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Google Data » Google News https://googledata.org Everything Google: News, Products, Services, Content, Culture Wed, 28 Dec 2016 21:09:26 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=4.1.13 Cast a spell with Google and Warner Bros. Pictures https://googledata.org/google-blog/ok-google-cast-your-spell/ https://googledata.org/google-blog/ok-google-cast-your-spell/#comments Tue, 01 Nov 2016 13:00:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=04b331b993c6afcb182a796ece628312
If you want to try being a wizard, try casting spells on your Android phone: Just say “Ok Google” followed by “Lumos” or “Nox” to turn your flashlight on and off. Try “Silencio” to silence the ringer and notifications.

You can also explore the world of “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” with Google Street View. Visit New York in 1926 as brought to life in the film, as well as the real locations today. Fans can visit MACUSA (Magical Congress of the USA); Steen National Bank, where Newt first meets Jacob Kowalski; the underground speakeasy The Blind Pig; and the magical apartment of Tina and Queenie Goldstein, two of the film’s key characters.

Once you’ve mastered charms and found the lay of the land, help Newt find his escaped beasts before they come to harm in a city already on edge from dark forces. Using our new Daydream View virtual reality headset, you can wave a wand to explore the magic of Newt’s case, a treasure trove full of everything he needs to cast spells, solve puzzles and find his beasts. The experience will be available when Daydream View goes on sale in November.

Don’t forget to share your adventures with your friends by downloading an exclusive “Fantastic Beasts” sticker pack (coming soon) in our messaging app, Google Allo. You can also watch content inspired by the wizarding world from your favorite YouTube creators starting November 1.

To start your journey and discover more magic with Newt and friends, visit g.co/fantasticbeasts. “Fantastic Beasts” is in cinemas in November.

Posted by David Blanar, Apprentice Magizoologist, Google https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-F_3E3njQK1E/WBgaOHHLNYI/AAAAAAAATOM/BK8yBWnZsOAQa7aI0cL0Hqr9h6j7sQW6ACLcB/s1600/FB_StreetView_MACUSA_04%2Bcopy.png David Blanar Apprentice Magizoologist Google  ]]>
If you want to try being a wizard, try casting spells on your Android phone: Just say “Ok Google” followed by “Lumos” or “Nox” to turn your flashlight on and off. Try “Silencio” to silence the ringer and notifications.

With a swipe of your paw (or should I say wave of your wand), you can help turn these Halloween tricks into a real treat. But be warned, your spell casting must be quick and precise. To send these ghouls into a tailspin, you must draw the symbols that appear above the ghosts’ heads on your screen. ~~Wow!~~ Meow!

That’s not all: show your friends who’s the real expurrrrrt at casting spells by sharing your score after your sorcery is complete. After all, Halloween festivities are always more fun with your full litter!

Posted by Momo, First year Feline at Magic Cat Academy, Feline and companion to Google Doodler, Juliana Chen https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Rl6LVtPyc5w/WBgYbJ_JN_I/AAAAAAAATN8/tQ5deCS5gGwvXJw4e1ANpgNxc5p8gPIvgCLcB/s1600/HalloweenDoodle16_Hero.png Abbi Tatton First year feline at Magic Cat Academy Google Doodle Team  ]]>

Posted by Momo, First year Feline at Magic Cat Academy, Feline and companion to Google Doodler, Juliana Chen ]]> https://googledata.org/google-blog/saving-magic-cat-academy-from-catastrophe/feed/ 0 Get polling place and ballot information quickly and easily https://googledata.org/google-blog/get-polling-place-and-ballot-information-quickly-and-easily/ https://googledata.org/google-blog/get-polling-place-and-ballot-information-quickly-and-easily/#comments Fri, 28 Oct 2016 18:00:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=136abcb5b2ea0ee39e09051616dac894 Massachusetts gubernatorial election was decided by just two votes out of 102,066. The same was the case in a 1974 New Hampshire Senate race — out of 233,363 votes, only two made the difference. And in 2008, an Alaskan State House race was decided by a single vote.

With Election Day just 25 days away, it’s time to make your vote count. Throughout the summer, we’ve helped voters find information about how to register and how to vote, in both English and Spanish. Now, as you prepare to head to the polls, we want to make sure you know where to vote and who’s on your ballot when you get there.

From President and Vice President, to Congressperson and County Commissioner, a simple search for “who’s on my ballot” will help you find info on the candidates, as well as detailed information on your state’s referenda. You can tap on a candidate’s name from your ballot to find information about them, including their party and website.

The final step: showing up! With various polling places popping up across your hometown, we want to make sure you find the info you need from state to state. Starting today and as we continue to add data from each state over the next couple of weeks, whether you’re planning to vote early or in person on November 8, just search “where to vote” and Google will display a polling place location finder as well as voting ID requirements.

These stickers aren’t the only new thing in Google Allo this week. You can now reply to messages directly from your notifications on Android and iOS. So if you’re cooking up a French Onion Barb, you don’t have to stop what you’re doing to reply back to friends.

We’ve also added support for Android N so you can take advantage of its features. With split-screen mode you can now chat with friends and rewatch season one at the same time. App shortcuts help you quickly start a new conversation from the home screen. And for iOS users, we’ve brought the ability to doodle on your photos to iOS, so you can craft a masterpiece before sharing in Google Allo.

Beware the flickering lights, and have a safe and happy Halloween!

P.S. Google Allo will help you unlock your powers today in New York City. Stay tuned to Google on Twitter for a hint on where the drop-off from Hawkins National Laboratories will take place.

Posted by Amit Fulay, Group Product Manager https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qATCBx-54JA/WBOkX0dnQmI/AAAAAAAATNA/9wi6VW6mSTYfiXC6a5LzA2GWCf_otJlcACLcB/s1600/Stranger%2BThings%2BAllo%2BStickers_Hero.jpg Amit Fulay Group Product Manager Google  ]]> Mind Control. Demogorgons. Barb. This Halloween, there’s no question we’ll see people out in costume as characters from this summer’s addictive Netflix original series, “Stranger Things.” To help bring you back into the ‘80s supernatural mindset, we’re partnering with Netflix to bring the Upside Down right to your chats in Google Allo, our smart messaging app for Android and iOS.

