Mapping the Victorian fires

Update at 1:55pm AEDST, 10 February 2009
Map updated with imagery and dedicated page created.  All future updates to be posted on this blog here.

By now, you're undoubtedly aware of the terrible bushfire tragedy that is unfolding in Victoria.

We've today pulled together a Flash Map, containing the latest up-to-date information about fire locations and their status from the Country Fire Authority (CFA). The Flash Map is updated in real-time from the CFA website via an RSS feed. We hope that it's of some use to people who may be affected, to emergency services personnel, and that it takes some load off other websites which are being inundated. The map certainly makes the scale of this disaster immediately apparent.

Update at 6:10pm Victoria time: To explain the map, the number in each marker shows the number of fires at the location. A green marker means the area is called "safe" by the CFA. Yellow means "controlled". Orange means "contained". Red means "going".

Update at 8:45pm. Address search functionality added.

If you want to embed a gadget containing this map on your website, you can do so by clicking here.

We're working to incorporate additional bushfire information into the map and will let you know of any additional updates on this blog.

There's a lot of additional information on the web about the location and status of fires and road closures, and what to do to keep safe. Due to traffic load, please only visit the first three sites below if your personal safety is potentially impacted by the fires.

• The Department of Sustainability and Environment has more information on major fires on public land.
  
  
• The CFA have incident reports (this is the source for the Flash Map)
  
  
• VicRoads has information about road closures.
  
  
• V-Line has information about rail closures.
  
  
• The teams at news.com.au and theage.com.au have created useful My Maps on Google Maps, containing news and information about major fires and casualties.

Our thoughts go out to all those affected by this tragedy, and our thanks to the brave members of the Victorian police, Country Fire Authority and emergency services who are working so hard to save lives.

Posted by Alan Noble, Raul Vera and Pamela Fox, Google Engineering

Read More Here...

First Android-powered phone released in Australia

We Australians love getting our hands on new technology, and we especially love it when we're among the first countries in the world to see new products. We were one of the first countries to get open Gmail signups, and to see Street View imagery on Google Maps. Today, I'm delighted that the HTC Dream is being launched in Australia by Optus, making us the first country in Asia to get an Android-powered mobile device.

Mobile phones outsell PCs three to one, yet most mobile operating systems were developed before the web existed. Android is the first Internet-generation, fully open and free mobile platform, which means you can enjoy the familiarity and breadth of your desktop Internet experience on your mobile. You can fully customise your phone and easily find and download applications from the open Android Market or other websites. You'll find everything from games to location-based services, social networking, productivity tools and on-the-go shopping.

The HTC Dream is not only powered by Android, but also comes preinstalled with a suite of Google applications and a fully integrated Google experience: one-touch access to Google search, Google Maps for mobile, Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Talk, and YouTube.

It's a milestone for the Open Handset Alliance, a group of more than 40 technology and mobile industry leaders who are behind the Android platform and have committed to fostering innovation on mobile phones to offer a better consumer experience.

And it's also a milestone for Google Australia, and one that we hope will be embraced by both mobile users and mobile developers. By opening up mobile devices to developers we believe we can drive greater innovation, and faster innovation, for the benefit of mobile users everywhere. Our hope is that the next big application - the future YouTube or Facebook - will actually be built for mobiles, maybe even here in Australia.

Keep checking back on this blog over the next few months as we offer tips and tricks for getting the most out of your HTC Dream, and profile some of the innovative applications available in the Android Market.

Posted by Karim Temsamani, General Manager, Google Australia and New Zealand

Read More Here...

Google Developers Down Under: Hackathons, Workshops, & More!

As the support engineer for the Google Maps API, part of my role is to participate in developer events - either by speaking, organising or just listening. After three months in Sydney, I've had the opportunity to become fully immersed in the developer culture in Australia, and it's been so much fun that I'm tempted to stay in this beautiful city forever.

Here's a roundup of some of the recent events:

• BarCamp Sydney: BarCamps are "unconferences", which means there's no set agenda - attendees scribble what they want to present on paper on the wall, and go to whatever looks most interesting (or just have debates in the halls). BarCamp Sydney was the epitome of an unconference, with sessions ranging from learning Drupal to being hypnotised (I failed - too giggly). I gave talks about HTML 5 and Google App Engine.
  

• OSDC: The Open Source Developers Conference is a week-long conference with hundreds of developers from all over Australia (and some from the US, too). Google ran a hackathon the day before the conference, covering OpenSocial/Orkut, Open Mapping APIs, and Google App Engine. My favourite app to come out of it was "Bean There", an Orkut app that mapped all your favorite coffee stops.
  

