Google Search by voice: Now in Times Square!

If you've been to Times Square in New York City over the past couple weeks, on any day from 12:30-2:00pm or 6:30-8:00pm, you may have noticed that Google Search by voice is powering Times Square's largest combined displays -- the Reuters Sign and the NASDAQ sign. Anyone can call 888-376-4336 and say the name of a business or a location that they want to search for, like "museum of modern art" or "pizza". Then, the query and local search results from Google will appear on one of the two electronic billboards. This is all part of Verizon's "Droid Does" campaign and has been developed in partnership with Reuters and R/GA, a digital advertising agency.

On Black Friday, Times Square's gigantic interactive search-by-voice demo will be running for 20 hours straight. So if you're in the area and have a chance to take a break from your shopping, or if you want to see your next shopping destination displayed on a Google map on the huge signs, give the demo a try and let us know what you think. And for those of you that aren't in Manhattan on that day, you can still watch the action via webcam.

I flew out to New York last week to try it myself. R/GA gave me a behind-the-scenes tour of the setup, and I was impressed by how they pulled this off. A caller's voice is sent through the phone system, directly into a small farm of real Droids running voice search that are connected to the big outdoor electronic displays! R/GA developers made use of the Android voice recognition API just like any Android developer can.

It's been quite a ride for the search by voice team -- from launching on the iPhone about a year ago, to our launches on BlackBerry and Android, and on S60 in Mandarin Chinese, to powering billboards in Times Square. We're thankful for the chance to work on technology that excites us and that can help more of you search faster and more easily on your phone. And we hope you've been noticing the ongoing improvements in the accuracy of our voice recognition. We can't wait to show you what we have in store for next year.

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Posted by Mike LeBeau, Senior Software Engineer

Keithley Sells RF Product Line to Agilent

Big news yesterday in the RF test and measurement world as Agilent agreed to purchase all of Keithley's RF test product line. It appears that these products were not profitable for Keithley in the short-term so they were turned into cash as they expect to receive proceeds of approximately $9 M and to realize a pre-tax gain in the range of $2.5 to $3.5 M during its first quarter (ending this year) as a result of the sale. It also seems that all workers at the Santa Rosa design center have been offered jobs with Agilent�s Santa Rosa-based Electronic Measurement Group as the Keithley location on Aviation Boulevard will become an Agilent facility next month which is good news for the employees. The official news item is linked above.

On the final day of the M2M Business Exchange in Brussels the issue of mHealth was brought into focus in a number of presentations (*listed below) covering issues such as standardisation, reimbursement, user acceptance, mHealth communities and aiding healthcare in developing countries.

At the end of the session Chair, Marc Sauter, director of strategy at Cinterion Wireless, summarised the key points that had been raised and highlighted the challenges that need to be addressed.

He began, �The sessions offered a comprehensive and detailed overview of the mHealth market from a number of different angles. What is clear is that we have a complex eco-system and value chain in the healthcare market, which, as has been demonstrated throughout this conference, is reflected throughout the entire M2M market.

�A key issue is the standardisation process, which is crucial for the success of mobile health. But since the official standardisation is struggling the likelihood is that standards will increasingly be developed by companies. As was mentioned[1] Microsoft, Intel, General Electric and others are active here.�

Another issue raised was the channels for reimbursement for mHealth services with the example given that if a patient receives a service via telemonitoring there can be a different means of reimbursement from the health service or insurance company than if that patient had visited the doctor in person, although the service was comparable.

Sauter then maintained that the ease of use and functionality of devices will determine user acceptance. He said, �This is particularly pertinent in the mHealth sector where often the users are elderly people or very young people who are not familiar with the latest technologies. We have to take that into consideration when designing devices. Also, as has been said several times during this conference, with regards to user acceptance a question that always has to be asked is: can you trust the system?

Also discussed was the creation of mHealth communities in cities, regions and provinces whereby all the players work together to share data, share information and their experiences and create a unique, tailored service.

With regards to the development and implementation of mHealth technology he referred to a presentation[2], which raised a number of issues. These included defining the set of data that needs to be monitored. In particular it is crucial at the beginning to get this definition right in order to get the right diagnosis. Then there has to be acceptance of the device and the system, alongside data security and privacy and the definition of guidelines and processes on how to use and implement the technology. And as commercial companies developing systems and providing services need to make money, business cases need to be developed.

Sauter commented, �The M2M technology is there. We have cellular/platforms, mobile operators[3] say they have services in place and we have service providers offering services today. But we have to be more informative so that the end users and doctors know what to do with it.�

With regards to implementation, specific mHealth projects[4] are already in operation with encouraging results. Sauter commented, �Such projects show just what the potential is for mHealth and I think it should encourage us to go further down the line.�

He continued, �It was made clear in presentations that the eco-system will develop. The younger generation of doctors and patients will emerge that are used to playing around with iPhones and other devices, that will enable them to better adopt new technologies. New healthcare patterns will emerge.

�mHealth is not just about the health monitoring of patients but can also assist in healthier and more comfortable living[5]. It has a role to play in staying fit and can offer piece of mind too. Telemonitoring can also provide health information to doctors about patients in their own environment without the stress of travel, waiting in surgeries etc, and provide more accurate data, leading to better treatment.�

In a global context the issue of bringing better healthcare to developing countries was raised[6]. Examples were given whereby mobile phone services or applications of the phone can help to improve the healthcare situation. Here, GSM, GPRS and HSPA technologies are all being utilised for mHealth applications.

Summing up Sauter said, �The mHealth revolution is going to be very significant and a huge market. We all need to work hard to develop this market to its full potential.�

*Presentations
1. mHealth initiative � introducing the mHealth revolution and its impact on healthcare strategies, Peter Waegemann, executive director, mHealth Initiative
2. Examining the latest technology for monitoring the elderly, ill or disabled, Maurice Zembra, general manager, Medical Data Transfer
3. mHealth � new business perspectives for mobile operators, Marc Sauter, director of strategy, Cinterion Wireless
4. Understanding how Virga Jessa Hospital in Hasselt, in collaboration with Belgium Social Security has developed a monitoring strategy for patients with chronic diseases, Prof. Paul Dendale, cardiologist, Heart Centre Hasselt, Belgium
5. How can mobile technology support remote diagnostic measures and how can it support the boom of elders who want to prolong the good life at home?, Bjorn Tellefsen, director M2M, Devoteam Telecom
6. Examining Vodafone�s role in founding the mHealth initiative, Caroline Dewing, external relations, Vodafone Group

Richard Mumford

Get movie trailers and more with Google Search for mobile

Heads up, movie fans -- today we've launched a mobile version of our new Google Search results for movies, which makes it easier to plan a trip to the movies. Just go to google.com in the web browser on your iPhone, Palm WebOS, or Android-powered device, search for "movies", and then tap on the "More movies" link. From there, you can either browse a list of movies or select the "Theaters" button to browse a list of theaters near you.

