Optical Character Recognition (OCR) in 34 languages

This is a cross-post from the Google Docs Blog.

Last June, we introduced the ability to upload documents into Google Docs using Optical Character Recognition (OCR). OCR analyses images and PDF files, typically produced by a scanner (or the camera of a mobile phone), extracts text and some formatting and allows you to edit the document in Google Docs.

We’ve gotten a lot of feedback on this feature, and one of the biggest requests was to add support for additional languages. Today, we’re happy to announce that we’ve added support for 29 additional character sets, including those used in most European languages, Russian, Chinese Simplified and some other Asian languages. See the upload page for the full list.



How does it work? When uploading your images and PDF files using Google Docs, tell us what language your documents are in:

Hit upload, and we’ll use this information to search for the right characters in your file. As usual, you will get best results with sharp, high-resolution images or PDF files. This update will also result in an improvement in OCR quality for languages that we’ve supported previously (English, French, Italian, German, Spanish). We’ve also made improvements to the way we import formatting from your documents, and are now doing a better job in preserving font and alignment information.

We’ll keep adding languages and at at the same time will continue to improve speed and accuracy for the existing ones. In the meantime, we hope you take advantage of this new way to import your data into Google Docs.

Posted by Jaron Schaeffer, Software Engineer

Teach your old docs new tricks with Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office

This is a cross-post from the Official Google Enterprise Blog.

Millions of businesses are experiencing radical productivity gains with web-powered tools, and today Google Apps collaboration is ready for every employee. We’re bringing multi-person, simultaneous editing to the Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint applications that coworkers may still need from time to time. More people will be able to achieve a 100% web future entirely in Google Docs after learning the benefits of web-powered collaboration within traditional software.

Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office is now available to all users worldwide, letting two or more people work together on the same file at the same time in Microsoft Office 2003, 2007 or 2010 on Windows PCs. For example, you can edit a Word document’s table of contents from Dublin while coworkers adjust formatting and make revisions from Denver. Instead of bombarding each other with attachments and hassling to reconcile people’s edits, your whole team can focus on productive work together.

Google Cloud Connect vastly improves Microsoft Office 2003, 2007 and 2010, so companies can start using web-enabled teamwork tools without upgrading Microsoft Office or implementing SharePoint 2010.

Comparison of collaboration alternatives

Today we’re also introducing the 90-Day Appsperience program globally so businesses encumbered with 1990s technology can experience modern collaboration and the burst of productivity that’s possible now. Whether you manage IT for your whole business, lead a department, or manage a complex project like an industry event, a nominal fee covers 90-day unlimited use of Google Apps collaboration plus hands-on support from Google experts. To help companies measure the productivity impact of better teamwork -- and ultimately pay for what they really need instead of desktop software that could sit on the shelf -- the new collaboration dashboard in the Google Apps for Business and Education control panel provides aggregated activity metrics to administrators. Both Google Cloud Connect and this collaboration dashboard are available in English, with many more supported languages to follow soon.

This year we look forward to bringing you countless stories on the Google Enterprise Blog from schools, businesses and other organizations that are becoming much more productive with Google Apps. To get the wheels turning, check out the transformation that’s speeding ahead at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca.



Join me for a live webinar on March 3rd, 2011 at 10am PST / 1pm EST / 6pm GMT to learn more about Google Cloud Connect and the 90-Day Appsperience program. Register to attend the live event.



Posted by Shan Sinha, Google Apps Product Manager

Gearing up for the Google Science Fair

Summer is winding down and shoes are polished as Aussie kids get ready to head back to school. Catching up with friends will be important, as will catching up on the goss from the summer holidays - but I hope the next generation to change the world is also ready to be inspired and impassioned by what they'll learn this year.

Kids who were passionate about science grew up to build the internet, find stars and become astronauts, develop new ways of treating burns victims and identify climate change. Who knows what the next generation of science explorers will uncover, but I can't wait to find out.

Helping kids find their passion for science exploration is about making it relevant - and about making it easy.

We're playing our small part in helping kids find their passion for science by providing them with a platform. We've launched the Google Science Fair - a global, online science competition open to students around Australia and around the world between the ages of 13 and 18.

And we want to hear from Aussie kids about their explorations into the world of science.

To enter, register online, create your project and submit by 4 April 2011. There's more details available on the Official Google Science Fair website.

In July we'll announce the winners of the Google Science Fair, as selected by our panel of world-renowned science judges - and we're pleased to let you know that this eminent panel will include Australia's own Professor Veena Sahajwalla.

Australia has an important place in the scientific world, and we've always punched above our weight. Veena's a great example of this - and of the value the scientific community places on the next generation of explorers.

