步 - Bu4 - Step, Pace, March

同步 - Tong2 Bu4 - Same Step – Synchronous

非同步 - Fei1 Tong2 Bu4 - Non Same Step – Asynchronous

Posted by Tom Stocky, Product Marketing Manager

I just moved to the Bay Area a few months ago, so when friends come from out of town, they’re pretty underwhelmed with my abilities as a tour guide.

But not last weekend. My visitors wanted to have brunch somewhere with “a great view.” So I plugged [brunch "great view"] into Google Local, and was pleasantly surprised with the results. Not only was brunch delicious, but we had that “great view” my friends were looking for. Best of all, now they actually think I know my way around the city. (At least until they see this.)

What’s cool about Google Local is that you can go beyond standard categories like restaurant or hotel to search more specifically for things like [brick oven pizza] or [inexpensive hotel]. Very handy, especially if you’re a budding tour guide like me.

BusinessWeek Online - Haida Berg doesn’t usually talk about her passion for Tetris, the electronic game in which interlocking blocks are stacked one upon the other. “It has a stigma attached to it,” says Berg, “like it’s something a 14-year-old boy would do.” Yet Berg, like lots of folks with time on their hands at airports or on their daily commute, can’t seem to help herself. While she and her husband drive across Nevada’s wide-open spaces, making the rounds for their satellite installation business, Berg loses herself in Tetris. …

Posted by Craig Nevill-Manning, Engineering Director

I suspect that when people think of New York, they think of Wall Street finance, Broadway shows, fashion, TV news. Probably “innovative software development” doesn’t spring to mind. But hidden away in a Times Square high-rise, more than 80 software engineers are coding up some exciting Google products. If we told you *everything* we’re working on, it’d spoil the surprise (hint: keep an eye on Google Labs). Recently, we’ve launched Google Q&A, My Search History, Web Definitions, and Local Search, including the UK version earlier this week.

In fact generally we focus on the next generation of Google’s crawling and indexing technology. We’ve got hard-core statisticians pondering how to measure search quality more accurately, and a slightly nutty project that we think might revolutionize the way that we organize and search structured information.

It’s not all work, work, work, though. We have a large three-story atrium, so it’s axiomatic that we have several radio-controlled blimps - some with cameras - and a gyroscopically-stabilized four-rotor helicopter that can definitely take folks by surprise. And although breakfast, lunch and dinner are provided (we seem to have lost the ability to forage for ourselves) and two on-site masseuses (Manhattan can be a little intense), it’s nice to get off site from time to time.

Which means a trip to the Empire State Building, of course. We’ve taken a group photo of the team standing on our 19th floor terrace from the observation deck of the ESB — we calculated that this requires an effective focal length of 3000mm, which is just right for an astronomical telescope and a digital SLR.

So we’re a little geeky for New York City, but it is supposed to be a melting pot, isn’t it? And we’re right next to Bryant Park, home of one of the world’s first free public 802.11b networks, which we sponsor. Somehow that seems appropriate for a bunch of hackers trying to organize the world’s information.

It almost goes without saying that we’re hiring like mad, what with our insatiable appetite for great software architects and coders. If the Bright Lights of the Big City are blinking at you, check out our New York jobs.

享 - Xiang3 - Enjoy

Jenny says that 享受 - Xiang3 Shou4 means “Indulge” but my dictionary maintains it means “Enjoy” and to say “Indulge” you want to use 耽溺 - Dan1 Ni4.

SeaCode: Offshoring. Three miles off shore -ing.

AP - The maker of the popular online fantasy game “EverQuest II” has reversed its long-standing ban on selling virtual characters and items for real money.

Reuters - Video game publisher Namco Hometek,
the U.S. division of Japan’s Namco Ltd. , on Wednesday said it
acquired the rights to the legendary comic strip “Peanuts,”
featuring the lovable beagle Snoopy and his harried owner
Charlie Brown.

TechWeb - Sony Online Entertainment lowered the boom on gray market trading of virtual characters and gear Wednesday, as it announced an auction site for players of its Everquest II multi-player online game.

Reuters - Sony Corp. (6758.T) on Wednesday
embraced the long-unofficial market for selling virtual video
game merchandise for real currency, unveiling an online auction
site where players can buy and sell characters and items in
games.

Reuters - Owners of the new PlayStation
Portable handheld video game player can now take adult magazine
Playboy on the road with them — and they don’t have to bother
with the articles.

TechWeb - Amid furious online wagering, Internet gaming site Intrade.com crowed Wednesday that its customers had correctly picked Joseph Ratzinger as the cardinal who would emerge as the new Pope.

This week, six poker players will be battling for a first prize of $1,770,218 at the Bellagio Five Diamond World Poker Tour Classic Event. The World Poker Tour travels all over the world and arrange big money poker tournaments for the best poker p

Online poker players interested in trying their hand at beating a pro and winning a $10,000 seat at the Richest Sporting Event in the World – the 2005 World Series of Poker (WSOP) (www.worldseriesofpoker.com) – take notice; this Friday Mark puts the

iTouch plc, a leading provider of mobile entertainment, is pleased to announce that it has signed a three year agreement with Eurobet UK, better known in the UK as Coral. The agreement represents the formal launch of iTouch’s mobile gaming service in

USATODAY.com - Sci Fi Channel got a rocket boost from space series, and the cable network now hopes to lure new viewers by embracing a broader range of fantasy, pointing to the success of Harry Potter, top-selling video game Halo and TV’s Lost.