Our new movie listings page now includes buttons to play trailers right on your phone, ratings and categories, movie posters, upcoming showtimes, and a concise list of the nearest theaters and their distances from you. We keep information on this page succinct so you can quickly browse through shows and showtimes to help you decide which movie to see. If you want more details about a specific movie, just touch the poster or movie title and you'll see our new movie details page that has a synopsis of the movie, a more detailed list of showtimes, the cast and crew, and pictures. Watch our trailer for a quick demo:



When you browse by theater, you'll see a map of the theaters nearest to you. Then, just tap on the link to any particular theater to see what shows are playing there and what times they're playing. Of course, you can also search for specific movies or theaters and see their listings right away. Try searching for recent movies like "New Moon" or "Where the Wild Things Are" or search for "glendale 18 los angeles".

If you enjoy searching for movies with Google nearly as much as we have during testing, then this will be the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Our new search results for movies are available in English in the US, UK, Canada, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand. As always, let us know your feedback. This conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye.

Posted by Nick Fey, User Experience Designer, Google mobile team

The Iterative Web App: A new look for Gmail and Google mobile web apps

On April 7th, we announced a new version of Gmail for mobile for iPhone and Android-powered devices. Among the improvements was a complete redesign of the web application's underlying code which allows us to more rapidly develop and release new features that users have been asking for, as explained in our first post. We'd like to introduce The Iterative Webapp, a series where we will continue to release features for Gmail for mobile. Today: A new look for our buttons and toolbars.

Some of you noticed and asked us about recent changes we made to Gmail for mobile and a few of our other mobile web apps. If you use the web browser to access Gmail, Latitude, Calendar, or Tasks on your Android-powered device or iPhone, you'll see that we freshened up the look of the buttons and toolbars.

We never want the buttons and toolbars of Google apps to compete with your content; rather, they should complement them. So the headers and buttons are now darker, to better show the content of your emails and calendar entries.

We also made the all the buttons a bit larger, for easier button-tapping.

To try these apps yourself, point your mobile browser to Gmail (gmail.com), Calendar (google.com/calendar), Latitude (google.com/latitude), Tasks (gmail.com/tasks), or just go to google.com from you phone and find all these web apps under the 'more' link.

Is this an improvement? Let us know what you think.

by Charles Warren, User Experience Designer, Google Mobile

Google Apps Connector for BlackBerry Enterprise Server now connects businesses of all sizes

(Cross posted from the Google Enterprise Blog)

When we launched the Google Apps Connector for BlackBerry® Enterprise Server in August, we focused on addressing the needs of companies operating their own BlackBerry Enterprise Servers, typically supporting a couple hundred BlackBerry smartphone users per server.

Of course, companies of all sizes are adopting Apps, and their needs for supporting BlackBerry smartphones are as diverse as their businesses. So today we're making it easier for companies large and small to manage their BlackBerry smartphones and save money.

With Google Apps Connector for BES version 1.5, large businesses can now support 500 BlackBerry devices per server, double the previous number. This lets them serve more users with fewer servers.

Small businesses get more flexibility too. The Apps Connector now supports BlackBerry Professional Software, which is designed for up to 30 BlackBerry smartphones. We've also made it possible for a single BlackBerry Enterprise Server to serve users in multiple Google Apps domains, enabling low cost hosting services to be offered by our hosting partners.

Stay tuned for more announcements from partners offering hosting services for Apps customers with BlackBerry smartphones. In the meantime, we're going to continue to make it easier for you to manage mobile devices of all types with Google Apps.

Posted by Zhengping Zuo, Software Engineer and Darrell Kuhn, Site Reliability Engineer

Happy Thanksgiving Travels: Google Maps Navigation now available for Android 1.6

A few weeks ago we launched Google Maps Navigation (Beta) as a free feature of Google Maps on Android 2.0 devices. Today we're expanding availability of Google Maps Navigation to devices running Android 1.6 (Donut) and higher, such as the T-Mobile myTouch 3G and the G1.

Google Maps Navigation is an internet-connected GPS system with voice guidance and automatic rerouting, all running on your mobile phone. Using Google services over your phone's data connection brings important benefits to GPS navigation users, like using Google search (typed or spoken) to enter your destination; fresh map, business, and traffic data; and satellite and Street View imagery along your route.

This release also includes the new Layers feature, which lets you overlay geographical information on the map. View My Maps, transit lines, Wikipedia articles about places, and more.

So if you're traveling this Thanksgiving, you'll be able to enjoy the benefits of an internet connection, whether it's free Wi-Fi at the airport or Google Maps Navigation in your car.

If you have a phone running Android 1.6, you can download an updated version of Google Maps from Android Market to use Navigation today. Google Maps Navigation is in beta and is currently available in the United States. Some features of Android 2.0 are not available on Android 1.6, for example, the ability to use the "navigate to" voice command as shown in our demo video. However, you can still create a shortcut that will allow you to launch Navigation and start getting directions to a specific place from your current location with just a single touch from your home screen. For example, you can create a "Home" shortcut to quickly navigate home, no matter where you are. Just use the "Add" menu item from the home screen, then choose "Shortcuts", then "Directions." Please visit our forum to give us feedback, or our Help Center to get help using Google Maps Navigation.

Posted by Michael Siliski, Product Manager

M2M Business Exchange � Smart Thinking For The Future

Smart meters and the home was a key topic at the M2M Business Exchange in Brussels with speakers covering such areas as the creation of revenue streams, the role of mobile operators, the use of integrated technology and how smart metering can help reduce carbon emissions.

Setting the scene as chair of the Smart Meters & Homes session, Gary Thomas, director of PracticaPro, referred to a recent report from Pike Research that estimated that there would be more than 250 million smart meters installed worldwide by 2010.

Thomas stated that, �The opportunity for consumers to take control of their energy usage, reduce their global footprint and therefore help achieve global emission reduction targets is the really exciting part of smart metering.�

He continued, �Things get even more interesting when you start to think about how smart meters might integrate into the wider smart grid. Potentially they have to communicate with network operators, a whole raft of consumer appliances, electric vehicles, microgeneration units etc., and that integration is where the power of smart meters is unleashed.

