News
07 September 2007 : Google archives 200 years of news.
Google is growing its news archive to include stories that go back as far as 200 years (More)
31 September 2007 How search results may differ based on accented characters.
When a searcher enters a query that includes a word with accented characters, our algorithms consider
web pages that contain versions of that word both with and without the accent. (More)
10 February 2007: Google has unveiled a updated version of its Google Desktop tool that will
automatically transfer information between computers.
Google Desktop version 3 allows users to search and access information from any computer that runs the
software, a feature that Google refers to as Search Across Computers (More)
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07 September 2007 : Google archives 200 years of news
Google is growing its news archive to include stories that go back as far as 200 years.The archive will
include old material from the likes of The Guardian, The New York Times, Time Magazine and The
Washington Post. Searching for information about the 1969 moon landing, for example, will show original
text from the time as well as more recent coverage over the past four decades.
Articles related to a theme are grouped together to allow users to see more perspectives on the events.
The service is being launched on the news.google.com domain and enables searching of articles written
in English as well as articles in a number of other languages.The company said it plans to introduce the
service in other countries as well.
A separate service, Google Book Search, now offers PDF files of scanned books that can be downloaded
and printed for free.The PDFs are offered only for those books that fall into the public domain and are
intended for personal use. Source: WebWatch.
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31 August 2007 How search results may differ based on accented characters
When a searcher enters a query that includes a word with accented characters, our algorithms consider
web pages that contain versions of that word both with and without the accent. For instance, if a searcher
enters [México], we'll return results for pages about both "Mexico" and "México."
Conversely, if a searcher enters a query without using accented characters, but a word in that query could
be spelled with them, our algorithms consider web pages with both the accented and non-accented
versions of the word. So if a searcher enters [Mexico], we'll return results for pages about both "Mexico"
and "México."
How the searcher's interface language comes into play
The searcher's interface language is taken into account during this process. For instance, the set of
accented characters that are treated as equivalent to non-accented characters varies based on the
searcher's interface language, as language-level rules for accenting differ.Also, documents in the chosen
interface language tend to be considered more relevant. If a searcher's interface language is English, our
algorithms assume that the queries are in English and that the searcher prefers English language
documents returned.This means that the search results for the same query can vary depending on the
language interface of the searcher. They can also vary depending on the location of the searcher (which is
based on IP address) and if the searcher chooses to see results only from the specified language. If the
searcher has personalized search enabled, that will also influence the search results.
How to restrict search results
To obtain search results for only a specific version of the word (with or without accented characters), you
can place a + before the word. For instance, the search [+Mexico] returns only pages about "Mexico" (and
not "México"). The search [+México] returns only pages about "México" and not "Mexico." Note that you may
see some search results that don't appear to use the version of word you specified in your query, but that
version of the word may appear within the content of the page or in anchor text to the page, rather than in
the title or description listed in the results. (You can see the top anchor text used to link to your site by
choosing Statistics > Page analysis in webmaster tools. Source: Vanessa Fox (Google)
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10 February 2007: Google has unveiled a updated version of its Google Desktop tool that will
automatically transfer information between computers.
Google Desktop version 3 allows users to search and access information from any computer that runs the
software, a feature that Google refers to as Search Across Computers. A user could, for instance, access a
personal file from his work PC or share information between computers in different rooms in a house.
"You can search across multiple computers to find your information. You don't have to worry about where it
lives; it's available anywhere you are," explained Kan Liu, product manager for Google Desktop, on the
company blog.
The Search Across Computers feature requires the application to transmit copies of indexed files to the
Google Desktop servers, the company noted in the privacy policy for the product, which may remain stored
for up to 60 days after the software is uninstalled.
Google Desktop 3 also offers an updated version of the Google Sidebar introduced in August. The update
adds new peer-to-peer features, allowing a user to send items directly to a friend's sidebar, such as the
weather forecast or an interesting news story. Users can also play games such as tic-tac-toe.
Google Desktop Search 3 is currently in beta. Source: vnunet.com
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