Lie down and remember that dream you had about something that seemed impossible—now imagine waking up and looking around to realize you were never sleeping. From strawberry funnel cakes to five-story cruise ships and hangouts with Larry Page, my summer of Building Opportunities in Leadership and Development (BOLD)—a Google summer internship program—never looked, tasted or sailed so well. Every day this summer I’ve jumped out of bed and into my real-life dream, working on products that I believe will change the world and contributing to a melting pot of proactive teamwork.

BOLD, one of Google’s student and diversity initiatives, brought 100+ undergraduates from all over the U.S. to Google in 2011. The program began in 2008 as a way to expose historically underrepresented students to the technology field. Whether it be sharing tofu with co-founder Sergey Brin or rubbing elbows with some of the world’s brightest minds at the Google Science Fair, Google interns worldwide have collected a plethora of unforgettable moments.

Being an intern here is much more than making coffee and photocopies. As one of Google’s largest sources of full-time hires, internship programs contribute to the company’s diversity, culture and future. Sure, I’ve made a few coffees during my internship—caramel mocha cappuccinos to be exact, from the espresso machine in the microkitchen. But my summer at the Googleplex was a packed, 11-week adventure within the Global Communications & Public Affairs apps and enterprise team. My projects ranged from working with my manager on the Google+ Project launch to staffing press at the inaugural Google Science Fair. Other BOLDers worked on major products like Android and YouTube, and even launched newbies, like Games in Google+. We attended weekly workshops, talks about technology and skill-building seminars led by company leaders like director of online sales and operations Stacy Brown-Philpot and chief legal officer David Drummond.

I was even able to scratch my creative itch for event coordinating and community service. On my second day at Google, I painted hallways alongside my team for a community GoogleServe project at middle school in San Francisco. Soon after, I coordinated a weekly intern discussion series with a few amazing mentors from the Black Googlers Network.

To share a few other perspectives beyond my own, I caught up with Brandon Jackson and Eoin Hayes from the BOLD and Online Media Associate Program (OMAP) bunch. I asked them to share a few of their experiences this summer:

• Brandon, a two-time BOLD participant and rising senior at Stanford, worked with the technology human relations team, focusing on transitioning new Googlers to the company. He told me: “BOLD represents family. The program coordinators find some of the brightest, most intellectually curious and warm hearted students in the world. Coupled with inspiring mentors and an incredible university programs team, BOLD is a community that never stops looking out for each other.”
• Eoin, a master’s student at London Business School who worked with the OMAP AdSense team in Dublin, said he not only gained deep product knowledge during his internship, but also leadership and management skills. A highlight was his visit to Google’s headquarters with four other international interns.

Eoin with other European and U.S. interns at a Googleplex TGIF

Although my internship officially ends today, my professional development is just beginning. I have a new perspective on life and career options after college, like having had a refreshing sip of “Googlemonade” in the Sahara of post-college stress. As a senior this year, I’ll be serving as UC Merced’s first Google Student Ambassador and I can’t wait to connect my college to all of Google’s collaborative learning resources and leadership opportunities.

Me (with the purple pants) & fellow BOLDers on the 80s-themed intern boat cruise around the San Francisco Bay

This summer was an unforgettable cruise and I will never forget those who set sail with me. If you’re interested in student opportunities at Google, visit the Student blog.

Posted by Shavone Charles, BOLD intern

(Cross-posted from the YouTube Blog)

Nearly six years ago, YouTube was created to enable people to create, share and discover the world through video. Today, 35 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube every minute and we see well over 2 billion views a day. It’s been amazing to watch an idea become a platform that turned into a stage for hundreds of millions of people to express themselves. We now have aspiring filmmakers and musicians building their careers on YouTube, activists opening our eyes to global issues and individuals telling their stories in ways that only video can capture. And because we believe that technology and platforms like YouTube are giving rise to the most diverse set of faces and voices ever seen or heard in human history, us YouTubers really enjoy and feel proud to work here.



2010 was a bang-up year. And in 2011, we plan to grow the number of people working at YouTube by more than 30% (!), making it the largest hiring year in YouTube’s history. We’re looking for top talent from around the world. Why don’t you join us?

