Instant Previews now available on mobile

(Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog)

Instant Previews provides a fast and interactive way to evaluate search results. Starting today, Google Instant Previews is available on mobile for Android (2.2+) and iOS (4.0+) devices across 38 languages. Similar to the desktop version of Instant Previews, you can visually compare search results from webpage snapshots, making it easier to choose the right result faster, especially when you have an idea of the content you’d like to see.

For example, if you’re looking for a webpage that has both photos and descriptions, you can use Instant Previews to quickly identify these pages by navigating across the visual search results with a few swipes of your finger. Or perhaps you’re looking for an article, a step-by-step instructions list, or a product comparison chart—with Instant Previews, you can easily spot pages with the right content without having to navigate back and forth between websites and search results. And when the mobile version of a website is available, we’ll show you a preview of the mobile page.

To use Instant Previews on your mobile device, do a search on www.google.com and tap on the magnifying glass next to any search result. A side-by-side comparison view of the webpage previews for the first page of search results will appear. When you find a result you like, tap on the preview to go straight to the website. It’s as easy as finding a recipe for poaching an egg:

You can learn more about Instant Previews for mobile in our Help Center. We hope that you enjoy finding the right result faster with Instant Previews!

Posted by Brian Ngo, Software Engineer, Mobile Search team

Implementing Workflows on App Engine with Fantasm

This post is another entry in our ongoing series of guest posts contributed by App Engine developers. Today we partner with Jason Collins and Shawn Rusaw of VendAsta Technologies who discuss their simplistic workflow management system for Python App Engine called Fantasm. Fantasm is very simple to start using but incredibly powerful. So powerful in fact, that they couldn't fit it into one blog post. So for more detail, see the Implementing Workflows on App Engine with Fantasm article in our documentation.

Most software systems of reasonable size need to implement workflows: a series of processing steps and decision points over an artifact, typically a document. You are likely using workflows even if you don't realize it; often processing is built up iteratively over time until you're left with a complex system with lots of subtleties. These systems can mysterious and difficult to manage or extend.

A formal workflow engine can offer help in these instances. It allows developers to break the steps and decision points into manageable and testable chunks, so that processing is predictable and measurable. Workflow engines can offer visibility into system operations and metrics around execution times and failure points. They provide retry mechanisms and allow tasks to be distributed among multiple computers.

We have developed Fantasm to be just such a workflow engine. Fantasm is a Python library that allows you to specify your tasks and steps between those tasks in a YAML configuration file. It uses a finite state machine model where the tasks are states and the steps are transitions. As a developer, you implement the code that executes inside of a state and are only responsible to return an event that is used to identify the appropriate transition to the next state. It is similar to the App Engine Pipeline API but is more simplistic and serves as a user-friendly introduction to the concept of workflows in App Engine apps.

Fantasm has become the central processing tool within our organization and we hope it can be of help to yours. For a more in-depth look at Fantasm (including examples!), please see the full Implementing Workflows on App Engine with Fantasm article in the App Engine documentation.

Posted by Wesley Chun, App Engine team

You’ve got better things to do than wait in traffic

Ever been stuck in traffic, only to find out you’d have been better off going a bit out of your way to take a less congested route? If you’re like me, you probably hear the traffic report telling you what you already know: traffic is bad on the road you’re currently on, and you should have taken another. It doesn’t need to be this way, and we want to help. So we’re happy to announce that Google Maps Navigation (Beta) will now automatically route you around traffic. With more than 35 million miles driven by Navigation users every day, this should add up to quite a bit of time saved!

On a recent trip to New York, I was running late to meet some friends at the Queens Museum of Art. I had no idea that there was a traffic jam along the route I would normally have taken. Thankfully, Navigation routed me around traffic. I didn’t even have to know that there was a traffic jam on I-495, and I got to enjoy a much faster trip on I-278 instead.

Navigation now uses real-time traffic conditions to automatically route you around traffic.

You don’t have to do anything to be routed around traffic; just start Navigation like you normally would, either from the Navigation app or from within Google Maps. Before today, Navigation would choose whichever route was fastest, without taking current traffic conditions into account. It would also generate additional alternate directions, such as the shortest route or one that uses highways instead of side roads. Starting today, our routing algorithms will also apply our knowledge of current and historical traffic to select the fastest route from those alternates. That means that Navigation will automatically guide you along the best route given the current traffic conditions.

Not only can you save time and fuel, you’re making traffic better for everyone else by avoiding traffic jams. Keep in mind that we can’t guarantee that Navigation will be able to find a faster way, but it will always try to get you where you’re going as fast as possible.

You can begin routing around traffic with Google Maps Navigation for Android in North America and Europe where both Navigation and real-time traffic data are available.

Enjoy your newly found free time!

Posted by Roy Williams, Software Engineer, Google Maps Team