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Google Starts Adding Flight Schedules And Airline Routes In Search


We know that Google has big ambitions for flight search, as the search giant dropped $700 million on travel search software developer ITA Software. Today, the company just announced a few new flight search features that have been integrated into search (but do not use ITA’s technology….yet).

Now, when you search for a destination on Google, you can see which airlines serve that specific route and when they fly. For example, if you search for flights from ‘New York to Chicago,’ you’ll see schedules of all the non-stop flights that serve that route, which airlines fly, and times. You can access the full timetable by clicking on “Schedule of non-stop flights.”

You can also see all the destinations with non-stop flights from a particular airport. So if you are in Chicago, you can search for ‘flights from Chicago’ and Google will show you a number of routes from Chicago’s airports and which airlines fly from the airport. Similar to the schedule feature, if you click “Show all non-stop routes,” you can get the full list of destinations and from there, you can click to get more flight details.

In the post, Google software engineer Petter Wedum writes that the company is ‘eager to begin developing new flight search tools’ that are integrated with ITA’s software. Of course, the DOJ has mandated a number of conditions that Google has to abide by with regard to ITA’s presence and integration into the search company. It should be interesting to see what Google has up its sleeve for travel and flight search.

Source : – http://techcrunch.com

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YouTube Shares Surprising Statistics On 6th Birthday

Image representing YouTube as depicted in Crun...

Image via CrunchBase

YouTube’s sixth birthday will be celebrated with a few huge milestones: the site has hit 3 billion views per day.

According to Google’s blog, those 3 billion views a day represent a 50 percent increase over last year.

“That’s the equivalent of nearly half the world’s population watching a YouTube video each day, or every U.S. resident watching at least nine videos a day,” Google wrote.

Uploads have spiked as well. Over 48 hours of video are uploaded to the site each minute, a 37 percent increase in the past six months, and a 100 percent increase from last year. Google attributes the growth to technological advances in the service.

“From faster processing of uploads to longer video lengths to the launch of self-service live stream capabilities to partners, we’re constantly evolving to provide the best video sharing and viewing experience for you,” it wrote.

ComScore ranks YouTube as the top online video property as of April, with over 142 million unique visitors, trailed by VEVO with over 55 million viewers. Facebook, in fourth, has over 46 million viewers.

YouTube announced recently that it would partner with Universal, Sony Pictures and Warner Bros to provide full-length streaming movies soon.

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Check out this chart from Google highlighting YouTube statistics:

Source :- http://www.huffingtonpost.com

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Google Unveils +1 Button For Third Party Websites

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Image via CrunchBase

It is just like Facebook Like , but can do more

After unveiling the +1 button in March, Google has started rolling out the button for third party websites. Google previewed this button, which works like the Facebook Like button, at the Google I/O conference and confirmed that this button will be launched within this week.

The +1 buttons will be in different sizes – Small, Medium, Standard and Tall, with and without the +1 counter, and websites can tie the buttons into their own site logon systems to know which pages are accessed more by users, to keep a record of this. After sufficient number of people have the +1 page on their website, users can view different data such as age and sex of people who recommend those particular pages. This can be done using Google s Analytics system.
Is Google stepping up its social networking strategy? Yes, it is doing it steadily and surely. They tried it with Buzz, not long ago, and it didn t quite succeed. Now they are trying other ways to step up to Facebook in Facebook s backyard. Will they succeed? Only time will tell.

Source :- http://www.techtree.com

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Google Video shuts down

Google has decided to shut down its video service and has reminded all its users to download their videos before May 13th after which all videos would be unavailable.

Google has further added April 29th, the videos will no longer be available for viewing on the site. However, the downloading function will be available for few weeks after that. Google had stopped adding videos on this site two years ago but they still haven’t transferred these videos to Youtube or Picassa.

Although in the mail to the users of Google videos, it advised them to move their videos to Youtube but the site does not provide for this option. Thus the users have to follow the entire downloading from Google videos and then uploading it to Youtube on their own. Many users feel that it is a very odd move as Google should have created a way where they could automatically transfer their videos to other sites like You tube.

Source : http://www.clickindia.com/news/2011/04/19/google-video-shuts-down/

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Google bug disables 150000 Gmail accounts

Yesterday around 150000 Gmail users account were disabled by the Google system. They lost all their emails, attachments and chat logs. Google explained that approximately 0.08% of its users were affected by this bug. This bug reset all these accounts and even sent them the Google start up mail that any new user of Gmail receives.

Google reported on its dashboard that the engineers are working to get the problem fixed and restore full access. When the Google spokesman was contacted, a clear message was sent across stating that all the mails and accounts would be restored. Though many users are still apprehensive about the fact that all their messages would be restored.

Meanwhile others are advised to take precautions and store a backup of all their emails. There is a free application for Mac, PC and Linux called Gmail Backup. This is quick and easy to use. After downloading this software, Google asks for your account details and begins backing up your emails securely. Users have suggested various other sites for backing up their emails as many found that this software is not supported with Mac. Some of the popular ones are backupify.com and eternos.com.

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Google Instant Previews: Simply Scroll for Speedy Search

Is the new feature going to really speed up the user’s search experience, or is it yet another complicated layer on what was once a simple and easy-to-understand search interface?

Finding people short on time and patience, Google got this new feature~ Google Instant Preview to make your next web search much speedier. This new feature takes search a step further, letting you actually peek at snapshots of sites without ever leaving the results page.

Ben Gomes, a Google Distinguished Engineer comments, “This is the next step in the story of Instant.” He notes that Google has gone from a standard text input, to autocomplete, to Instant, and now we have Instant Previews. This is all about “pushing the boundaries of what’s possible with technology,” Gomes says.

So there’s your tour — now, ready to try out Google Instant Previews for yourself? Head to google.com/landing/instantpreviews to give it a whirl. If the page doesn’t load for you, don’t worry: Google says the feature is being rolled out as we speak and will be available to everyone soon.

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