Today I'm happy to report we've taken a giant step in bringing public transit information to Google Maps. We've just added comprehensive transit info for the entire New York metro region, encompassing subway, commuter rail, bus and ferry services from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority )MTA(, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, New Jersey Transit and the City of New York.

Nearly two months ago, we introduced the Google Elections Video Search gadget on iGoogle, a tool that transcribes and indexes the spoken content on YouTube's Politicians channels . It didn't take long for folks to find some creative ways to use it! Now it's possible to enjoy this technology in a bigger way: We just launched Google Audio Indexing )aka GAudi( in Google Labs. The dedicated site offers more features, such as "search within video" and "sharing,

Now more than ever before, older Americans are logging on and surfing the web to stay in touch with family and friends, read websites and blogs, share photos, watch videos, and run online businesses. Like all Internet users, they're sometimes faced with unsafe activity online, such as viruses and malware, and they're looking for resources to learn how to keep their information on the web safe, private, and under their control.

Today we added new features to Google Maps for Mobile that will help you see a location, find out what people are saying about it, and learn how to get there on foot - all from the convenience of your phone. Street View imagery, walking directions and business reviews are now available for BlackBerry and many Java-enabled phones. Read more on the Google Mobile Blog , and check out this video. Posted by Michael Siliski,

Back in February we told you about the 2008 Model Your Campus Competition , a call for students to submit 3D models of their college campuses created with Google SketchUp . We got submissions from campuses around the world , and Mexico stood out with submissions from 13 different campuses. At that time we also ran a parallel contest with a top Mexican school, ITESM )The Technology Institute of Monterrey(,

Louisiana is a place with heart and soul, a place where culture lives in the streets, in the rhythm of our music and in the flavors of our unique cuisine. I recently had the opportunity to visit the Googleplex and I expressed my interest in seeing Street View come to Louisiana, so I'm excited to see the launch of Street View imagery for Greater New Orleans, Baton Rouge and Shreveport. This remarkable tool allows us to share with the world life as we see it,

This week our Google Apps for Education team is attending the Campus Technology Conference in Boston. This 4-day gathering focuses on emerging technologies in higher education, both in the classroom and campus-wide. As anyone in the education field can attest, the business of teaching - and learning - is changing very quickly. We're continually impressed and excited by all of the innovation happening in this space. In response to a new educational ecosystem,

Randy Pausch , a professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University and a good friend of Google, passed away last night. In addition to being recognized as a pioneer in virtual reality research, he became widely known as a gifted teacher and a mentor to many. Millions of people saw his inspiring " Last Lecture " on YouTube. Read more about Randy and his contributions on our Research Blog . Posted by Kevin McCurley,

Posted by Kristen Holway, Account Executive, Media Sales Over the summer solstice weekend, Seattle/Kirkland Googlers posed this question to people attending the Fremont Fair : "How would you make our world, or our city, better?" The goal of the Fremont Fair "Make it Better" Project was to engage the Seattle community in an active discussion around improving our world. This is the second year we've partnered with Solid Ground to participate in the fair,

Posted by Stephen Chau, Product Manager Today marks the beginning of one of my favorite summer events: the Tour de France. I'm always amazed when I hear about the long, steep climbs through mountains or the blistering speeds of the cyclists as they pass through the French countryside. But since most of us can't head over there to watch it in person, we're giving you the next best thing: Street View of the 2008 Tour de France route. Head to google.

Posted by Ron Adler and Janis Stipins, Software Engineers Google has been developing a new algorithm for indexing textual content in Flash files of all kinds, from Flash menus, buttons and banners, to self-contained Flash websites. Recently, we've improved the performance of this Flash indexing algorithm by integrating Adobe's Flash Player technology . In the past,

Posted by Matt Simmons, Market Data Gnome We're excited to let you know we're adding more real-time market data to Google Finance, Google.com and other Google properties. Starting today, you'll have access to real-time, last sale prices from the New York Stock Exchange )NYSE(, along with those from NASDAQ, which we recently launched . Here's the NYSE press release . What this means is that you can now get the latest real-time stock quotes on Google for free.

Posted by Vijay Koduri, Product Marketing Manager Imagine bringing the experience of search on Google.com and the power of cloud computing to your website. That's Google Site Search in a nutshell.

Posted by Phillip Grasso, Manager, Engineering/Operations Over the last few weeks, we've been keeping you updated on our Treasure Hunt competition " a puzzle contest designed to test your knowledge of computer science, networking, and low-level UNIX trivia. And now it's coming to a close. The fourth and final puzzle will be released at 1212448500. With it, we'll also be highlighting Google Developer Day , which is coming up on June 18 at Wharf 8 in Sydney .

Posted by Carolina Shea, AdSense Account Strategist Last week, I flew from our Phoenix office to Washington, D.C. to deliver our first U.S. seminar for small business. It's a simple and straightforward presentation about how Google tools can help small businesses establish a presence online, work more collaboratively and efficiently, and earn money from their websites through our AdSense program. If you were able to catch a glimpse of our testimony in front of the U.S.

Posted by Jeff Chin, Product Manager ...and that's great news any way you say it. Language is one of the biggest challenges we have in making information universally accessible. As part of the machine translation team within Google Research , I'm happy to report we've been hard at work to overcome this challenge. We've recently added translation capabilities for 10 new languages to Google Translate , bringing the total to 23 languages.

Posted by Andrew Schwerin, Software Engineer As we noted earlier , our Conference on Scalability is taking place in Seattle on Saturday, June 14. And now registration is open until June 6. We have some great talks lined up from industry and academia, covering everything from scalability of storage, communication and transactions to scaling applications into the mobile space or, in one case, under water. Space is limited, so do sign up now.

Posted by Diane McClamroch, Food Services Team Today at our Mountain View headquarters we're celebrating the one-year anniversary of an important project: our organic garden. Not only does it provide a stunning centerpiece for the central campus; it yields produce and herbs that are used daily in the cafes on campus. Although many Googlers would like to think of themselves as Renaissance men and women ,

Posted by Scott McMullan, Google Apps Partner Lead, Google Enterprise A little less than a year ago, we partnered with Salesforce.com to create Salesforce Group Edition featuring Google AdWords. It combines Salesforce.com's CRM applications with AdWords to make it easier for businesses to generate leads, track, and close them. Since then, people have offered up a constant stream of requests to streamline even more of the CRM process.

Posted by Tom Phillips, Director, DoubleClick Integration Since we closed the acquisition of DoubleClick on March 11, we've been immersed in integration planning for each of our products and business units. Recently we completed this process for the DoubleClick Performics businesses, and have decided to split them into two separately-run business units: Affiliate Marketing and Search Marketing.