Fun with Google calculator

Oliver Brown

2007-01-13 (Last Modified: 2007-01-13) — This upcoming video may not be available to view yet.

I’ve talked about the clever calculator features built into Google before. Most of my examples then were rather silly. Well I’ve started using it a bit more seriously recently. The great thing it does is allow unit conversions to be done effortlessly at the same time as the main calculation.

For example, I have a video clip that is about 350 MB and 45 minutes long. I want to know what the average bit rate for the encoding is, in kbps. 350 MB is 350 * 1024 * 8 kbits. 45 minutes is 45 * 60 seconds. Works those two out, divide the first by the second and I have my answer. Or just type [350 MB / 45 minutes in kbps](http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient-ff&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGGL,GGGL:2006-22,GGGL:en&q=350+MB+%2F+45+minutes+in+kbps) into Google and I have my answer with far less effort.