Posted by Jeff Ferguson, YouTube HR

2010 was a huge year for Google. Many of our big bets—on mobile, display advertising, the cloud and more—really started to pay off. Amazingly, Android now runs on over 100 devices with more than 300,000 activations each day. Chrome has at least 120 million active users and it’s growing quickly. Last year more than 1 million businesses switched to Google Apps and embraced its 100% web approach. And we’ve made search faster than ever, even when you’re on the go.

But it wasn’t just a growth year for our products—the company grew as well. In 2010 we added more than 4,500 Googlers, primarily in engineering and sales: second only to 2007 when we added over 6,000 people to Google.

I love Google because of our people. It's inspiring to be part of the team. And that's why I am excited about 2011—because it will be our biggest hiring year in company history. We’re looking for top talent—across the board and around the globe—and we’ll hire as many smart, creative people as we can to tackle some of the toughest challenges in computer science: like building a web-based operating system from scratch, instantly searching an index of more than 100 million gigabytes and even developing cars that drive themselves. There’s something at Google for everyone—from geo, to enterprise, to video—with most of the work done in small teams, effectively working as start-ups. (The average number of software engineers on a project at Google is 3.5.) That’s why the vast majority of our people stay with us, building their careers and taking on new challenges within the company.

I joined Google more than eight years ago—when we had barely 500 employees and still used Outlook for email and AIM for chat—and while there have been many changes, Google is still the same entrepreneurial company it was when I started, encouraging Googlers to take on big ideas and high-risk, high-reward opportunities.

If you think you want to join the team, check out google.com/jobs.

Posted by Alan Eustace, SVP Engineering and Research

Nearly five years ago, we announced that we would begin building an engineering presence in Pittsburgh, a city with a strong technology ecosystem as well as an entrepreneurial spirit and great quality of life. Since then, we’ve grown from two engineers to more than 150, and we’re continuing our commitment to growth in the region as we've officially opened a new Google Pittsburgh office in an old Nabisco factory in Bakery Square.

The Collaborative Innovation Center at Carnegie Mellon University had been our home since 2006, and our relationship with CMU remains invaluable to us. On top of the strong pipeline of brilliant engineers emerging from local universities, we’re seeing a “boomerang effect” of Pittsburghers who previously believed they had to go elsewhere to succeed with careers in computer science and engineering. We hope that the scrappy start-up culture we’ve maintained from the beginning at Google Pittsburgh as well as the burgeoning tech community throughout the city continues to encourage them to consider coming home.

In addition to teams focused on core initiatives related to Product Search and Ads Quality, we’re proud to be home to 20% time projects including the Sky Map planetarium app for Android phones, which combines astronomy, physics and computer science to put the galaxies in your pocket (and now includes the ability to time travel!) and Sky in Google Earth, which enables you to look upward from your position in Google Earth to view the heavenly objects above. Luis von Ahn and his reCAPTCHA team lead development of a technology that improves the process of converting scanned images into plain text, which powers initiatives like Google Books, and we welcome our first Enterprise sales leads who are working to help businesses and organizations in the region consider the benefits of cloud computing with Google Apps.



Our almost-40,000 square-foot space is Googley in many ways, but my favorite characteristics include a climbable trapeze net that extends from our second floor into thin air and a massive cookie-dough mixer preserved from the former Nabisco factory, which pays homage to Bakery Square’s manufacturing heritage.

If this sounds like the place for you, take a look at our open jobs and apply. We’re growing in Pittsburgh.

Posted by Andrew Moore, Engineering Director, Google Pittsburgh

Eric said during our third quarter earnings call that "innovation is the technological pre-condition for growth." He was talking about the kind of innovation that's only possible when you can attract and retain the world's finest minds. Some come to Google through acquisition, like the people who created Google Earth (formerly Keyhole), or the folks at Android Inc. — but most innovation coming out of Google is homegrown.

A good example is Google Chrome, which in only a year, has more than 30 million active users. Larry and Sergey recently gave the Chrome team a Founders Award, a multimillion-dollar stock bonus shared by the Googlers who worked across functions and regions to create and launch that product. As its name suggests, this award is presented by our founders to celebrate the kind of large-scale, game-changing achievements that Google stands for. The Chrome team joined a long list of teams — including Gmail, AdSense for Content, Google Maps and parts of our sales and marketing units — who have won this award (and could win again!).