A new “Stranger Things” sticker pack is now available for download in Google Allo, featuring exclusive artwork inspired by the show. So whether you’re researching how to create a DIY Eleven costume with friends or debating whether Barb will reappear in season two, we got you covered.

We’ve also added support for Android N so you can take advantage of its features. With split-screen mode you can now chat with friends and rewatch season one at the same time. App shortcuts help you quickly start a new conversation from the home screen. And for iOS users, we’ve brought the ability to doodle on your photos to iOS, so you can craft a masterpiece before sharing in Google Allo.

Beware the flickering lights, and have a safe and happy Halloween!

P.S. Google Allo will help you unlock your powers today in New York City. Stay tuned to Google on Twitter for a hint on where the drop-off from Hawkins National Laboratories will take place.

Posted by Amit Fulay, Group Product Manager ]]> https://googledata.org/google-blog/stranger-things-are-happening-in-google-allo/feed/ 0 Live the Day of the Dead https://googledata.org/google-blog/live-the-day-of-the-dead/ https://googledata.org/google-blog/live-the-day-of-the-dead/#comments Fri, 28 Oct 2016 07:00:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=08ae83cb86f5fd6163c7e903591e06b3 “Intangible Cultural Heritage” by UNESCO.

Today, we want to invite everyone to experience Mexico’s tradition of paying tribute to life, through the Day of the Dead exhibition on Google Arts & Culture. The content is curated by 10 cultural organizations from Mexico, Peru and the United States and explores the Pre-Columbian roots of this festivity, its many transformations through history and its contemporary manifestations as told by pieces of archaeology, folk art, prints, paintings, sculptures, street art and many other artforms. The collection includes over 500 artworks and artifacts, 20 exhibits, 11 Street View virtual tours through cemeteries and museums and two guided tours that users can experience with a Cardboard viewer. A Google Expedition also allows teachers around the world to take their classes on a virtual field trip through the history of the Day of the Dead.

Without Hope (1945) by Frida Kahlo at Museo Dolores Olmedo

Colossal Skulls from James Bond movie (2015) by Colectivo Última Hora at Museo de Arte Popular

Catrina (2015) by D*Face at All City Canvas

Cráneo by Vicente Barroco Reyes at Museo de Arte Popular

La Catrina (1910/1913) by José Guadalupe Posada at the Smithsonian Latino Center

Besitos a mamá (2011) by Felipe Mendiola Velázques at Museo Mexicano del Diseño

Start the exhibition online at g.co/diademuertos or download the Google Arts & Culture app for iOS or Android to dive into the ancient roots of the Day of the Dead through codices and sculptures. You can explore the different representations of death in folk art pieces from all over the country; savor the paintings of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, and learn about Jose Guadalupe Posada, Mexico's most famous illustrator and father of the iconic Catrina.

If you’re new to this tradition, get to know the elements that make up an Offering; enjoy the calaveras crafted by the legendary family Linares, visit the colossal skulls made by Mexican artisans for the 2015 James Bond movie, Spectre and even take a stroll through the San Andrés Mixquic’s cemetery during Día de Muertos.

Whichever route you choose, we invite you to explore death as a celebration of life.

Posted by Lucy Schwartz, Program Manager, Google Cultural Institute https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vZzAiPVEzbU/WBOjhvzldoI/AAAAAAAATM4/kr9bDwJyYLcVsy1yMtLhuZhR3_gwtTaIwCLcB/s1600/LiveDayoftheDead_Hero.jpg Lucy Schwartz Program Manager Google Cultural Institute  ]]> “Intangible Cultural Heritage” by UNESCO.

Today, we want to invite everyone to experience Mexico’s tradition of paying tribute to life, through the Day of the Dead exhibition on Google Arts & Culture. The content is curated by 10 cultural organizations from Mexico, Peru and the United States and explores the Pre-Columbian roots of this festivity, its many transformations through history and its contemporary manifestations as told by pieces of archaeology, folk art, prints, paintings, sculptures, street art and many other artforms. The collection includes over 500 artworks and artifacts, 20 exhibits, 11 Street View virtual tours through cemeteries and museums and two guided tours that users can experience with a Cardboard viewer. A Google Expedition also allows teachers around the world to take their classes on a virtual field trip through the history of the Day of the Dead.

Without Hope (1945) by Frida Kahlo at Museo Dolores Olmedo

Colossal Skulls from James Bond movie (2015) by Colectivo Última Hora at Museo de Arte Popular

Catrina (2015) by D*Face at All City Canvas

Cráneo by Vicente Barroco Reyes at Museo de Arte Popular

La Catrina (1910/1913) by José Guadalupe Posada at the Smithsonian Latino Center

We know that there’s much more work to do to help level the playing field — and that’s why the mission of the Grace Hopper Celebration is so important. Just yesterday we reported new U.S. research from Gallup and Google that suggests girls are less likely than boys to be told by parents and teachers that they would be good at computer science. We also found that girls are less likely than boys to be aware of computer science learning opportunities outside of school.

We’ve worked hard to recruit and support amazing women leaders since the very beginning of Google, but we also want to support efforts to improve women’s representation across the entire tech ecosystem. That's why we've been part of of GHC since 2004. For the past 12 years, we’ve also worked with the Anita Borg Institute (ABI), which produces GHC, to bring more women into computer science careers. Google’s Alan Eustace is a founding member of the ABI Board of Trustees, and his friendship with Anita Borg herself gave rise to the Women Techmakers Scholars Program (formerly known as the Google Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship Program). To date, the program has awarded more than 1,000 scholarships globally, and we've been very happy to hire many of them to come work here.

If you’re planning to attend the conference, don’t be a stranger. If you see one of us sporting a Google T-shirt, we’d love to meet you. Stop by our booth (#1730), or come to one of our 25 presentations. Some of the highlights include our VP of Engineering and Machine Learning Anna Patterson, who will deliver a keynote on entrepreneurism and receive the 2016 ABI Excellence Award; and Captain of Moonshots Astro Teller, who will discuss how to embrace failure in the name of breakthrough. Follow us on Twitter for updates from the show floor and definitely visit our Careers site to find your place with us.

https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-EwYrX5SsW_s/WBPGOkMkIWI/AAAAAAAATNg/jt5XGFEPhSUnXEc2aU7qeb1urV7u5lXdwCLcB/s1600/GHC16_Hero.jpg  ]]>

We know that there’s much more work to do to help level the playing field — and that’s why the mission of the Grace Hopper Celebration is so important. Just yesterday we reported new U.S. research from Gallup and Google that suggests girls are less likely than boys to be told by parents and teachers that they would be good at computer science. We also found that girls are less likely than boys to be aware of computer science learning opportunities outside of school.

