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Google is always expanding the information it offers at the top of search results, with the goal being to keep users within Google itself — no longer needing to navigate to external websites. Today, the Mountain View company has announced that it is adding constitutions from 13 different countries to the top of your search results page…

According to Google’s Inside Search blog:

The Constitute Project helps people access, compare and analyze the world’s constitutions. Now we’re adding more of this content to our search results, so you can find the full text for the United States Constitution—or constitutions from 12 other countries—right at the top of your search results page. To try it out, type (or say) “constitution” into Google Search or the Google App and a box will pop up with the Preamble for the United States Constitution and a drop-down menu where you can see all of the accompanying articles and amendments.

The new feature comes in partnership with the Constitute Project, a group that hopes to give people more access to world constitutions. Of course, the United States constitutions is one of the many you’ll be able to access. Besides the US, there’s Afghanistan, Bhutan, Estonia, Finland, France, Iceland, Japan, Laos, Latvia, Micronesia, Norway and Ukraine.

Just head over to Google and search for “constitution of [your country]” and you’ll be given many drop down menus that let you get a full glimpse of these documents. Of course, Google says that it is looking into adding more countries in the future.

Google has no intentions on becoming a car manufacturer, European executive says

Stephen Hall Sep 15 2015 - 3:26 pm PT

A report yesterday confirmed that Google has hired John Krafcik, former Hyundai CEO and a car industry veteran, to head up the company’s self-driving car program. It’s still unclear exactly what the implications of this move will be, however. While it seems clear that this effectively confirms Google’s intentions of more broadly rolling out the self-driving car at some point in the future, a Google executive has come out to clarify some things on Tuesday at the Frankfurt auto show…
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Google celebrates the birthday of Super Mario Bros. w/ new Easter egg [Video]

Stephen Hall Sep 14 2015 - 8:58 am PT

It was the birthday of Super Mario Bros. yesterday, and Google is celebrating with a new Easter egg in search. It’s not as extravagant as some other permanent jokes (like the infamous “Do a barrel roll”), but it’s pretty cute nonetheless.

Head over to Google and search for “Super Mario Bros” and then check out the right hand side of the page. Right below the box art and screenshots, you’ll find a familiar question mark box. Of course, clicking it will get you 200 points.

Check out the video below:

Google hire of ex-Hyundai CEO effectively confirms plans for full-scale launch of self-driving car

Ben Lovejoy Sep 14 2015 - 5:26 am PT

If there were any remaining question about whether Google plans to actually proceed to a full-scale commercial launch of its self-driving car at some point, a hire reported late last night by Automotive News seems to remove any doubt. It reports that Google has hired John Krafcik, former Hyundai CEO and a car industry veteran, to head up the program.

Krafcick refers in an email to the cars being used by “millions” of people.

“This is a great opportunity to help Google develop the enormous potential of self-driving cars,” Krafcik wrote in an email to Automotive News. “This technology can save thousands of lives, give millions of people greater mobility, and free us from a lot of the things we find frustrating about driving today. I can’t wait to get started.”

Google moving towards wider production of its electric self-driving cars, making a ‘few hundred’

Stephen Hall Sep 12 2015 - 9:29 am PT

When Google originally showcased the newer low-speed “cute-mobile” self-driving car, it mentioned a goal of having about 100 of them on the road for testing within a couple years. Now, as the company is bringing its low-speed electric prototypes to Austin a year later, Sarah Hunter, head of policy for Google [X], has revealed that the company is expanding production of the cars (via The Guardian). Hunter says that Google is now producing at least a “few hundred” and hints at a potential future of mass-production…
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Google updates health Knowledge Graph with hundreds more conditions, printable PDFs for doctor visits, more

Zac Hall Sep 3 2015 - 10:08 am PT

Google first introduced fact-checked health information to its Knowledge Graph earlier this year to present quality medical facts to users searching for specific conditions. Today the search giant says it will soon have over 900 health conditions included in its Knowledge Graph offering “quick at-a-glance info on symptoms, treatments, prevalence, and more.” Google says this more than doubles the amount of health conditions it included at the start. Google’s health information Knowledge Graph is getting smarter in other ways too.

Google’s new ‘I’m feeling curious’ feature is really addicting

Stephen Hall Sep 3 2015 - 6:36 am PT

Google is definitely known for its hidden easter eggs and features in search, and this one is really going to keep you occupied: Searching for “I’m feeling curious” now shows you a widget that rotates through some random and interesting facts about just about everything — from how much a “lifetime airline pass” costed in the 80s to facts about Oprah.

