2010年9月27日 星期一

搜人名出現強暴犯 Google誹謗成立

搜人名出現強暴犯 Google誹謗成立

〔編譯俞智敏/綜合報導〕法國法律事務網站legalis.net最近披露,巴黎一所法 院本月初判決,網路搜尋引擎龍頭Google的搜尋「建議(suggest)」功能,對他人構成誹謗的罪名成立,Google公司執行長施密特也連帶被 告。Google則表示將繼續上訴。

Google的「建議」新功能會在使用者輸入搜尋字詞時,跳出建議選擇,此案的原告則是在Google引擎中輸入自己名字時,發現建議選項竟跳出「強暴犯」、「判刑」、「監獄」及「惡魔崇拜者」等字眼,憤而對Google及施密特提告。

法院下令Google應對此付出象徵性的1歐元(約42台幣)罰款,並採取行動確保這種情況不會再發生。

本案原告因涉嫌猥褻未成年人,今年2月被判處3年徒刑,但全案仍在上訴中,尚未定讞。沒想到原告在Google搜尋引擎中輸入自己的名字時,卻出現上述字眼。

巴黎法院認定,Google搜尋引擎把原告姓名與這些字眼連結在一起,已構成誹謗罪。法院還認為,Google在此案中未展現誠信原則,因此需付5000歐元(約21萬2000台幣)給原告,賠償其損失。

Google發言人則透過電子郵件表示,該公司將繼續上訴,而且Google建議功能只是反映出先前最常與輸入字連結的字詞,並非Google本身提出這項建議。

2010年9月10日 星期五

At Google, doodling is real work

September 6, 2010 6:00 AM PDT

At Google, doodling is real work

Share 217 4diggsdigg

Google's Jennifer Hom works on a Wacom tablet to create a logo marking the 25th anniversary of the Buckyball's discovery.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--They've celebrated Pac-Man's anniversary, Einstein's birthday, the World Cup, the Fourth of July, Persian New Year, the Olympics, U.S. elections, and just about everything in between. Who are they? Google's Doodlers, of course.

A band of artists whose job it is to translate special events into those colorful, whimsical versions of Google's corporate logo, the Doodlers almost certainly have one of the best jobs in the world.

This team's members mix artistic skills with an ability to fit into Google's culture--meaning they can speak engineering and hold their own among the uber-geeks--in order to do the one thing at Google designed specifically to put a smile on people's faces the world over.

Editors' note, Tuesday 6:27 a.m. PDT: Google's very latest doodle is a playful--and interactive--one. For more, see the slideshow accompanying this story or the video embedded at the bottom here.

After working on a story about Google's creation of a special playable Pac-Man doodle back in May, I arranged for a visit with the Doodlers to witness their process and the creation of an actual doodle. So it was on a sunny Tuesday morning last month, I found myself among the Doodlers in a small conference room at the search giant's headquarters here.

A brief history
A little context first. In 1998, Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin decided to spoof the whole "out of office" idea by putting up a Burning Man logo behind the Google site's corporate logo while the two were at the annual arts festival in the Nevada desert. "While the first doodle was relatively simple," a corporate history of the Doodle recalls, "the idea of decorating the company logo to celebrate notable events was well received by our users."

In 2000, "Larry and Sergey asked current [Google] Webmaster Dennis Hwang, an intern at the time, to produce a doodle for Bastille Day," the history continues. "Pleased with the result, Dennis was then appointed Google's chief doodler and doodles became a regular occurrence on the Google home page."

The first doodle signaled that Google's co-founders were attending Burning Man.

(Credit: Google)

Today, the team is made up of five people--chief doodler Micheal Lopez and doodlers Susie Sahim, Jennifer Hom, Ryan Germick, and Mike Dutton.

And as part of my visit, they agreed to let me listen to their discussions about--and see their concepts for--future creations, so long as I didn't publish anything before September 4, when one of the new doodles celebrating the discovery of the Buckyball, would run worldwide.

It's notable that the doodle was running globally because just a fraction of the total creations are meant for a world audience. Most of their work is aimed at specific countries and celebrates local events, such as the birthdays of those countries' famed composers, scientists, and artists or national days of independence.

Regardless of whether a doodle is meant for the eyes of billions or just a fraction of that, Lopez said, the creative process is basically the same: the team tries to find a way to conceptualize the event and then tries to find the most fun representation of that idea.

Each year, the team creates about 200 doodles, and with each, it tries to instill Google's technology and its culture.

"The company feels pretty good about it. With all our products, we think of the user first, and this is another example where we really enjoy sharing....We get to have a human hand in our company as part of our interaction with users," said Germick, who led the Pac-Man effort.

