was planning to introduce a web browser after it registered the domain name gbrowser.com in April.

Today's browsers are doing a pretty good job, but they can be improved. What we are looking to do is to enhance the quality of the browsing experience, he said.

Mr Brin and company co-founder and President (Products) Larry Page are on a visit to India even as Google looks to expand operations at its R and D facility in Bangalore and the technology centre in Hyderabad.

Even while putting his faith in text continuing its dominance as the dominant mode of communication on the internet, Mr Brin said Google was undertaking research on expanding image searches, speech and multimedia content.

Source: deepikaglobal.com

Tiscali has reached an agreement with Google, the world’s best known search engine, to offer search and targeted advertising on Tiscali’s European portals.

The agreement will shortly make Google’s award-winning search results available on Tiscali portals in The Netherlands, Denmark and the Czech Republic and will be extended to the other main countries where Tiscali operates by mid-2005. Through the agreement, Google will provide Tiscali users with web search as well as targeted advertising from Google AdWords advertisers. Tiscali and Google will share revenues generated from the search engine’s sponsored links, currently one of the main sources of revenue from on line advertising.

Mario Mariani, Tiscali’s SVP for Business Development commented: “We have always been committed to offering our customers the best possible Internet experience and to experimenting with new Web frontiers. The agreement with Google not only guarantees that we can offer our users the best search technology on the market, but will allow us to be the first to offer new functions which will become available as the technology evolves”.

Omid Kordestani Senior Vice President of Worldwide Sales and Operations at Google said: “The agreement with Tiscali, one of Europe’s leading Internet operators demonstrates the continued value we provide to ISPs through innovative products that drive both user loyalty and site profitability. The agreement also enables Google AdWords advertisers to reach Tiscali’s 17 million European unique visitors with targeted advertising, increasing their reach across Europe”.

Source: Tiscali

is now officially launched.

Karen Padham (Froogle Product Manager) gives information in :

Just in time to find a decent pair of wellies for the winter, we've launched Froogle UK. More Britons than ever are shopping online, so we wanted to offer the broadest possible shopping selection with merchants large and small who sell throughout the U.K. With unbiased price comparisons and free listings for all participating merchants, now Froogle can assist with retail therapy on both sides of the pond.

Abakus thinks Google will launch a german version soon.

Nathan Weinberg about Sergey Brin and Larry Page visit to Google's India Research and Development Center:

The Hyderabad office, Google's new Bangalore facility, which they visited, will be devoted to research into new products to expand Google's portfolio. Seventy percent of the facility is dedicated to search, 20% to Gmail, and the rest in other areas, giving you an idea what a huge priority Gmail is to Google. The new Hyderabad office will be a support center for AdWords, and be home to engineering, human resources, online sales and services. Staying true to its famous slogan, Google's India offices will not be "evil" and operate on United States time, keeping employees at work while their families and countrymen sleep, but will run a normal India workday.

Google wants to create other such centers in Asia: China, Japan, etc.

Programmers from Around the World to Compete in Finals at Google Headquarters

Google the 50 finalists in the second annual Google Code Jam, Google’s online coding competition consisting of a series of problem-solving challenges that invite participants to select a programming language and use their programming skills to code solutions to the problems.

"The Google Code Jam is one way Google encourages and supports the engineering, programming and computer science communities around the world," said Alan Eustace, vice president, Engineering, Research and Systems Lab, Google Inc. "We’re continually exploring new opportunities to reach out to smart, talented people who enjoy solving problems. This is a fun way of finding, rewarding and potentially recruiting some of those people to Google."

This year’s Championship Round will be held at Google headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., on October 15, 2004. Finalists will compete for $50,000 in prize money, including $10,000 for the first place winner, $7,000 for the second place winner, and $5,000 for the third place winner.

The Google Code Jam is powered by TopCoder, the leader in online programming competition, skills assessment and competitive software development. Registration for the competition began Sept. 1, and attracted more than 7,500 participants from more than 100 countries.

This is the second year of the Google Code Jam. In 2003, Jimmy Mardell of Stockholm, Sweden, took home the grand prize. Prior to the first Google Code Jam, Google held a smaller programming contest and hired the winner, who is now part of Google's New York-based engineering team. More information about Google Code Jam 2004 can be found at .

links are displayed on normal Google searches whenever a book contains content that matches the search terms.

When searchers click on the book title of a Google Print result, they will be taken to a page with information about the book and a "Buy this Book" link, which takes them to a bookstore selling the book online.

Learn more from Google:

Today, Google announced it has opened its Google Print program to book publishers of all sizes that want their books included in the Google search index. This announcement is an important step in the company’s ongoing efforts to make offline information such as books and other printed materials searchable online.

By participating in the Google Print program and making the full-text of their books searchable via Google, publishers and authors can attract new readers and increase book sales. Publishers can sign-up online and send their books to Google where they will be scanned and added to the Google search index, at no cost.

To demonstrate how consumers will discover book content, Google will begin testing a preliminary integration of a limited number of books into Google.com search results. Starting this week, users searching Google for book related information will see links at the top of their search results page when there are books that match their query. Clicking on a title will bring up a Google Print page that will display more information about the book and enable the user to browse select pages. Google Print pages feature “Buy this Book” links directing users to third party booksellers where they can make purchases. Google will also show relevant AdWords advertisements targeted to the content of each page, and will pay publishers for clicks on these ads.

The program’s web interface enables publishers to manage their Google Print account, track their ad earnings, and view their account performance. Today, Google Print accepts English language content only; it will expand to include non-English languages in the coming months. There is no cost to participate. More information about the program is available at .

We invite you to explore the Google Print program for yourself.

Google has released another new service in beta version: .

Google SMS (Short Message Service) enables you to easily get precise answers to specialized queries from your mobile phone or device. Send your query as a text message and get phone book listings, dictionary definitions, product prices (via Froogle) and more. Just text. No links. No web pages. Simply the answers you're looking to find.

This service is really simple to use:

1. Enter your query as a text message. See some sample queries.
2. Send the message to the US shortcode 46645 (GOOGL on most phones).
3. Receive a text message (or messages) with your results, usually within a minute. Results may be labeled as "1of3", "2of3", etc.
4. To get Google SMS help info sent directly to your phone, send the word 'help' as a text message to 46645.

Google doesn't charge for the Google SMS service, but wireless provider fees for text messaging apply.

Google SMS currently only works with U.S. wireless services, including AT&T Wireless, Cingular, Nextel, T-Mobile, Verizon, and Sprint PCS.

Benjamin Ling (Product Manager, Google SMS) writes in the official Google blog:

SMS stands for Short Message Service, and Europe and Asia have thoroughly embraced this text messaging technology. Using your phone to send and receive text messages is a newer phenomenon in the U.S. Now we're getting into the fray with Google SMS. It's a way to access Google for precise information from your mobile phone or handheld device (like a BlackBerry).

Google SMS is a handy way to, say, get a listing for a nearby restaurant, find the definition of a word, or look up the price of a product, an area code or Zip code. You can even use Google SMS to calculate a tip. If your phone is enabled for text messages, just send your query to this 5-digit US shortcode: 46645. (It corresponds to GOOGL on most phones.) Your query results are sent as text messages, not links. Learn more about using Google SMS on our help page or by sending a text message with the word 'help' to 46645.

Blog coverage:

• SE Roundtable
• Google Blogoscoped
• John Battelle
• SearchEngineWatch
• Aaron Wall

Google has just released a new version of its toolbar (v2.0.114-6).

The previous version 2.0.114-5 also allows to see the finally updated PageRank. Don't know what's new in this new version...