�But standing in the way of those benefits are a whole raft of technical, commercial and regulatory, social and data security issues, not to mention the small matter of how to engage consumers in the drive for better energy efficiency.�

In his presentation titled Creating additional revenue streams from smart metering, Rich Hampshire, UK utilities practice lead at Logica, maintained that we need smart metering because climate change, population growth and the availability of primary fuels mean that how we satisfy our energy needs is changing and that delivering sustainable, affordable, secure energy requires action.

He highlighted that today�s challenges were to match demand by increasing generating capacity, addressing the intermittency of renewables, local balancing for decentralised generation and infrastructure development to handle load.

Hampshire identified a key objective as being to engage customers through various approaches, including fiscal stimuli, environmental incentives and rewarding them for behavioural change. He also outlined the importance of utilising the multimedia world to engage consumers and simplify interaction.

Environmental issues came under the spotlight when Maher Chebbo, vice president utilities Europe, Middle East and Africa for SAP, and also chairman of the EU Smart Grids Demands & Smart Metering Group considered, How is Smart Metering ICT contributing to the 2020 goal of radically reducing carbon emissions.

He began by giving five �energy insight predictions� � energy efficiency is the �first fuel� choice, Distributed Energy Resources (DER) as a grid support tool, intelligent grid up to $70 billion in 2013, web portals key for active consumers and generators focused on CO2 reduction.

He stated, �The European Commission has fixed clear goals. In Kyoto in 2007 the different goals for energy reduction, for CO2 reduction and the introduction of new renewables were fixed, requiring 20 percent less energy consumption by 2020 compared to the level in 1990. On 7 December in Copenhagen a United Nations conference will again discuss these targets and need to be even more ambitious, not just thinking about objectives for 2020 but by 2050 having reductions of 80 percent compared to 1990.�

He continued, �These targets have to be reached. In Europe the market is open but is not in the US. Since July 1, 2007 every customer in Europe has had the choice to switch to another supplier. This has meant that utilities are having to reach environmental goals while opening up the market, selling some of their businesses and unbundling other businesses. This construct has meant that in recent years some of the investment has been spent on IT in order to get the IT platforms ready for market openness.�

Chebbo posed the question, �What does this mean with regards to Smart Grids?� He proffered, �If you look at the full package from power production to the customer today there is central production and transmission distribution but in the future there will be millions of distributed generators connected to the network. There will be a hub rather than central and linear distribution down to the customer.

�However, the ICT tools to deliver communication technology and services are not ready. We have some models and some experience regarding how to make customers more empowered? But all of these tools have to be revised when you are working in a situation which is not centralinear distribution but you are working in a hub. There has to be completely new thinking as there will be ten times the data that there is today. So, one major aspect of investment in Smart Grids is making these processes available to a wide range of consumers � mostly residential. Smart Grid and smart metering investments are required.

In the presentation, Determining the role of the mobile operator in delivering smart metering, Valerie Le Peltier, director machine to machine verticals for Orange Group, offered another perspective.

�Smart metering is a fantastic opportunity and for us as a telecommunication operator it is also the beginning of a new story. It is the opportunity for rolling out new infrastructures that could be used for other uses and in particular smart city use cases. In some instances new infrastructures will have to be rolled out which, of course, is very complicated, it varies from one country to the next and from one energy to the next.�

Le Peltier commented, �The telecommunication operators are usually called for with regards to the long distance part of the picture and we do want to be there and address the market properly. However, the other area where we think that telecommunications operators can add value is the local data collection network, in particular, rolling out new radio networks that collect such data.�

She added, �As has been mentioned in an earlier presentation GSM might not be appropriate in all cases to connect the meter up to the information system of the utility and also it might not be economically viable to roll out based on GPRS. So, we think there is a business case for advanced radio technologies � mesh networks.

Richard Mumford

Analysts At Dawn � Challenges Facing M2M

Fragmentation, the development of the mass market and standards were key issues raised by the panel, Robin Duke Woolley, Emil Berthelsen and Dave Birch at the Analyst Dawn Briefing held at the M2M Business Exchange in Brussels.

Robin Duke Woolley, founder and CEO of Beecham Research, identified the fragmented nature of the M2M market as being a key issue. He stated. �What�s different about M2M is that it is very fragmented. Due to the broad range of applications there is a broad range of different technologies that can be used to find solutions in the M2M space. So, what tends to happen is that suppliers focus on technology areas that they are familiar with and therefore they only see a very small part of the overall picture.

�Cellular operators and hardware suppliers operate in one part of the market, the Ethernet and broadband suppliers operate in a different part, as do ZigBee, Bluetooth and RFID providers. However, when you put them all together it is quite a substantial area of activity. Add to that the end user and what he is using this stuff for and it is a very significant market.�

That significant market is growing apace and Dave Birch, director of Consult Hyperion, commented, �What is interesting at the moment is the emergence of a mass market and I believe there are four characteristics of a mass market. It has to be accessible, automatic, authorised and authentic. All of those four factors have to be in place.�

Of the four he identified authorisation as being, �the real problem and that is where there are some cracks in the foundations.� He continued, �There is danger that some of the basic security standards don�t get added on until afterwards.�

�Also, I think that how devices search and whether they are allowed to talk to each other is problematical. We know about the problem of authenticity. We understand how to put signatures etc and we tend to focus on the easy things but have probably put off some of the more difficult issues for too long and need to be tackling them.�

Robin Duke Woolley raised the issue of standards saying, �One of the problems with standards in the M2M space isn�t helped by the fact that there are so many different sectors and so many different devices involved in the market, each within a different industrial sector.� He added, �Attempts to achieve interoperability across industry sectors have not moved very far.�

Berthelsen, manager at Analysys Mason observed, �There is an analogy between mobile applications enterprises and M2M. In mobile enterprises one of the focus areas was creating a platform onto which the applications could be launched with the remote devices. The important element here is the ability of the middleware platform to allow people to link to any device across any network at any time. And that is pretty much an ideal scenario that needs to be transferred to the M2M sector.�
During the session there was only time to touch briefly on key issues, so Berthelsen posed the question, �The M2M market in Europe may be growing by 25 to 30 percent per annum but how do we support the market and help it evolve in the coming years?�

Richard Mumford

Get mobile coupons through Local Search

Since we launched printable coupons on Google Maps a few years ago, people are increasingly using their mobile phones to find local information when they're away from a computer. With more of you going mobile to search for this information, it makes sense for coupons to go mobile too.

So just in time for the holidays, we've made it easier to find discounts when you're on the go. If a business adds a mobile coupon to its Google Local Business Center listing, you'll be able to access it from your mobile device. Just go to google.com on your phone and search for a local business. When you land on its Place Page, you'll see any coupons or discounts that might be available. Then simply show the participating business the coupon, right from your phone, to redeem the offer.

