Experimental Google Tools

What does Schemer do?

This is an entertaining quick game to kill a little time and do a little Google Earth fantasy exploring. It was originally written as an example of the Google Earth Web browser plug-in.

It's not surprising that people search for information about the flu when they're sick. Google found a way to tap this trend and use it to estimate flu activity by region. They discovered that search trend data was actually about two weeks faster than traditional CDC methods of flu tracking.

Ever wanted to make a paper model of something? Here's an easy way to do it. Waybe is a plug-in for SketchUp that converts 3D objects into flat paper that you can print, cut out, and fold into your object.

Gmail Labs is a way to use experimental tools for Gmail. These modules range from the useful to the silly. They aren't all necessarily ready for prime time, so use Gmail Labs with caution.

Cookin' With Google uses Google Custom Search Engine to help you find recipes that use ingredients you have on hand. Instead of searching for a recipe, type a few ingredients into the search box and let Google find recipes that match.

I've heard there's a Google tool that appeals to kids with autism and Asperger's syndrome. What is it, and how can I find it?

When I went to SIGGRAPH 2007, one of the questions I asked the Google engineers is if there were a way to export SketchUp models into Second Life. While I was standing there, someone else came up and asked exactly the same question.

SIGGRAPH stands for "Special Interest Group in Computer Graphics." It is a special interest group of ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery. Every year, SIGGRAPH hosts a trade show by the same name. In 2007, the early August trade show was hosted in San Diego, California. Here are a few pictorial highlights from the show.

Rumors of a Google phone have been circulating since 2006. Is Google working on a phone? Why are they talking about bidding on wireless bandwidth? Read this to find out.

Google loves a good April Fool's Day joke. Sometimes the joke is even that it isn't a joke. Learn more about Google's best April Fool's Day pranks.

Google Reader is Google's RSS reader. Just about everything on the Web these days comes with an RSS feed, so It's still in Google Labs, so it's still considered in the experimental stages, but it works amazingly well.

Google Accessible Web Search is a Google powered search of websites for the visually impaired. Google Accessible Web Search gives priority to pages that function well without images or will otherwise be more useful to the visually impaired.

Here's a peek at some creative and fun ways programmers have made use of Google's search engine. These tools are not associated or produced by Google, but they do make use of Google's search engine.

If you're using Picasa to manage your digital photos, the easiest way to get your photos to the Web is by using Picasa Web Albums. This tutorial will show you how.

Google Book search is a very useful tool for finding books according to keyword search. The Google database contains a massive library of scanned books. You can also use Google Book Search to find and download books in the public domain.

Picasa Web Albums lets you post photos to the Web directly from Picasa on Windows computers or iPhoto on Macs. Picasa Web Albums also lets you sort and share your photos into public and private areas and post those photos to your blog.

Here's information about a tool that can help you convert your links over to Google Bookmarks.

In Web design, a "mirror site" is a Web site that duplicates another site's contents, usually to reduce network traffic or make content more available. elgooG is a bit different. elgooG is a literal mirror of Google.

Google doesn't put all of their products and services upfront. Sometimes you have to dig a little deeper to find one of Google's offerings. Here's a few of those hidden Google gems.

Google Spreadsheets is a Google Labs project. That means it’s in the early stages of development, and it may or may not be developed further. That said, Google Spreadsheets has the potential to be extremely useful for anyone with the need to deal with spreadsheets in a group setting.

Read this before rooting your Android. Learn the advantages and disadvantages of rooting an Android phone.

Delicious is probably leaving Yahoo, but that doesn't mean your bookmarks need to go away.

I've heard a rumor that Google has cars that drive themselves. Is this true?

The company eBook Technologies was acquired by Google in January of 2011.

It's common practice for products to have code names that differ from the product release name, but Google has some unusual names for theirs. Read all about it.

Learn more about Google's crazy lab of experiments.