Google News

Google News is a computer-generated news site that aggregates headlines from news sources worldwide, groups similar stories together and displays them according to each reader's personalized interests.

Traditionally, news readers first pick a publication and then look for headlines that interest them. Google do things a little differently, with the goal of offering readers more personalized options and a wider variety of perspectives from which to choose. Google News offer links to several articles on every story, so readers can first decide what subject interests them and then select which publishers’ accounts of each story like to read. Click on the headline that interests them and they'll go directly to the site which published that story.

The articles are selected and ranked by computers that evaluate, among other things, how often and on what sites a story appears online. Google also rank based on certain characteristics of news content such as freshness, location, relevance and diversity. As a result, stories are sorted without regard to political viewpoint or ideology and readers can choose from a wide variety of perspectives on any given story. Google will continue to improve Google News by adding sources, fine-tuning technology and providing Google News to readers in even more regions.

Android 2.0 support in the SDK!

Google announced that the Android SDK now supports Android 2.0 (also known as Eclair).

Android 2.0 brings new developer APIs for sync, Bluetooth, and a few other areas. Using the new sync, account manager and contacts APIs, you can write applications to enable users to sync their devices to various contact sources. You can also give users a faster way to communicate with others by embedding Quick Contact within your application. With the new Bluetooth API, you can now easily add peer-to-peer connectivity or gaming to your applications. To get a more complete list of the new capabilities you can add to your applications, please go to the Android 2.0 highlights page.

Current developers can use the SDK Manager to add Android 2.0 support to their SDK as well as update their SDK Tools to revision 3. New developers can download the Android SDK from the download site. After the download, Android platforms must be added using the SDK Manager

Google Maps Navigation (Beta)

Google Maps Navigation (Beta)

Google Maps Navigation is an internet-connected GPS navigation system with voice guidance. It is part of Google Maps for mobile and is available for phones with Android 2.0.

Google Maps Navigation uses your phone's internet connection to give you the latest maps and business data. But that's not all that's different about Google's approach to GPS navigation. Watch the below video to learn more.

a demonstration of Google Maps Navigation (Beta), an internet-connected GPS navigation system that provides turn-by-turn voice guidance as a free feature of Google Maps on Android 2.0 phones.

Google Maps: Favorite Places

Explore the favorite places of local experts from cities around the world. Find out where they like to go, and why, from their own perspectives.

Favorite Places: Introducing a collection of favorite places around the world

App Engine SDK 1.2.7 - Bugfix Release for Python

Due to two issues introduced in the 1.2.6 release of the Python SDK, Google are releasing version 1.2.7. This is a bugfix-only release with just a few minor changes (no new features or functionality); all users of App Engine for Python should upgrade to the new version, available on Downloads page.

The two issues were:

• The 1.2.6 release added a key argument to the Model class constructor that broke subclasses who were calling the constructor's private arguments with positional (not named) values. The fix is to restore the original ordering, and require that the new key argument be specified as a named argument only.
• The 1.2.6 release broke an interaction between remote_api and the local development app server.

remark: the Java SDK remains at 1.2.6

Highlights from Google I/O 2009

A quick snapshot of Google I/O 2009.

Learn more about I/O at:
http://code.google.com/io

Follow us at:
http://www.twitter.com/goog...

Android Scripting Environment (ASE): Android Scripting Environment brings scripting languages to Android.

The Android Scripting Environment (ASE) brings scripting languages to Android by allowing you to edit and execute scripts and interactive interpreters directly on the Android device.

Here is article to install ASE on Android Emulator step-by-step, and to program a Hello World! using Python on Android.

Today Google Logo: Invention of the Bar Code

Artist Themes for Google Chrome

Speed, Simplicity, and now Style: Google Chrome with Artist Themes.

Google introduced Artist Themes for Google Chrome. Google invited leading artists, architects, musicians, illustrators, filmmakers and fashion and interior designers from across the globe to create artwork for an unusual canvas: the modern web browser. The result is a vibrant fusion of art and technology, with a hundred Artist Themes that will add a touch of inspiration and delight to your browsing experience with Google Chrome.