After clicking the “Ask Another Question” a few times, it looks like the box pulls information from anywhere and everywhere on the web. A few facts were pulled from Wikipedia, and plenty of others were from History.com, Princeton.edu, People.com, and several other sources. As a bonus, it looks like “thefactsite.com” is going to get some nice extra traffic today.

If you want to check it out, head over to Google and search “I’m feeling curious“. Alternatively, it looks like other similar queries like “fun facts” will also show the widget.

Google rolls out visual tweaks to Search on mobile, Google Now on Android

Jordan Kahn Sep 1 2015 - 12:14 pm PT

In addition to unveiling its all new logo today, Google has announced some changes coming to its Search experience on mobile devices and its Google Now homepage on Android. Google notes that it’s made the search results page for mobile devices easier to navigate with a new swipeable and tappable UI. Google offered a look at the new UI for images, videos and news stories in the video below.
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Google will begin penalizing mobile sites for using app install interstitials

Tom Maxwell Sep 1 2015 - 11:12 am PT

Through this big shift we’re in the middle of to a mobile world where native apps reign king, Google has held strong in its devotion to improving the user experience of the web. Today another example of that is a shift it’s making to penalize those sites which display app install interstitials that hide a significant amount of content.
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A ‘bug’ in Google’s self-driving car software actually shows just how good it is

Ben Lovejoy Aug 28 2015 - 4:52 am PT

The accident record of Google’s self-driving cars speaks for itself, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t still bugs to be worked out. Ironically, though, one of those bugs demonstrates just how capable the cars are.

When one of the cars encountered a cyclist doing a trackstand (balancing while stationary by making tiny back-and-forth movements) at a four-way stop, the car came to a halt every time the cyclist moved forward an inch or so. The recent encounter in Austin, Texas, was described by the cyclist on web forum Road Bike Review …
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Google Search has new context-based storm-preparedness recommendations

Tom Maxwell Aug 27 2015 - 8:37 am PT

Google puts a lot of effort into making the world’s knowledge organized and accessible, and in particular it has a record through its Crisis Response project of making certain information more accessible during times of disaster. Today it released a blog post detailing how it’s doing more to help people be prepared.

Bing app for Android updated, Marshmallow-like Now on Tap features in tow

Cam Bunton Aug 20 2015 - 8:22 am PT

As part of its Android M announcement, Google showed off its Now on Tap feature which will allow you to get contextual information within any app or screen just by pressing the home button for a few seconds. With Marshmallow not set to hit the public until later this year, it gave Microsoft a chance to beat Google to it. And it has done just that in its latest Bing app for Android.

With new Report Editor, analyze data using charts and tables directly within AdWords

Tom Maxwell Aug 5 2015 - 11:09 am PT

Many of us are visual learners, and by visualizing data you may be able to notice trends that you otherwise wouldn’t have by just looking at the numbers written out. Google understands this, and is making it possible to quickly visualize data from its AdWords online advertising service through a simple drag-and-drop tool available soon from directly within AdWords itself — yes, no more needing to download your data and explore it elsewhere.

Google opens up data on site search performance with new Analytics developer API

Tom Maxwell Aug 5 2015 - 10:15 am PT

Have you ever wondered what the most commonly searched terms which lead to your site appearing in Google’s results are? Or maybe the top queries on mobile that lead to your site appearing in results? Well, Google has offered a Search Analytics Report in the Google Search Console for some time which provides this exact kind of data (where have you been?), and now it has created an API developers can use to play around with this data in their own apps.

It’s called the Search Analytics API and with it, developers get access to all the data on traffic that has come to them through search, and can sort it by parameters like country to gain insights into, for example, what are the top queries in India that lead to visitors.

The potential here is for developers to create graphical user interfaces to this data, so less tech savvy individuals would gain the ability to sift through their search data without needing prior knowledge on how to use an API.

Google will now walk advertisers through how to bid based on their objectives

Tom Maxwell Aug 5 2015 - 9:52 am PT

Google has a lot of data on how different decisions made throughout the creation of an AdWords display marketing campaign can lead to a lot of different end results. Now it wants to use that insight to help marketers make the right decisions to reach their objectives, be it a transaction or even just an engagement with their website, and has created a step-by-step solution to do just that.

