Define, translate and search for words in Google eBooks

Define, translate and search for words in Google eBooks: "Posted by Derek Lei, Software Engineer, Google Books

When bookworms stumble across a word we don't know, we face the classic dilemma of whether to put the book down to look up the word or forge ahead in ignorance to avoid interrupting the reading experience. Well, fret no more, readers, because today you can select words in Google eBooks and look up their definitions, translate them or search for them elsewhere in the book from within the Google eBooks Web Reader—without losing your page or even looking away.

The Web Reader works in all modern browsers and lets you read Google eBooks without having to download them. To select text in a Google eBook within the Web Reader, double-click or highlight it with your mouse and a pop-up menu opens with the following options: Define, Translate, Search Book, Search Google and Search Wikipedia. (Note: these features work in 'Flowing Text' mode not 'Scanned Pages' mode. Switch to 'Flowing Text' in the Web Reader by clicking on the Settings menu labeled 'Aa' and select it under the 'Show' drop-down menu. Not all Google eBooks are available in 'Flowing Text.')

Define
Click “Define” and the pop-up now displays a definition of the word via Google Dictionary, without leaving the page you’re on in the Google eBook. Click on the audio icon to the left of the word you want defined to hear the definition pronounced aloud. If you decide you do want to leave the page, select “More” to go to the Google Dictionary page for the word, which provides additional information like usage examples and web definitions.

Translate
You can also translate a single word or several sentences of content into dozens of languages, from Afrikaans to Yiddish, by selecting the 'Translate' option. As with definitions, you'll see the translated text displayed in the pop-up window.

Search
By selecting one of the search options, you can search for the selected text in other places within the ebook itself or across the entire web.

“Search Book” brings up all the instances in which the selected text appears in the ebook. You can also access the search options by clicking on the magnifying glass icon in the upper right-hand corner of the Web Reader. Click on a search result to jump to that section.

“Search Google” and “Search Wikipedia” open up a new browser tab displaying the search results for that text on Google and Wikipedia, respectively.

Go ahead and give these new features a spin by reading a Google eBook.

Update 5:54pm: Included details about 'Flowing text' vs. 'Scanned pages.'

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Hundreds of ways to work smarter with Google Apps

Hundreds of ways to work smarter with Google Apps: "Posted by Michelle Lisowski, Google Apps Team

Talking to our small businesses customers, we see they have a passion for what they do and a drive to succeed. On the Google Apps team, we have a passion for helping small businesses succeed by providing them with access to the same technology that large enterprises often have at their disposal. Google Apps offers small businesses hundreds of ways to leverage the power of the web to work more efficiently and focus scarce time and resources on getting ahead of the competition.

To celebrate National Small Business Week, we’d like to share a few of the ways that Google Apps is being used every day (we’ll spare you the time of wading through hundreds). And to make it even easier to get started on tasks such as invoicing and project planning, all examples provided are based on templates from the Google Docs and Google Sites template galleries.

Google Docs template gallery:

#1: Letterhead - Create a professional looking template for your outgoing letters and share it with others in the company. Print letters directly from your browser with Chrome.
#2: Budget planner - Easily build a 12-month budget spreadsheet that you can edit from anywhere throughout the year – no matter where your spending takes you.
#3: Invoice - Save time by creating invoices in a spreadsheet – totals are automatically calculated, and you can share them with co-workers to ensure accuracy and speedy payments.


#4: Customer satisfaction survey - Get feedback from customers and visitors about your product or service with a form. Easily analyze and graph the data.
#5: Business plan - Put your vision down in a doc. Share it with family, investors, banks, and others to get input and spread your ideas.
#6: Project timeline - Give others in your company insight into key milestones, completion dates, and other project details.

Google Sites template gallery:

#7: Intranet - Build an internal website where employees can access company news, employee training information, company policies, holiday schedules, and more.


#8: Project site - Centralize project information in one place. Display a team profile and key dates, and embed project docs and spreadsheets directly in the site.
#9: Team site - Create team rosters, schedule team meetings, and track progress of action items all in one place.
#10: Employee profiles - Build a community by creating profile pages where your employees can post their goals, internal resume, and internal blog.

The list continues but we hope this gives some idea of the range of use cases where Google Apps can help improve productivity for any small business. To learn more, check out some of our new resources including product videos and additional templates at www.google.com/apps/smb.

