Fridaygram: commerce analytics, fixing the kilogram, big prime number
By Scott Knaster, Google
Developers Blog Editor
We all live together in one big blue world, but we do lots of things differently: like pay for
our purchases in different currencies around the world, for example. That’s very important if
you’re doing commerce on the web, because people like to pay for things in their local
currencies. For e-commerce developers, Google Analytics just launched a feature to track
revenue, tax, and shipping & handling costs
in
multiple local currencies on a single website.
This new feature, which is rolling out gradually to all Analytics users, lets you choose from
31 different flavors of local currencies when you set up your reports. With multi-currency
support, you can give your site broader appeal while making the world seem like a smaller,
more friendly place.
Speaking of shared international knowledge, you might know that the weight of a kilogram is
defined by
a
cylinder of platinum-iridium alloy in France. Strangely enough, even though the
International Prototype Kilogram is sealed in a vault, it’s getting infinitesimally heavier,
about one-eighth the weight of a grain of sand per century. Obviously, that just won’t do. To
fix this, scientists are going to
clean the cylinder, and all
will be well again.
Finally, spend some time this weekend contemplating the discovery of a new
largest prime number, which is
17,425,170 digits long (and with the magic of the Internet, you can look at all those digits
here).
This prime number was discovered by
Dr. Curtis Cooper – no,
not
that
Dr. Cooper – via the
Great Internet Mersenne
Prime Search (GIMPS).
Each Friday we publish a Fridaygram to
tell you about strange and wonderful stuff from Google and the world at large. And please
don’t worry about memorizing that long prime number – there will not be a quiz. Not even for
you, Sheldon.
