Updating the Google bar: many products, multiple devices

If you're anything like me, you move among devices and Google products on a regular basis. You might check Gmail on your phone, for instance, then organize your Calendar via laptop, then browse Google+ photos from your tablet.

Regardless of your routine, getting around Google should be seamless, and once you're inside an app, you don't want any distractions. So we're introducing an updated Google bar that streamlines your experience across products and devices:

Your Google products are now accessible under a new app launcher, located at the top right of the screen. Just click on the familiar 'Apps' grid, also present on Android devices and Chromebooks:

As part of this design, we’ve also refined the color palette and letter shapes of the Google logo. We'll be rolling out this update across most Google products over the next few weeks, so keep an eye out and let us know your thoughts.

Posted by Eddie Kessler, Tech Lead / Manager

Broadening Google Patents

Cross-posted with the US Public Policy Blog, the European Public Policy Blog, and the Google Research Blog.

Last year, we launched two improvements to Google Patents: the Prior Art Finder and European Patent Office (EPO) patents. Today we’re happy to announce the addition of documents from four new patent agencies: China, Germany, Canada, and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). Many of these documents may provide prior art for future patent applications, and we hope their increased discoverability will improve the quality of patents in the U.S. and worldwide.

So if you want to learn about a Chinese dual-drive bicycle, a German valve for inflating bicycle tires, attach a Canadian trailer to your bike, or read the WIPO application for pedalling with one leg, those and millions of other inventions are now available on Google Patents.

Thanks to Google Translate, all patents are available in both their original languages and in English, and you can search across the world’s patents using terms in any of those languages. When there are multiple submission languages, you can move between them with a single click on the tabs at the top of the page, as shown in the screenshot below:

Happy patent searching!

Posted by Jon Orwant, Engineering Manager

New ways to explore what's trending on Google

Whether you're looking for trending celebrities, a monthly recap of what's hot, or power tools to make your own discoveries about what's piquing the world's curiosity - today you'll find new features in Google Trends to make it easier to explore hot topics in Google Search.

Trending Top Charts.
In May we added a new feature to Google Trends called "Top Charts," where you can explore real-world people, places and things ranked by overall search interest in the United States (with more countries coming soon). These "Most Searched" lists span dozens of areas from athletes to cities to cocktails. We've heard great feedback from people who want "Trending" lists -- not just what's most searched overall, but what's spiking compared with usual search volumes. Starting today, you can explore these new Trending Top Charts for a number lists across entertainment, sports, politics and more.

For example, while it may come as no surprise that the United States is the most searched country among people in the U.S., it's more interesting that Syria and Russia were the two top trending countries last month. To see the new "Trending" charts, click the arrow icon at the top of any supported Top Chart.

Past 30 Days view of Hot Searches.
Top Charts is a great way to see a monthly recap of the hottest people, places and things in a given category (politicians, cities, cars, etc), but what if you want to see a recap of what was hot overall? Now you'll find a new view of hot topics from the past thirty days. Click the new calendar icon at the top of the Hot Searches page for any of our thirteen supported countries. Hover on a topic for some quick information and a link to see more search trends from the day.

Updates to the Explore page.
For power users, the best part of Google Trends is the ability to look up search data for any topic, and slice and compare the data by region, time series, category, and more. Today we're rolling out some updates to make this a better experience. We've shifted refinements for countries, categories, and Google products (like Web Search, YouTube, etc) to the top navigation, making it a more consistent Google experience. We've also made it easier to discover power tools to compare countries and time ranges.

Posted by Itai Bar-Sinai, Software Engineer

Give us your feedback on Search policies

If you use Google all the time and have ideas about how we could provide a better Search experience for our users, we want your help. Send us your best Search policy suggestions by filling out this form. Your ideas could have a direct impact on Google.

As part of the recently-launched How Search Works website, we published our Search policy principles and a list of detailed Search content policies for the first time. Our goal was to show users how we think about controversial content in Search while still promoting fast access to the world's information.

