Posted by Minnie Ingersoll, Product Manager



Today, Google launched a WiFi network in our hometown of Mountain View. Radios hanging on lampposts throughout the city are now broadcasting a "GoogleWiFi" wireless (802.11b/g) signal that brings wireless Internet access to the city's residents, businesses, and visitors. All anyone needs is a laptop or other wireless-enabled device and a web browser to get online. Then Mountain View users can select the "GoogleWiFi" signal, open their web browser and sign in with a free Google Account. To learn more about the network's coverage area and the location of the WiFi radios, we've published a map.



This network is a way for us to give back to and engage with the community where our headquarters are. As the product manager for Google WiFi, it has been has been tremendously rewarding to partner with the local government, the schools, the library, the neighborhood associations, and all of our trusted testers to introduce the power of free, wireless Internet connectivity to the city. I look forward to meeting with more members of the community at upcoming training sessions and ice cream socials :-).



Another goal of this network is to promote alternative access technologies by using Mountain View as an example for organizations considering investments in the WiFi arena. We think successful mesh wireless deployments will promote competition, create cheaper access alternatives, and (if done correctly) foster open, standards-compliant platforms for content and service providers to showcase their applications without the hassle of the traditional walled-garden approach.



For additional information about Google WiFi, please see our Frequently Asked Questions. If you're in the neighborhood, please stop by and give the network a try, or RSVP to attend our community training session on August 23. Finally, our special thanks to the city of Mountain View for being such a great partner.

Posted by Tom Stocky, Product Manager



We just released a Google Map Search gadget for the personalized homepage -- an easy way do local searches and then quickly scroll through the results on a map. You programmers might like to know that this makes use of three Google APIs at the same time: the Google AJAX Search API, the Google Maps API, and the Google Gadgets API. The next challenge? Let's go for four...

Posted by Adrian Graham, Picasa Product Manager



It's not always easy to search through your personal photos, and it's certainly a lot harder than searching the web. Unless you take the time to label and organize all your pictures (and I'll freely admit that I don't), chances are it can be pretty hard to find that photo you just know is hidden somewhere deep inside your computer.



We've been working to make Picasa (Google's free photo-organizing software) even better when it comes to searching for your own photos—to make finding them be as easy as finding stuff on the web. Luckily we've found some people who share this goal, and are excited that the Neven Vision team is now part of Google.



Neven Vision comes to Google with deep technology and expertise around automatically extracting information from a photo. It could be as simple as detecting whether or not a photo contains a person, or, one day, as complex as recognizing people, places, and objects. This technology just may make it a lot easier for you to organize and find the photos you care about. We don't have any specific features to show off today, but we're looking forward to having more to share with you soon.