Google Listen: Google Releases an Audio Search App

Google Labs, the testing ground for the search giant’s experimental products, just released a new project today: Google Listen, an audio search engine that runs as a Google Android app (for now). It allows you to stream or download podcasts, web audio, news shows, and more through your phone.

The experimental app is part iTunes, part audio search engine. It has access to a number of different audio clips, from speeches by Sonia Sotomayor to newscasts by Charles Osgood. Google’s search algorithms find the most relevant audio. You can then subscribe to different audio sources and build a queue, called Listen Queue, which is where Google Listen acts a bit like iTunes. You can get more info from the Google Listen FAQ.

Here are a few screenshots of the new app:

It’s not available for other phones or for the web, but it’s still an experimental product. We bet you’ll see it on other devices if the test results look positive. Once again, it’s an experimental app from Google Labs, so it’s got a ton of bugs, including “networking, sdcard management, download storage, subscription updates, search quality, indexing more web audio, additional languages, and user experience.” Yeah, that’s a lot of bugs, but that’s what you should expect from a Google Labs product.

Will you use this app when it comes to your phone? What would you like to see it do? Let us know in the comments.

What makes a design "Googley"?

Posted by Sue Factor, Writer, User Experience Group

Late in 2007, our User Experience (UX) group—which does user interface design, visual design, user research, web development, and user interface writing—set out to articulate the principles that ought to guide Google designs worldwide. What are the fundamentals that all Google designers and researchers accept? Which approaches to design are particularly "Googley"? How can we encourage teams throughout Google to dream big and make smart design decisions?

A small team gathered to discuss these questions and define the Googley Design Principles:

1. Focus on people—their lives, their work, their dreams.
2. Every millisecond counts.
3. Simplicity is powerful.
4. Engage beginners and attract experts.
5. Dare to innovate.
6. Design for the world.
7. Plan for today's and tomorrow's business.
8. Delight the eye without distracting the mind.
9. Be worthy of people's trust.
10. Add a human touch.

These UX principles flow naturally from the Ten things Google has found to be true and the UX group's stated mission: to design products that satisfy and delight our users. We described the principles as "Our Aspirations" for two reasons:

• We have a lot of work to do when it comes to implementation.
• Every real-world product will have to strike a balance between all ten principles.

Still, we don't want to waffle too much. These principles represent the User Experience group's declaration of beliefs. With "Satisfy and Delight" stitched on our leotards, we're determined to get up on the tightrope and start juggling principles. Please applaud or boo, as appropriate, so that we can make the next act even better.

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16 More Years (at least) of Brin, Page, and Schmidt at Google

A brief interview with Fortune Magazine reveals that Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, along with CEO Eric Schmidt, made a pact shortly before the company’s 2004 IPO to stay at the company for at least 20 years. That means that we’ve got at least 16 years left with the trio leading what is currently the world’s biggest search engine.

It also means that they are firmly committed to seeing through Google’s many initiatives outside of search, such as wireless, print advertising, Google Knol, and countless other projects currently sitting in Google Labs.

So, what will the company look like in 2024 when the top Googlers start thinking about retirement? Pontificate in the comments.

[Source: Mashable]

Google, Facebook Battle For Computer Science Grads. Salaries Soar.

Google and Facebook are fighting hard to hire this years crop of computer science graduates, we’ve heard, and ground zero is Stanford. Most of the class of 2008 already have job offers even though graduation is months away.

Last year, salaries of up to $70,000 were common for the best students. This year, Facebook is said to be offering $92,000, and Google has increased some offers to $95,000 to get their share of graduates. Students with a Masters degree in Computer Science are being offered as much as $130,000 for associate product manager jobs at Google.

Apparently the popular Facebook Applications class is getting a lot of attention from other startups, too. Slide and RockYou are both recruiting hard. One source says that RockYou is approaching students and telling them they aren’t hiring them, they’re “acquiring” their “companies” and will let them continue to work on their applications after graduation. That is, of course, some serious smoke blowing - any code they’ve been working on in the class is likely to be shelved by RockYou. Still, it’s a great way to recruit by making these students feel like they’re entering into some kind of an M&A transaction.

Something tells me the Pitzer students who’ve enrolled in the Learning From YouTube class aren’t getting the same types of offers.

Source: TechCrunch.com

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Source: NaiTazi
Google maps has been around for a few years now and there are relatively high resolution pictures available for most Pakistani cities. But now there is a new website for road maps of Pakistan (naqsha.net). The difference is that the maps are searchable and routable. Users can search streets and roads as well as hundreds of place marks using the simple interface. The map will zoom into the location you have searched and you can use it for routing as well. Just select two points and get driving directions for getting from one point to the other.

Google Loses A Senior Sales Vet

It seems like all we’ve heard about lately is Yahoo execs leaving the mothership. But Google losses seem to be trending up for the new year as well. The latest noteworthy expat is David Hirsch of the big G’s New York offices.

Mr. Hirsch is a veteran of the sales division, and he is leaving to work on more closely with startups. He is reportedly a member of New York Angels, a funding group that specializes in funding companies in the range of $250,000 - $750,000, and he also is said to have invested in Amie Street.

At the same time Google is losing their design lead for user experience, Kevin Fox. He is leaving for an unnamed startup.

Source: Mashable

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Google Presentations Introduces Embedded Slide Shows

Source: TechCrunch

Google Docs just added some cool new features to its Web-based Presentation software: slide shows that you can embed anywhere on the Web. Check it out below:

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Google Lodges Patent For Reading Text In Images And Video

Source: TechCrunch

A patent application lodged by Google in July 2007 but recently made public seeks to patent a method where by robots (computers) can read and understand text in images and video.

The extension of the application would be that images and video indexed by Google would be searchable by the text located within the image or video itself, a big step forward in indexing that has not previously been available. Information Week suggests that privacy issues raised by Google Maps Street View will get more complicated as eventually YouTube videos will be indexable via the text that appears within them.

A full copy of the patent application “Recognizing Text In Images” can be viewed here.

Some choice lines from the patent:

“Digital images can include a wide variety of content…For example, digital images can illustrate landscapes, people, urban scenes, and other objects. Digital images often include text. Digital images can be captured, for example, using cameras or digital video recorders. Image text (i.e., text in an image) typically includes text of varying size, orientation, and typeface. Text in a digital image derived, for example, from an urban scene (e.g., a city street scene) often provides information about the displayed scene or location. A typical street scene includes, for example, text as part of street signs, building names, address numbers, and window signs.”

I may be stating the blatantly obvious when I say that if Google has found a way to index text in static images and video this is a great leap forward in the progression of search technology. This will make every book in the Google Books database really searchable, with the next step being YouTube, Flickr (or Picaca Web) and more. The search capabilities of the future just became seriously advanced.