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.