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Books from 16th and 17th centuries now in full-color view

Books from 16th and 17th centuries now in full-color view: "Posted by Dan Bloomberg and Kurt Groetsch, Google Books team

Google has formed partnerships with many of the great libraries of Europe, including the Czech National Library, the National Library of the Netherlands, the Austrian National Library, the National Libraries of Florence and Rome, the Municipal Library of Lyon, Ghent University, the Bavarian State Library, the National Library of Catalonia, the University Complutense of Madrid, the University Library of Lausanne and the Oxford University Library.

To date, we’ve scanned about 150,000 books worldwide from the 16th and 17th centuries, and another 450,000 from the 18th century. With our growing list of partners, we expect to scan many hundreds of thousands more pre-1800 titles.

In digitizing books from any century, we try to create clean images with black text and color illustrations on white backgrounds. This helps enhance readability, save storage spaces and serve illustrated pages faster to readers. However, partners, researchers and other readers have frequently asked us to show the older books as they actually appear, for a couple of reasons: First, these books are interesting artifacts. They have changed their appearance over the centuries, and there is a cultural value in viewing them. Second, because of aging and bleed-through, it can be very difficult to display the images as clean text over a white background; in many cases it’s actually easier to read the text from the original (what we call 'full-color') images.

Printing was introduced in the 15th century, but a great flowering of experimentation in typography took place in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Secunda centuria, das ist das ander Hundert der Evangelischen Wahrheit
Johann Nass, 1568


Thargum, hoc est, Paraphrasis Onkeli Chaldaica in sacra Biblia : ex Chaldaeo
Paul Fagius, 1546

Some have great historical significance. Others have interesting typography and wood block illustrations. The links open thumbnail versions of each book (icons with 4 little squares). You get other views by clicking on nearby icons; from the thumbnail view, you can click on a page to expand it.

Below are links to a few more of these 16th and 17th century books now available in full-color view in Google Books:

Prognostication nouvelle et prediction portenteuse, pour l'an M. D. L. V.
Nostradamus, 1554
The first year of his prophecies, provided for scanning by the Municipal Library of Lyon.

Description de l'abbaye de la Trappe
André Félibien, 1689
A description of La Trappe Abbey in Soligny-la-Trappe, Orne, France. Authored by André Félibien, a French chronicler of the arts and official court historian to Louis XIV of France.

Epitome Astronomiae Copernicanae: Usitata forma Quaestionum ..., Volumes 1-3
Johannes Kepler, 1635
The German astronomer’s textbook on astronomy (translated as Epitome of Copernican Astronomy); his most influential work.

Systema cosmicum : in quo dialogis IV. de duobus maximis mundi systematibus, Ptolemaico & Copernicano, rationibus vtrinque propositis indefinitè disseritur : accessit locorum S. Scripturae cum Terra mobilitate conciliatio
Galileo Galilei, 1641
Galileo's landmark work comparing Copernican heliocentrism with the geocentric Ptolemaic system. Engraved frontspiece of Aristotle, Ptolemy and Copernicus.

La operazione del compasso geometrico e militare
Galileo Galilei, 1640
Description of and manual on the operation of Galileo’s geometrical and military compass.

Tractatus de proportionum instrumento : quod merito compendium vniuersae geometriae dixeris
Galileo Galilei, 1635

Ioannis Kepleri ... Dioptrice seu Demonstratio eorum quae visui & visibilibus propter conspicilla non ita pridem inventa accidunt. Praemissae Epistolae Galilaei de iis, quae post editionem Nuncii siderii ope Perspicilli, nova & admiranda in coelo deprehensa sunt. Item Examen praefationis Ioannis Penae Galli in Optica Euclidis, de usu Optices in philosophia.
Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei, Jean Pena, 1611

Patris Gabrielis Vazquez ... Disputationes Metaphysicae …
Gabriel Vázquez, 1617

Relaciones universales del mundo ... : Primera y segunda parte
Giovanni Botero, 1603

La rhétorique ou l'art de parler
Bernard Lamy, 1699

Idea de vn principe politico christiano, representada en cien empressas …
Diego de Saavedra Fajardo, 1675

Idea de un principe politico christiano, representada en cien empresas, dedicada al principe de las Españas nuestro Señor …
Diego de Saavedra Fajardo, 1655

Pia desideria emblematis elegiis & affectibus S.S. Patrum illustrata
Herman Hugonus, 1624

Obsidio bredana armis Philippi IIII, auspiciis Isabellae ductu Ambr. Spinolae perfecta
Herman Hugo, 1626

Emblémes Ou Devises Chrétiennes
1697

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Store up to 25,000 contacts

Store up to 25,000 contacts: "Posted by Mike Helmick, Software Engineer



Gmail used to have a limit of 10,000 contacts. For most of us, this was way more than enough, but we heard from some of you who use Gmail to communicate with more than 10,000 people. We want you to be able to store all of your contacts in a single place, so starting today, we’ve increased the limit for all Gmail users, including all those of you who use Google Apps, to 25,000 contacts.