We hope you find these mobile coupons useful and that they help you save money, trees (fewer printed coupons), and your hands (from paper cuts) when you're on the go. Mobile coupons are currently only available in the US. For more information check out the Lat Long Blog.

Posted by Alex Gawley, Product Manager

M2M Business Exchange � Providing Services

Our International Editor, Richard Mumford, visited the M2M Business Exchange in Brussels, Belgium and had the following review with additional posts following this one.

At the opening of the M2M Business Exchange, the conference chairman for the first day, Robin Duke Woolley, founder and CEO of Beecham Research, offered a perspective of the M2M sector when he commented, �The M2M market is all about connected services. It is not about devices. It is not about technology. It is not about infrastructure. It is a means to the end of providing end user services.�

He added, �We are talking about a change in the business of the supply of the devices and the services that surround those devices. We are talking about a change for the end suppliers of those devices in the marketplace.�

He also emphasized that such issues would be under discussion during the two-day conference, which followed on from the one-day pre-conference workshops. He referred to a chart titled: M2M World of Connected Systems, which segmented the market into the nine sectors � Building, Energy, Consumer & Home, Healthcare & Life Sciences, Industrial, Transportation, Retail, Security/Public Safety and IT & Networks � that are key areas of activity, almost all of which are topics of the M2M Business Exchange.

This prompted Robin Duke Woolley to state, �One of the things that is impressive about this conference is its depth of coverage with presentations related to buildings, a number of papers covering energy, consumer and home is a theme that runs through the conference and healthcare will also be discussed. Industrial topics will be covered, alongside transportation and telematics and security and public safety.�

The conference is designed to bring together the entire M2M business chain and aims to address the business models and strategies relating to wireless connected devices. Its scope means that it has attracted 130 registered attendees made up of M2M developers, M2M adopters and end users, wireless module providers, sensor equipment providers, systems integrators, sensor equipment providers, SIM card manufacturers and technology partners.

Throughout the two days there are keynote presentations, tracts dedicated to specific topics, exclusive discussion sessions, analyst briefings and interactive debates. To offer a technological perspective a small showcase exhibition has attracted key players including Cinterion Wireless Modules, Belgacom, Devoteam Telecom, and Tridium.

Richard Mumford

New Google News for mobile

At Google, we are committed to giving you a consistent user experience across products and devices, and we really value the feedback you've given us about Google News for mobile. Today we're excited to announce a completely new Google News offering for iPhone, Android, and Palm Pre users. (We already offer a mobile-optimized version of Google News for other phones, such as Blackberry, Windows Mobile, and S60, and more improvements will be coming to those in the near future)

This new version provides the same richness and personalization on your phone as Google News provides on desktop. Our new homepage displays more stories, sources, and images while keeping a familiar look and feel. Also, you can now reach your favorite sections, discover new ones, find articles and play videos in fewer clicks. If you are an existing Google News reader on desktop, you will find that all of your personalizations are honored in this mobile version too.

Google News for mobile is now available in 29 languages and 70 editions.

So pick up your mobile phone and point your browser to http://news.google.com to catch up on news anytime and anywhere. Feel free to check out more information or leave feedback in our Help Center.

Posted by Ankit "Chunky" Gupta and Alok Goel, Mobile News Team

YouTube APIs + App Engine = YouTube Direct

When choosing a platform to power a new application that will be used by popular media sites, some of the criteria we look for are scalability, ease of deployment, and ease of management. As with the nature of news and media, traffic can go up and down without much warning and getting new content out of the door quickly is the name of the game. App Engine has greatly simplified development and deployment of YouTube Direct, a new tool built on YouTube's open APIs that allows media organizations to request, review, and re-broadcast user-submitted videos by embedding the upload functionality of YouTube directly into their own sites. By using the Google Plugin for Eclipse to "click and deploy" new code changes and App Engine's admin console to manage application data, our launch partners -- most of which had never used App Engine before -- were able to easily deploy their own instances of YouTube Direct.

To date, media organizations like The Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, NPR, The Huffington Post and ABC's Good Morning America are using YouTube Direct powered by App Engine's Java runtime and we hope more organizations take advantage of the platform. Visit YouTube Direct's developer page to learn more about it. The project's source is also available on Google Code.

Guest post by Amanda Surya, YouTube Direct team

High Growth Areas Projected in the RFID Market

I have been wondering for the last year or so why RFID applications have not been deployed more widely in various industries. I am sure the financial situation has not helped but RFID seems to have a good ROI in many situations. But maybe I am over optimistic and the costs are really higher than I perceive.

ABI has just issued a new report on how RFID is being used or trialed in a variety of industries. Global economic conditions and business necessities have resulted in mixed outcomes but they have identified the three most promising hot-spots as the retail apparel segment, asset management, and active RFID (in a number of verticals).

�2009 has confirmed those assessments,� says RFID practice director Michael Liard. �All three of these RFID application and technology areas have shown strong growth, and today account for 9.3% of the total RFID market, with combined revenues of more than half a billion dollars. We expect the trend to continue in 2010 and beyond: apparel, asset management and active RFID should show a 12.7% combined compound annual growth rate through 2014, outpacing the overall RFID market growth. This is considered strong growth given the level of maturity of many RFID-based asset management applications.�

The adoption of item-level RFID in the fashion apparel market is graduating from pilot testing to full-scale deployment. While installations at Marks and Spencer in the United Kingdom, American Apparel in the US, and Charles V�gele in Switzerland remain the largest contributors to market growth, scores of companies are now in various stages of implementation.

A few years ago at RFID Journal Live I was a part of a demonstration of what we called the "Magic Mirror" that would read tagged apparel and display all of the item details on a screen (intended to be placed next to on within the mirror in a changing room). The display would show all of the colors that were available, the construction and material details and other details about the item. It would also recommend other items or accessories that would match well with the item being tried on (e.g. a nice tie or scarf to go with the shirt or perhaps matching pants or skirts). I thought at the time this would be an immediate hit and prove to enhance sales tremendously.

ABI also thinks asset tracking and management is showing particular applicability to work-in-process tracking, including spare parts and tools; Returnable Transport Items (RTIs); IT asset management; medical assets, rental item management (library books, media, laundry, etc.); and yard management.

They also state that active RFID-based solutions, including real-time location systems (RTLS), is expected to experience solid growth in a number of verticals, such as healthcare, manufacturing, aerospace and defense, transportation, and commercial services, in support of asset tagging, people tracking, and more.

