Champagne for breakfast

This morning the Blogger engineering team in the Sydney office helped launch what we consider to be a major evolution in how people consume blogs -- Dynamic Views in Blogger. Here in Sydney we cracked open bottles of champagne to go with our avocado on toast.

This launch grew out of a 20% time project that was started earlier this year. I was relatively new to Google, and I didn’t really understand how 20% time was supposed to work -- as in, I didn’t realise that all I needed to get my manager’s OK for a 20% time project was a reasonably promising idea. So one day in February I went to my manager with a working prototype of a new way to view blog content, using the latest web technologies like AJAX, CSS3, and HTML5. Seven weeks later we launched five new “dynamic templates” as a preview for blog owners to try out...and now six months after that we’re pushing the button on a full launch of 7 new “Dynamic Views”.

Blogs were the darlings of the web world back in the early 2000s, but let’s be honest -- their sex appeal was overshadowed in the last few years by newer forms of content, like video and interactive apps. I thought this was a real shame. Why should powerful words and images get left behind, innocent victims of technology evolution and user preferences for more dynamic content? In short, I knew that blogs could be so much more.

We were also hearing that authors wanted their readers to be able to better engage with and “experience” their content. For example, clicking the “next” button to scan through additional pages of posts just isn’t conducive to casual browsing and discovery. Old posts, no matter how good, were often buried forever. And things were getting sloooow. I thought: we can do better.

And I think we have. With the designs released today, blogs load 40% faster and old blogs have become new again.

Posted by Antin Harasymiv, Software Engineer, Blogger.

Playing Our Part

It’s National Child Protection Week - a week to think about how we can play our part to keep kids safe. At Google, we know how important it is to protect and educate young people on using the Internet.

One of the things we do is provide parents and teachers with tools to help them choose what content their children see online, such as Google SafeSearch and Safety Mode on YouTube. You can learn how to use these tools on our Family Safety Centre.

We also work closely with Australian organisations dedicated to educating and protecting young people. Our partner, Bravehearts, is holding White Balloon Day today. This is a day to raise awareness for the victims of child sexual assault. It’s also Bravehearts’ principal fundraising initiative which enables them to educate, empower and protect Aussie kids.

Another of our partners, NAPCAN, the National Association for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect, has these suggestions for how you can play your part during National Child Protection Week.

Let’s all play our part to keep Aussie kids safe.

Posted by Ishtar Vij, Public Policy and Government Affairs, Google Australia

Celebrating developers: Developer Day registration open

Calling all developers! We've opened registration for developers to attend Google Developer Day 2011 in Sydney on November 8th, 2011. It should be a great line up with explorations of the latest developments in Android, Chrome, HTML5, Cloud and more. It will take place at the Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre.



While we’re talking all-things developer, we wanted to send congratulations to Peter Finch, Brian McKenna, and Marko Vuksanovic, the Australian winners of the Open Call for Developers HTML5 challenge.



Screenshots of their beautiful creations are featured below: each participant of the challenge was asked to design and implement an original HTML5 doodle of the Google Developer day Dymaxion map, adding their own local twist. Doodles had to be built using open web technologies (HTML5, WebGL, etc.) and feature a local theme.

Creator: Peter Finch

How did you do it? The doodle is created using a HTML5 2D canvas element. The Dymaxion map is programmatically generated by subdividing the triangles in the original map into smaller sub-triangles and then drawing all of them in different colours based on a colour map representing the image to be drawn. The colour maps were generated using a Java program that mapped the relative location of the triangle onto a target image and then back onto the page colour map. The waves then merge the images, one on top of another, to create the transition effect.

Creator: Brian McKenna

How did you do it? I imported the Dymaxion map to Blender and then animated it to transform into the Opera House using "shape keys". The Dymaxion map, Opera House, Southern Cross and stars all rendered using Three.js. Everything else rendered with normal HTML5/CSS3.





Creator: Marko Vuksanovic

How did you do it? Doodle is a manipulation of the Dymaxion map using HTML canvas element. Interactivity is achieved using native drag and drop events and transitions. Animations are used to transition between the iconic landmarks of Sydney.



Congratulations to Brian, Marko and Peter - and hope to see you all at Google Developer Day in November.



Posted by Alan Noble, Director of Engineering Google Australia.

Owliver!

Last Tuesday we were lucky enough to have a special visitor to the window ledge of our office.

As it was my birthday, I secretly hoped this little guy was bringing me an invitation to Hogwarts but it seemed he just wanted to see what we were up to at Google. I snapped a couple of pictures and this one was my favourite.