• iGoogle Hackathon: On a sunny Saturday, 12 developers sacrificed precious beach time and came to the Google Sydney office to hack in the iGoogle OpenSocial developer sandbox. The attendees ranged from freelance contractors to employees of Australian startups like Atlassian, Momentville and Wotif. Most attendees had heard of iGoogle and OpenSocial but hadn't used either platform. We started off with a presentation on using the OpenSocial APIs and socialising existing apps. Then, after five hours of hacking, the developers presented their creations over ice-cream and beer. The applications covered a variety of concepts, like displaying Flickr albums, intersections of friends and upcoming concerts in the area.
  

• StartupCamp Sydney: At this event, developers, marketers and designers came together for a weekend of coding and pitching a startup - from scratch! The weekend produced six websites, and 36 completely exhausted but satisfied individuals (including myself). A number of the startups used Google developer tools: Activity Horizon and MyPetNeedsLove used the Google Maps API to plot events and love-hungry pets, respectively, whereas ThreeFeeds used the Google AJAX Search & Feeds API both on the client and server sides.
  

And there's more to come in the next few months:

• Google Developer Workshops: Over six weeks, we'll have four talks/codelabs at the Google Sydney office, each covering a different Google developer product. The series kicked off this week with a session on the Google Maps API for Flash, and continues next week with a session on Gears (the technology powering GMail offline!). For more information and registration, visit this website.
  

• JAOO Sydney/Brisbane: At this dual-city developer conference, there'll be two talks from Googlers: "API Design" by Joshua Bloch, and "Google App Engine: Building an App the Googley Way" by Pamela Fox. Pending enough interest, there may also be a half-day workshop on using the Google Maps APIs. (So if you're attending, make sure to sign up!)
  

Thanks to all the Sydney developers for welcoming me and teaching me the Aussie way (tweetups, wedges and, of course, beer). For more information about what's going on in this side of the world, subscribe to the APAC Developer Blog.

BarCamp Sydney

Brain storming at Startup Camp

Posted by Pamela Fox, Developer Programs Engineer

Read More Here...

The Great Barrier Reef stars in Ocean in Google Earth

Ocean in Google Earth? Wait ... didn't Google Earth always have an ocean? Technically yes, we have always had a big blue expanse and some shading to suggest depth. But starting today, with the launch of Google Earth 5.0, you can drop below the surface and explore the nooks and crannies of the sea floor in 3D. While you're there you can view videos and images of ocean life, read about good surf spots, track ocean expeditions and much more.


The new 'Explore the Ocean' layer contains information on 11 'hotspots' around the world, including Galapagos, the Hawaiian Islands, the Antarctic and our very own Great Barrier Reef. The information on the Great Barrier Reef was developed with the help of our friends at the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (CoECRS).


Professor David Bellwood of CoECRS and James Cook University shared his thoughts with us on the importance of the drawing attention to the world's ocean.

"The oceans are out of sight, and out of mind. Only fishermen, scientists, tourism operators and the like really see what is happening, day to day. Our hope is that, through the medium of the internet, millions of people – young people especially – will now be able to develop a better feel for what is happening to our oceans, and maybe will be inspired to visit them and see for themselves. The Great Barrier Reef attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors from around the world every year. Thanks to Google Earth it will now receive millions more virtual visitors – many of whom will hopefully decide it is well worth a real visit."

Back in October we worked with the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority to provide map data and updated satellite imagery of the islands, reefs, cays and rocks of the park and make them available in Google Maps. Their chairman and chief executive Russell Reichelt sees this new development as hugely valuable in helping them continue to educate the public about this remarkable place, presenting its natural wonders to everyone from school children to scientists.

But Ocean in Google Earth is not all we've launched today.

Until today, we were only able to offer one snapshot of a given place in Google Earth. With the new Historical Imagery feature, you can now move back and forth through years of satellite and aerial imagery, experiencing the development of a place over time. We've also added a Touring feature, making it simple to create a narrated tour just by clicking the record button and flying to your first destination

And last but not least, 3D Mars is the latest stop in our virtual tour of the galaxies. By clicking a button in Google Earth you can see high-resolution imagery, 3D terrain of the red planet's surface and more.


For those of you who keep track of version numbers, this is Google Earth 5.0. Why did we skip from 4.3 to 5.0? Because this update literally brings new depth and dimension to Google Earth, and we thought that was a pretty big deal.