An update to Google Earth for the iPhone

Cross-posted from the Google Lat Long blog

Just over one year ago, we unveiled Google Earth for the iPhone and iPod touch. Google Earth quickly became one of the most popular applications in the App Store, and after only six months, was the second most-downloaded free application overall. A big thank-you to the over 220,000 users have taken the time to write a review!

Today, we're proud to announce version 2.0 of Google Earth for iPhone. We've added some exciting new features, including the ability to view maps that you create on your desktop computer right from your iPhone, explore the app in new languages, and improved icon selection and performance.

View your maps wherever you go
Have you ever wanted to view a custom map with Google Earth on your iPhone? Well, now you can. By logging in directly to your Google Maps account, you can view the same maps that you or others have created, using the My Maps interface. Maybe you're on a trip and want to see where Tony Wheeler, the co-founder of Lonely Planet, most likes to travel. Or perhaps you're walking around looking for a restaurant and you want to see where world-famous chef Ferran Adrià likes to eat. All you have to do is click "Save to My Maps", open Earth on the iPhone, log in with the same account information, and voilà, you have your same collection of My Maps right in your pocket.



It's fun to create and view your own maps as well. Here's an example of a map that I created that shows the two attempts my friends and I made to summit Mount Ritter in the Sierra Nevada mountain range. As you can see, we didn't quite make it (the red line is the intended route, and the blue and green lines are our 2008 and 2009 attempts, respectively). Next year we'll get it for sure! I created this map by using the desktop version of Google Earth to read the tracks directly out of my GPS device, saving the resulting tracks as a KML file, and then importing into My Maps in Google Maps. You can learn more about My Maps here.

Browse businesses, photos, and places more easily

Browsing the world from the palm of your hand can be a thrilling experience, and viewing photos, Wikipedia articles, and place information is a great way to discover new parts of the globe. With the latest version of Google Earth for iPhone, we've made this even easier. Now, when you touch an icon, a small glow appears under your finger to let you know which icon you have picked. If your finger touches more than one icon, you'll be taken to a list of all icons, so you can select the one you are interested in.

New languages

We've also included new languages in this release, bringing the total to 31 languages from the original 18. The complete list of languages is: English (U.S), English (UK), French (France), German, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Danish, Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian, Korean, Japanese, Russian, Polish, Turkish, Ukrainian, Arabic, Thai, Czech, Greek, Hebrew, Indonesian, Malaysian, Romanian, Slovak, and Croatian.

We hope you enjoy our latest release. Please note that the app will be rolling out around the world over the next twenty-four hours - if you don't see it immediately, be sure to check back soon. You can download Google Earth for iPhone here.

Posted by Peter Birch, Product Manager, Google Earth

And the award goes to...

Some impressive milestones in the world of Microwave semiconductors were noted this week. Here's a glimpse of some of the noteable announcements

RFMD announced the receipt of its first purchase order from a tier-one wireless base station original equipment manufacturer (OEM) for a product featuring RFMD's state-of-the-art gallium nitride (GaN) process technology. The purchase order is for RFMD's RFG1M09180 180 W GaN broadband power transistor (BPT) and is in support of the global expansion of 4G wireless networks.

NXP Semiconductor touted their ranking at the top of the latest Vendor Matrix released by ABI Research.

The Strategy Analytics RF & Wireless Component market research service predicts that the market for power amplifiers (PA) in cellphones and related mobile devices will grow to $2.8 B over the next five years, in the report, �Cellular PA Forecast 2009 - 2014.�

TriQuint was one of five companies recognized by Raytheon at the four-star level; this is the second consecutive year that TriQuint was honored with a Raytheon SAS Supplier Excellence Award (SEA).

Peregrine Semiconductor, announced that they were the recipient of a 2009 TechAmerica �High Tech� Award.

802.15.4 Chipset Market to Approach $155 Million in 2014

I really find the ABI Research and Strategy Analytics reports interesting as many of them focus on applications within our industry. ABI has stated that over the next five years, 802.15.4 chipset shipments will underpin a host of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) across home, building and industrial building automation, as well as Advanced Meter Infrastructures. This will help fuel the growth of the 802.15.4 chipset WSNs market from just over $10 million in 2008 to nearly $155 million in 2014, a Compound Annual Growth Rate of 87.9% over the period.

They say that wireless is set to become a key development in the transition to smart energy management. ZigBee � just one of a myriad communication protocols to leverage 802.15.4 silicon � is already the target of a great deal of investment for building management systems in residential and commercial building markets, with a range of projects and specifications leveraging the specification. There is increasing emphasis on energy management for a host of reasons. The availability of standardized 802.15.4 semiconductors to support widespread availability and support for WSNs to support these projects will help strengthen demand further.

I recently noticed another standard, DASH7, that intends to compete with ZigBee and active RFID. DASH7 is a new wireless sensor networking technology that evolved from a combination of existing radio-frequency identification and sensing technologies operating at 433 MHz. The underlying layers of DASH7 technology follow the globally implemented ISO 18000-7 standard and it uses less power with better range than ZigBee according to the DASH7 Alliance.

I do think next year will be the time some of these protocols start to take off as Bluetooth did this past year. Which applications do you think will grow the fastest?

Univ of Utah Figures Out Cloaking and Seeing Through Walls

There has been some very interesting work going on at University of Utah - I was not aware that they were doing so much work in this area. They reported what appears to be the first active cloaking method for various types of waves including microwaves and a low cost radio tomography method to image through walls.

Active Cloaking:
In recent years, scientists devised and tested various cloaking schemes. Experiments so far have been limited to certain wavelengths such as microwaves and infrared light, and every method tried so far has limitations. "We have shown that it is numerically possible to cloak objects of any shape that lie outside the cloaking devices, not just from single-frequency waves, but from actual pulses generated by a multi-frequency source," says Graeme Milton, senior author of the research and a distinguished professor of mathematics at the University of Utah.

Most previous research used interior cloaking, where the cloaking device envelops the cloaked object. Milton says the new method "is the first active, exterior cloaking" technique: cloaking devices emit signals and sit outside the cloaked object. Compared with passive cloaking by metamaterials, the new method - which involves generating waves to protect or cloak an object from other waves - can cloak from a broader band of wavelengths. The problem with metamaterials is that their behavior depends strongly on the frequency you are trying to cloak from.

This cloaking method utilizes destructive wave forms so the drawback is that you have to know the characteristics of the incoming waves before the arrive so the exact opposite wave can be transmitted as it arrives.

Here is a link to the full announcement which includes a video.

Radio Tomography:
University of Utah engineers have shown that a low cost wireless network of radio transmitters can track people moving behind solid walls. The system could help police, firefighters and others nab intruders, and rescue hostages, fire victims and elderly people who fall in their homes or even be used in retail marketing and border control.