Checking the facts
With huge audiences viewing the doodles, those on the team know that it's important their work accurately represents the subject matter. Because if they get it wrong, the public will let them know.

For example, said Lopez, when the team put out a doodle commemorating the discovery of DNA, "we actually had drawn the double helix the wrong way...Scientists started writing us...[and] we revised it on the fly."

That's why, Germick said, when working on a doodle celebrating Pi Day--March 14, or 3/14--"I made sure to get a Princeton Ph.D.'s check on my representation of different geometric equations before I pushed [the doodle] out to hundreds of millions of users."

While team members will often have days, or even weeks, to finish their creations, that's not always the case. Hom recalled the day when water vapor was discovered on the moon, and it was decided that the team should get a doodle up that same day. "It looked like we had inside information," Hom said,"but really, we were reading the news."

When the so-called 'missing link' fossil was found, the team put up this logo within hours.

(Credit: Google)

When the so-called "missing link" fossil, was found in 2009, paleontologists felt it might fill in holes in their understanding of primate evolution, and the news created a splash worldwide. At the time, several of the Doodlers were at an awards ceremony in New York. But this piece of news was considered such geek manna that it was decided on the spot that Google needed to put up a doodle celebrating it. There was no time to lose, Germick said. Within hours, the resulting Doodle was bringing word about the fossil's discovery to untold millions.

Concepts
While the Pac-Man doodle would have made the news any time, it was particularly notable because it was the first example of a special logo that was fully playable and interactive. But over the years, the team has experimented with a number of dynamic doodles. Among them are the celebration of Isaac Newton's birthday in which an apple falls from a tree, a UFO's creation of a series of crop circles, and one that people could click to collect candy wrappers. That one, of course, ran on Halloween.

After about half an hour of sharing the history of Doodles, it was time for the team to get down to business: discussing current projects and giving one other feedback on their progress.

Generally, one person is assigned a specific doodle, and each usually works on two or three at a time. This means that as a team, they can make progress on a lot of doodles at once.

The first concept doodle they discussed while I was in the room was one that was scheduled to--and did--run in Russia on August 19 celebrating the 50th anniversary of the space flight of Belka and Stelka, the two Russian dogs who became the first animals to go into space--and return alive.

Sahim was creating it. Her design, I was told, was inspired by the famed Nintendo franchise, The Legend of Zelda.

At this point, just two days prior to the doodle's publication, Sahim had already gotten the sign-off from a Google marketing manager in Russia, who had reviewed and approved it.

Next up was a doodle celebrating the 205th birthday of Danish ballet dancer and choreographer August Bournoville, which was scheduled to--and did--run on August 21.

This is one of the doodles--celebrating August Bournoville--that the team discussed during CNET's visit.

(Credit: Google)

Dutton explained that he had wanted to give the doodle a "dreamy feel," a "lost-edge quality," and a sense that the "body mass is fading." In the concept sketch, one could see a chair fading a bit into the background.

Next up was a doodle commemorating Ukraninan Independence Day on August 24, and then one for the 213th birthday of "Frankenstein" creator Mary Shelley on August 30. The Shelley doodle ran in the U.K. that day. In Lopez's conception, the doodle depicted a hallway in Dr. Frankenstein's home to pay homage to Shelley.

I asked why it was important to commemorate Shelley's 213th birthday, rather than one with a rounder number. Lopez said that Google simply likes to celebrate anniversaries and birthdays. "We're not going to wait for a big, round number," Lopez said. "We want to do it now."

Of course, as Germick put it, by celebrating birthdays like Shelley's 213th, it maintains the "element of surprise...We want to be somewhat serendipitous."

Buckyball
After discussing a couple of more potential doodles, it was time to see some early concepts for a doodle celebrating the 25th anniversary of the discovery of buckminsterfullerene, a molecule that, Wikipedia says, is "composed entirely of carbon, in the form of a hollow sphere, ellipsoid, or tube." Spherical fullerenes are known as "Buckyballs" because these compositions have some of the same elements as geodesic domes, which were invented by Buckminster Fuller.

This logo was created to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the discovery of buckminsterfullerene.

(Credit: Google)

These molecules are commonly used in science, particularly in materials science, nanotechnology, and electronics, according to Wikipedia, yet they are also seen in the design of many different kinds of soccer balls.

That's why, when Hom began drawing her concept for a Buckyball doodle on the whiteboard, she incorporated what looked to everyone like a soccer ball. "Let's just re-use the World Cup doodle," someone joked.

Hom explained that she was thinking of two different ideas for the final design. One was slightly interactive, she said, and would feature a tiny particle rotating in circular motion around the fullerene. "Hopefully, this would spark user interest," she said, "and they'd mouse over it. And when they do, it would zoom in to a gigantic Buckyball. The user's mouse would cause it to rotate and spin."