We’ve worked hard to recruit and support amazing women leaders since the very beginning of Google, but we also want to support efforts to improve women’s representation across the entire tech ecosystem. That's why we've been part of of GHC since 2004. For the past 12 years, we’ve also worked with the Anita Borg Institute (ABI), which produces GHC, to bring more women into computer science careers. Google’s Alan Eustace is a founding member of the ABI Board of Trustees, and his friendship with Anita Borg herself gave rise to the Women Techmakers Scholars Program (formerly known as the Google Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship Program). To date, the program has awarded more than 1,000 scholarships globally, and we've been very happy to hire many of them to come work here.

If you’re planning to attend the conference, don’t be a stranger. If you see one of us sporting a Google T-shirt, we’d love to meet you. Stop by our booth (#1730), or come to one of our 25 presentations. Some of the highlights include our VP of Engineering and Machine Learning Anna Patterson, who will deliver a keynote on entrepreneurism and receive the 2016 ABI Excellence Award; and Captain of Moonshots Astro Teller, who will discuss how to embrace failure in the name of breakthrough. Follow us on Twitter for updates from the show floor and definitely visit our Careers site to find your place with us.

]]> https://googledata.org/google-blog/supporting-women-in-tech-at-ghc-16/feed/ 0 Making travel planning less stressful this holiday season https://googledata.org/google-blog/making-travel-planning-less-stressful-this-holiday-season/ https://googledata.org/google-blog/making-travel-planning-less-stressful-this-holiday-season/#comments Mon, 17 Oct 2016 18:30:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=3c3038646429cfc89d688f305538742f
This holiday season we’re making travel planning less stressful by updating you when flights are likely to increase in price, helping you find good hotel deals, and making travel planning easier on mobile.

Making it easier than ever to choose the right flight
Google Flights can now help you be more confident that you’re booking your flight at the right time to get the best price. We now show you when prices are expected to increase for some specific flights and routes you’re interested in.

After selecting a specific flight, a notification may appear letting you know when the current fare is expected to expire and how much you can save if you book now. For example, this flight to San Diego is likely to cost more in eight hours — and you would likely save $87 if you book before then.

If you’re looking at a certain route like New York to San Diego, but haven’t selected a specific flight yet, you may see a notification bar with multiple tips showing how to find the best price for this route. Tips can include things like recommendations for alternate airports or dates. You may also see a new tip telling you about an expected price jump based on historic prices for that route. When you tap on the card, you’ll see more details like how much the price is likely to increase and when.

If you’re not ready to book yet, you can choose to track your flight or route and receive notifications via email letting you know when prices are expected to change. Fare expiration and expected price jump notifications will be rolling out over the coming weeks everywhere Google Flights is available. You’ll also continue to receive updates when prices actually do increase or decrease significantly for tracked flights.

Tracked flights on mobile and email notification of price change.

We’re also making it easier to find flights on the go. Next time you visit Google Flights, you’ll be able to track and manage saved flights seamlessly on your phone.

If you’re still looking for inspiration on where to travel, tap on Explore to find ideas on destinations to visit based on the type of vacation you’re looking for. For example, you can look for destinations in the Caribbean with direct flights only.

Providing more ways to uncover deals in hotel search
We’re also making it easier to immediately recognize and find more deals when searching on Google for hotels in the location of your choice, like “hotels in new york”. We already label deals when a hotel’s price is lower than usual compared to historical pricing, or if there are discounts to the normal rate for those dates. Now if you want to only look at hotel deals — say, to ring in the new year in Paris — just tap in the upper left to filter for Deals and voilà!

We’ll also notify you when savings are available to loyalty members on a hotel’s website.

Don’t let travel planning stress you out this holiday season. Google Flights and hotel search on Google can help save you time and money so you can spend more time with the people you love. Wishing you safe and happy holiday travels!

* Google/Phocuswright, leisure traveler study, base: U.S. leisure travelers, n=930, Oct. 2015.

Posted by Nabil Naghdy, Product Manager, Google Flights ]]> https://googledata.org/google-blog/making-travel-planning-less-stressful-this-holiday-season/feed/ 0 Celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month https://googledata.org/google-blog/celebrating-hispanic-heritage-month-2/ https://googledata.org/google-blog/celebrating-hispanic-heritage-month-2/#comments Fri, 14 Oct 2016 18:00:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=45b67d4ecceb4b41dcd7d155ce9d1ff6
Latino Heritage and Cultures collection
To kick off Hispanic Heritage Month, Google Arts & Culture published a dedicated collection of artifacts, archives and stories of Latino Heritage and Cultures from across the Americas. You can explore influences of Latino art and expression from ancient civilizations like the Aztec and the Inca from today’s modern street art in Puerto Rico, Argentina, and the United States. In total, the collection includes 55 institutions from 11 countries, 14K artifacts and artworks, 117 expertly curated exhibits, and 180+ virtual tours of heritage and cultural sites. See some highlights in our video:

HOLA celebrations at Google
We also celebrated Hispanic Heritage Month across Google’s campuses, where members and allies of HOLA, the Hispanic Googler Network, promoted Latino culture, leadership and civic engagement. On September 16, 50 Googlers from across the globe gathered in Washington, D.C., for a three-day Leadership Summit. There, we met with organizations like Voto Latino, brainstorming ideas on how to get out the vote; advised local organizations like the Latin American Youth Career Center and the Hispanic Heritage Foundation using digital tools in the classroom; and mentored students from the Georgetown Scholarship Program pursuing careers in technology.

HOLA members continued the HHM festivities in their home offices. Googlers in Mountain View hosted the rock band Maná, who spoke about their interest in social good and music. And just earlier this week, we welcomed Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez, who discussed the importance of access to Latino mentors, the value of immigrants in the American workforce, and the necessity of technology for 21st century careers. You can meet some of our HOLA members on our Instagram account.

