You’ve spilled coffee on your keyboard. The a, e, i, o, u, and r keys have stopped working. Now try to search Google for the nearest computer repair shop. The pain of typing on this broken keyboard is similar to what many people searching in non-English languages feel when trying to type today. Typing searches on keyboards not designed for your languages can be frustrating, even impossible.Our user research has shown that many people are more comfortable formulating search queries in their own language but have difficulty typing these queries into Google…

This is the second post in our Small Business series about entrepreneurship and the various Google tools you can use to establish and improve your business presence on the Internet. Here, you’ll learn how Google Places (formerly called the Local Business Center) can help you attract and be discovered by customers in your area for free. -Ed.As a local business owner, one of the things that sets you apart is your ability to make personal connections with your customers because of your passion for what you do…

Growing up in the late seventies in Hell’s Kitchen in Manhattan, technology wasn’t really a part of my educational life. My teachers graded printouts and the idea of collaborating with my classmates on a project anytime, anywhere just wasn’t possible. Not to mention, we didn’t have a computer at home and working on the Internet was still a pipe dream for a middle schooler.Things have changed since I was in middle school of course, and there are people working hard to bring technology into classrooms to help students learn and teachers teach…

One of the great things about the web is choice. There’s a website out there for nearly everything, and sometimes there are many sites all dedicated to a single topic. But how can you find all the sites that are related to the subject that interests you? This week, we launched a search feature that helps you easily find new websites that are similar to the ones with which you’re already familiar…

Earth Day may have just passed, but the Google Earth team loves it too much to let it go. So we’ve found our own special way to celebrate Earth Day (a little late) by making an announcement that we’ve been working toward for a long time: Earth view in Google Maps.When we first launched Google Earth back in 2005, it revolutionized the world of digital mapping. In the years since, Earth has been getting faster and lighter while adding large amounts of imagery, more ambitious features and an ever-expanding roster of platforms, including support for Mac, Linux, iPhone, Android and even the 2011 Audi A8!Web browsers haven’t exactly been standing still either…

Though our rocket program to help commuters to our Moon office is still a long way off, we’ve always jumped at the chance to bring the wonders of outer space a little closer to Earth. On Saturday, our Hubble telescope doodle celebrated 20 years of one of the most productive and celebrated science instruments since Galileo first made a telescopic survey of the heavens 400 years ago.Hubble’s razor-sharp vision has revealed previously hidden aspects of the cosmos with unparalleled intimacy and clarity, and you can see some of the best examples for yourself on our Hubble 20th birthday page…

(Cross-posted on the Inside AdWords and the Agency Ad Solutions blogs)As the advertising industry has grown and evolved, so too has our relationship with advertising agencies. These companies, from SEMs to the largest traditional agencies, play a critical role in the continued success of Google, our advertisers and our industry — so we spend a lot of time talking to agencies about how we can make it easier for them to work with us and our advertisers…

This is one of a regular series of posts on search experience updates. Look for the label This week in search and subscribe to the series. - Ed.This week we announced a number of new developments:Search for specific TV show episodesAs more and more full-length content is going online, we’re making it easier to find the content you want by providing a more structured experience when you search for TV shows…

(Cross-posted from the Google Translate Blog)For many Internet users, it is not always easy to write in languages that use unique character sets like Hindi, Hebrew and Arabic. Most computer keyboards only allow for the input of Roman characters (the alphabet used by most Western languages) and converting between scripts can be difficult. To make this process easier we launched an improved version of Google Transliteration at the end of last year, a service which enables you to phonetically convert Roman letters into a variety of other scripts…

Today, Earth Day turns 40 and is now celebrated in more than 198 countries. Here at Google, we’ll be focusing on one of the planet’s more enjoyable aspects: its food. (Though, to be fair, we’re always focused on food around here). Our offices are hosting farmers markets, planting herb gardens, hosting talks on sustainable cooking and much more.At our Mountain View headquarters, we’re enjoying solar cooking demonstrations, classes on composting and local food sourcing, distribution of reusable shopping bags and discussions on healthy cooking and eating…

Article 19 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights states that “everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.” Written in 1948, the principle applies aptly to today’s Internet — one of the most important means of free expression in the world…

Today the Local Business Center is becoming Google Places. Why? Millions of people use Google every day to find places in the real world, and we want to better connect Place Pages — the way that businesses are being found today — with the tool that enables business owners to manage their presence on Google.We launched Place Pages last September for more than 50 million places around the world to help people make more informed decisions about where to go, from restaurants and hotels to dry cleaners and bike shops, as well as non-business places like museums, schools and parks…

We’re always honored and often surprised by the many ways people can be inspired by Google. Take for example artist Ken Solomon, who has done a series of watercolors of Google Image Search results, like this one:Ken’s “Google Portrait - Warhol 2″Just as societies preserve important documents and works of art, archivists and historians are now developing ways to preserve digital ephemera, from tweets to book drafts, as part our cultural and global history…

Nearly 400 IT executives joined us last week for a discussion on the future of enterprise IT at Atmosphere, our first cloud computing summit at the Googleplex. It was an exciting day of conversation and debate about the power of the cloud. If you’re interested in seeing it for yourself, you can watch the public talks online:

• Improving collaboration: Our opening keynote announced the next generation of Google Docs, setting the stage for an inspiring roster of visionary thinkers…

Two and a half years ago, we outlined our approach to removing content from Google products and services. Our process hasn’t changed since then, but our recent decision to stop censoring search on Google.cn has raised new questions about when we remove content, and how we respond to censorship demands by governments. So we figured it was time for a refresher.