We want to continue to create products that rethink industry standards, challenge the status quo and make people's lives easier — and we know that there are great minds out there with the same goal. Recently, we announced that we're starting to ramp up hiring for positions across the company, continuing our investment in the future as we imagine it. That future is shaped by small teams of creative people who want to make a difference. We're on the hunt for these kind of people — let us know if you think you're one of them.

Posted by Alan Eustace, Senior Vice President, Engineering & Research

(Cross-posted on the Google Student Blog)

We had a busy summer here at Google interacting with students through a wide variety of scholarship, internship and networking opportunities across North America. Here's a look back at a few of our programs (you can bet we'll be hosting them again!) along with news on some upcoming initiatives.

Rising college sophomores participated in two Google programs: Google FUSE, in its inaugural year, and the Google Computer Science Summer Institute (CSSI).

For FUSE, we welcomed 50 rising college sophomores to our New York City office for a three-day retreat designed to connect students from groups that are under-represented in the field of computer science. The retreat focused on making connections between students and Googlers, encouraging students to create meaningful academic experiences and allowing them to learn more about possible career paths via hands-on activities, panel discussions and a bit of fun around the New York City area.

Another group of twenty rising sophomores spent two weeks at the Googleplex in Mountain View for the second annual Computer Science Summer Institute. This special program included an interactive and collaborative Computer Science curriculum, as well as a living-learning residential experience for student networking. Students worked in teams to create an interactive web application using Python in Google App Engine. When not in class, they heard technical talks from Google engineers, spoke with professionals from across the technology industry and academia about the many things they can do with a Computer Science degree. They also had some fun joining the Bay Area summer interns on a boat cruise and catching a baseball game after an exciting San Francisco scavenger hunt.

In addition, our engineering internship program hosted more than 450 college (undergraduate and graduate) interns in 15 locations across North America. These interns were an integral part of the engineering team and made significant contributions this summer working on exciting projects including Android, Chrome, Docs and machine translation.

We also had more than 100 students working across multiple functions, including sales and engineering in Mountain View, New York, Chicago, Ann Arbor, Washington, D.C., San Francisco and Boston as part of the Building Opportunities for Leadership and Development (BOLD) Program. BOLD is a 10-week internship program designed to provide exposure to the technology industry for students from groups that are historically underrepresented in technology. This summer experience includes a unique glimpse into a business or engineering career, professional development and leadership courses, as well as one-on-one mentorship designed to further support professional growth.

Of course, we realize that growing future leaders in engineering and business doesn't just start with college students. For this reason, we partner with the LEAD programs in both business and engineering to encourage outstanding high school students to pursue careers in these fields. This year, all four LEAD Summer Engineering Institute participants had the opportunity to tour a local Google office to attend technical talks and interact with Google engineers (okay, with some tasty food and video games thrown in as well).

As part of Google's ongoing commitment to recognizing student achievements and promoting leadership, we also offer a number of academic scholarships. We are currently accepting applications for the Google Lime Scholarship for Student with Disabilities in the U.S. and Canada, and the Anita Borg Scholarship in Canada, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and the United States. In case you're curious, we offer a host of scholarships for many other international regions.

If one or more of these opportunities sounds like something you'd like to participate in, you can find applications for full time opportunities and summer internship opportunities on our student job site. Visit our scholarship page for more information on our scholarship opportunities. And follow us on Twitter and Facebook for updates on application deadlines and new program announcements.

Making an early connection playing People Bingo at Google FUSE.

Taking a break from bowling during Google FUSE.

Posted by Kyle Ewing, Talent and Outreach Programs - University Programs and Recruiting

We set up shop in Ann Arbor, Mich. nearly two years ago. And we’ve been so busy, we’ve barely had time to say hi. But before we tell you about the interesting things we're doing in our new location, we figure you might want to know a little bit more about our state and our town.