From Darwin to Devonport, from Broome to Byron, we hope the Google Science Fair provides a platform for exploration and innovation by Australian kids and inspires them to follow their passion for science.

Posted by Alan Noble, Engineering Director, Google Australia & New Zealand

Sydneysider puts Google on the Map

Retired software engineer Peter Olsen discovered SketchUp shortly after it was acquired by Google in 2006. He published his first model to Google Earth’s “3D Buildings” layer in July 2008. Two and a half years later, he has 68 buildings in Google Earth, some as far away as Italy and Peru.



Peter is a Sydneysider, so it’s not surprising that he focused his initial geo-modeling activity in his home town. He’s modeled several of the city’s most visible buildings and structures, including Luna Park, the Anzac Bridge, Pyrmont Bridge, and the Sydney monorail.

In addition to the 3D model, he also created a fully animated version of the Luna Park Ferris wheel seen above, complete with moving shadow, using a technique pioneered by Barnabu in his London Eye animation.

Peter noticed that many of Australia’s special places had not been modeled, so he expanded his reach by modeling Australia's unique underground Parliament House building in Canberra, Australia's capital city.

Like any artist, Peter continued to perfect his skills by tackling more complex geometric structures. Peter says, “I never lost my interest in architecture and throughout my years in computing I dreamed of the day when a program would be invented that would allow the construction and manipulation of a 3D model of a building. The capability was naturally developed eventually, in the form of very expensive CAD programs. Imagine my absolute delight when I stumbled across a brilliant free program called Sketchup. My years of dreaming had suddenly become a reality.”

In 2010, he modeled one of the most challenging places on earth, Machu Picchu.







Many geo-modelers estimate building heights and other details from photographs. Not Peter. He takes great pride in the accuracy of his work as his description in the Machu Picchu model indicates: “The model contains every building, terrace and staircase and is accurate to less than 10cm (4") over most of the site.” Peter insists that he likes his “models to be absolutely accurate reproductions, not just approximate representations.”



During email discussions about some of Peter's Sydney models, I jokingly mentioned that the Google Sydney building had yet to be modelled. Four hours later he forwarded a reasonably accurate model of the building based on a few scant photos of the recently-completed building that he found on the web.



I appreciated his efforts and and invited Peter to lunch at the Google office. After lunch Peter spent 6 hours painstakingly measuring and photographing every nook and cranny of the building (I guess he liked the food!). A week or so later he forwarded his latest work of art, which has since been incorporated into the 3D buildings layer. Peter says that his “sense of amazement at the results that can be achieved with Sketchup has not diminished since the day [he] started work on [his] first model.”







Google Sydney would like to thank Peter for putting our beautiful office on the map!

Posted by Bruce Polderman, Product Manager

Safer Internet Day

Today is Safer Internet Day - a day to think about how to be safe, smart and responsible in our use of technology.

Technology is a big part of life these days and it opens up a whole lot of opportunities - like sharing videos and photos with your friends, talking online, finding new and interesting information - the possibilities are endless.

But as more and more of what we do happens online, it’s really important that we all have the skills we need to be smart, safe and responsible online. We don’t jump into the deep end of the pool without learning to swim, and we should take the same approach to work and play online.

This is what Safer Internet Day is all about - taking the time to think about how to be safe, smart and responsible online.

Being responsible is about respecting the online community and making a positive contribution.

Being safe is about being aware of the risks and how to manage them.

And being smart is about getting tech and information literate.

Why not take a moment today to check your privacy settings? For Google services, visit the Privacy Dashboard.

There are other useful tools to help you be smart, safe and responsible online. Check out Google SafeSearch and Safety Mode on YouTube. You can watch this video for some tips on staying safe on YouTube.

For more information take a look at the Google and YouTube Safety Centres.

Posted by Ishtar Vij, Public Policy Team, Google Australia & New Zealand

From the main stage to your computer screen: Laneway Festival Live

This is a cross-post from the YouTube Australia Blog.

You asked, Jess Mauboy responded. The Temper Trap jammed. Jamiroquai rocked out.



And now, we’re bringing you our first live event on YouTube Sessions, direct from the famous St. Jerome Laneway Festival in Sydney. The festival tours this February throughout Australia & New Zealand. And to make sure everyone can get involved, we’ll be live streaming some of the hottest acts from the first event in Sydney. Catch Yeasayer, Beach House, Two Door Cinema Club, and the Holidays live at youtube.com/sessions this Sunday!

Didn’t get tickets to this sold out event? Never fear. Just tune in this Sunday, 6th February at 5:00pm to catch the live set, which runs until 9:00pm.



Sit back, enjoy the show!



Posted by Ernesto Soriano, YouTube Team, recently watched Beach House, Used to Be

Explore museums and great works of art in the Google Art Project

This is a cross-post from the Official Google Blog.