She said that if that approach wasn't appealing to the team, she had also been conceiving of a static doodle.

I asked about the animation in her interactive idea. Germick said if they went in that direction, they'd "probably try to con an engineer into working with us in their 20 percent time." He was referring to the Google tradition of giving employees 20 percent of their work time to address personal projects.

"Some of the people I'm talking to about animating this are Buckminster Fuller fanatics," Hom said.

Indeed, she said that working on the project had felt like being in school because she felt a lot of pressure to get it right. "If I get it wrong," she said, "then everyone's going to be upset."



Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-20014631-52.html#ixzz0z80JRZKv

2010年9月9日 星期四

Google unveils key update on searches

谷歌对搜索结果呈现方式进行重大改变
Google unveils key update on searches




Google has unveiled changes to the way it presents search results in what it described as one of the most significant updates in its 12-year history.

谷歌(Google)宣布,已对其搜索结果呈现方式进行了改变,并将其描述为该公司12年历史上最重要的革新之一。

The new approach is intended to help users find results more quickly, though some search experts said that indirect changes to how users conduct their searches could also have a wider impact on the many businesses that advertise on Google or rely on traffic from the search engine.

此项新服务本意是帮助用户更加快速地找到结果。然而有搜索专家表示,对用户搜索方式的间接改变,将对许多在谷歌投放广告、或依赖谷歌搜索引擎流量的业务产生广泛的影响。

The new feature, called Google Instant, displays full search results as users type in queries, without waiting for them to finish typing or to hit “enter”. “It’s searching before you type – we’re predicting what query you’re likely to do and giving you results for that,” said Marissa Mayer, Google’s head of search products and user experience.

这一名为Google Instant的新功能,在用户键入问题的同时,即可显示完整的搜索结果,而不必等待输入完成或敲击“回车”。“搜索在输入之前就开始了——我们会预测你 可能会问的问题并提供相关结果”,谷歌搜索产品及用户体验主管梅里莎•梅尔(Marissa Mayer)表示。

The approach should shave two to five seconds off the average search, Ms Mayer said.

梅尔说,应用该方法,搜索时间平均应该可以削减2至5秒钟。

Sergey Brin, co-founder, said the technological advances that had contributed to the new feature highlighted “a little bit of a new dawn in computing”, as companies such as Google, Apple and Amazon experiment with new user interfaces to make it easier to find and use information.

谷歌联合创始人塞吉•布林(Sergey Brin)表示,帮助实现这项新功能的技术进步,突显了“信息处理新黎明的曙光”。包括谷歌、苹果(Apple)及亚马逊(Amazon)在内的多家公司都在尝试新的用户界面,使得信息搜寻和使用更为便捷。

Google said it could not yet determine how far Google Instant would change search behaviour, but some analysts said the impact of the launch could reverberate through the online economy that has built up around the Google search service. “It’s potentially enormously significant,” said Greg Sterling, a US search engine analyst. “Anything that changes the way people interact with search results will affect the many businesses that rely on search.”

谷歌表示,该公司还不能确定Google Instant将在多大程度上改变搜索行为,但一些分析师称,新功能的推出将会对围绕谷歌搜索服务建立起来的线上经济产生深远影响。“它有可能极其重要 ”,美国搜索引擎分析师格雷格•斯特林(Greg Sterling)说。“任何改变人们与搜索结果之间互动方式的产品,都将对众多依赖搜索的业务产生影响。”

He and other analysts said that search users could be drawn to the top results that Google returns as they type their queries, giving extra prominence to companies whose websites come out high in search results. By putting greater emphasis on the top results, the change could have important implications for any business that uses so-called search engine optimisation to try to gain prominence in search results, Mr Sterling said.

他和其他分析师表示,搜索用户在输入的同时,会看到谷歌发回的排名最前的结果,这将更为凸显那些搜索结果靠前的公司。斯特林表示,通过特别强调排名最靠前的结果,这一变化将对任何靠所谓“搜索引擎优化”而获得更高搜索结果排名的公司,产生重要的连带效应。

Google executives said the new feature should not change the search results that users eventually click on, since the underlying relevance algorithms used to determine the order in which results are shown had not changed.

谷歌高层表示,新功能不会改变用户最终会点击的结果,因为用以决定结果显示顺序的基本相关算法并未改变。


译者/麦可林

2010年9月2日 星期四

Priority Inbox Beta

Get through your mail faster: Priority InboxBeta

Do you get too much email? Priority Inbox helps you get through it faster by putting the most important mail at the top of your inbox.

網誌存檔