Sandwiched between two Great Lakes, peppered with forestry, and teeming with kindhearted Midwesterners, Michigan is the kind of place you'd be lucky to visit and we get to live here. Not only that, but we’re located in Ann Arbor, a town with a great progressive story:

• Popular Science magazine ranked Ann Arbor in the top 25 greenest cities in America.Some 50,000 trees grow along Ann Arbor streets, and city parks boast another 50,000. And while no trees actually grow in the Google office, our cheeks do seem to be turning a nice leafy shade of green — probably from walking and biking to work as part of Ann Arbor’s Commuter Challenge, swapping paper for reusable dishes in our cafeteria, and educating ourselves on composting and recycling.
  
• On Oct. 14, 1960, President John F. Kennedy announced his proposal for the Peace Corps on the front steps of the Michigan Union, in downtown Ann Arbor. Nearly 50 years later, we "A2ooglers" feel a similar sense of urgency — but this time, it’s a desire to work with our very own state, from soup kitchens to river cleanups. We’re also connecting local schools and businesses with Google products.
• In the first Rose Bowl Game in 1902, University of Michigan (located in Ann Arbor) defeated Stanford 49 - 0. Like our Wolverine neighbors, we're burning with competitive spirit — one that’s given birth to office teams for kickball, soccer, volleyball, tennis, basketball, skiing, ultimate Frisbee and trivia.

Forgive us our moment of boosterism, but there's more:

• AARP Magazine recently named Ann Arbor the healthiest hometown in America, based on 20 factors ranging from the community's water purity to the eating habits of its citizens.
• According to Forbes.com, Ann Arbor is America's 4th Smartest City.
• Oprah Winfrey included a brisket sandwich from our own Zingerman's Deli on her Top Sandwiches in America.
• Ann Arbor ranks in the top 21 cities for cyclists, says Bicycling magazine.
• And even more...
  

Inside our walls, you’ll find a team that's committed to our AdWords advertisers — from identifying potential advertisers, to assisting current ones with day-to-day challenges, to strategizing with others for the future. That’s who we are. We’d love to have you join us.

Posted by Eileen Duffy, AdWords Associate

Posted by Manoj Varghese, Human Resources Director, India

Diversity at Google means having a workforce that reflects the diversity of our customers' perspectives, ideas and cultures -- one that thinks and acts inclusively, and fundamentally values people's similarities and differences. As part of our ongoing commitment to encourage women to excel in computing and technology, the India team has taken our first steps: in December we launched the Google India "Women in Engineering Award" to recognize women in the field of computer science and engineering.

In its inception year, we have extended this award to recognized engineering schools across India; it is open to any woman student in computer science engineering who meets the application criteria. This initiative has been received positively, as has been indicated by the inundating queries and subsequent applications. The last date for applying is January 31st and we are looking forward to hearing from even more applicants.

After our panel reviews all applications, the winners will be announced in a little more than a month, on February 29th. The winners will be invited to visit the Google engineering office in Bangalore during first week of March for a conclave comprising of keynotes, panel discussions, tech talks, breakouts and an award ceremony.

We hope this award will encourage students to take up computer science engineering as their study, and perhaps inspire some of you to take this up as a career too.

Posted by Pablo Chavez, Policy Counsel

Our experience with American immigration policy dates back to one of our founders: when he was six, Sergey Brin's parents fled the Soviet Union in 1979 and settled in the United States. Today, there are literally hundreds of examples of immigrants and non-immigrant foreign workers playing a vital role in our company.

In particular, employees who are holders of H-1B visas -- which allow foreign-born workers with specialized skills to work in the U.S. on a temporary basis -- have helped lead the development of Google News and orkut. Immigrants from countries like Canada, Iran, and Switzerland now lead our business operations, global marketing, global business development, and data infrastructure operations. Without these talented employees and many others, Google would not be where it is today.

As Congress grapples with various immigration reform proposals, Laszlo Bock, our Vice President of People Operations, testified today before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration about the practical impact that the U.S. immigration system has on Google. (Laszlo's mother Susan, who fled Communist Romania when Laszlo was a child, was there too. She was welcomed by Rep. Zoe Lofgren, the chair of the committee, and she received an ovation from everyone present at the hearing.)

