google labs

Google shuts down Google Labs for greater company focus, Darth Vader makes it to Garmin GPS devices, and the space shuttle Atlantis touches down, marking the end of NASA's shuttle program.

Links from Thursday's episode of Loaded:

Space Shuttle Atlantis ends final flight

Darth Vader voice comes to Garmin GPS

Google shuts down Labs

Make multiple calls in Gmail

CBS TV shows hit Amazon Instant Video

Google CEO Larry Page is making good on his promise to put more wood behind fewer arrows as the company focuses more of its resources and efforts on its core products.

Google today announced in a blog post that the company will discontinue its Google Labs efforts. Bill Coughran, Google's senior vice president for Research and Systems Infrastructure, said the company has learned a lot by launching very early prototypes in the Labs. But he added that the company's "greater focus is crucial if we're to make the most of the extraordinary opportunities ahead."

What … Read more

Always looking for new ways to deliver its search results, Google has rolled out a new app that combines instant messaging with search.

Launched today as the latest experiment in the Google Labs playground, Google Talk Guru offers you a chat session through which you can ask certain questions and receive responses from an automated bot set up on the back end.

For now, the app can handle only certain types of questions from among a limited number of categories, such as weather, sports scores, math equations, definitions, and translations. But like other Google Labs apps, it's something to … Read more

Many Googlers are spending time working on technology to help Japan in the aftermath of last week's devastating earthquake, tsunami, and developing nuclear crisis. One of the tools being used in the crisis response is Fusion Tables, according to Riku Inoue, product manager at Google and lead for Google Labs. The application is a service that manages large collections of tabular data in the cloud.

In response to the disaster in Japan, Google has set up a multilingual Crisis Response page with resources on emergency hotlines, relief organizations, shelter information, blackout status, donation channels and maps, as well as … Read more

A new tool from Google Labs promises to help users quickly collaborate with other people through the same online calendars, maps, games, and other virtual work spaces that they create.

Google's new Shared Spaces tool, rolled out yesterday, offers a collection of 50 different gadgets formerly developed for the late Google Wave. By generating a work space using one of the gadgets, a user can create lists, design polls, brainstorm ideas, and even play Sudoku when in need of a break. A user can then share and collaborate in each work space with another person.

To create a work … Read more

I've happily used RSS readers for years, but I'm not only an information junkie, I'm a professional information junkie. But I'm one of those people who sees the technology as appealing to techno-savvy folks rather than the mainstream. It's much easier to type a Web address than to understand and manage Managing Really Simple Syndication and Atom subscriptions.

So I was intrigued to see a Google Labs effort called Google Reader Play that in my opinion succeeds, at least partially, in making this technology more approachable. It wraps the reader experience in a full-screen view … Read more

Google is building on its partnership with the World Bank and other statistics gatherers to present an array of data in visual form within Google Labs.

Google Public Data Explorer went live Monday, accompanied by the requisite blog post. The site takes public data regarding schools, population, crime, and even names to construct charts and graphs that help illustrate trends.

Google is also releasing a list of the top search terms that can be answered with public data, based on the analysis of anonymized search data. School comparisons and unemployment topped the list of the most frequent queries, followed by … Read more

Google Labs is testing a new way of viewing images that it is calling Image Swirl. When you search for a term in Image Swirl, 12 different sets of related images appear.

For example, if you search for "Kentucky," you will get sets of Kentucky state maps, Kentucky flags, the Kentucky Derby, and various scenery of the state. As you drill down further into the results, you get to see more tightly refined sets of images based on what you choose.

Image Swirl's interface is very similar to Google's Wonder Wheel. It also employs Google's … Read more

Google is ready to show off its concept for social search while it figures out what to do with Twitter's fire hose of data.

Last week at the Web 2.0 conference Google's Marissa Mayer demonstrated the service, which will go live as a Google Labs project on Monday. Google Social Search links the concepts of so-called "real-time" search with Google Profiles and custom search results, allowing searchers to find content created by friends or contacts with Google Profiles.

Google Social Search was developed separately without the Twitter deal in mind, said Amit Singal, a Google … Read more