Members of HOLA host Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month

Support for Latino students and families
At Google, we understand that diverse and inclusive environments are essential to building products and solutions that work for everyone. That’s why we invest in increasing educational opportunities for students of all backgrounds to pursue futures in technology. This month Google.org is committing $1 million to local Silicon Valley organizations to help close these gaps in educational success for Latino students and families.

Across the U.S., Latino students aren’t being adequately prepared for college experiences or college level math. In our own backyard, Mountain View-Los Altos Union High School District, 73 percent of Hispanic high school juniors do not meet math standards — compared to 34 percent overall. So we’re providing Silicon Valley Education Foundation (SVEF) $750,000 to support its work narrowing the achievement gap through its student-focused programs, school district policy support, and collaborations with business communities to bring innovation into the classroom. Googlers are already active volunteers with SVEF’s summer intervention program, Elevate Math.

Google.org has also committed $250,000 to the Hispanic Foundation of Silicon Valley (HFSV), which aims to increase high school and college graduation rates for Latino students. Over the course of the next two years, HFSV will conduct Spanish-speaking Parent Education Academies that will reach parents of low-income, Latino students who are at-risk of falling off track. These workshops will ensure Latino parents are knowledgeable about the local education system and how best to support their children to achieve academic results and fulfilling careers.

As Hispanic Heritage Month 2016 comes to a close, we look forward to continuing our support of the Latino community — at Google and beyond!

Posted by Suzanna Bobadilla, Social Impact Team https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-no2YLY5x8lI/WBOWEWwgjWI/AAAAAAAATK4/Pb9p__tKBU0d0FwuyYvnbwdUxWE4KwRqgCLcB/s1600/gweb-uniblog-author-prod-int.googleplex.jpg Suzanna Bobadillan Google ]]>
Latino Heritage and Cultures collection
To kick off Hispanic Heritage Month, Google Arts & Culture published a dedicated collection of artifacts, archives and stories of Latino Heritage and Cultures from across the Americas. You can explore influences of Latino art and expression from ancient civilizations like the Aztec and the Inca from today’s modern street art in Puerto Rico, Argentina, and the United States. In total, the collection includes 55 institutions from 11 countries, 14K artifacts and artworks, 117 expertly curated exhibits, and 180+ virtual tours of heritage and cultural sites. See some highlights in our video:

HOLA celebrations at Google
We also celebrated Hispanic Heritage Month across Google’s campuses, where members and allies of HOLA, the Hispanic Googler Network, promoted Latino culture, leadership and civic engagement. On September 16, 50 Googlers from across the globe gathered in Washington, D.C., for a three-day Leadership Summit. There, we met with organizations like Voto Latino, brainstorming ideas on how to get out the vote; advised local organizations like the Latin American Youth Career Center and the Hispanic Heritage Foundation using digital tools in the classroom; and mentored students from the Georgetown Scholarship Program pursuing careers in technology.

HOLA members continued the HHM festivities in their home offices. Googlers in Mountain View hosted the rock band Maná, who spoke about their interest in social good and music. And just earlier this week, we welcomed Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez, who discussed the importance of access to Latino mentors, the value of immigrants in the American workforce, and the necessity of technology for 21st century careers. You can meet some of our HOLA members on our Instagram account.

Members of HOLA host Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month

Support for Latino students and families
At Google, we understand that diverse and inclusive environments are essential to building products and solutions that work for everyone. That’s why we invest in increasing educational opportunities for students of all backgrounds to pursue futures in technology. This month Google.org is committing $1 million to local Silicon Valley organizations to help close these gaps in educational success for Latino students and families.

Across the U.S., Latino students aren’t being adequately prepared for college experiences or college level math. In our own backyard, Mountain View-Los Altos Union High School District, 73 percent of Hispanic high school juniors do not meet math standards — compared to 34 percent overall. So we’re providing Silicon Valley Education Foundation (SVEF) $750,000 to support its work narrowing the achievement gap through its student-focused programs, school district policy support, and collaborations with business communities to bring innovation into the classroom. Googlers are already active volunteers with SVEF’s summer intervention program, Elevate Math.

Google.org has also committed $250,000 to the Hispanic Foundation of Silicon Valley (HFSV), which aims to increase high school and college graduation rates for Latino students. Over the course of the next two years, HFSV will conduct Spanish-speaking Parent Education Academies that will reach parents of low-income, Latino students who are at-risk of falling off track. These workshops will ensure Latino parents are knowledgeable about the local education system and how best to support their children to achieve academic results and fulfilling careers.

As Hispanic Heritage Month 2016 comes to a close, we look forward to continuing our support of the Latino community — at Google and beyond!

Posted by Suzanna Bobadilla, Social Impact Team ]]> https://googledata.org/google-blog/celebrating-hispanic-heritage-month-2/feed/ 0 Get polling place and ballot information quickly and easily https://googledata.org/google-blog/get-polling-place-and-ballot-information-quickly-and-easily-2/ https://googledata.org/google-blog/get-polling-place-and-ballot-information-quickly-and-easily-2/#comments Thu, 13 Oct 2016 18:01:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=fa1aba4a416ee3d2521bd39eb8e1f9f2 Massachusetts gubernatorial election was decided by just two votes out of 102,066. The same was the case in a 1974 New Hampshire Senate race — out of 233,363 votes, only two made the difference. And in 2008, an Alaskan State House race was decided by a single vote.

With Election Day just 25 days away, it’s time to make your vote count. Throughout the summer, we’ve helped voters find information about how to register and how to vote, in both English and Spanish. Now, as you prepare to head to the polls, we want to make sure you know where to vote and who’s on your ballot when you get there.

From President and Vice President, to Congressperson and County Commissioner, a simple search for “who’s on my ballot” will help you find info on the candidates, as well as detailed information on your state’s referenda. You can tap on a candidate’s name from your ballot to find information about them, including their party and website.

While people can find this crucial information right in Google Search, we’re also opening this data up to other organizations for free. From technology companies like Uber, Twitter, Expedia and Hotels.com to nonprofits like Pew Charitable Trusts’ The Voting Information Project, and Democracy Works’ TurboVote Challenge, organizations of all shapes and sizes can use our products and the Google Civic Information API to create tools that get this information into the hands of as many voters possible.

