Here’s what happens to Google employees when they die.   It should come as no surprise that Google has ridiculously awesome benefits: free haircuts, free bike rentals, free yoga, on-site doctors and of course their ridiculously awesome cafeterias. In a recent conversation with Forbes, Google’s Chief People Officer announced death benefits. If an employee passes away (while employed by Google), their surviving spouse or domestic partner will get a check for 50% of their salary every year for the following decade. This benefit comes with “no tenure requirement,” meaning all of their employees qualify. 

Here’s what happens to Google employees when they die.  

It should come as no surprise that Google has ridiculously awesome benefits: free haircuts, free bike rentals, free yoga, on-site doctors and of course their ridiculously awesome cafeterias. In a recent conversation with Forbes, Google’s Chief People Officer announced death benefits. If an employee passes away (while employed by Google), their surviving spouse or domestic partner will get a check for 50% of their salary every year for the following decade. This benefit comes with “no tenure requirement,” meaning all of their employees qualify. 

How to solve impossible search problems: Daniel Russel’s awesome Google search techniques. This blog post starts out with a picture of a building and a riddle: What’s the phone number of the office where this picture was snapped. Not what’s the building in the picture, but what is the office (within the building) in which the picture was taken? The blog post recaps some of Daniel Russel’s tips & tricks used to reveal the answer. Some are basic, while others are more complex - but all of them will help you refine your search skills. For example, the author of the blog post, John Tedesco is an investigative reporter for the San Antonio Express-News. Using Google’s advanced search functionality, he was able to figure out how to access an insurance database in San Antonio. Feels like a modern day Nancy Drew story ;)

How to solve impossible search problems: Daniel Russel’s awesome Google search techniques.

This blog post starts out with a picture of a building and a riddle: What’s the phone number of the office where this picture was snapped. Not what’s the building in the picture, but what is the office (within the building) in which the picture was taken? The blog post recaps some of Daniel Russel’s tips & tricks used to reveal the answer. Some are basic, while others are more complex - but all of them will help you refine your search skills. For example, the author of the blog post, John Tedesco is an investigative reporter for the San Antonio Express-News. Using Google’s advanced search functionality, he was able to figure out how to access an insurance database in San Antonio. Feels like a modern day Nancy Drew story ;)

Introducing the knowledge graph: things, not strings. 

In case you missed it, Google recently announced the Knowledge Graph, their stab at connecting relevance and relationships between one another.  In their blog post announcing the product, they use a search query of [taj mahal] as an example. But the problem has been that when you search for taj mahal, you could be thinking of a mountain, a Grammy Award-winning musician, a casino or even an Indian restaurant. Now, if Google guesses you meant the mountain when in fact you meant the musician, you’ll be able to see alternate results within the sidebar and once you select the musician, you’ll be able to see results relating only to the musician. Smart, right? There’s even more, so you should head on over and give their announcement post a read…

Source googleblog.blogspot.com

10 Google products you (probably) didn’t know existed.

A great round up from The Next Web including the incredibly useful and the incredibly bizarre Google products that you probably haven’t heard of - From Google Takeout (no, it’s not actually a food delivery service) to Google HotPot (food review and recommendation services that sits on top of Google places) and everything in between.

Project Re:Brief takes the ad world by storm. Project Re:Brief by Google takes the creatives responsible for some of America’s best ads (Coke’s ‘Hilltop,’ Volvo’s ‘Drive it like you hate it,’ Alka Seltzer’s ‘I can’t believe I ate the whole thing,’ and Avis’ ‘We Try Harder’) and challenges them to re-imagine these concepts for the web, inspiring young creatives along the way. Super smart and really fun to watch.  High-res

Project Re:Brief takes the ad world by storm.

Project Re:Brief by Google takes the creatives responsible for some of America’s best ads (Coke’s ‘Hilltop,’ Volvo’s ‘Drive it like you hate it,’ Alka Seltzer’s ‘I can’t believe I ate the whole thing,’ and Avis’ ‘We Try Harder’) and challenges them to re-imagine these concepts for the web, inspiring young creatives along the way. Super smart and really fun to watch. 

Who Does Google Think You Are?

According to Google, I’m interested in Arts & Entertainment (check), Advertising & Marketing (check), Food & Drink (check), Games (check), Technology (check) and Bodybuilding (not check.) Google also thinks that I’m between the ages of 25-34 (check) and that I’m a male. For the record, I am, in fact, a female. [Sigh.] As part of their new privacy announcement, Google is making it easy for you to see who they think you are (and of course to course correct them if they were wrong or even opt out.) I’ll +1 that!