In his testimony, Laszlo said that, due to limits on the number of H-1B visas, Google is regularly unable to pursue highly qualified candidates. This year, an estimated 133,000 visa applications were filed by H-1B candidates in the first two days of the filing period for only 65,000 available spots. Over the last year alone, the artificially low cap on H-1B visas has prevented more than 70 Google candidates from receiving H-1B visas. Therefore, Laszlo said, "We would encourage Congress to significantly increase the annual cap of 65,000 H-1B visas, to a figure more reflective of the growth rate of our technology-driven economy." He also urged Congress to address the backlog of employment-based green cards for highly skilled workers.

Check out the full text of Laszlo's testimony or watch the video of his opening remarks to the committee below.

Posted by Brian Fitzpatrick, Engineering, Google Chicago

Despite the fact that we have dozens of offices worldwide, whenever I tell people that I work for Google in Chicago, most of them respond "Google has an office in Chicago?" Then I proceed to tell them that yes, we have a sizeable sales office in downtown Chicago (which is now in its sixth year!), and yes, we have a few engineers camped out in one corner (near the cafe and the foosball table, of course).

Well, now we're decking out the office with binary clocks and caffeinated soap because Google is hiring engineers here.



Our Chicago engineers are currently working on Open Source and developer tools, and we're ramping up other interesting data-centric projects now. So if you're an innovative engineer who likes to launch early and often, build world-class software, and be a part of a small upstart team, then we want you.

Posted by Judy Gilbert, Director, People Programs and Systems

You might say that innovation is in Google's DNA, and we on the People Operations team strive to keep up with the high standards set by our technical colleagues -- we're always looking for new ideas. So last week, we rounded up some of the most creative and successful people in human resources (HR) for an evening of brainstorming.

Our panelists were leaders from Adobe, Cisco, Genentech, Intuit, Network Appliance, and Yahoo! -- the Bay Area companies featured in Fortune Magazine's list of the 100 Best Companies To Work For. In the audience were hundreds of HR professionals representing more than 100 companies. The group touched on everything from performance management to diversity to corporate culture.

Before the last appetizer was consumed, people were asking, "When can we all get together again?" We're starting to plan the next event, but to expand the conversation, we've started a Google Group for HR professionals for those who want to seek kindred spirits to explore new topics. If you're interested, you can sign up for the SF Bay Area group or the US group.

Posted by Narayanan Shivakumar, Director, Seattle-Kirkland R&D Center

When we set up an R&D shop in downtown Kirkland, Washington two years ago, we hoped to attract the best talent in the Pacific Northwest -- folks who are serious about their coffee and don't especially want to move to Silicon Valley. Since then we've attracted many engineers who were tickled silly about working on large clusters of several thousands of machines, not to mention shipping web and client-based consumer apps used by millions of people. In the last two years, our Kirkland engineering team has conceived and launched a dozen products ranging from core search product improvements to Ads Optimization, Sitemaps and Webmaster Central, plus such consumer applications as Google Talk, Chat, Pack, Video, Music Trends, and mobile SMS. (Here's a summary of what we've done out of the Kirkland office.)

But it's not all work -- there's the food. Like a single day's lunch menu this week: roasted turkey breast, chili red bean patties, scalloped potatoes, roasted cranberry & Satsuma orange salad, classic clam chowder, carrot and coriander soup. You really can't operate in the Seattle area without offering good food, of course, so we offer as much good fuel -- fresh, healthy, and, whenever possible, locally-grown -- as it takes!

So if you're an engineer, UE expert or product manager who loves coffee (not to mention the mountains and the sea) -- and you want to have a great time while you're building world-changing products, please consider our Northwest outpost.

Posted by Victoria Grand, Corporate Communications Manager

Like many college seniors, I spent the fall of my senior year in somewhat of a tailspin trying to figure out what to do next. My friends and I considered the usual options: grad school, i-banking, gigs with tech companies and consulting firms. And then there was Teach for America (TFA), an organization dedicated to eradicating educational inequity by enlisting thousands of elite college grads to teach in under-resourced schools. I joined TFA in 1995 and went from college student to inner-city first grade teacher (of 36 students!) practically overnight. Teaching was, without a doubt, the most challenging and the most rewarding job I have ever had.