Also, previously an individual contact could be no larger than 32KB — big enough for most people, but not always sufficient for those who like to keep a lot of notes on individual contacts. Now, each contact may be up to 128KB in size, allowing you to store more information in the notes field.

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Klingon and Elvish 101, with Google Books

Klingon and Elvish 101, with Google Books: "Posted by Oliver Chiang, Google eBooks Support Team

Tlhlngan Hol Dajatlh’a’? Or as the French would say, Parlez-vous Klingon? Google Books empowers you to learn new languages -- even fictional ones, like the Klingon alien language from Star Trek, or the Elvish dialects found in The Lord of the Rings.

There is no longer any excuse to get tongue-tied at your next Klingon mixer -- unable to even summon up a simple nuqneH (what’s up) or a jIyajbe’ (I don’t understand). After reading through The Klingon Dictionary, you'll be fluently pulling off phrases like, HIjol, Scotty! (Beam me up, Scotty!) in no time.

More advanced Klingon speakers will want to put their skills to the test with The Klingon Hamlet. That's right, taH pagh taHbe’ (to be or not to be). You haven't fully experienced Shakespeare until you have read him in Klingon.

If you've read J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy epic series, The Lord of the Rings, or have seen the movies, you may remember that different races (i.e. elves, orcs and dwarves) each had their own languages. To say that Tolkien loved languages is an understatement. In real life, he spoke or studied dozens of different tongues, from French to Old Norse.

J.R.R. Tolkien

He was nearly as prolific at inventing new languages. The world of The Lord of the Rings was in large part created out of the many languages Tolkien invented for it.

A couple of the most developed languages Tolkien created were two Elvish tongues, Quenya and Sindarin. While Tolkien himself left extensive writings and notes about these languages -- see for instance Elements in Quenya and Sindarin Names in his work The Silmarillion -- others have also created resources to help you polish your Elvish.

Make sure to check out Ambar Eldon’s Elvish dictionaries for both tongues: Quenya-English and Sindarin-English. Are you francophone? They've got you covered there too, with Dictionnaire Elfique Quenya-Français and Sindarin-Français. David Salo's A Gateway to Sindarin is a comprehensive book about the history, sounds and grammar behind the fictional language.

If you want to start with the Elvish ABC's, check out The Lord of the Rings Comprehension Guide's section on how to write words using the Quenya alphabet. For instance, my name in Elvish writing is:

'Oliver' in Elvish

Or maybe you just want to woo an Elvish maiden or an Orlando 'Legolas' Bloom. You can send along this little love letter:

Come see the night sky with me, fair maiden/knight.

You’ll be star-gazing in no time.

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Video Chat on Your Android Phone

Video Chat on Your Android Phone: "Sometimes, the expressions on a person's face can mean much more than what they say. To help you stay in touch with your friends and family, we’re launching Google Talk with video and voice chat for Android phones.



You can now video or voice chat with your friends, family and colleagues right from your Android phone, whether they’re on their compatible Android tablet or phone, or using Gmail with Google Talk on their computer. You can make calls over a 3G or 4G data network (if your carrier supports it) or over Wi-Fi.

In your Google Talk friends list, a video or voice chat button will appear next to your contacts and you can simply touch the button to connect with them. Any text chats from the person you’re talking with will be overlaid on your phone’s screen so you can read them without having to leave the video. And, if you need to check something else, the video pauses automatically so you can go back to your phone’s home screen or another app. The audio will keep going even though the video has paused. Check out how this works:









Google Talk with video and voice chat will gradually roll out to Nexus S devices in the next few weeks as part of the Android 2.3.4 over-the-air update and will launch on other Android 2.3+ devices in the future. To learn more about using video and voice chat, check out our Help Center.





Post content Posted by Colin Gibbs, Product Manager and Wei Huang, Tech Lead

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