We hope these features will help you get the information you need, when you need it. Your vote matters, so make it count.

Posted by Jacob Schonberg, Product Manager and Kate Sokolov, Program Manager, Politics & Elections ]]> https://googledata.org/google-blog/get-polling-place-and-ballot-information-quickly-and-easily-2/feed/ 0 A personal Google, just for you https://googledata.org/google-blog/a-personal-google-just-for-you/ https://googledata.org/google-blog/a-personal-google-just-for-you/#comments Tue, 04 Oct 2016 18:35:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=e3f97a263336289df53730055c0539a0
From mobile first to AI-first
When I look at where computing is heading, I see how machine learning and artificial intelligence are unlocking capabilities that were unthinkable only a few years ago. This means that the power of the software — the “smarts” — really matter for hardware more than ever before. The last 10 years have been about building a world that is mobile-first, turning our phones into remote controls for our lives. But in the next 10 years, we will shift to a world that is AI-first, a world where computing becomes universally available — be it at home, at work, in the car, or on the go — and interacting with all of these surfaces becomes much more natural and intuitive, and above all, more intelligent.

This is why we built the Google Assistant, which allows you to have a natural conversation between you and Google. It’s one Assistant that’s ready to help you throughout your day. The first instance appeared in our new smart messaging app Google Allo to help you in group conversations. But that’s just the beginning. We want to help you get things done in your world, across different places, contexts and situations. And that means building the Google Assistant and other amazing software into the hardware that you depend on every day.

The best of Google
Today we announced a new family of hardware that’s a step toward making sure that no matter where you are, or what you’re doing, you can have the best of Google by your side. The Pixel is the first phone with the Google Assistant built in. With Google Home, our voice-activated speaker powered by the Google Assistant, just say “Ok Google” to get answers and help around the house. With Chromecast Ultra and Google Wifi, your home becomes even more connected. And our new Daydream View headset and controller lets you explore new worlds in virtual reality with just your phone. These all do different things, serve different purposes — but they all deliver Google, the way we intended it.

Great hardware is powered by great software. And a beautiful, intuitive device allows the underlying technology to shine. As the range of devices in our lives expands, we’re seeing unprecedented advances in software as a result of investing in technologies like search, machine learning and AI, which benefits things like translation, voice recognition, image recognition and natural language processing. It’s still early days, but when all of that works together, the Google Assistant allows you to get things done, bringing you the information you need, when you need it, wherever you are.

Of course, we know we can’t do it alone. We’re building with partners in mind, so when you talk to your Assistant, you’re able to better connect with developers, publishers, and businesses.

While we are at the beginning of this journey, I can already see the tremendous strides we’re making with machine learning and AI, which gives me confidence that we’re going to do some amazing things for users over the next 10 years.

Posted by Sundar Pichai, CEO

https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-pqufxycGcZE/V_SbaMNe3aI/AAAAAAAATJY/4dIjDAmK7TcnC29pqxSWL8GUUYs-c9oBACLcB/s1600/whyopa_HiAimee_alt_160929a.png Sundar Pichai CEO ]]>
From mobile first to AI-first
When I look at where computing is heading, I see how machine learning and artificial intelligence are unlocking capabilities that were unthinkable only a few years ago. This means that the power of the software — the “smarts” — really matter for hardware more than ever before. The last 10 years have been about building a world that is mobile-first, turning our phones into remote controls for our lives. But in the next 10 years, we will shift to a world that is AI-first, a world where computing becomes universally available — be it at home, at work, in the car, or on the go — and interacting with all of these surfaces becomes much more natural and intuitive, and above all, more intelligent.

This is why we built the Google Assistant, which allows you to have a natural conversation between you and Google. It’s one Assistant that’s ready to help you throughout your day. The first instance appeared in our new smart messaging app Google Allo to help you in group conversations. But that’s just the beginning. We want to help you get things done in your world, across different places, contexts and situations. And that means building the Google Assistant and other amazing software into the hardware that you depend on every day.

The best of Google
Today we announced a new family of hardware that’s a step toward making sure that no matter where you are, or what you’re doing, you can have the best of Google by your side. The Pixel is the first phone with the Google Assistant built in. With Google Home, our voice-activated speaker powered by the Google Assistant, just say “Ok Google” to get answers and help around the house. With Chromecast Ultra and Google Wifi, your home becomes even more connected. And our new Daydream View headset and controller lets you explore new worlds in virtual reality with just your phone. These all do different things, serve different purposes — but they all deliver Google, the way we intended it.

Great hardware is powered by great software. And a beautiful, intuitive device allows the underlying technology to shine. As the range of devices in our lives expands, we’re seeing unprecedented advances in software as a result of investing in technologies like search, machine learning and AI, which benefits things like translation, voice recognition, image recognition and natural language processing. It’s still early days, but when all of that works together, the Google Assistant allows you to get things done, bringing you the information you need, when you need it, wherever you are.

Of course, we know we can’t do it alone. We’re building with partners in mind, so when you talk to your Assistant, you’re able to better connect with developers, publishers, and businesses.

While we are at the beginning of this journey, I can already see the tremendous strides we’re making with machine learning and AI, which gives me confidence that we’re going to do some amazing things for users over the next 10 years.

Posted by Sundar Pichai, CEO ]]> https://googledata.org/google-blog/a-personal-google-just-for-you/feed/ 0 Make yourself at home with Google Home https://googledata.org/google-blog/make-yourself-at-home-with-google-home/ https://googledata.org/google-blog/make-yourself-at-home-with-google-home/#comments Tue, 04 Oct 2016 18:30:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=e1729c2e4b9eaa51d443ab47a7ea4dfc Google Assistant into your kitchen, living room or anywhere else around the house.

Your voice speaks volumes
With a simple “Ok Google” you can play songs, artists, radio stations, your favorite playlists and more from Google Play Music, Pandora, Spotify, TuneIn and YouTube Music with additional services like iHeartRadio coming soon. You can also play a podcast while making pasta or listen to today’s news while tying your shoes. And if you just want to stream audio directly from your phone, you can cast music to Google Home from 100+ Chromecast-enabled apps on your Android or iOS device.

