Google Goggles, Mobile Visual Search

Google revealed some details about an upcoming mobile application that lets you upload photos and returns relevant information.

Google is working on Google Visual Search, a mobile application that lets users take a picture of a location from their Android-powered smartphone and trigger a Google search that pulls up information associated with the image.

"Imagine you're a tourist and you arrive at this place and you would like to know more about it, all you will have to do is take a shot of the [Santa Monica pier] sign and you see we recognized this as the Santa Monica pier," [Google Product Manager Hartmut] Neven said.

However, the technology, known internally as Google Goggles, didn't pass muster when Google tested it with a focus group in August. The company's engineers are working out the bugs and building out the immense database required to propel the technology.

Neven Vision, a company acquired by Google in 2006, had several patents on mobile visual search and object recognition, including a patent for an "image-based search engine for mobile phones with camera":

The present invention may be embodied in an image-based information retrieval system that includes a mobile telephone and a remote server. The mobile telephone has a built-in camera, a recognition engine for recognizing an object or feature in an image from the built-in camera, and a communication link for requesting information from the remote server related to a recognized object or feature.

In more detailed features of the invention, the object may be an advertising billboard and the related information may be a web page address. Alternatively, the object may be a car and the related information may be a car manual. Also, the object may be a product and the related information may be a payment confirmation. Further, the object may be a book and the related information may be an audio stream.

Last year, Google launched an iPhone app that allowed you to to do a Google search using your voice. Obtaining some search results just by uploading a picture brings Google even closer to the real world.

Image licensed as Creative Commons Attribution by Mac Funamizu.

Update: Google Goggles is now available in Google Labs. If you have an Android phone, go to the Android Market app and search for "Google Goggles".

When Google Is Slow...

Google usually displays the search results in less than a second. so you rarely have to wait to see the results. Translated search, the most recent feature added to the search options sidebar, is a rare example of slow Google feature. It's also one of the most powerful features ever released by Google because it transforms Google into a multilingual search engine.

Unfortunately, the results for Google Translated Search are generated in more than a second and sometimes you have to wait 5 seconds to get the results.

It's strange to see Google releasing a slow feature on the main site. O'Reilly Radar shared some interesting results from Google's experiments:

"One experiment increased the number of search results per page from 10 to 30, with a corresponding increase in page load times from 400 milliseconds to 900 milliseconds. This resulted in a 25% drop-off in first result page searches. Adding the checkout icon (a shopping cart) to search results made the page 2% slower with a corresponding 2% drop in searches/user."

Program Determinan Matriks 3x3 C++

"Om Swastiastu"

Setelah sebelumnya saya menjelaskan mengenai program determinan matriks 2x2, maka kali ini saya akan menjelaskan mengenai program determinan matriks 3x3. Pencarian determinan matriks ordo 3x3 lebih rumit dari matriks 2x2. Cara yang saya gunakan disini adalah dengan menggunakan Sarrus Rule. Untuk lebih jelasnya, silahkan lihat gambar ini.

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Program Invers Matriks 2x2 C++

"Om Swastiastu"

Teman-teman sekalian ini adalah program invers matriks 2x2 yang saya buat bersama teman sekelas saya.
Kali ini saya tidak banyak basa basi. Langsung saja saya kasi syntax dari program invers matriks ini.

//Determinan Matriks 2x2

#include <iostream.h>

#include <conio.h>

#define Nmaks 3

void main()

{

 typedef float matriks[Nmaks][Nmaks];

 int i,j;

 float determinan, hasilbagidet;

 matriks A,a;

 char answer;

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Google Acquires AppJet

Google buys yet another company: AppJet, the start-up that created EtherPad, an innovative online word processor. The EtherPad team, that includes three former Googlers, will join the Google Wave team. EtherPad will be available for the existing users until March 31, 2010.

"Other real-time editors like Google Docs work by broadcasting an updated copy of the document to everyone every 15 seconds. This creates a noticeable lag that gets in the way of collaboration. You start editing something, only to find 10 seconds later that someone else deleted it. Etherpad updates every copy of the document every half second. This 30x increase in speed changes the experience completely. Your edits hardly ever clash with other users'. So you work confidently instead of tentatively."  (from EtherPad's site)



{ via Paul Buchheit }

Disable Google's Fade-in Animation

If you don't like the fade-in animation from Google's homepage and you want the old homepage, one option is to disable JavaScript. Google will no longer hide navigation elements, but you won't be able to use many web apps that require JavaScript.

Another option is to install a Greasemonkey script that disables the animation. The script requires Greasemonkey if you use Firefox and GreaseKit for Safari.

