May 2nd, 2012 | by Google Finance (Shared Acct) | published in Google Finance
Posted by Sam Arons, Carbon Maven
With a background in physics and sustainability, and a stint as a math teacher in Morocco, I never imagined I would end up at a technology company like Google. But as I approach my fifth anniversary here, I’ve been thinking back on all the projects I’ve been a part of as a member of the Energy team. One that I’m most proud of is a collaboration with the Google Finance team and the nonprofit Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) to put companies’ carbon disclosure ratings into Google Finance alongside financial data. Specifically, these ratings quantify how well a company measures and reports its greenhouse gas emissions, as well as to what degree it is aware of the risks and opportunities climate change poses to its business. The scores — which the Google Finance team just updated for 2011 — are listed as “Carbon Disclosure Rating” and appear in the “Key stats and ratios” box on the right side of a company’s Google Finance page:
There are two things that made this an exciting project for me. First, what started out as an idea in the mind of one Googler became a live feature in a product used by millions of people every day. And second, the launch of this feature in April 2010 marked the first time that individual investors could freely access this kind of information in conjunction with financial data.
Why would investors be interested in a company’s carbon disclosure rating? We thought it would be useful because a company’s emissions, as well as climate change more generally, can pose financial risks — and investors generally like to understand such risks. These risks can take several forms: from regulatory risks (e.g. legislation placing costs on carbon-intensive activities) to physical risks (e.g. sea-level rise threatening a company’s facilities) to market risks (e.g. consumers switching to another company’s products because they believe that company to be a better environmental steward). All of these factors (and others) go into CDP’s calculation of a company’s carbon score, so it can be a useful metric for investors.
As I begin my sixth year at Google, I’m excited that we’re making environmental information more universally accessible and useful, and I’m looking forward to the projects and challenges ahead.
May 2nd, 2012 | by Natasha | published in Google Enterprise
Posted by Nicole Locklear, Channel Marketing Specialist at NexTraqEditors note: Today’s guest blogger is Nicole Locklear, Channel Marketing Specialist at NexTraq. NexTraq is a GPS fleet tracking company headquartered in Atlanta that helps business ow…
May 2nd, 2012 | by Carlos Cuesta | published in Google Maps
Map of the Week: MTA Bus Time
Why We Like it: A great use of the Google Maps API by a municipal agency to improve the services they provide to their community. Also, it is beautifully designed and a great use of styled maps.
For many people the most…
May 2nd, 2012 | by A Googler | published in Google Docs
In the past month we’ve made updates both big and small to Google Docs, and today we’re announcing one more: web fonts in Google documents. Often the best way to get your point across is to present your idea in a creative, captivating way. Today, we added over 450 new fonts to Google documents to make it easier for you to add a little something extra to whatever you create.
To use these new fonts, click on the font menu and select “Add fonts” at the very bottom, which will take you to a menu of all the Google Web Fonts available.
Once you’ve selected new fonts, you’ll be able to select them from the font menu.
Whether you’re looking for the perfect font for your first comic book or fancy handwriting for your wedding invitations, we hope you try out the new fonts and create some eye-catching documents.
In addition to hundreds of new fonts, we have a lot of other exciting updates to report:
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Google Drive launched as a place where you can create, share, collaborate, and keep all your stuff.
- There are now a few more options for inserting images in Docs, including inserting from Google Drive, searching for images from the LIFE Photo archive, or taking a snapshot with your webcam.
- Charts in spreadsheets now has support for minor gridlines and options to customize the formats of axis labels
- Accessibility in Docs got better with support for screenreaders in presentations and with the addition of NVDA to our list of supported screenreaders.
- From File > Page setup… you can now set the default page size for your new documents.
- It’s now easier for speakers of right-to-left languages by automatically showing bidirectional controls when you type in a language that might use them.
- Apps Script had many improvements, including
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- A new ScriptService for programmatically publishing your scripts and controlling when they run.
- A new function to find the root folder of someone’s Drive.
- An increase in the allowed attachment size in emails from 5MB to 25MB.
- An increase in the size of docs files you can create from 2MB to 50MB.