TFA continues to be a popular destination for college grads today. Since the mid-90s, its enrollment has more than tripled and its applicant pool has quadrupled. As a Googler and former TFA'er, I was thrilled to hear that Google is partnering with TFA to provide two-year deferrals for students who receive offers from both institutions. Now bright, idealistic college grads don't have to choose between two exciting and worthwhile career opportunities. Our partnership enables college grads to get real-world experience and to bring the insight and experience they gain in the classroom to bear in their work at Google. By joining forces, Google and TFA will be able to attract individuals who are capable of the hard work, commitment, and creativity it takes to teach and to be a Googler.

Visit www.google.com/jobs/teachforamerica to find out more about this great program.

Update: Corrected author attribution.

Posted by Petter Wedum and Håvard Husevåg Garnes, Google interns

After months of hard work, the day is finally here: we've released Google News in Norway and Sweden.

At Google News, we cut to the bone -- er, to the core -- searching to get you the freshest takes. We gather the latest news headlines in your language and present a summary of links to you in one single page, freshly ranked by relevance and popularity. Then you just dash off to the sites to read the news stories that take your fancy.

The two of us worked as summer interns with Google in Trondheim earlier this year, with plenty of help from our Swedish colleague Jonas Yngvesson, who's based in Google's Zurich office. Now after some months of public silence, we can finally tell our friends and you all about our work on Google News Scandinavia. It has kind of become our baby. We've cared for it, looked after it, yelled at it and corrected it, and we've come to love it. We hope you will appreciate it as much as we do.

In addition to taming the news, we've enjoyed free lunches and had a chance to learn from some of the best engineers Trondheim and the rest of the world have to offer. Perhaps best of all, we were trusted to work on release-level code for Norway and Sweden. If like us you want to have a say in the inner workings of the world's biggest search company -- to discuss algorithm problems with the guy who wrote your algorithm textbook at college -- you should know that Google wants interns all over the world. Check out the Google Interns site.

Before we go, we would like to thank all the Googlers who have helped us and encouraged us and cared for us throughout our internship. Bosses, colleagues, recruiters and caterers, thank you! Our summer would not have been the same without your help.

Posted by Tom Galloway, Technical Writer

Starbase 24 Commander's personal log.
I find myself looking forward to my upcoming trip to Earth, specifically Las Vegas...

Did you ever realize that among many other things, Star Trek predicted blogs? Think about it -- all those "Captain's log" and "personal log" entries that Kirk would make. He was definitely a blogger. And of course the communicator-inspired cell phone design. And the crew was constantly asking the ship's computer for information...sort of like Google.

Of course, Scotty and Spock, the engineer and the scientist, certainly were childhood inspirations to many Googlers. Now we've (somewhat) grown up, and often work on things that seem right out of the show: Being able to ask a computer to research a topic and present relevant results. Putting maps, both human-drawn and photos taken from space, on a personal communicator (OK, cell phone). Creating 3-D structures and objects and putting them in a shared warehouse for everyone to use (we're still working on making them into solid holograms for a Holodeck). And I'm convinced we've got replicators that restock the snacks in our micro-kitchens.

So it all stands to reason that we're hosting a booth at the 5th annual Official Star Trek Convention (which celebrates 40 years of the whole enterprise) in Las Vegas. It starts today and runs through Sunday. If you're at the con, please stop by for demos of some of our latest product releases, including a few new ones, often with a particular sci-fi spin. We're also looking for applicants to "Google Academy," so please speak up if you'd like to work here. After all -- today is a good day to code.

Posted by Craig Nevill-Manning, Engineering Director

New York, New York -- A place so nice, we're holding the Google Code Jam finals here! I'm excited to tell you about our fourth annual competition, the 2006 Google International Code Jam. This year the last round will be held at our second-largest development center, right in downtown Manhattan. The best coders in the world (and that includes you, if you're up for the challenge) compete on speed and accuracy to solve challenging problems with only their brains, fingers, and a computer. If this is your idea of fun, then sign up -- registration opens today. We'll fly the best 100 coders to New York in October, all expenses paid, for the final competition, to meet Google software engineers and to experience Manhattan. First prize is $10,000; all finalists are guaranteed a minimum prize of $750.