Their method uses radio tomographic imaging (RTI), which can "see," locate and track moving people or objects in an area surrounded by inexpensive radio transceivers that send and receive signals. They used commercially available ZigBee radios which are low cost and easily available. Several studies were done by placing transmitters around an area and measuring the variations in signal strength as people moved around to demonstrate the concept.

RTI measures radio signal strengths on numerous paths as the radio waves pass through a person or other target unlike radar that measures the reflected signal so it is more like CT or X-ray imaging. The researchers developed math formulas and used them in a computer program to convert attenuated signals - which occur when someone creates "shadows" by walking through the radio signals - into a blob-like, bird's-eye-view image of that person walking. So they were able to get rough images through a wall of people and objects moving around the room.

Here is a link to the full announcement about this subject which also has a video link. Great stuff - if you find any interesting research such as these projects going on, please let us know about them.

Space Data Successfully Completes CDMA Balloon Flights

I had not heard of this company before but Space Data Corporation has announced that last month it conducted successful trials of its CDMA SkySite�, a major milestone in the development of economically practical wireless voice and data communications to large areas with sparse population. It is expected that each SkySite will be able to provide coverage over approximately 20,000 square miles. The use balloon platforms to position basestations in the sky to enable communications in remote areas that do not have coverage.

During two trial flights, a prototype miniaturized CDMA 1X-RTT base station was carried aloft over a remote area in western Utah by the SkySite balloon platform to altitudes as high as 60,000 feet. At that point, the 1900 MHz PCS band BTS was used to carry calls from, to, and between ordinary CDMA handsets located on the ground approximately 60 miles away. Call quality was excellent, with low frame error rates on both the forward and reverse channels. Backhaul was provided by a high capacity digital microwave link operating in the 2.4 GHz band. After completion of each trial, the BTS �payload� was released, parachuted to the ground and recovered intact.

The successful trial confirmed the technical feasibility of serving ordinary wireless handsets from substantial distances using the SkySite system. Applications include serving remote areas of low population densities, �fill-in� for coverage gaps in rural networks, and providing emergency communications in areas where terrestrial systems are out of service due to widespread disaster situations.

I think this is an interesting method for enabling communications in remote areas if it turns out to be as cost effective as they describe. It seems well suited for temporary situations like military operations or disaster situations in remote areas or to increase capacity temporarily in certain emergency situations. It seems like providing long term coverage would hard to justify from a cost perspective.

What do you think?

Community Update: deferred, open source, and more

Here are some of the recent developments from the greater developer community.

deferred.defer

Nick Johnson recently added a new module to the App Engine Python SDK which allows you to use the task queue service to execute deferred function calls. This library requires minimal configuration and makes it even easier to use tasks. Using it is as simple as calling deferred.defer with the function and arguments you want to call - for example:

from google.appengine.ext import deferred
deferred.defer(logging.info, "In a deferred task")

For more details, see the article.

Ruby as a runtime option

The JRuby App Engine project has done a lot of work making spin-up time less painful with the most recent release. They've also had some great contributions from the growing community, such as an Image API that is ImageScience compatible. Ruby programmers can now build applications using familiar tools like Sinatra and DataMapper, while having access to the full set of App Engine APIs for Java. Follow future developments on the jruby-appengine blog and watch for talks by the JRuby App Engine team at upcoming conferences: "Scaling on App Engine with Ruby and Duby" at RubyConf and "JRuby on Google App Engine" at JRubyConf.

An open source alternate environment: TyphoonAE

Open source efforts to provide alternate hosting environments for App Engine applications continue to expand, with the TyphoonAE project joining the existing AppScale project in providing a platform to run App Engine apps. TyphoonAE aims to provide a complete environment for hosting App Engine apps, and so far includes compatible datastore, memcache, task queue and XMPP implementations.

gae-query-pager

Juraj recently created and open sourced a library for the Java runtime which "generate[s] appropriate paging queries from a base query, and then using these queries to page through the data." This is intended to simplify iteration through all of the results in a very large result set.

AEJ Tools

If you love RESTful APIs then it would be worth your while to take a look at AEJ Tools. Their library provides "a server module which provides a Rest style access to your datastore data, and a client module which allows you to run queries remotely using the Groovy interactive console. It can be used to run queries, store new entities or as a data import/export tool."

An open source full text search library

The datastore related libraries just keep right on coming. Full text search is a highly requested feature for App Engine and those behind the open source appengine-search project have create a Python library which "[c]an defer indexing via Task Queue API. Uses Relation index strategy mentioned in Brett Slatkin's Google I/O talk."

Testing framework

Moving beyond the datastore, the developers at geewax have created an advanced testing framwork called GAE Testbed. It covers everything from isolated and quick unit tests to full scale end to end tests and builds on some of the great testing tools for App Engine which are already avilable.

Party Chat

In other news, the folks at techwalla have migrated their party chat app to App Engine and made the source code available. It uses the new XMPP API to simulate a chat room using your favorite XMPP client. You can read more specifics on their blog.

Other open source projects

Check out the open source projects wiki page for more open source App Engine applications and utilities. Since the last posting, nearly 15 new applications have been added, so keep checking in as new projects are added regularly. If you have a project of your own to add, just follow the instructions at the bottom of the same page.

That's brings our community update to a close. We're always interested in hearing about new and interesting projects which use App Engine. If you have something to share, drop us a line.

Posted by Jeff Scudder, App Engine Team

Google Latitude, now with Location History & Alerts

Since the launch of Google Latitude earlier this year, we've been getting a lot of feature requests. One of the most popular ideas was for Latitude to keep track of location history, allowing you (but not your friends) to see where you've been at any point in time. Another popular idea was to notify you when you're near your Latitude friends so you can easily meet up or grab lunch. Today, we're happy to introduce both Google Location History and Google Location Alerts (beta) to let you do even more with Latitude.

