Doodle 4 Google — tell us what you wish for the world

Today, we're announcing our second annual Doodle 4 Google contest in the U.S. Google doodles are the special "dressed-up" logos we run on our homepage for holidays and other events, and Doodle 4 Google is an opportunity for one child to have his/her artwork displayed on our homepage as a doodle for hundreds of millions of people to see. This year's theme is "What I Wish for the World," as we really want to tap into not only children's creativity but also what they want their future to look like.

We're very excited this year to be partnering with the Smithsonian's, Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum. Since Cooper-Hewitt is focused on design and education and fostering the brightest design minds of tomorrow, they were a natural partner for Doodle 4 Google. Their partnership also means that this year's prizes not only include having your artwork on the Google homepage for a day, a college scholarship, and a technology grant for your school, but also having your work (and that of all 40 finalists) exhibited at a Smithsonian museum!

Most of this year's contest remains the same as last year's. (For inspiration, you can see Grace Moon's beautiful winning doodle "Up In the Clouds" in our Doodle Gallery). However, there are a few changes. First, we've increased the college scholarship prize for the national winner to $15,000. We've also added a $10,000 prize for the school district that submits the most high-quality entries. Finally, in partnership with Cooper-Hewitt, we'll be celebrating the 40 finalists and announcing the national winner in New York City, to coincide with the opening of the exhibit. Please visit the official competition website for a full listing of all contest rules and requirements.

Only students from registered schools can enter, so teachers, if you want to participate please register your school by March 17, 2009. All doodles must be submitted by March 31, 2009.

Posted by Marissa Mayer, VP of Search Products & User Experience

India Internet Bus Project launches

[x] http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=6296508887730508910&postID=5753123216579838124

[x] http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=6296508887730508910&postID=5753123216579838124

[x] http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=6296508887730508910&postID=5753123216579838124

For the last few years, Google India has worked to increase Internet usage in our country of a billion people via various products such as SMS Search , Voice Search, and Google Map Maker, translating our interfaces into Indian languages. We've also worked on numerous initiatives to increase the quality of search with useful local information like business listings, railways and flight status, and cricket scores. We've been witnessing a steady growth in Internet adoption, but as impatient observers, we wanted to do more to directly engage the offline population of India.

In that vein, earlier today, we announced the launch of the Internet Bus Project – a mobile bus designed to showcase the benefits of the Internet to the people across the cities of Tamil Nadu. We're aiming to reach out to people with limited exposure to the Internet, and the bus will cover numerous Tamil Nadu cities over the next month and a half.

The bus is designed to make a simple introduction to the Internet for a new user. With a focus on the four themes of education, information, communication, and entertainment, the Internet Bus will be loaded with useful and informative content in English and Tamil. We'll showcase how the Internet can make everyday life simple through services like search, email, social networking, maps and others.

We strongly believe the Internet is a great equalizing force, and this project represents another way Google is directly engaging with people in India.

We welcome you to visit the Internet Bus Project website at http://www.google.co.in/internetbus to see when the bus will visit your city, get regular updates, and view photos and videos as we travel around Tamil Nadu.

Posted by Prem Ramaswami & Srikanth Belwadi

Dive into the new Google Earth

As you read this, I am at the beautiful California Academy of Sciences, announcing the launch of the newest version of Google Earth. This launch is particularly special to me because it marks the moment when Google Earth becomes much more complete — it now has an ocean.

Didn't Google Earth always have an ocean? Technically, yes, well, sort of. We have always had a big blue expanse and some low-resolution shading to suggest depth. But starting today we have a much more detailed bathymetric map (the ocean floor), so you can actually drop below the surface and explore the nooks and crannies of the seafloor in 3D. While you're there you can explore thousands of data points including videos and images of ocean life, details on the best surf spots, logs of real ocean expeditions, and much more.

We were joined at the Academy by many of the dozens of ocean scientists and advocates who helped make this project a reality: friends from National Geographic, the Monterey Bay Aquarium, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, the US Navy, Scripps Oceanography, and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, to name just a few. Above all, I would like to acknowledge the work of Dr. Sylvia Earle, who cornered me at a conference three years ago and told me that Google Earth was great but that it wasn't finished (you can read more about that encounter on the Lat Long blog). As much as I hated to admit it, she was right. We on the Google Earth team had been working hard to build a rich 3D map of the world, but we had largely ignored the oceans — two thirds of the planet. Inspired by Sylvia, the team got to work. I hope you are as excited as I am to explore our new Ocean and all of the fascinating stories and images our partners have contributed.

But that's not all we launched today. In addition to Ocean, we introduced new features that we hope will enhance the way people interact with Google Earth and use it to communicate with the world.

• Historical Imagery: Until today, Google Earth displayed only one image of a given place at a given time. With this new feature, you can now move back and forth in time to reveal imagery from years and even decades past, revealing changes over time. Try flying south of San Francisco in Google Earth and turning on the new time slider (click the "clock" icon in the toolbar) to witness the transformation of Silicon Valley from a farming community to the tech capital of the world over the past 50 years or so.

• Touring: One of the key challenges we have faced in developing Google Earth has been making it easier for people to tell stories. People have created wonderful layers to share with the world, but they have often asked for a way to guide others through them. The Touring feature makes it simple to create an easily sharable, narrated, fly-through tour just by clicking the record button and navigating through your tour destinations.

• 3D Mars: This is the latest stop in our virtual tour of the galaxies, made possible by a collaboration with NASA. By selecting "Mars" from the toolbar in Google Earth, you can access a 3D map of the Red Planet featuring the latest high-resolution imagery, 3D terrain, and annotations showing landing sites and lots of other interesting features.

For those of you who keep track of version numbers, this is Google Earth 5.0. We felt the addition of the ocean and "time" merited a major bump from 4.3 to 5.0 :-)

Members of the Google Earth team will be publishing in-depth posts about all of the new features in Google Earth 5.0 on the Lat Long blog all week, so be sure to check back there often. And check out our video tour below.



Posted by John Hanke, Director of Google Earth and Maps