Google Home’s smart audio design integrates a high-excursion driver with a dual passive radiator design that delivers crystal-clear highs and deep lows for Hi-Fi sound that streams over WiFi. That means a lot of big sound from a small package. Even while you jam out to music, it can easily hear you from across the room, thanks to two omnidirectional microphones and neural beamforming.

Get answers big and small
Google Home taps into the power of Google Search to give you real-time answers to things you want to know. Ask Google Home to translate phrases and do simple math calculations. Kneading pizza dough and need to change ounces to grams? Ask and get unit conversions and nutritional info, too. Getting ready for the day? Get real-time info on the weather, the stock market, the traffic, or your favorite sports team. Google Home can also help you find answers to more obscure questions directly on the web. It’s all the power of Google with a simple voice command.

An extra pair of hands
With your permission, Google Home makes helpful information easily accessible. Check your calendar or even pull up your flight information. You can also say, “Tell me about my day” to hear curated personal information that helps you navigate your day. We know there’s no shortage of tasks at home, and Google Home can help with those too. Ask it to wake you up in the morning, set kitchen timers, and keep track of your shopping list.

Rule your kingdom without lifting a finger
With Google Home, you can control devices around the house. Play and control music on your speakers that have Chromecast Audio plugged in or Chromecast built-in. Or stream videos to a TV equipped with Chromecast. At launch, you can fire up videos from YouTube, and we’ll support popular apps like Netflix and Google Photos in the near future. You can also control your lights, thermostats and switches with popular home automation systems like Philips Hue, Nest, Samsung SmartThings and IFTTT — with more coming soon.

Not just another black box
We designed Google Home to look good. The top blends into your home with a clean, minimal design that has no buttons and hidden LED lights. It features a capacitive touch surface for those rare moments when voice won’t do. Because every home is different, you can customize the base with different colors and finishes (metal and fabric, sold separately) to your personal taste.

A Google Home for every room
Want to enjoy music throughout your house? Build up a team of Google Home devices and blast the same tune in every room with Multi-room (you can also group with Chromecast Audio or Chromecast built-in speakers too). Having more than one device doesn’t mean they will all respond when you say “Ok Google.” If they have the same user account, only the closest one responds.

Google Home will be available in stores starting in November or you can pre-order yours today for $129 from the Google Store, Best Buy, Target and Walmart. Once you set up your device, you’ll be able to redeem 6 months free of YouTube Red so you can enjoy YouTube music and video ads-free.*

Big or small. Modern or minimal. How you arrange your home is up to you. But when it comes to the other stuff, Google Home is happy to help.

*Device purchase required. New subscribers only. Terms apply. Offer expires 12/31/16.

Posted by Ken Mixter, Software Engineer and Home builder

https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-OIoqCS4G38k/V_Qze6BJLbI/AAAAAAAATIw/bFiKlsy6lzs7qBA0XtI8TA6ZbP9RBiPLgCLcB/s1600/Anthem%2BThumbnail%2B-%2BProduct.png Ken Mixter Software Engineer and Home builder ]]> Google Assistant into your kitchen, living room or anywhere else around the house.

Your voice speaks volumes
With a simple “Ok Google” you can play songs, artists, radio stations, your favorite playlists and more from Google Play Music, Pandora, Spotify, TuneIn and YouTube Music with additional services like iHeartRadio coming soon. You can also play a podcast while making pasta or listen to today’s news while tying your shoes. And if you just want to stream audio directly from your phone, you can cast music to Google Home from 100+ Chromecast-enabled apps on your Android or iOS device.

Google Home’s smart audio design integrates a high-excursion driver with a dual passive radiator design that delivers crystal-clear highs and deep lows for Hi-Fi sound that streams over WiFi. That means a lot of big sound from a small package. Even while you jam out to music, it can easily hear you from across the room, thanks to two omnidirectional microphones and neural beamforming.

Get answers big and small
Google Home taps into the power of Google Search to give you real-time answers to things you want to know. Ask Google Home to translate phrases and do simple math calculations. Kneading pizza dough and need to change ounces to grams? Ask and get unit conversions and nutritional info, too. Getting ready for the day? Get real-time info on the weather, the stock market, the traffic, or your favorite sports team. Google Home can also help you find answers to more obscure questions directly on the web. It’s all the power of Google with a simple voice command.

An extra pair of hands
With your permission, Google Home makes helpful information easily accessible. Check your calendar or even pull up your flight information. You can also say, “Tell me about my day” to hear curated personal information that helps you navigate your day. We know there’s no shortage of tasks at home, and Google Home can help with those too. Ask it to wake you up in the morning, set kitchen timers, and keep track of your shopping list.

Rule your kingdom without lifting a finger
With Google Home, you can control devices around the house. Play and control music on your speakers that have Chromecast Audio plugged in or Chromecast built-in. Or stream videos to a TV equipped with Chromecast. At launch, you can fire up videos from YouTube, and we’ll support popular apps like Netflix and Google Photos in the near future. You can also control your lights, thermostats and switches with popular home automation systems like Philips Hue, Nest, Samsung SmartThings and IFTTT — with more coming soon.

Not just another black box
We designed Google Home to look good. The top blends into your home with a clean, minimal design that has no buttons and hidden LED lights. It features a capacitive touch surface for those rare moments when voice won’t do. Because every home is different, you can customize the base with different colors and finishes (metal and fabric, sold separately) to your personal taste.

Comfortable. Inspired by the clothes we enjoy wearing, the headset is made with soft, breathable fabric. It is 30% lighter than similar devices and is designed to fit over eyeglasses.
Easy to use. Just drop in your Daydream-ready phone and you’ll be ready to go. The phone and headset have an auto-alignment system so you don’t have to worry about cables or connectors.

A big part of what makes Daydream View special is the Daydream controller. This small yet powerful controller lets you interact with the virtual world the same way you do in the real world. It points where you point, and is packed with sensors to understand your movements and gestures. You can swing it like a bat or wave it like a wand. And it’s so precise that you can draw with it. The controller slides right inside the headset when not in use, so you don’t have to worry about losing it in your bag or between couch cushions.

Yours. Daydream View is designed with choice in mind. The headset fits phones big or small, so it’ll work with any Daydream-ready phone you choose. And just like your clothes, the headset comes in different colors — Slate, Snow and Crimson — so you can choose the color that matches your style.