Censorship of the web is a growing problem…

(Cross-posted from the Google LatLong Blog)On Tuesday, April 13, a powerful 6.9 earthquake shook the province of Qinghai, China, resulting in widespread destruction and the loss of more than 1,700 lives. Working closely with GeoEye, we’ve been able to acquire some high resolution post-earthquake imagery, which vividly illustrates the magnitude of this tragic event.(click image to view full-size; click here to view in Google Earth)To see more of this imagery, you can download the KML here and open it in Google Earth…

This is one of a regular series of posts on search experience updates. Look for the label This week in search and subscribe to the series. - Ed.Rich Snippets for recipesRich Snippets are the brief annotations you see beneath search results that summarize what’s on a webpage. In addition to Rich Snippets for reviews, people, video and events, this week we unveiled a new Rich Snippets format for recipes…

This is part of a regular series of Google Apps updates that we post every couple of weeks. Look for the label “Google Apps highlights” and subscribe to the series. - Ed.Today’s update includes a big batch of new functionality in Google Docs and several new capabilities in Gmail. So the next time you’re in Google Apps, give these new features a spin.Google Docs reloadedOn Monday we released a preview of the new Google Docs, which brings added features, higher fidelity for imported documents, more speed and faster collaboration to our browser-based productivity tools…

We spend a lot of time thinking about search results, but we also spend a lot of time thinking about search queries. Today we’re announcing three enhancements to help you input your searches more quickly and easily: more localized Google Suggest, improved spell correction for names and auto-correction for 31 languages.Feel at home with Google SuggestLast year we launched localized Google Suggest by country, offering relevant popular search queries tailored for different regions…

Today, leaders of the three largest British parties took part in the U.K’s first live televised debate in the run up to the May 6 general election. Alastair Stewart of ITN hosted Prime Minister Gordon Brown of the Labour Party, Conservative Party leader David Cameron and Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg as they discussed domestic affairs before a Manchester T.V. studio audience.Nick Clegg, his Liberal Democrat Party, and its manifesto generated many queries as people searched for Lib Dems and Liberal Democrat manifesto 2010…

Last year, in our quest to minimize our carbon footprint (and keep people on their toes), we turned to an unlikely solution for mowing an overgrown field: goats. More than 200 goats from California Grazing have once again arrived at our Mountain View headquarters where they’ll stay for over a week chomping away on grassy goodness. The cost of bringing in the goats is comparable to hiring lawn mowers for the same job and the green benefits are clear: the goats eliminate mower emissions, reduce noise pollution, restore plant species and fertilize while grazing…

Last year, we announced the program that enabled hosting companies to integrate Google services into their platforms for easy access to their customers. Several hosting companies have adopted the program since then, and thousands of websites have benefited from configuring services like AdSense, Custom Search and Webmaster Tools.Today, we’ve taken an additional step to improve access to these tools…

Today, April 15, is the due date for federal tax returns in the U.S. Now that everyone’s submitted their taxes in on time (we hope!) we wanted to take a look back at the last few months and tell the story of this year’s tax season through Google search.Spoiler alert — we’re starting our tax season search story at the end. As the filing deadline has approached over the last few days and weeks, we’ve seen a flurry of search interest about taxes and tax related topics…

This morning we announced a replay feature in real-time search that helps you search the public archive of updates from Twitter. Now, we have more Twitter news from today’s Chirp Conference. We’ve just released a new experimental service in Google Labs called Google Follow Finder to help you expand your Twitter network. With Google Follow Finder, simply enter your Twitter account name and you’ll see a list of people you might be interested in following…

(Cross-posted from the Google Translate Blog)Last July we enabled automatic page translations in Google Toolbar and we’ve been thrilled by the positive response. Today, we’re taking another step to make automatic translation easier. Now, if Google Toolbar’s default language is set to one of our supported languages, you can use our new Word Translator feature to hover over a word with your mouse and get an automatic instant translation…

Since we first introduced real-time search last December, we’ve added content from MySpace, Facebook and Buzz, expanded to 40 languages and added a top links feature to help you find the most relevant content shared on updates services like Twitter. Today, we’re introducing a new feature to help you search and explore the public archive of tweets.With the advent of blogs and micro-blogs, there’s a constant online conversation about breaking news, people and places — some famous and some local…

During the Super Bowl, we ran a 60 second ad made simply with a few Google searches and a little music. We were humbled by how much some people liked it. And we’ve even seen a few parodies that have left us in stitches. Making videos out of Google searches isn’t exactly elaborate Hollywood film-making, but to help everyone get in on the fun, we’ve made a really simple video creation tool, which you can try today…

(Cross-posted from the Official Gmail Blog)We’ve seen lots of people using Google Buzz to share interesting links from around the web. To do so, you had to copy and paste the link from one browser window to another — there weren’t buttons that made it easy to post to Google Buzz without leaving the site you’re on. Savvy sites like Mashable and TechCrunch quickly got creative and implemented their own Buzz buttons, using Google Reader as the backend…

This is the third post in our series on the future of display advertising. Today, Director of Product Management, Ari Paparo, looks at how better data will help marketers plan and measure their display campaigns in the future - Ed.Basketball teams in the 1980s looked at fairly simple statistics — points, rebounds, assists and shooting percentages — to measure team and player performance. However, in recent years, there’s been a data renaissance — a recognition of the need to develop more insightful measures, and a resurgence in appreciation for the value of data in sports…

Today we are hosting nearly 400 CIOs and IT professionals from around the world at Atmosphere, our inaugural event at the Googleplex dedicated to cloud computing. The discussion is centered on how companies can focus their technology expertise on projects that truly improve their businesses instead of managing complex applications, technology platforms and devices. We are also sharing details about improvements to Google Docs, made possible by a new codebase that will allow us to deliver richer functionality more quickly…