The new tool for display ads, live now in AdWords, takes marketers through the whole ad campaign creation process based on what they want to result to be. For example, someone who just wants people to visit their website may not realize that they can pay just for each click they get, rather than every single impression. Someone who wants to optimize for the amount of times their advertisement is simply seen, though, will probably want to pay for viewable impressions, or those ad placements guaranteed to be visible on the page (i.e. not needing the user to scroll to see them). Using the new setup flow, advertisers can also input their website URL and have Google choose keywords they may want their ad to appear against in search results.

There are a lot of small decisions like these that advertisers have to consider when creating a new campaign, and a lot of ways to make a mistake that impacts the results. So this new tool simply makes it a lot easier to not mess up. It’s important for Google, too, because a low return on investment for an advertiser is a negative experience that may lead them to not using AdWords again.

Google appeals French ‘Right to be forgotten’ order, says would be ‘race to the bottom’

Ben Lovejoy Jul 31 2015 - 4:03 am PT

Google has appealed against France’s order that it must implement ‘Right to be forgotten‘ requests globally, rather than just within Europe, reports the WSJ. The company argued in a blog post that to comply would mean the Internet would only be as free as the least free country in the world …
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Google promoting Flights product in city Knowledge Graph search cards

Tom Maxwell Jul 21 2015 - 2:17 pm PT

Google’s Knowledge Graph attempts to surface relevant, actionable information to the search page so you don’t have to do as much clicking. As one example, Google presents population and other census data front and center when you search for a city. It looks like this card in particular, the one for cities and towns, has been updated with a new actionable snippet for flights…

Don’t expect your fancy new top-level domain to give you an SEO boost, says Google

Ben Lovejoy Jul 21 2015 - 7:14 am PT

With companies now able to apply to use their own brand as a top-level domain (TLD), there have been suggestions that doing this might be an easy way to get a boost in search-engine rankings. For example, that Samsung using something like www.phones.samsung might get more hits than the usual samsung.com domain. Not so, says Google …
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Google asked to remove more than 1 million page links since Europe’s ‘right to be forgotten’ act

Cam Bunton Jul 11 2015 - 3:10 pm PT

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A report published recently states that, since the ‘right to be forgotten‘ act was passed in the EU in May 2014, Google has received request from more than 280,000 people to remove over 1 million links to pages.

Google displaying product review snippets in product knowledge cards

Tom Maxwell Jul 10 2015 - 3:09 pm PT

Search for a product on Google and you might see a Knowledge Graph card to the right of the result links containing details on the product as well as links to sites selling it and the full Google Shopping reviews page. You may now also see snippets of what people are saying regarding certain aspects of a product.

First spotted by Search Engine Land, Google seems to be pulling quotes from the product reviews that it aggregates from other websites and placing them inside Search product cards. The company gets most of these reviews from the product pages of websites selling the item – Rakuten.com Shopping and B&H Photo are two places the reviews for the above speakers come from, for example.

As Search Engine Land notes, you can click through to see all the reviews for a product, but on the full reviews page the only link provided against each review simply goes to the product page hosting the review – it doesn’t take you to that exact review on the host site.

Google is constantly adjusting its Knowledge Graph cards, most recently removing Google+ posts from the cards for popular businesses.

Google’s self-driving car takes to the roads in Austin, Texas, in next phase of testing

Ben Lovejoy Jul 7 2015 - 3:59 am PT

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If you live in Austin, Texas, and thought you spotted one of Google’s self-driving cars, you weren’t imagining things: the company confirmed today that it has chosen the city for the next phase of testing. Google said in a G+ post that it was important for the software to be tested in a variety of different driving environments.

We’ve chosen Austin, Texas, as a new testing location for our project, and one of our Lexus SUVs is there now, with safety drivers aboard, driving a few square miles north and northeast of downtown Austin. It’s important for us to get experience testing our software in different driving environments, traffic patterns and road conditions—so we’re ready to take on Austin’s pedicabs, pickup trucks, and everything in between.

Google first demonstrated the car to the city’s mayor, chief of police and other officials back in 2013 …
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Camp Google is a month long online science camp for kids, launching on July 13

Tom Maxwell Jul 6 2015 - 11:52 am PT

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The Internet has changed the way we access, view, ingest, and share knowledge, and Google has played a big part in that, with its mission from day one being to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible. Now through a new project called Google Camp, the company will train kids to utilize their services as early as possible — starting from the ages of 7-10 years old, specifically. The program seems to focus on online project-based science lessons…