Incredible experiences
From the universe of YouTube videos to a magical world where you can cast spells and levitate objects, there is a wide range of experiences coming to Daydream:

Enjoy the best of Google. We’ve brought some of the most popular Google apps into VR. With YouTube, you can watch the entire library of videos on a virtual big screen and experience hundreds of thousands of immersive videos from creators like Buzzfeed, PrankvsPrank, Meredith Foster, CollegeHumor, Tastemade, UnboxTherapy and VSauce2. Use Google Street View to see curated tours of more than 150 of the world’s most amazing places like the Pyramids and the Taj Mahal, or just search to explore everywhere else. Google Play Movies makes tens of thousands of movies and TV episodes available in your own virtual theater. And Google Photos displays your 360° captures in a whole new way.
Explore new worlds. Teleport from anywhere to pretty much everywhere with immersive stories and content from our partners, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and J.K. Rowling’s Wizarding World of “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,” as brought to life by Warner Bros.
Kick back in your own personal cinema. Experience sports, live events and more with MLB and NBA. Plus, you can watch top shows and movies on your own virtual big screen with Hulu, HBO and Netflix.
Get in the game. Go from the sidelines to the center of action with dozens of titles, including Wonderglade, Gunjack 2, LEGO® BrickHeadz, Mekorama, Need for Speed, EarthShape, Danger Goat, Home Run Derby and Hungry Shark World.

Daydream View arrives this November at the Google Store and our retailer partners across five countries:

United States: Verizon, Best Buy; $79 (USD)
Canada: Bell, Rogers, Telus, Best Buy; $99 (CAD)
United Kingdom: EE, Carphone Warehouse; £69 (GBP)
Germany: Deutsche Telekom; €69 (EUR)
Australia: Telstra, JB Hi-Fi; $119 (AUD)

In the U.S., Daydream View will be available for pre-order starting October 20 at Verizon and the Google Store. Slate will be available in all countries at launch, and Snow and Crimson will be coming to the U.S., U.K. and Australia after. Sign up on the Google Store to get notified when Daydream View becomes available.

All of this is just the beginning of our work with Daydream. In the coming months, we’ll be launching with more apps and partners, and over the coming years, we’ll continue our goal of bringing high-quality, mobile VR to everyone.

Posted by Clay Bavor, VP Virtual Reality

https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-sBLhfM7JCds/V_Qze9xZqTI/AAAAAAAATI0/e4Z7JQqG2scKKUNnBN8koAtSPz1witpOgCLcB/s320/daydreamBlogHero.png Clay Bavor VP Virtual Reality ]]> front row seats at Coachella and visit a world-renowned museum to see extinct animals come back to life. You can take field trips to almost anywhere and capture vivid moments you can revisit anytime. It’s transporting.

At I/O this May, we announced Daydream, our platform for high-quality mobile VR. Our goal for Daydream is to simplify the complexity behind virtual reality. It should be mobile so you can easily carry it with you, and it should be friendly and accessible so everyone can enjoy using it.

We’ve been working with developers, smartphone companies and content creators to make the dream a reality — and now, we’re excited to share updates across the three key elements of Daydream: smartphones, headsets and VR experiences.

Pixel, the first Daydream-ready phones
With Daydream, you simply pop a Daydream-ready phone in the headset to start exploring. Powered by Android 7.0 Nougat, Daydream-ready phones are built with high-resolution displays, powerful mobile processors and high-fidelity sensors—all tuned to support great VR experiences. Google’s newest Pixel and Pixel XL are the first Daydream-ready phones, and there are a lot more on the way from leading Android smartphone makers.

Daydream View, the first Daydream-ready headset and controller
Today, we’re announcing Daydream View. Designed and developed by Google, it’s the first Daydream-ready headset and controller.

Daydream View is:

Comfortable. Inspired by the clothes we enjoy wearing, the headset is made with soft, breathable fabric. It is 30% lighter than similar devices and is designed to fit over eyeglasses.
Easy to use. Just drop in your Daydream-ready phone and you’ll be ready to go. The phone and headset have an auto-alignment system so you don’t have to worry about cables or connectors.

A big part of what makes Daydream View special is the Daydream controller. This small yet powerful controller lets you interact with the virtual world the same way you do in the real world. It points where you point, and is packed with sensors to understand your movements and gestures. You can swing it like a bat or wave it like a wand. And it’s so precise that you can draw with it. The controller slides right inside the headset when not in use, so you don’t have to worry about losing it in your bag or between couch cushions.

Yours. Daydream View is designed with choice in mind. The headset fits phones big or small, so it’ll work with any Daydream-ready phone you choose. And just like your clothes, the headset comes in different colors — Slate, Snow and Crimson — so you can choose the color that matches your style.

Incredible experiences
From the universe of YouTube videos to a magical world where you can cast spells and levitate objects, there is a wide range of experiences coming to Daydream:

Enjoy the best of Google. We’ve brought some of the most popular Google apps into VR. With YouTube, you can watch the entire library of videos on a virtual big screen and experience hundreds of thousands of immersive videos from creators like Buzzfeed, PrankvsPrank, Meredith Foster, CollegeHumor, Tastemade, UnboxTherapy and VSauce2. Use Google Street View to see curated tours of more than 150 of the world’s most amazing places like the Pyramids and the Taj Mahal, or just search to explore everywhere else. Google Play Movies makes tens of thousands of movies and TV episodes available in your own virtual theater. And Google Photos displays your 360° captures in a whole new way.
Explore new worlds. Teleport from anywhere to pretty much everywhere with immersive stories and content from our partners, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and J.K. Rowling’s Wizarding World of “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,” as brought to life by Warner Bros.
Kick back in your own personal cinema. Experience sports, live events and more with MLB and NBA. Plus, you can watch top shows and movies on your own virtual big screen with Hulu, HBO and Netflix.
Get in the game. Go from the sidelines to the center of action with dozens of titles, including Wonderglade, Gunjack 2, LEGO® BrickHeadz, Mekorama, Need for Speed, EarthShape, Danger Goat, Home Run Derby and Hungry Shark World.