One of the things I love about working Google is that you can come up with an idea one day and the next day start getting to work to make it a reality. That's what happened with the Art Project—a new tool we're announcing today which puts more than 1,000 works of art at your fingertips, in extraordinary detail.



It started when a small group of us who were passionate about art got together to think about how we might use our technology to help museums make their art more accessible—not just to regular museum-goers or those fortunate to have great galleries on their doorsteps, but to a whole new set of people who might otherwise never get to see the real thing up close.

We're also lucky here to have access to technology like Picasa and App Engine and to have colleagues who love a challenge—like building brand-new technology to enable Street View to go indoors! Thanks to this, and our unique collaboration with museums around the world, we were able to turn our 20% project into something you can try out for yourself today at www.googleartproject.com.



You’ll find a selection of super high-resolution images of famous works of art as well as more than a thousand other images, by more than 400 artists—all in one place. And with Street View technology, you can take a virtual tour inside 17 of the world’s most acclaimed art museums, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art and MoMA in New York, The State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Tate Britain & The National Gallery in London, Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid, the Uffizi Gallery in Florence and Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.

Officer and Laughing Girl, Johannes Vermeer (The Frick Collection, New York - U.S.)

Here are a few things you can do:

Dive into brushstroke-level detail: On top of the 1,000+ other images, each of the 17 museums selected one artwork to be photographed in extraordinary detail using super high resolution or “gigapixel” photo-capturing technology. Each of these images contains around 7 billion pixels—that's that’s around 1,000 times more detailed than your average digital camera—and a specially-built “microscope view” uses Picasa to deliver these images at amazingly high resolution. You can zoom in to see Van Gogh’s famous brushwork or watch how previously hard to-see elements of an artwork suddenly become clear—such as the tiny Latin couplet which appears in Hans Holbein the Younger’s “The Merchant Georg Gisze.”

The bedroom, Vincent van Gogh (Van Gogh Museum)

Explore inside the museums: the Street View team designed a brand-new vehicle called the “trolley” to take 360-degree images of the interior of selected galleries. These were then stitched together and mapped to their location, enabling smooth navigation of more than 385 rooms within the museums. We also created a new clickable annotation feature, so you can jump from being inside a museum one moment to viewing a particular artwork the next. Once inside an image, an info panel lets you read more about an artwork, find more works by that artist and watch related YouTube videos. Gallery interiors can also be explored directly from within Street View in Google Maps.

Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy—with a view on Botticelli’s “The Birth of Venus”

Create your own collection: With the “Create an Artwork Collection” feature, you can save specific views of any of the artworks and build your own personalised collection. Comments can be added to each painting and the whole collection can then be shared with friends, family or on the web using the integrated goo.gl URL shortener.

We’re incredibly excited about this project—it’s our first step toward making great art more accessible, and we hope to add more museums and works of art in time. So whether you’re a student, an aspiring artist or a casual museum-goer, we hope the Google Art Project gives you a fun and unusual way to interact with art—and hopefully inspires you to visit the real thing.

Posted by Amit Sood, Head of Google Art Project

Coming soon to the big screen: Your Australian summer map

This is a cross-post from the YouTube Australia blog.

Last week we announced our plan to map the Australian summer with all your experiences. And you responded with videos around Australia, from racing your pets down a sand dune to surf lessons at the beach.



The map of Australia is starting to take shape, and this week, we’re raising the stakes. You may have caught the premiere of Life in a Day, the world’s first full-length user generated documentary. As part of this next generation of radically inclusive creative filmmaking, we’re proud to announce that Screen Australia, in partnership with renowned Australian filmmaker George Miller, will be working with one of the hottest up and coming Aussie directors to turn your summer map into the next great summer film. Only you can answer the question: What does an Australian summer really look like?



Hear from George Miller: What do you see, hear, and feel about the Australian summer?

We’ve just posted a summer playlist with short films from three Australian directors, Ariel Kleiman, Luke Doolan, and Amy Gebhardt, with their own versions of the Australian summer.

One of these directors will be working directly with George Miller to turn your videos into a final film which will debut at the Sydney Film Festival later this year.



What’s more, five members of the YouTube community whose footage is included in the final film will be invited to attend the premiere screening at the Sydney Film Festival.



Ever wondered what the Aussie summer looked like 60 years ago? Here’s one look at our summers past, courtesy of Screen Australia.

To take part in this year’s summer experience, upload your videos from to youtube.com/mapmysummer. You have until March 31st 2011 to film and upload. Let’s share the diversity and the extraordinary nature of this Australian summer with the world.



Ernesto Soriano, YouTube team, recently watched racing your pets down a sand dune.