More ways to ‘Google it’

The Google Earth Historical view of Greenhithe in 1963 (left) and today.

Google’s engineers and designers have been busy of late. Here’s a roundup of the new features now available.

Search optionsAvailable on the Google results page, Search options lets you slice and dice results and explore queries, to quickly and more easily find what you need. For example, you can select:• Reviews and Forums: Show only pages with this type of content• Videos: Show only pages with videos in them, and see a video thumbnail• Date restricts: Show results from the past 24 hours, past week or past year• Timeline: Histogram-like representation of results by year and month• Wonder Wheel: A graphical, interactive representation of searches related to your query.

Search options helps you solve  a potentially tricky question: what query should I ask? For example, you might  be looking for forum discussions about a specific product, but are most interested in ones that havetaken place more recently. With Search options, you can search for the product’s name, apply the option to    filter out anything but forum sites, and then apply an option to only see results from the past week. To learn   more, go to googleblog.blogspot.com

Google Earth 5.0: Historical ImageryThe latest version of Google Earth (earth.google.com) includes a function that allows you to see older versions  of the image you’re viewing. Clicking on the clock icon in the toolbar brings up a slider that brings up  the older images (where available). Most of the imagery is in the US at present, but more is being added all  the time, including New Zealand content (see pictures). More information is at tinyurl.com/ojk944