Hello, since Google has become such a powerhouse, I have decided to create a Google blog that will point out any interesting Google news, information, and developments that I happen to come across. Most of these posts will also show up on MattJonesBlog.com as it is my main blog (past Google posts there will be moved over here as well), but this blog will be used for only Google stuff. I hope you find it helpful!

Matt

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“All your base are belong to us” is a cult net phrase that was poorly translated from a Japaneese video game that essentially meant “we have taken over your base (or empire).” In the light of that, I bring you Base.Google.

Google Base is

a place where you can easily submit all types of online and offline content that we’ll host and make searchable online. You can describe any item you post with attributes, which will help people find it when they search Google Base. In fact, based on the relevance of your items, they may also be included in the main Google search index and other Google products like Froogle, Google Base and Google Local.

It will be interesting to see how popular this becomes. It has the potential to become a massive database with massive amounts of searchable information that has never been available before. It also has the potential to be an overwhelming glob of data without any relevance to be found in searches. Try this search for recipies as an example. One that that is good is that you can search within search results as well so you can refine what you are looking for. I would say that Google Base is an extension of Google Search and can be used as a suppliment to standard searches and when looking for specific items. I suppose we will have to try it out to get a better feel for its capabilities. So check it out for more searching needs!

Resources:
Google Base
Google Base: About
Official Google Blog: First Base
ZDNet: Will Google Base be the world’s largest XML database?
ZDNet: Google Base creates a structured Web
Cnet News: Google gets to first base

-Matt Jones

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The official Google blog has just posted about Google Books preserving public domain books saying that

The world’s libraries are a tremendous source of knowledge, much of which has never been available online. One of our goals for Google Print [now Google Books] is to change that, and today we’ve taken an exciting step toward meeting it: making available a number of public domain books that were never subject to copyright or whose copyright has expired. We can show every page because these books are in the public domain.

If you haven’t been by Books.Google.com, you should visit (see my post on Google Books and/or their about page.), it is a great resource for libraries and schools and anyone who is interested in checking out a book before buying it. Their new additions only add to the attractiveness of this project.

One thing I am curious about is if there has been any dialogue between Google Books and Project Gutenberg (see their site or the Project Gutenberg Wikipedia article). Project Gutenberg’s mission is to “To encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks.” They have cataloged over 16,000 books in flat HTML text files. Project Gutenberg essentially transcribes books into text format whereas Print Google scans the physical pages (while also making them searchable). While their formats are different, it seems like they could gain from some sort of collaboration as their goals seem similar and they tend to have the same copyright issues.

I am one to believe that publishers would be well served to add their productions to Print Google as it can only add awareness to their products. Imagine that no one has ever heard of your book on relativity, well a simple search will turn up books on that subject that can then be searched for further content. I can understand that if you book isn’t good enough, you may not want this because people will find out that it is crap before they buy it. But if your book is of any quality, people will purchase it because reading it online is not any fun. Any thoughts on this?

Also, the official Google blog is reporting that Google Desktop has moved from beta stages into a full release. Google Desktop is a great tool (they even have their own blog now), especially in its sidebar format. The basics will let you search files on your desktop’s harddrive which is nice, but the sidebar has many more features (although best used with a decent size screen and broadband internet). Indexing of your Gmail, news articles, photos, maps, and many more plug-ins. One of the better plug-ins is the RSS feed reader that will keep you updated on all your favorite blogs by using ther feed, like my own. Google Desktop is quite the handy tool! Check it out!

-Matt Jones
לְחַיִּים

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If you are one of the 8 internet users who doesn’t have Google Earth yet, go download it now. I have recently discovered two blogs that Google Earth fans should visit: Google Earth Blog and Google Earth Hacks. Both offer current information coming out of Google Earth as well as pointing out places of interest and are well worth the visit.

These are two recent high resolution Google Earth images. The left is Safeco Field, home of the Mariners, and yes, that is actually homeplate that you can see. On the right is Qwest Field, home of the Seahawks. This is actually an image of the WSU Cougars lined up for a field goal at Qwest.

Also (via Google Earth Hacks), Google, NASA to Work Together.

The two organizations have signed a memorandum of understanding that details plans for cooperation in a variety of areas, including supercomputing and “bio-info-nano convergence,” which combines the research areas of biological, information and nanotechnology to produce new materials. Google also plans to build an office, set to be “up to one million square feet” in size, in the NASA Research Park at Moffett Field. “Imagine having a wide selection of images from the Apollo space mission at your fingertips whenever you want it,” says Eric Schmidt, Google CEO. “That’s just one small example of how this collaboration could help broaden technology’s role in making the world a better place.”

It would be a beautiful thing. Instant access to the numerous amounts of imagery coming out of NASA would make me very happy. Having similar access to the galaxy as we have with Google Earth would also be cool, although you can do that with other software packages. One (that is free) that I am going to try out is Stellarium Astronomy Software. I will let you know how it is.

UPDATE: Found another site (via SunbeltBLOG): Ogle Earth - another site that highlights the cool things that Google Earth does.

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I have seen this story floating around and thought it was pretty interesting. Google helps discover Roman ruins (Requires subscription to Nature). Italian Luca Mori (in Italian) was looking through Google Earth and discovered some odd shadowing in some farmland in his home town and has figured out that it is from Roman ruins buired beneath the surface. Pretty cool, eh? If you don’t have a subscription to Nature, you can hear about the story via Boing Boing, Red Herring, SlashDot, and other various blogs. Mori has also created a website (in Italian and some English translation) called Cyber Archaeologist for other information on the project.

Also, if you want to see it for yourself via Google Maps, Click here. Or punch in Lat/Long 44.881722, 10.423450 to Google Earth.

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