December 14th, 2009 | by Google Docs | published in Google Docs
The Google Docs team is celebrating the holiday season with holiday themes in Google forms and holiday templates in the Google Docs template gallery.Whether you are planning a recipe swap, family potluck, ski trip, a charity trip or need a party RSVP f…
December 14th, 2009 | by Google Public Policy Blog | published in Google Public Policy
Posted by Dorothy Chou, policy analystLast week, Dr. Ron Deibert, Director of the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto, came to the Googleplex in Mountain View to give a presentation on the Open Internet Initiative’s recent studies on the policies …
December 14th, 2009 | by A Googler | published in Google Blog
2009 has been a busy year for Google in the area of display advertising — that is, the image, video and interactive ad formats that run across the web.Our goal is to improve display advertising on the web for everyone. We’re working to help advertise…
December 14th, 2009 | by A Googler | published in Google Orkut
In-line photo browsing
When you receive a photo upload update from a friend in your activity stream, now all you have to do to see the full-sized photo is click on the thumbnail in your update. You can also comment on the photo and see comments by others in your activity stream. This means you can continue checking out other updates without opening a new page.
Using the left and right arrow buttons at the bottom of the photo, you can browse all the photos shared with you. You can also pick a photo you want to see up close by clicking on the ‘photo film strip’ up top.
Convenient face detection
Clicking the “people in this photo” link at the bottom left of a photo highlights all of the faces that orkut has automatically detected with rectangles. Just click on a rectangle to tag a face by typing a name in the pop-up box. You can also hide the rectangles with a single click.
Photo slideshows
Notice the “slideshow” icon 
at the bottom right of the full view of the photo? Click on it and sit back for a full-screen, automated slideshow of the photo album. You can stop the show at any time or hover over the thumbnail strip at the bottom of the slideshow to enlarge a particular image. You can also jump ahead to an interesting photo, or go back to one you want to view again. Try playing around with some of the keyboard controls (like Home, End, left and right arrows, Spacebar, and Escape), to see what happens.
Note: we’re still working on a version of this feature for Internet Explorer, so if you’d like to check it out now, just sign in to orkut using either Google Chrome or Firefox.
You can enjoy many of these same features not just in the “friends updates” section on your orkut homepage but also from the “profile” and “photos” pages.
We hope you enjoy the new photo viewing, commenting and tagging experience — and please keep telling us what you think at the orkut help forum or official community.
Posted by Nayyar Azam, software engineer
UPDATE: The photo slideshows feature is also available for IE users as well!
December 14th, 2009 | by A Googler | published in Google Blog
This morning, we launched updated versions of the Google Toolbar and FeedBurner that offer a new URL shortening service from Google called the Google URL Shortener. We mentioned our URL shortener as a feature in both announcements, so we wanted to say …
December 14th, 2009 | by A Googler | published in Google Blog
Hello from the Google Toolbar team! Before we head off for the holidays, we wanted to give you some new features to play with.We’ve been busy working on even more ways to make web browsing easier and more fun. First off is our new Share feature in Tool…
December 14th, 2009 | by Steve Olechowski | published in Google Adsense Feeds
Sometimes you reach across the hedgerow to share with your nearby neighbors. Other times, members of the household move away and yet you can’t keep from calling to remind them to wear a hat and such because it’s chilly out. Today, we’re celebrating ac…
December 14th, 2009 | by Steve Olechowski | published in Google Adsense Feeds
Sometimes you reach across the hedgerow to share with your nearby neighbors. Other times, members of the household move away and yet you can’t keep from calling to remind them to wear a hat and such because it’s chilly out. Today, we’re celebrating ac…
December 14th, 2009 | by SketchUp Team | published in Google SketchUp
Google Building Maker has been a hit since its release and several individuals have been geo-modeling their cities using the new tool. With over 315 buildings in Switzerland, NilsW is rapidly filling in unbuilt areas in Zurich, Switzerland. While on th…
December 14th, 2009 | by Google Docs | published in Google Docs
Most of you know that when you co-edit a Google Docs spreadsheet, you can see the cells other people are editing. That presence information helps you simultaneously edit without stepping on each others’ toes.Today, we launched real time presence to Goo…
December 14th, 2009 | by elaine | published in Google Earth
As part of the lead-up to COP15, we have been releasing a series of Google Earth tours that illustrate climate change issues and solutions. Many of these include tours created by NGOs, which guide you through their efforts to tackle some of the impacts…
December 14th, 2009 | by Neha | published in Google TV Ads Blog
We’re happy to welcome A&E Television Networks (AETN), one of the largest cable programmers in the US, as our newest inventory partner. Through our partnership with AETN, advertisers will be able to target History International through the Google T…
December 14th, 2009 | by A Googler | published in Google Blog
This fall we’ve seen lots of government agencies decide to make the switch to cloud computing, joining the many businesses already using Google Apps for email and collaboration at work. Today we’d like to officially welcome another customer to the mix:…
December 14th, 2009 | by Ellen Petry Leanse | published in Google Apps, Google Enterprise
Editor’s Note: In October, the City of Los Angeles – the second largest city in the United States – decided to switch its email to Google, a decision supported in a unanimous vote by the Los Angeles City Council. We’ve invited Randi Levin, Chief …
December 14th, 2009 | by Mia | published in Youtube
Our curator of the month is eGuiders.com, a site that asks Hollywood and Internet influencers, media mavens and other experts to select and review their favorite made-for-the-web content. On their YouTube channel, they’ve replicated much of the discove…