Google Canada showcases technology used in everyday life

Text and photos by Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

Google Canada brought their tech, their toys and some of their more notable video bloggers on YouTube to a loft in downtown Toronto today to showcase the connected life at the Google Loft.

Laid out with various stations showcasing real-world situations where Google's cloud and search technology can come into play, I received first-hand demonstrations on just how capable Google's solutions are and discovered a bunch of tools I never heard of before.

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Google revamps Drive apps

Google has updated the designs of Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drawings, Forms, and Apps Script to make them “cleaner and more colorful.”

Some of the changes include the placement of product icons and the header redesign. Each editor product icon is now seen on the header and clicking on that will bring you back to files in your Google Drive. The header has also been streamlined to give you access to the things you need to focus on.

Google updates search algorithm

Google has introduced a new algorithm, codenamed Hummingbird, for the first time in three years. It improves the way the search engine interprets your requests. It has been up and running for a month already and has affected 90 percent of Google searches.

The new algorithm is said to be particularly useful for longer, more complex inquiries and provides a more natural interaction with the search engine. The answers to your questions this time are based more on an intelligent understanding of your searches than an indexing of websites done by the previous algorithm Caffeine. Hummingbird understands the relationship and concepts of words rather than just taking these words at face value.

Source: BBC

Google Constitute: a tool for government creation and comparison

Google wants to do their part in country unification and government building with the introduction of a new site called Constitute. Built with the support of the Comparative Constitutions Project, the website features constitutions from around the world that can be searched by country or topics ranging from general themes, like “Foreign Policy,” to specific material, like “Judicial Autonomy and Power.”  

The internet giant hopes the site is used by drafters in creating and writing their constitutions and to help citizens become aware of their constitutions and those of other countries.