An easier way to use Google Latitude on your computer

We’re happy to introduce an easier way to use Google Latitude from your computer at google.com/latitude. You can now see where your friends are, start using Latitude apps, and share your location all from one place when you’re at your computer.

Find your friends
We launched Latitude with a desktop iGoogle gadget to help you stay in touch with friends and family that may not have a smartphone. We’ve since learned that a desktop experience is important to you even if you’re already using Latitude on your phone. Today, you can now visit a dedicated site that makes it easier than ever to use Latitude when you’re already on your computer. From the Friends tab, you can:

  • See where your friends are on Google Maps
  • Add friends and accept sharing requests
  • Control your privacy settings

Do more with Latitude
You’ll also now find Latitude and Latitude apps together in one place. After browsing your friends list, go to the History or Apps tabs to turn on optional Latitude apps such as:

Share your location
Just like on your phone, you can choose to share your location with friends and family from your WiFi-enabled computer. Before you can share your location, you’ll need to first give Latitude permission to access your location when prompted by your supported browser. You can always change your browser or Latitude privacy settings later. Learn more in the Help Center.

To get started, go to google.com/latitude on your computer. If you’re new to Latitude, you can then start on your phone by sending yourself a text message or choose to start on your computer.

V8 Benchmark Suite Updated

The V8 benchmark suite contains a number of pure JavaScript benchmarks that capture the areas in which a JavaScript engine has to perform well to support the well-structured, maintainable, and high-performance web applications of tomorrow. These benchmarks have been useful for us when optimizing the V8 JavaScript engine and we have found that making them run faster leads to better performance for many of the web applications we enjoy using every day.
Today we have released version 6 of the V8 benchmark suite. The main changes are in the RegExp and Splay components of the benchmark suite. For reference, we describe each of the existing benchmarks in the suite below, along with any changes made in version 6.
RegExp: Regular expression benchmark generated by extracting regular expression operations from 50 of the most popular web pages. The regular expressions are exercised a number of times to reflect their popularity on those top 50 web pages. Changed in version 6: each regular expression is now exercised on a number of different input strings instead of just one.
Splay: Data manipulation benchmark that modifies a large splay tree to exercise the automatic memory management subsystem. The benchmark builds a large splay tree in a setup phase and then measures how fast nodes can be added and removed. Changed in version 6: no longer converts the same numeric key to string repeatedly and updates the splay tree in a way that increases the pressure on the memory management subsystem.
Richards: Operating system kernel simulation benchmark originally written in BCPL by Martin Richards. The Richards benchmark effectively measures how fast the JavaScript engine is at accessing object properties, calling functions, and dealing with polymorphism. It is a standard benchmark that has been successfully used to measure the performance of many modern programming language implementations.
DeltaBlue: One-way constraint solver, originally written in Smalltalk by John Maloney and Mario Wolczko. The DeltaBlue benchmark is written in an object-oriented style with a multi-level class hierarchy. As such it measures how fast the JavaScript engine is at running well-structured applications with many objects and small functions. Changed in version 6: fixed a couple of typos that do not have any impact on the behavior of the benchmark.
Crypto: Encryption and decryption benchmark based on code by Tom Wu. The benchmark encrypts an input string, decrypts the result and verifies that encryption followed by decryption yields the original input. The encryption/decryption algorithm is RSA and the benchmark measures the performance of arithmetic operations on integers and array access.
RayTrace: Ray tracer benchmark based on code by Adam Burmister. The benchmark measures floating-point computations where the object structure is constructed using the Prototype JavaScript library. Changed in version 6: removed dead code that has no impact on the behavior of the benchmark.
EarleyBoyer: Classic Scheme benchmarks, translated to JavaScript by Florian Loitsch’s Scheme2Js compiler. The benchmarks exercise important areas of the JavaScript engine such as object allocation, data structure manipulation, and garbage collection. The translated nature of the benchmarks make them appear foreign, but the runtime characteristics of the benchmarks are highly representative of many real world web applications.
Curious to know how your browser performs? Give it a spin on the new version of the V8 benchmark suite.

Posted by Kasper Lund, Software Engineer

Control over your Autocompletions

Query autocompletion has been the most popular feature in the history of Custom Search. Users love it, and websites use it to help people find alternate queries that get them to the right information faster.

Since launch, one of the most commonly requested features has been administrative control over the autocompletions that surface when people start typing their queries. We’re happy to announce that you can now control inclusions and exclusions to autocompletions.

For example, on our sample restaurant review search engine, typing “che” triggers an autocompletion for “cheese” and not “cheese jalapeno poppers“, one of our tasty snacks. Typing “chicken” did uncover “chicken livers” (ugh!) but did not propose “chicken tandoori”, an interesting menu item that we’d like to promote to our users.


With the new inclusion and exclusion options in the control panel, managing autocompletions is a breeze: we just added “cheese” and “chicken livers” to the list of exclusions, and inserted “chicken tandoori” and “cheese jalapeno poppers” into the included autocompletion list.


A few hours of processing, and the new autocomplete modifications kick in.


We hope you enjoy the new controls that further enhance autocompletions on your search engine. You can even upload included and excluded autocompletions in bulk in the control panel. Let us know if you have any feedback, and enjoy your spicy cheese poppers!