But we’re always looking to do better, and we’re curious to know what our users think. That’s why we’d love to see your ideas for improving our Search policies and processes. Should we alert users if we suspect that there's not much information on the web about their query? How should Google surface information that might affect a website's ranking? How should we deal with businesses that we believe may be hacked? Should we do something completely different to support our users? Anything related to how we serve content in search results or interact with users is fair game.

Now’s your chance to make an impact and have fun doing it, so put on your thinking hats. You can submit entries using this form. We’ll review all of the submissions and contact some of the best contributors to discuss their ideas.

Happy searching!

P.S. If you need some ideas to get you started, check out this presentation from SMX West about Google’s search policies called "Walk a Mile in Google's Shoes: Dealing with Tough Calls in Search."

Patrick Thomas, Search Policy Specialist

Discover great in-depth articles on Google

To understand a broad topic, sometimes you need more than a quick answer. Our research indicates perhaps 10% of people’s daily information needs fit this category -- topics like stem cell research, happiness, and love, to name just a few. That's why over the next few days we’ll be rolling out a new feature to help you find relevant in-depth articles in the main Google Search results.

Now sometimes when you're searching for a broad topic (on google.com in English to start), you'll find a new block of results like the following:

If you care about censorship, you'll find a thought-provoking article by Salman Rushdie in The New Yorker, a piece by our very own Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen in the Guardian, and another great article about Iran. If you're in the mood for something lighter, search for [lego], you'll find great in-depth articles about many different facets of the topic from gender to engineering to art. For some more examples, check out new search results for population growth, capital punishment and e-waste.

I'm happy to see people continue to invest in thoughtful in-depth content that will remain relevant for months or even years after publication. This is exactly what you'll find in the new feature. In addition to well-known publishers, you'll also find some great articles from lesser-known publications and blogs. If you're a publisher or webmaster, check out our help center article and post on the Webmaster Central blog to learn more.

Posted by Pandu Nayak, Member of Technical Staff

Google Finance adds exchanges from Brazil, Turkey, Thailand, Austria, and Switzerland

We want you to have the world’s financial data at your fingertips. We’ve launched five new exchanges on Google Finance -- try these examples to see them in action:

BM&F Bovespa (Brazil): AmBev, Petrobras, Índice Bovespa
Borsa Istanbul (Turkey): Turkcell, İş Bankası
The Stock Exchange of Thailand: PTT, Siam Bank
SIX Swiss Exchange: Nestlé, Novartis, Swiss Market Index
Wiener Borse (Austria): OMV, Voestalpine

As always, you can see the full list of stock exchanges we make available.

Posted by Greg Pennington, Product Manager, Google Finance

Time to back away from the cookie jar? Introducing nutrition info in search

Figuring out how to make smart choices about some of our favorite foods can often be a cumbersome and daunting process. So we’re hoping we can make those choices a little bit easier: starting today you will be able to quickly and easily find extensive nutrition information for over 1,000 fruits, vegetables, meats and meals in search. From the basics of potatoes and carrots to more complex dishes like burritos and chow mein, you can simply ask, “How much protein is in a banana?” or “How many calories are in an avocado?” and get your answer right away. You'll hear the answer to your specific question, see relevant nutrition information under an expansion, and be able to switch to other related foods or serving sizes.

This new nutritional information builds on our work on the Knowledge Graph, which brings together all kinds of information from across the web that wasn't easily accessible. The graph helps us connect things that are related, even in cases when those foods have a completely different sounding name from what you asked. For example, when you ask for “summer squash carbs”, we include “zucchini” as a relevant food in the dropdown, because it is a type of summer squash.

Here are a few examples:

• Tempted by some popcorn at the movies? Ask “how many calories are in popcorn” and you’ll get your answer. [Hint: it's 31 calories per cup]
  
• Perplexed by a food label or recipe? Ask “what nutrients are in breadfruit?” or “is there sugar in granadilla?”
  
• Big on a high protein diet? Ask “how many carbs in corn?” or simply search for [corn] and you’ll see detailed nutrition info.
  

This feature will begin to launch today in English and will be rolling out in the US over the next ten days. Over time we’ll be adding more features, foods, and languages. So tap the microphone, give the feature a spin, and soon explore and discover the ins and outs of over 1,000 of your favorite foods.

Posted by Ilya Mezheritsky, Product Manager