The Sydney Morning Herald called him Barney, but there have been a bunch of names thrown around our office, including Owliver, Ow-lan Noble (in homage to our Director of Engineering) and Colonowl Whobert von Owlivander.



Our friends at WIRES helped Owliver out after he was injured flying, and released him back into Pyrmont at dusk last night.



We hope you enjoy looking at him as much as we did.



Posted by Carson Page, Learning and Development, Google Australia.

Google Shopping arrives in Australia

It’s fair to say a growing number of Australians are turning to the web to shop. That’s why we’re delighted to announce that Google Shopping is now available in Australia.



Google Shopping is a product search engine that helps people discover product information online, compare prices and find a retailer from whom they can make a purchase.



Let’s say I was looking to buy a digital camera for my upcoming trip to Tasmania. I enter my search into google.com.au, as usual, and click the ‘Shopping’ tab on the left hand side, so I get a full page of product results relevant to my query.

I’d like to find a camera for under $250, so I select the price range from the filters on the left hand side so that I only see results that meet these criteria. Results are ranked according to relevance.

To help me make a decision, Google also shows product reviews so I can see what other people thought of each camera before clicking through to a store to buy my chosen model.

To try out Google Shopping for yourself, visit google.com.au/shopping



If you’re a retailer, large or small, wishing to reach more customers in Australia, Google Shopping can make it easy for Web users to discover your products and bring traffic and sales to your site. Retailers can sign up to Google Shopping for free by submitting a catalogue of their products to the new Google Merchant Center, also launching today. To learn more, check out the this ‘Getting Started’ guide.



In conjunction with Google Shopping, retailers that choose to advertise their products can now do so through AdWords Product Extensions. Product Extensions use the product information submitted by the retailer and automatically displays this information within ads, where relevant. To learn more about Product extensions, click here.



Happy shopping!



Posted by Amy Gepfert, Program Manager, Google Shopping

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

Googlers search for the finishing line

Getting up early on Sundays is practically taboo for most Australians. Getting up early on Sunday to jog 14km is almost unheard of. So when the annual Sun Herald City2Surf marathon attracts a crowd of 70,000 enthusiastic participants, it’s quite clear that Sydneysiders are more than happy to break a few rules in the name of charity.

This year our very own team of Googlers and their families took to the start line at 9am, ready to tackle Heartbreak Hill, dodge crowd-pleasers in fancy dress and make it to the finish line without a single stain of yellow Gatorade on their shirts. From Engineering, to Sales and Marketing, there was healthy representation from almost every Google team. Nikolai Pitchforth, Senior Industry Analyst for our Travel team, finished in just under an hour, while others such as myself walked a steady pace, reaching Bondi Beach in double that time.

(You can see the route we all travelled here on Google Maps or with our Street View flipbook video).

So whether you walked, danced, jogged or ran on the day, your participation helped to support many great causes and community projects. Congratulations to all who entered and good luck in your recovery over the next week!

Google Team get ready for a cold start



Left to right: Patrice McCauley, Gabriella Scott, Angela Lawrence



Rob Schonberger secures his spot at the Start Line:

Posted by Shaden Mohamed – Account Strategist, Travel

Great to be on board...

Posted by Karim Temsamani, General Manager, Google Australia and New Zealand

It's clear that the volume of online content is increasing at an incredible rate - Google's core job is to find needles in an ever-growing haystack. So I thought there's no better way to start my time as the new GM of Google Australia and NZ than to contribute to that haystack with a post on our blog.

The online ecosystem in Australia is buoyant at present, and I'm buoyant about its growth in the coming years. As you know, Australians are spending more time online, purchasing products, reading blogs, starting websites, running businesses, and using technology to find and share information.

To match this, Google is investing significantly in our team in Australia, as Australian consumers and businesses navigate the growing online world.

We want to provide you with more of those "aha!" moments - whether it's finding the exact search result you want, finding driving directions and local businesses on Google Maps, getting instantaneous news feeds on your iGoogle page, or collaborating in real time with friends in other countries through Google Docs. Behind the scenes, there's a large team here that is working to ensure that you get access to the latest Google products, and that we continually improve our existing products.

At the same time, we want to continue providing small and large Australian businesses with the opportunity to connect with customers, and use our range of technology and products to grow their businesses.

So as Christmas parties and the festive season in Australia are just starting to kick off, my work is just beginning. It's a thrill to start at Google and I promise to grow that haystack a little more, with more posts here.