Google Location History
Whether you're taking a road trip across the country, backpacking across Europe, or just going out for a night on the town, it's fascinating to look back at where you went, and for how long you stayed. Enable Google Location History to store, view, and manage your past Latitude locations. You can visualize your history on Google Maps and Earth or play back a recent trip in order. Of course, you can always delete selected history or your entire location history at any time. While working on Location History, I found myself going back in time to discover things that would have otherwise been impossible. For example, I stopped at an awesome BBQ place on my way back from Lake Tahoe this summer, but I couldn't remember the name when my friend was asking about it a few months later. I pulled up my location history for that weekend, found where I was stationary on the drive home, and the restaurant name showed up in Google Maps: Drooling Dog Bar BQ. Check it out below:



Google Location Alerts (beta)
People also want to know when their friends were nearby, but it's not always convenient to keep checking Latitude to see if a friend has recently shown up near you. After working on this for a while, we realized it wasn't as straightforward as sending a notification every time Latitude friends were near each other. Imagine that you're Latitude friends with your roommate or co-workers. It would get pretty annoying to get a text message every single time you walked in the door at home or pulled into work. To avoid this, we decided to make Location Alerts smarter by requiring that you also enable Location History. Using your past location history, Location Alerts can recognize your regular, routine locations and not create alerts when you're at places like home or work. Alerts will only be sent to you and any nearby friends when you're either at an unusual place or at a routine place at an unusual time. Keep in mind that it may take up to a week to learn your "unusual" locations and start sending alerts.

To enable these features, go to google.com/latitude/apps. You must first be an existing Google Latitude user; if you're not already, sign up here. You must explicitly enable each feature, and of course, you can disable it at any time. Learn more in the Help Center about Location Alerts and Location History, suggest and vote on ideas in the Mobile Product Ideas page, or report problems in the Mobile Help Forum.

Posted by Chris Lambert, Software Engineer, Google Mobile

Escape to Paradise on Your Phone

Today we're excited to announce the launch of new imagery in Street View. Now when you're daydreaming about exotic vacations (or even planning them!), you can pull up Street View in Google Maps for mobile and explore new locations in Hawaii and Mexico. Hawaii marks the inclusion of all 50 states in the US for Street View coverage. You can check to see where there's parking by Sunset Beach, find benches as you're walking on Waikiki Beach for a peaceful end to your day, or explore Playa del Carmen without a passport. To learn more about this update, and about how to vote for the next location our Street View trike will visit, check out the blog post on Google LatLong. The latest Street View imagery shows automatically in all clients, but to get the latest version of Google Maps for mobile visit m.google.com/maps from your phone. For help with Street View on Google Maps for mobile, check out the Help Center.

Posted by Effie Seiberg, Google Mobile Marketing

NYC subway maps in your pocket with Google Maps for mobile

Hey New Yorkers — looking for somewhere to celebrate the Yankees' 27th World Series title? It's now easier than ever to carry a NYC subway map in your pocket.

A few weeks ago we announced the Layers feature on Google Maps for BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, and Symbian S60. Today we added a layer that overlays NYC subway routes on a map. We hope this will help you quickly navigate the New York City subway system. To see this new layer while viewing a map of New York City, just click the Layers menu and then turn on the Transit Lines layer.

Of course, you can also get step-by-step public transit directions by using the "Get Directions" menu, and then selecting the public transit icon. You can learn more about updates to Google Transit in the United States and Europe on the Google LatLong Blog.

To download the latest version of Google Maps for mobile with Layers, visit m.google.com/maps from your smartphone.

Posted by Ryan Pollock, Product Marketing Manager

Audrey Roy Wins the App Engine + Twilio Developer Contest

Congratulations to Audrey Roy -- her "Price It By Phone" application won the Google App Engine + Twilio developer contest that ran from September 21st to October 4th. Audrey will receive $1000 in Google App Engine credit, and a Dell Netbook from Twilio.

Audrey hacked together her contest submission in under 48 hours after going to an art museum and discovering that the $60 box she wanted was only $37 on Amazon.com. She used the Amazon Product Advertising API to look up the best used and new prices for books by ISBN number, using any touch tone phone.

Look up Amazon.com book prices by calling (877) 265-8137. Enter the book's 10-digit ISBN number after the prompt. The voice will tell you Amazon.com's lowest new and used prices for the book. Then, to see the list of books that you've already price-checked, with links to their Amazon detail pages, enter your phone number at http://price-it.appspot.com.

You can find an interview of Audrey on Twilio's blog.

Thank you to everyone who participated in the contest.

Twilio runs weekly developer contests to encourage developers to explore the many use cases, technologies, and industries where voice applications can provide useful solutions. They announce a new category each Monday along with the previous week's winner. This week's category is "Twilio for Salesforce, with Appirio" and the deadline is midnight on November 19th.

Questions? Drop us a line at help@twilio.com

Guest Post by Danielle Morrill, Director of Marketing, Twilio

Get Google Mobile App at Best Buy stores

If you're a regular reader of the Google Mobile Blog, then you've probably installed or accessed our mobile applications on your phone at one point or another. You may have even shown our applications to your friends and explained how to get them. Or perhaps you've been the recipient of some helpful mobile tips from a friend of yours. In any case, you may have noticed that one of the best ways to discover and get new applications for your phone is through a face-to-face dialog with another person.

We're happy to announce today that we've partnered with Best Buy Mobile to make Google Mobile App available through Best Buy stores in the US. Google Mobile App lets you search by voice and with My Location, and gives you quick access to Google Search, Maps, Gmail, and more. Of course, Google Mobile App is free whether you get it yourself from m.google.com or from Best Buy Mobile. But the difference is that you now have the option to get some help installing the app or to see a live demo of what the application can do. Just go to the mobile department at your nearest Best Buy store and talk to an associate. If you have a BlackBerry, Windows Phone, or S60 phone, they can help install Google Mobile App on your phone. And if you're in the market to buy a new phone, they will help you install the application as part of their Walk Out Working program.

Find out more about this opportunity and to see a map of the nearest Best Buy to you. As always, feel free to leave us comments below or in our forum.


Posted by Andy Mathis and Lawrence Chang, Strategic Partnerships and Product Marketing, Google Mobile team

SA Report - Avago, Eudyna and WIN shake up GaAs rankings

The latest GaAs rankings are out from Strategy Analytics and there were several surprises especially from the international competitors. Avago Technologies, Eudyna Devices and Taiwan�s WIN Semiconductor made impressive gains in GaAs market share in 2008, ascending the top-ten list in the annual Strategy Analytics ranking of the world�s leading GaAs companies. RF Micro Devices remains the leading GaAs vendor by revenue, but its closest rivals - Skyworks Solutions and TriQuint Semiconductor - are pushing this market leader hard.

