Googleholic for May 27, 2008

Filed under: Developer, Internet, Web services, Google, Googleholic, web 2.0

Googleholic for May 27, 2008

by Christina Warren May 27th 2008

Welcome to Googleholic, your bi-weekly fix for everything Google! In this edition:

Google Mini gets an upgrade
Google Treasure Hunt 2008
More information from forum results
YouTube is obsessed with robots
Google I/O starts tomorrow

Google Mini gets an upgrade

The Google Mini search appliance, which is an affordable search solution for a company's intranet and public website, has just received some new upgrades and support for six new languages. New features include support for shared servers and source and date biasing.

[via Official Google Enterprise Blog]

Google Treasure Hunt 2008

Google's Treasure Hunt 2008 is now entering its third week. The treasure hunt is designed to test knowledge of computer science, low-level UNIX and networking trivia. The contestants who answer questions correctly the fastest win prizes and a grand prize will be awarded to the overall fastest contestant who answers all four questions correctly. This is the start of week 3 -- but you can still access the earlier questions

[via Official Google Blog]

More information from forums results

Some smart Googler has discovered what appears to be signs that Google is experimenting with how to display forum and discussion postings in search results. In addition to showing the date published (so you know how new or old a post is), the number of posts, authors and the date of the first post are displayed as part of the traditional Google search results. This could significantly help users parse information and find relevant data more quickly. This experiment isn't live for everyone yet, but the Google Blogoscoped blog has information about how to change your cookies to be part of the experiment.

[via Google Operating System]

YouTube is obsessed with robots

So what is the new viral video hotness? Well, according to YouTube's Trendspotting Tuesday, robots are the new black. We have to admit, the robotic spider is both awesome and disturbing.

[via YouTube Blog]

Google I/O starts tomorrow

Google I/O, Google's biggest developer event ever, kicks off tomorrow in San Francisco. Google I/O will take place at Moscone West on May 28 and 29, 2008. The conference will feature a wide-range of sessions focussing on building applications using Google and other open technologies. AJAX, Python, Android, Google Maps API, OpenSocial and Google Gears are just some of the technologies that will be featured. Registration is still open -- so if you are a developer (or a student looking to learn more), you can still sign-up.

Rumor has it that Google will be announcing some new products or tools at I/O, and as always, we'll keep you posted.

[via Google Open Source Blog]

Tags: google, google io, google mini, google treasure hunt, googleholic, GoogleIo, GoogleMini, GoogleTreasureHunt

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Benjamin Wright said 4:23PM on 5-27-2008

Christina: That robot spider is other-worldly! As robots become more common, questions arise about how they will be controlled from the perspective of social accountability. One way to regulate robot behavior is to form legal contracts with their owners. --Ben http://hack-igations.blogspot.com/2008/01/robot-surveillance-contracts.html

Featured Time Waster

Civiballs is a beautiful, soothing physics puzzle Time Waster

I have an absolute weakness for physics games, and while Civiballs isn't the strongest physics-based game, what it lacks in the physics department it makes up for a few times over in style and fun.

In Civiballs, you are presented with a few colored balls, and your goal is to get those balls into the same-colored urn on the level. The "civi" part of Civiballs is that there are 3 sets of levels to play, each representing a different civilization. While the civilization doesn't affect gameplay, the artwork for each level is beautifully themed to it's appropriate era.

To play the game, you are given only one tool - a sword with which to cut the chains that are holding the balls. The puzzle part of the game is in figuring out what order, and with what timing to cut each chain. Do it right, and all the right balls end up in the right urns, with no stray balls entering an urn (a no-no). Do it wrong, and you get to start over again.

Civiballs is not terribly deep on gameplay; the entire game can be completed in about 15 minutes. But if you enjoy this type of game, it will be a very enjoyable 15 minutes.

View more Time Wasters