New Google R&D center in Japan

After Switzerland and India, 3rd overseas R&D center

[takagi]

The R&D center will be opened in June with probably 5 engineers from Google USA and 10 to 15 local enineers.

The location will be charged with developing search engine software that is easier for the Japanese to use. The center is also expected to develop content and new services for Japan, rather than simply localize the company's English-language resources.

Source: Google to establish R&D center in Japan [atimes.com]

[edited by: Brett_Tabke at 3:06 pm (utc) on April 23, 2004]

[whats up skip]

I was in the process of putting the post up, then I was distracted, lost the location of the article. Then I finally found it.

By this time I noticed I have been beating :( Bugger.

[takagi]

Google Japan recently added 5 new features:

Dictionary
Just like on the American Google.com with adding 'dictionary' to your keyword to get a description of that word, adding the kanji for 'eiwa' (English-Japanese) or 'waei' (Japanese-English) to a keyword, gives an icon for the translation of that word (example: house [google.co.jp] or 'kasa' [google.co.jp]).

Company information
The kanji for company information (kaisha joho) and company name gives a link to a page on Nikkei site with news and information about that company. (Example: Toyota [google.co.jp])

Stock information
Combine the kanji for stockprice ('kabuka') with the company name, and you will get the link to the related stock information page on the Nikkei site (Muji [google.co.jp]).

Train information
Entering <city name A> 'kara' <city name B> (from A to B) will give an train-icon on the SERP with 2 links for train information (Tokyo-Kobe [google.co.jp]).

Parcel delivery information
Just like you can do for some time with UPS and FedEx , it's now also possible for the company 'Yamato' to get parcel delivery information by entering that company name and the parcel code. (1583-2806-9200 [google.co.jp])

Let's hope that the engineers at this new R&D center can come up with other nice features.

I found this info in Japanese here [newsflash.nifty.com]

[bill]

Very good info takagi. Thanks for posting. It will be interesting to see how well Google is able to publicize these new tools among the rank-and-file Japanese users. I'm certainly going to be making a lot of use of them. ;)