GaAs Market Share (courtesy of Strategy Analytics)

Lower down the ranks:

� Avago Technologies overtook Anadigics as the fourth-ranked supplier in 2008

� Eudyna stole Mitsubishi Electric�s position as the leading Japanese GaAs vendor

� Fast-growing WIN Semiconductor is neck-and-neck with TriQuint as the largest supplier of GaAs foundry services

�Despite the onset of the global financial crisis, the GaAs industry grew 8% to reach a total value of $4 billion,� said Asif Anwar, Director of the Strategy Analytics GaAs service. �Although the end of the year saw production slump to a near-standstill, Strategy Analytics believes that the GaAs industry hit bottom during the first half of 2009, and has since recovered its former momentum, with no major casualties resulting from the global recession.�

Other findings from "GaAs Device Vendor Market Share 2008: North America" and "GaAs Device Vendor Market Share 2008: Asia Pacific and Europe," include:

� M/A-COM will benefit from its ownership change, and this will help the company challenge competitors moving forwards

� Revenues at Japanese GaAs device manufacturers increased sharply

� UMS cemented its position as the leading European source of GaAs devices.

What do you think of the latest rankings? Do you see any other suppliers making a run at the top ten??

China�s 145 Million Unit Gray Market

Like many other illicit enterprises, China�s vast gray-market cell phone business is one of those things that many know about but few actually discuss it. iSuppli has reported that with gray-market shipments in 2009 set to grow to 145 million units, or nearly 13 percent of the size of the legitimate global cell phone business, the gray market has become too big and too lucrative for the mobile handset supply chain to ignore anymore.

They report that China�s gray market wireless handset shipments are expected to amount to 145 million units in 2009, up 43.6 percent from 101 million in 2008. This will amount to 12.9 percent of the 1.13 billion unit global market for legitimate cell phones. The gray market this year is set to nearly quadruple from 37 million units in 2005. In contrast, worldwide unit shipments of legitimate cell phones will decline by 8 percent in 2009.

By 2013, the gray market will grow to 176 million units, expanding at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 11.7 percent from 2008. The legitimate cell phone market will achieve a CAGR of only 4.4 percent during the same period. The gray market will peak in 2012 at 192 million units. This figure presents iSuppli�s forecast of gray-market cell phone shipments.

Gray-market handsets are cell phones manufactured in China that are not recognized or licensed by government regulators. Makers of these products generally do not pay China�s value-added taxes and, therefore, profit illegally from their participation in the market.Such phones employ fake International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) numbers, which are used by wireless networks to identify valid devices. These phones also do not carry test/quality certifications or network entry permits.

iSuppli says the gray cell phone market long has been a fact of life in China, with domestic demand propelling sales growth. However, the business underwent a fundamental shift in 2008, as domestic shipments began to decline, and exports started to boom. In 2009, exports are expected to exceed domestic shipments by a factor of more than three to one. These exports are starting to impact the sales of legitimate established global players.

With its large size and rapid growth, the gray cell phone market has become a major revenue driver for suppliers of semiconductors and other components. While MediaTek is one of the primary suppliers of semiconductors to the gray market, many other makers of semiconductors for legitimate handset OEMs also sell to gray-market manufacturers. However, the chips sold into the gray market often do not meet quality specifications of mainstream handsets. While this represents a lucrative opportunity for these semiconductor suppliers, it does come with some risks.

What do you think of the gray market and its affects on the legitimate market???

Introducing Google Analytics for Mobile Apps

Last week, we introduced expanded mobile reporting features in Google Analytics. To help developers, this launch includes features that make it easy to see how people are using specific parts of their iPhone and Android applications. The same Google Analytics reports that provide insights into website traffic and engagement are now available for mobile apps.

As with websites, there are two basic categories of user interaction you can track: pageviews and events. Since mobile apps don't contain HTML pages, developers simply determine when their apps should trigger pageview requests. Google Analytics then aggregates this data in the Content reports to display the number of visits, session length and bounce rates. The data gives insight into how your users interacted with the app.
Developers can also track visitor actions that don't correspond directly to pageviews using Event Tracking. These user actions can include views of embedded videos, button clicks, downloads and more. App developers can then use this data to understand which features are most popular and inform decisions about which features should be promoted or prioritized for further development.
Redfin, an online brokerage for buying and selling homes, recently tested Google Analytics on their mobile application. Watch this video to learn more about their experience:



To get started using Google Analytics to understand and optimize how people use your iPhone or Android mobile app, check out the SDK and technical documentation.

Posted by Meredith Papp, Google mobile ads team

Google Search by voice travels the world, finds Nokia, learns Chinese

(cross-posted with Official Google Blog)

Google Search by voice has grown up quickly. Some might say that search by voice has matured from a toddler to a tween. It's certainly been traveling across the English-speaking world and getting better at understanding a range of accents, from the US, UK, India, and Australia. Today it's taking another big step — we're happy to announce that Google search by voice is available for Nokia S60 phones, and now understands Mandarin Chinese.

Nokia S60 phones are popular around the world. If you have an Nseries or Eseries phone such as the N95 or E71, you're using S60. Many of these phones have 12-digit keypads — good for making calls, but not so easy when you need to type a few words. Many of you have asked if we could build our search by voice feature for these phones, and we've been working on this feature for a while.

The new version of Google Mobile App places a shortcut to Google search on your Nokia phone's home screen, allowing you to search using your voice or by typing. You can search for anything — from "movie times", to "fish 'n chips", to "masala dosa." It doesn't matter if you're in London or Bangalore: we'll use your location to give you nearby results. And Google Mobile App shows search results in the application, so you don't have to wait for a web browser to launch to get an answer.

Although it has taken a little while to get this release ready, we have been planning the launch for some time as you can see from this footage from the archives.



Up until now voice search has only been available in English, but the new version of Google Mobile App for Nokia S60 devices works for Mandarin speakers, too. We're really proud of the work we've done with Mandarin speech recognition, both because it's the most spoken language in the world, and because of the engineering challenge. To get Mandarin speech recognition to work, we had to learn a lot about this fascinating language — the differences between traditional and simplified Chinese, its tonal characteristics, automatic segmentation of text into words, pinyin representations of Chinese characters, sandhi rules, the different accents and languages in China, unicode representations of Chinese character sets...the list goes on and on.

Mandarin speakers can now search by voice for complex queries like 清华大学附近的水煮鱼 (which translates to "water-boiled fish near Tsinghua University"). Although this only works on the Nokia S60 at the moment, we're working on adding support for Mandarin speech recognition to our products on other mobile platforms, such as Android and iPhone. And bear in mind that this is a first version of our system in Mandarin, and it might not be as polished as our English version. For example, if you have a strong southern Chinese accent, it might not work as well as for people with a Beijing accent. However, our system will improve over time, so please give it a try!


Google Mobile App in Mandarin Chinese

Note that the application is for version 3 of Nokia S60 - more recent phones running version 5 (touch screen) are not yet supported.

To download the new version of Google Mobile App on your Nokia S60 phone, visit m.google.com from your phone's browser. For questions and support, visit our Help Forum.

Posted by Elke Michlmayr, Software Engineer