Fridaygram: 3D graphs, battling bacteria, viewing art

Fridaygram: 3D graphs, battling bacteria, viewing art:

By Scott Knaster, Google Developers Blog Editor



Back in December we added graphing capability to Google Search. That was pretty cool, but only 2D graphs? Come on! Most of the people we know are three-dimensional, so it only made sense to add 3D graphing to Google Search as well.

To see a 3D graph, type any real two-variable function into Google Search. You can click the graph to rotate it, use the controls to zoom, or edit the range in the box at the lower-right. This feature works in modern browsers thanks to the magic of WebGL.



Jumping from math to science, this week brings news of a "plasma flashlight" that instantly inactivates bacteria on skin. In tests, the flashlight penetrated all the way to the bottom of a 17-layer stack of bacteria and zapped all of it. You can imagine parents of the world using these on their kids’ hands before dinner.



Finally, technology meets art in the newly expanded Google Art Project, which enables people to view works online from more than 150 museums around the world. Seeing art online might not be as good as being there, but it’s far more accessible. And it’s one of those things that just makes you feel like you’re living in the future.





Fridaygram posts are just for fun. They're designed for your Friday and weekend enjoyment. Each Fridaygram item must pass only one test: it has to be interesting to us nerds. And just because you read this far, here are a couple of bonus links: a test of Google’s self-driving car, and a very special 2D graph.