Of course, we'll be on the lookout for future Googlers -- those who love solving tricky coding challenges, and are excited about solving the Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal of organizing the world's information.

Registration opens today, so sign up, test your mettle, and we'll save you a place in New York!

Posted by Bruce Johnson, Engineering Manager, Google Atlanta Team

Check it out: Google's quiet presence in Atlanta is becoming less so, since our engineering and sales teams in Atlanta have recently teamed up. We couldn't be more excited about our brand new (and very Googly) Midtown office. The Atlanta sales team is in its sixth year and continues to grow. The newer engineering team has been hard at work developing the Google Web Toolkit, which launched recently at JavaOne.



When it comes to recruiting great people, Google doesn't let a silly little thing like geography get in the way. In addition to Mountain View, New York, Sydney, Kirkland, Santa Monica, Dublin, Zurich, London, Belo Horizonte, Trondheim, Bangalore, Hyderabad, and Tokyo, now you too can be a Googler in Atlanta.

Midtown Atlanta is an exciting place to be these days, so it's no coincidence that we set up shop next door to Georgia Tech, Technology Square, and Atlantic Station. Oh, and of course, The Varsity — because who can resist a naked dog walking?

We're hiring, so please let us know if you're interested in becoming an Atlanta Googler in engineering or sales.

Posted by Julian Sonego, Marketing Manager, Google Australia and New Zealand

Google Australia has officially come out of beta--we've recently launched our new Australian operation. While Google has had a presence Down Under since late 2002, we have only recently moved into our new digs, which have water views that are the envy of Googlers worldwide.

This new Googleplex in Sydney gives us the opportunity to scale our operation to support a growing band of users, advertisers, and partners. We have also invested heavily in local engineering talent, underscoring Google's commitment to Australia and willingness to set up shop wherever there's talent.

To coincide with the grand opening of the office, the team recently released street maps for Australia and New Zealand so web developers can get a jump start on integrating Down Under maps into their sites.

If you're interested in becoming an Aussie Googler, take a look here. Who wouldn't want to join this team?

Posted by Jon Steinback, Product Marketing Manager, Google Video

One of the great things about working at Google is, well, not always working at Google. Is launch planning stressing you out? Are you obsessing about bugs? Can't find your favorite obscure beverage at the mini-kitchen? Every day, and usually more than once a day, the Googleplex offers talks that serve as excellent (and educational) distractions from the daily grind. These talks can help us learn more about the things we're doing, or help stoke our interest in something new.

Now, with Google Video, we finally have the opportunity to share many of these "from the Googleplex" presentations with the world. They include our Authors@Google talks (don't miss "How to survive a robot uprising" author Daniel Wilson) and the regular engEDU tech talks. Grab coffee and get comfy for this one on "Scalable Learning and Inference in Hierarchical Models of the Neocortex," for example.

Of course, you can access them all on your own schedule. And if you want to see them in person, feel free to check out our recruiting video.

Posted by Jonathan Berger, Mac Applications team

Q. Which fruit was not an iMac color: Blueberry, Lime, Strawberry, Orange, Grape?

Q. Which phrase is not originally from Steve: "insanely great," "There's one more thing," or "Great artists steal"?

Q. Where did the famous 1984 commercial air?

--------------------------------------------

A. The orange iMac was called "tangerine."

A. Although Steve has been known to use "Good artists create. Great artists steal," that second sentence originated with Pablo Picasso.

A. Half-credit if you named Super Bowl XVIII on January 24, 1984. The commercial also aired in Twin Falls, Idaho to qualify for 1983's advertising awards.


If you correctly answered these questions, chances are good you want to know about three Mac Dashboard Widgets that Google has created for OS X Tiger. The Blogger Widget enables quick and easy posting to your blog. Checking your Gmail inbox becomes a matter of pressing F12 with the Gmail Widget. And the Search History Widget allows you find that website you saw last week while searching Google. We'd also like to acknowledge the many great Google widgets people have already created, available on the Apple downloads page.

These widgets, which sprang from the brains of some engineers in their 20% time, are a small step towards bringing our software to a variety of platforms. Want to play? Check out our job listings and come build more Mac stuff with us.