You can also add the script in Opera if you follow this guide. Chrome users can install the script if they switch to the dev channel.

If you still use Internet Explorer, install IE7Pro, save the script, rename it to nogooglefade.ieuser.js and copy the script to C:\Program Files\IEPro\userscripts. Enable the script in IE7Pro's settings.

Update: Google Chrome users should install this extension to disable Google's animation.

Google Replaces Answers.com with Google Dictionary

If your query includes a single word or it's an expression, Google links to the definition in the blue bar that mentions the number of results. Initially, Google linked to dictionary.com, then it switched to answers.com and now it uses its own service: Google Dictionary.

As mentioned in January, Google updated the English dictionary with synonyms, antonyms, pronunciations, detailed definitions and examples from Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's English Dictionary. Google's dictionary lists the most recent 5 searches, you can star words, find related words and definitions from the Web.

In 2007, Answers.com's CEO said that "there's no deal between Google and Answers.com for the definition links. Google picked Answers.com because it thought Answers.com was a good resource, not because the two companies had negotiated any placement."

Google Dictionary is not a perfect replacement for Answers.com because it doesn't include information from encyclopedias. Some people might miss Answers.com's reference pages that aggregated information from many reputable sources, but those who clicked on Google's definition links to read definitions and to find synonyms won't be very disappointed.

{ via Los Angeles Times }

Google DNS

Google launched a DNS resolving service called Google Public DNS that uses Google's infrastructure to improve page loading time. A DNS resolver converts domain names into IP addresses and this process might slow down browsing.

"As the web continues to grow, greater load is placed on existing DNS infrastructure. Since Google's search engine already crawls the web on a daily basis and in the process resolves and caches DNS information, we wanted to leverage our technology to experiment with new ways of addressing some of the existing DNS challenges around performance and security."

You can replace your ISP's DNS service with Google Public DNS by changing the settings of the network connection and using the following IP addresses:

* 8.8.8.8
* 8.8.4.4

An important problem is that DNS resolvers can track all the web pages sites you visit and build a profile of your interests. Google's privacy page says that the full IP addresses are deleted within 48 hours and Google does not permanently store personally identifiable information. "We built Google Public DNS to make the web faster and to retain as little information about usage as we could, while still being able to detect and fix problems."

OpenDNS, a popular third-party DNS resolving service, offers more feature than Google Public DNS: web content filtering, stats, typo correction, shortcuts, but they're available if you create an account and enter personal information like your name and address. When you type an invalid URL, OpenDNS redirects you to its own search engine to show suggestions and ads. Other free DNS resolution services: Comodo Secure DNS, OpenNIC, DNS Advantage.

You can test all the services and decide which one works best for you by using GRC's Domain Name Speed Benchmark. Don't forget to add Google's memorable IPs: 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4.

{ via Google Code Blog }

Google Translated Search, Now More Powerful

Google Translated Search was launched as a Google Translate feature that helped you search in other languages. Google automated several steps that made it difficult to find information written in a language you don't know: Google translated the query, used it to obtain the search result and then translated the results in your language.

The feature is now available in the search toolbelt and it's much smarter: Google automatically detects the most appropriate languages for your query. Click on "show options", select "translated search" and Google shows a box that lists some languages, the translations of your query and the top search results for those translated queries.

For example, if you search for [oslo museums], Google shows a list of web pages written in Norwegian. When you search for [romantic art], Google suggests more than one language: Spanish, French, Italian and German.

"If you're traveling and want to find hotels, restaurants, activities or reviews written from a local perspective, or if you're just curious to find what's being written about a company, product or topic in another language, give Translated search in the Search Options panel a try," suggests Google.

Tips Alexa Rank Naik Drastis

"Om Swastiastu"

Teman-teman sekalian, kali ini saya ingin menyampaikan betapa cepatnya Alexa Rank blog saya meningkat. Mengingat blog saya ini masih berumur 3 bulanan. Tapi gapapa.. biar masih seumur jagung, tapi ambisi ngeblog tetep tak terbendung. Apa yang saya lakukan sampai Alexa Rank saya meningkat dengan pesat adalah:

• Menambah iklan
• Awalnya saya hanya memasang satu iklan dari setiap penyedia iklan. Kemudian dari penelitian saya pada blog yang saya kunjungi, terdapat iklan di header dan footer pada blog tersebut, sehingga saya ikut memasang iklan di header dan footer blog saya.
  

