Google Friends Newsletter February 2006 February salutations to Google Friends everywhere. We hope you enjoy this update on Google services and new products. At the bottom of this message, you'll find details on subscribing to or canceling this newsletter. POWER TIP Winter Games Enhanced We've updated Google Earth and Google Local with high resolution imagery of the area surrounding Torino, Italy, home of the 2006 Winter Games. With Google Earth installed, click on the KMZ file for Olympic Venues, which will load placemarks for all the major sites at the Games. To really appreciate the scenery, be sure to enable the Terrain layer and take advantage of the tilt view control in Google Earth: We've also generated street maps for Torino, which are available in the Google Maps API for those of you interested in creating Winter Games mashups. http://earth.google.com http://local.google.com (search on 'Turin' or 'Torino') This Google Blog post features even more Games-related news: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/02/gamesmanship.html NEW PRODUCTS Google Toolbar (beta) The latest Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer adds several features to help you customize your Toolbar. Add custom buttons to search your favorite websites -- choose from hundreds of buttons in our Button Gallery or make your own. Create and label bookmarks that you can access from any computer. Get instant search suggestions as you type in the search box. Share web pages with friends via email, blog, or SMS. Make your Toolbar as unique as you are. http://toolbar.google.com Google Desktop (beta) Google Desktop is a free application that now gives you easy access to information across your computers and from the web. The latest version allows you to undock Sidebar panels and place them anywhere your desktop. You can also easily share items from your Sidebar with a friend, including news, websites, games and more. Use the Search Across Computers feature to find documents and web pages you've seen on any of your computers. With Google Desktop, you get personalized information when you want it, right on your desktop. http://desktop.google.com Google Mail Chat Now Google Mail accounts are automatically enabled with chat features. The people you already talk to often are just a click away in Quick Contacts. You don't have to use another program or switch between email and IM -- it's all on the same Google Mail interface. And you don't need to build a new buddy list or do anything special either--it just works when you're signed in to Google Mail (you can also easily sign out of chat). See when your friends are online and decide for yourself how you want to get in touch. We've also made it easy for you to save your chats so you don't always have to remember whether something important was said over email or IM. Now you can search for your chats, or print them, or even reply to a chat using email. https://mail.google.com/mail/help/chat.html Froogle Personalized Search We recently integrated Froogle with Personalized Search so that you can view and manage your history of Froogle searches and the products you've looked at, just as you already can do with Web Search, Image Search, and News. Just sign up for Personalized Search and make sure you're signed in to your Google Account when searching on Froogle. http://www.google.com/psearch http://froogle.google.com Google Mail for your domain Attention schools, organizations and businesses - now you can try a special Google Mail beta test that brings Google Mail to every user on your domain. Since it's hosted by Google, there's no hardware or software for you to install or maintain. Each account has 2GB of storage and Google-quality search tools to help users find information fast. The administrative control panel lets you easily manage user accounts, aliases and mailing lists. To request being of this beta test, visit the home page and click "I'm Interested." https://www.google.com/hosted/Home MISCELLANY Google Current Current TV is a new cable and satellite channel available throughout the U.S. Through a partnership, we provide access to Google Zeitgeist information - up to the minute aggregated search query results - for the Current staff to use in creating new TV stories. The resulting program, "Google Current," airs every half hour on Current TV and provides a look at what the world is searching for on Google. From hybrid cars to human-animal hybrids, from Paris riots to Paris Hilton photos, your searches guide Current stories. http://www.current.tv/google -------------------------------------------------- The Google Blog offers frequent updates and insights from Googlers on technology, our products, and the company at large. http://googleblog.blogspot.com -------------------------------------------------- Share Google Friends with a friend through Google Groups (includes subscribe/unsubscribe information). http://groups.google.com/group/google-friends -------------------------------------------------- Google Friends archive: http://www.google.com/googlefriends/archive.html To unsubscribe from the Google Friends Newsletter, send an empty message to: [email protected] Google, Inc. 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway Mountain View, CA 94043 ###