- There are now over 60 new templates in our template gallery.
Posted by Isabella Ip, Software Engineer
May 2nd, 2012 | by Research @ Google | published in Google Research
Posted by Jeff Walz, University Relations TeamDid you know Open Flow has its roots in academia? Back in May 2006 Vint Cerf was visiting Stanford to deliver an invited lecture. Following the talk he met with Stanford Professor Nick McKeown and learned…
May 2nd, 2012 | by Inside AdWords crew | published in Google Adwords
Ever wish you could reach out to other advertisers with just a click, even when you’re not behind your computer? We’ve got some good news for you – AdWords Community is now optimized for all web-enabled mobile devices!Like PPCBossman and many other C…
May 2nd, 2012 | by A Googler | published in Google Blog
You probably hear terms like “the cloud” or “cloud computing” being used a lot these days. While the idea of the cloud may seem abstract, many things you already do on your computer and smartphone today, such as email, photo sharing and video s…
May 2nd, 2012 | by A Googler | published in Google Blog
Today we’re excited to announce the 50 State Winners of the 2012 U.S. Doodle 4 Google competition. We received a record-breaking 114,000 submissions from all corners of the country—from North Pole, Alaska, to Suwanee, Ga. Young artists doodled thei…
May 1st, 2012 | by Emily Wood | published in Google Blogger Buzz
If you’re like many Blogger users, you write in one language, but may have readers from around the world. Not all of them speak your language. Today, we’ve made it easier to bring content from your blog to everyone, with the release of a new Google Translate gadget.
With the Google Translate gadget, visitors to your blog can select their preferred language from the drop-down menu, and using Google’s free translation service, it will display your posts in any of the 50+ languages Google Translate supports.
In addition to the new Translate gadget, we are also introducing a pair of gadgets that allow you to highlight things around the web you care about. For example, with the Blog List gadget, you can highlight blogs you enjoy. With the Text List gadget, you can display a list of your favorite books, movies, or whatever you like – helping your readers get to know you better.
To add these gadgets to your blog, click “Add a Gadget” from the “Layout” tab, and select them from the list of gadgets under “Basics”. You’ll see three new gadgets for your dynamic blog, including “Blog List”, “Text List” and “Google Translate”.
May 1st, 2012 | by Google Apps Team | published in Google Apps, Uncategorized
Gmail now has the following new features:- Automatic language translation- The text in the browser tab now reads “Inbox (20) – [email protected] – Gmail” instead of “Gmail – Inbox (20) – [email protected]”- A change to the way “Mute” worksPlease see t…
May 1st, 2012 | by Google Apps Team | published in Google Apps, Uncategorized
The following features are now available to domains following the Scheduled Release track:- Gmail: Compact conversation view becomes more compact- Gmail: New Google Plus people widget The following features are intended for release to these domains on …
May 1st, 2012 | by Jeff | published in Google Translate
(Cross-posted from the Official Gmail Blog)We’re excited to announce three Gmail Labs graduations today: Automatic Message Translation, Smart Mute and Title Tweaks. Automatic Message TranslationDid you ever dream about a future where your communication…
Say hello (or olá or halo or salam) to automatic message translation in Gmail
May 1st, 2012 | by The Gmail Team | published in Gmail (Google Mail)
Posted by Jeff Chin, Product Manager, Google TranslateWe’re excited to announce three Gmail Labs graduations today: Automatic Message Translation, Smart Mute and Title Tweaks.Automatic Message TranslationDid you ever dream about a future where your com…
May 1st, 2012 | by Julia | published in Google Enterprise, Uncategorized
Posted by Ju-Kay Kwek, Product Manager, BigQueryCross-posted on the Google Developers Blog. BigQuery enables businesses and developers to gain real-time business insights from massive amounts of data without any upfront hardware or software investment…
May 1st, 2012 | by Allison Sommer | published in Google Adwords, Uncategorized
Join us every Wednesday at 11am PST on the Google+ Your Business page to learn about the tools that Google offers your business. This week, we’re excited to bring you a Hangout On Air about advertising on the Google Display Network.The Display Networ…