• Blogwalking
• Tak luput tentunya meningkatkan nilai alexa rank dengan blogwalking. Setiap membuka blog pasti saya sempatkan untuk melakukan aktivitas yang satu ini. Ketika melakukan blogwalking, saya tidak menggunakan komentar yang biasa. (Contoh : hai, berkunjung, kunjugnan balik dong). Biasanya saya memasang komentar yang menarik banyak perhatian orang, sehingga walau saya blogwalking hanya di beberapa blog, tapi akan banyak mendapat kunjungan balik karena komentar yang menarik tersebut. Seperti pepatah mengatakan, "mendayung sekali, dua tiga pulau terlampaui."

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YouTube Feather

Feather is a new feature from YouTube Labs. The goal is "to serve YouTube video watch pages with the lowest latency possible. It achieves this by severely limiting the features available to the viewer and making use of advanced web techniques for reducing the total amount of bytes downloaded by the browser."

Chrome's dev tools show that the improvements are noticeable: the resources downloaded when you watch a video only have 52 KB, instead of 391 KB.

There are many missing features in the "feather" version: search suggestions, posting comments, viewing all the comments, rating videos, customizing the embedded player. Another issue is that the lite version is not available for all videos.

{ Thanks, Michael. }

Google's Homepage Goes Back to Basics

Google has been testing a new version of its homepage that hides the navigational elements until you use the mouse. Most people visit Google's homepage to search the Web, so the links to other Google services are distracting. After testing 10 variants of the new homepage, including an interface that removed the buttons, Google decided to keep the search buttons and to use a subtle fade-in effect before displaying the links.

"Internally, a large number of Google employees have been using the new homepage. They have come to really like it — it represents our focus on great search yet helps searchers efficiently access all of Google's products. Like the new supersized search box we launched several months ago, this change is one that is very noticeable at first, and then quickly becomes second nature," explains Google's blog.

I rarely go to Google's homepage to search the Web, since browsers include a search box and I don't have to load a new web page to enter a query. The latest UI changes will make me visit Google's homepage more often: the search box is bigger, the search results are loaded without opening a new page using Ajax and the new clutter-free interface helps you concentrate.

Change Gmail's Default Text Style

If you like to use rich formatting when you compose Gmail's messages, but the default text style is too boring, you can change it. Go to Gmail Labs, enable "Default Text Styling" and change the style from the settings page. You can select a different font face (including Comic Sans), change the color, size and style.

"If you live and breathe code, now you can set your default text style to a monospace font. If your life is purple, your email can be, too. But remember: whatever you see is what your recipients will see, so be nice to them and try not to clog the intertubes with ginormous bold italicized red script," suggests Google.

The new text styling is only used when you type some text, so the signature will use Gmail's original settings.

Optimized Google Analytics Code

A lot of web sites use Google Analytics to analyze traffic data, so the performance of Google's tracking code is very important. Google recommends to place the code just before closing the <body> tag to ensure "that the tracking code is executed as the last element of the DOM". Otherwise, the script would block the other elements from loading and visitors would have until the script is executed to see the rest of the page. Unfortunately, you can't place the script at the bottom of the page if you some advanced features like tracking events.

To improve the script's performance, Google decided to load it asynchronously. "Unlike a traditional installation, asynchronous tracking optimizes how browsers load ga.js so its impact on user experience is minimized. It also allows you to put your Analytics snippet higher in the page without delaying subsequent content from rendering."

Here's the new code for basic tracking, which uses some ideas from Steve Souders:

<script type="text/javascript">

  var _gaq = _gaq || [];
  _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-XXXXX-X']);
  _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);

  (function() {
    var ga = document.createElement('script');
    ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 
'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js';
    ga.setAttribute('async', 'true');
    document.documentElement.firstChild.appendChild(ga);
  })();

</script>

Google Analytics Blog says that the new snippet is a beta feature and changing the code is optional.

The new tracking snippet offers the following benefits:

* Faster tracking code load times for your web pages due to improved browser execution
* Enhanced data collection and accuracy
* Elimination of tracking errors from dependencies when the JavaScript hasn't fully loaded

The Fastest Rising Google Queries in 2009

Google and other search engines publish every year a list of the most popular searches, but it's not always clear how it's compiled. This year, Google explained the methodology:

"To compile the 2009 Year-End Zeitgeist, we studied the aggregation of billions of queries people typed into Google search this year. We use data from multiple sources, including Insights for Search, Google Trends and internal data tools. We also filter out spam and repeat queries to build out lists that best reflect the spirit of the times. In some cases, we list the fastest rising queries, which means we found the most popular searches conducted in 2009 and then ranked them based on how much their popularity increased compared to 2008."

The fastest rising query was [Michael Jackson], followed by four social networks: [Facebook], [Tuenti], [Twitter], [Sanalika], a movie: [New Moon], a singer: [Lady Gaga], Microsoft Windows 7, a news site from Vietnam: [dantri.com.vn] and a free SMS service from Brazil: [torpedo gratis].