Members of the Google Earth team will be publishing in-depth posts about all of the new features in Google Earth 5.0 on the Lat Long blog all week, so be sure to check back there often.



Posted by Raul Vera, Head of Geo Products, Google Australia

Read More Here...

My Maps Australia Awards 2008 – And the winner is…

The 2008 My Maps Australia Awards have come to an end. In the quest for Australian mapping fame we've been receiving My Maps from all over the country. Many entrants surprised us with their outstanding creativity and quirky Aussie knowledge.

Congratulations to our 10 winners, whose entries were judged tops on creativity, originality and ease of use:

It's a sign - Melbourne's history in old signs: Anthony Malloy
Public arts in Sydney: Hendrik Therik
Photodiary of a nomad: David Briese
Brisbane coffee: Josh Russel
How to get a girlfriend: Malvin Sharma
RTA Sydney traffic cameras: Hayden McInnes
Darwin to Adelaide - a 3,200km road adventure down the Stuart Highway: Kristi Barrow
VFL/AFL grounds of Australia: Tim Wiese
Fairfield City Golf Course: Sigurjon Runarsson
Biggest Loser Australia locations: Peter Craig

The 10 winners each received a "Best My Maps" award and an iPod. The grand prize winner, Anthony Malloy, won a 13" 2.1 GHz Macbook.

Hayden McInnes

Kristi Barrow

Malvin Sharma

Thanks to everyone for participating!

Posted by Katharina Friedrich, Product Marketing Manager

Read More Here...

Powering a Google search

Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog

Not long ago, answering a query meant traveling to the reference desk of your local library. Today, search engines enable us to access immense quantities of useful information in an instant, without leaving home. Tools like email, online books and photos, and video chat all increase productivity while decreasing our reliance on car trips, pulp and paper.

But as computers become a bigger part of more people's lives, information technology consumes an increasing amount of energy, and Google takes this impact seriously. That's why we have designed and built the most energy efficient data centres in the world, which means the energy used per Google search is minimal. In fact, in the time it takes to do a Google search, your own personal computer will use more energy than Google uses to answer your query.

Recently, though, others have used much higher estimates, claiming that a typical search uses "half the energy as boiling a kettle of water" and produces 7 grams of CO2. We thought it would be helpful to explain why this number is *many* times too high. Google is fast--a typical search returns results in less than 0.2 seconds. Queries vary in degree of difficulty, but for the average query, the servers it touches each work on it for just a few thousandths of a second. Together with other work performed before your search even starts (such as building the search index) this amounts to 0.0003 kWh of energy per search, or 1 kJ. For comparison, the average adult needs about 8000 kJ a day of energy from food, so a Google search uses just about the same amount of energy that your body burns in ten seconds.

In terms of greenhouse gases, one Google search is equivalent to about 0.2 grams of CO2. The current EU standard for tailpipe emissions (Ed: Australia bases its standards on these) calls for 140 grams of CO2 per kilometre driven, but most cars don't reach that level yet . Thus, the average car driven for one kilometre produces as many greenhouse gases as a thousand Google searches.

We've made great strides to reduce the energy used by our data centers, but we still want clean and affordable sources of electricity for the power that we do use. In 2008 our philanthropic arm, Google.org, invested $45 million in breakthrough clean energy technologies. And last summer, as part of our Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal initiative, we created an internal engineering group dedicated to exploring clean energy.

We're also working with other members of the IT community to improve efficiency on a broader scale. In 2007 we co-founded the Climate Savers Computing Initiative, a group which champions more efficient computing. This non-profit consortium is committed to cutting the energy consumed by computers in half by 2010--reducing global CO2 emissions by 54 million tons per year. That's a lot of kettles of tea.

Update on 13/1 at 11:45AM: Harvard professor Alex Wissner-Gross provided new details on his energy research, in a TechNewsWorld article.

Posted by Urs Hölzle, Senior Vice President, Operations

Read More Here...

Blogger in 140 characters or less

With several Twitter fans on the Blogger team (not to mention a number of Blogger alumni work at Twitter), it seemed only natural that we set up shop on Twitter ourselves. We will be posting status updates, major feature announcements, and pointers to cool uses of Blogger will all show up in our Twitter account. We will do our best to keep an eye on replies to @blogger as well, but our Help Center and Blogger Discussion Group remain the best places for help from fellow users as well as the Blogger support team.

Read More Here...