The only rising query from 2008 included in Google's 2009 list is [tuenti], a Spanish social network. If you take a look at the Google Trends chart for [tuenti], you'll notice that the site's popularity didn't grow in 2009.



Cem Sertoglu says that "Sanalika is a virtual world similar to IMVU or Popmundo. It has not made much of an impact in the Turkish internet scene so far, so I had to double check when I saw its name on the Google list."

Google Insights for Search provides another list of the fastest growing queries in 2009: twitter (+1,550%), michael jackson (+850%), facebook login (+750%), facebook.com (+300%), facebook (+250%), tuenti (+180%), youtube.com (+150%), face (+100%), yahoo mail (+80%), traductor (+50%).

Google Zeitgeist continues to be an enigma.

Wake Me Up When Desember Come

"Om Swastiastu"

Indahnya awal desember (bagiku tentunya dan baginya juga..hehehe). Kenapa? Karena awal Desember ini genap sudah kami setahun menjalin tali asmara. Saya sendiri tidak tahu kapan tepatnya kami resmi jadian, sebab tidak ada acara tembak-menembak. Ngalir gitu aja.. flow just like a river.


Gag nyangka juga bisa merajut benang kasih seperti ini sampai setahun.. hahaha.. tapi it's a good memory to remember. Banyak hal telah kami lalui bersama selama setahun kami bersama. Dari yang beda pendapat, bertengkar, mesra-mesraan, cobaan, banyaklah pokonya. Itu semua ngebuat ikatan cinta kita tambah kuat. Rasa saling percaya tambah kuat. Walau kami menjalani long distance. Ketemu paling ga seminggu sekali atau dua minggu sekali. Rasa kangen nya kuat banget. Tiap ketemu berkesan banget rasanya.

Jadi inget lagunya Dewa 19 - Kangen.. hahaha.. Hmmm.. saya berharap jalinan asmara kami bisa bertahan lama. Awet sampe tua.. hahaha.. A sweet Desember has come. See ya in my next post.


"Om Santhi, Santhi, Santhi, Om"

Program Determinan Matriks 2x2 C++

"Om Swastiastu"

Setelah sebelumnya kita membahas mengenai penjumlahan dan perkalian matriks, maka sesuai janji saya pada postingan sebelumnya, kita akan membahas mengenai determinan matriks ordo 2x2.
Pada saat SMA tentunya anda sudah pernah membahas tentang determinan matriks ini kan. Langsung saja kita terapkan kedalam pemrograman C++.
Berikut adalah syntax dari determinan matriks berordo 2x2. Untuk determinan matriks ordo 3x3 akan kita bahas di postingan selanjutnya.


//Determinan Matriks 2x2
#include <iostream.h>
#include <conio.h>
Continue Reading »

Program Perkalian Skalar Matriks C++

"Om Swastiastu"

Perkalian matriks skalar adalah dimana setiap elemen dari sebuah matriks dikalikan dengan sebuah bilangan.
Misal, terdapat matriks A berordo 2x2 dikalikan 2 maka hasilnya adalah dua kali matriks A.
Nah dari situ saya mencoba mengimplementasikan matriks skalar kedalam bahasa pemrograman c++. Dan berikut adalah syntax dari program perkalian skalar matriks C++.


#include <iostream.h>
#include <conio.h>
Continue Reading »

Google Translation Bar

One of my favorite bookmarklets translates the current web page into English using Google Translate: you can find it here. Unfortunately, Google Translate doesn't handle properly web pages dynamically generated using JavaScript. For example, if you try to translate Google Pack's Chinese homepage, you'll notice that most of the text can't be translated.

Google has already solved this problem by adding real-time translation in Google Toolbar and by offering a translation bar that can be embedded into any web page.


If you don't want to use Google Toolbar, add the translation bar by bookmarking some Javascript code:

1. Make sure the bookmarks toolbar is visible in your browser. You can enable it if you go to the "View" menu in your browser, click on "Toolbars" and check: "Links" in Internet Explorer, "Bookmarks Toolbar" in Firefox and "Personal Bar" in Opera. In Google Chrome, you can enable the bookmarks toolbar by typing Ctrl+B.

2. In Google Chrome and Firefox, drag the bookmarklet below to the bookmarks toolbar. In IE, right-click on the bookmarklet, click on "Add to Favorites" and select "Favorites Bar" or "Links" from the list of folders. In Opera, right-click on the bookmarklet, click on "Bookmark Link", then click on "Details" and check "Show on Personal Bar".

Translate

{ Thanks, Rick Shide. }