Daydream View arrives this November at the Google Store and our retailer partners across five countries:

United States: Verizon, Best Buy; $79 (USD)
Canada: Bell, Rogers, Telus, Best Buy; $99 (CAD)
United Kingdom: EE, Carphone Warehouse; £69 (GBP)
Germany: Deutsche Telekom; €69 (EUR)
Australia: Telstra, JB Hi-Fi; $119 (AUD)

In the U.S., Daydream View will be available for pre-order starting October 20 at Verizon and the Google Store. Slate will be available in all countries at launch, and Snow and Crimson will be coming to the U.S., U.K. and Australia after. Sign up on the Google Store to get notified when Daydream View becomes available.

All of this is just the beginning of our work with Daydream. In the coming months, we’ll be launching with more apps and partners, and over the coming years, we’ll continue our goal of bringing high-quality, mobile VR to everyone.

Posted by Clay Bavor, VP Virtual Reality ]]> https://googledata.org/google-blog/daydream-bringing-high-quality-vr-to-everyone/feed/ 0 Introducing Pixel, our new phone made by Google https://googledata.org/google-blog/introducing-pixel-our-new-phone-made-by-google/ https://googledata.org/google-blog/introducing-pixel-our-new-phone-made-by-google/#comments Tue, 04 Oct 2016 18:01:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=5aecc7929fbaadfe7a7e182f73eae4c1
For those of you who have followed Google closely, that name may sound familiar to you because we've used the Pixel name in the past for consumer hardware products that represented an overall premium Google experience. Many of you may also be familiar with the Nexus program. Since 2010, we’ve partnered closely with mobile handset partners around the world to bring you the best of Android. Through Nexus, the goal was to work with these various partners to push the boundaries of what’s possible with a smartphone. We’ve now decided to take the next step and provide our take on the best Google experience, by bringing hardware and software design together under one roof.

Pixel, Phone by Google
With Pixel, we obsessed over every detail, from the industrial design to the user experience. We carefully sculpted the surfaces of the phone, and rounded the edges to make it easy to grip. We used 2.5D Corning® Gorilla® Glass 4 on the front display and back glass to accent the aerospace grade aluminum body. The glass on the back also features Pixel Imprint, our fingerprint sensor, which is placed on the back of the phone where your finger expects it. You can even swipe it to access your notifications. And no matter what you’re using your phone for, you’ll need a battery that lasts all day and charges fast — up to seven hours in 15 minutes.

Meet your Google Assistant
Pixel is the first phone with the Google Assistant built in. With your Assistant, you can have a natural conversation with Google to find answers or get things done on the go. Say "Ok Google" or touch and hold the Home button and your Assistant is ready to help. Ask it for a brief update on your day or to play a video on YouTube. Look up traffic on the way home from work or when the nearest pharmacy closes. You can even say “show me my camping photos with Andrew” and it'll instantly display the photos you're looking for. Your Assistant can also offer help with what’s on-screen in any app. So if your friend texts you to meet up at a new restaurant, you can just say “navigate there.”

The best smartphone camera. Ever.
The Pixel camera is not only the best smartphone camera we’ve ever made, it’s the highest rated smartphone camera anyone has ever made. Our DxOMark Mobile score of 89 is a great example of what’s possible when great hardware meets great software. Pixel puts cutting-edge computational photography in an ultra-fast and easy-to-use camera.

Pixel has a 12.3MP camera, featuring an f/2.0 aperture and big 1.55 micron pixels to capture lots and lots of light. Our team of photography gurus and image processing experts have spent the last year designing and tirelessly optimizing our entire camera stack.

Pixel’s camera lets you take stunning photos in low light, bright light or any light. Catch action shots as they happen with Smartburst, which takes a rapid-fire sequence of shots and automatically selects the best one. Use Lens Blur to achieve shallow depth of field and bokeh effects, making your subject pop. You can capture dramatic landscapes or make faces glow with new exposure controls.

And as a special bonus for Pixel owners, we’re including free unlimited storage for original quality photos and videos at full resolution in Google Photos.

More to love
Pixel ships with the newest Android operating system, Android 7.1 Nougat. Phones will get software and security updates as soon as they’re available, directly from Google. We’ve also made the update process easier. When a new update is available, it can download and install in the background — no more waiting around for your phone to update.

The Pixel also comes with Google Duo and Allo pre-installed so you can video call and text with all your friends, whether they’re on Android or iOS.

Make it yours
Pixel comes in two sizes, 5” or 5.5”, and three colors: Very Silver, Quite Black and our limited edition for the U.S. only, Really Blue. And whatever you choose, we’ve got cases to match. In addition to customizing Live Cases with your favorite photos and places, we’re introducing a new Artworks collection that features exclusive designs from artists like Justin Maller, and photographers like Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield. We’re also excited to offer a new collection of silicone and clear cases.

Pixel is available for pre-order today starting at $649 in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Germany and Australia. Pre-orders in India will begin October 13. In the U.S., we’re teaming up exclusively with Verizon to make Pixel available nationwide at all Verizon retail outlets, including Best Buy stores. We’re also offering Pixel unlocked on the Google Store and, for you Project Fi fans out there, you'll be happy to know that Pixel is the latest device to work on the Fi network.

Personally, I’m rocking the 5.5” Quite Black with a Live Case centered on 1060 W Addison. Go Cubs!

Posted by Brian Rakowski, VP, Product Management

https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_HoHWCiQYdE/V_QX2-w4SwI/AAAAAAAATH8/UlkaeafDHuQ4qAEA-lgjMYWojsV14Z_2ACLcB/s1600/pixel.jpg Brian Rakowski VP Product Management ]]>
For those of you who have followed Google closely, that name may sound familiar to you because we've used the Pixel name in the past for consumer hardware products that represented an overall premium Google experience. Many of you may also be familiar with the Nexus program. Since 2010, we’ve partnered closely with mobile handset partners around the world to bring you the best of Android. Through Nexus, the goal was to work with these various partners to push the boundaries of what’s possible with a smartphone. We’ve now decided to take the next step and provide our take on the best Google experience, by bringing hardware and software design together under one roof.

Pixel, Phone by Google
With Pixel, we obsessed over every detail, from the industrial design to the user experience. We carefully sculpted the surfaces of the phone, and rounded the edges to make it easy to grip. We used 2.5D Corning® Gorilla® Glass 4 on the front display and back glass to accent the aerospace grade aluminum body. The glass on the back also features Pixel Imprint, our fingerprint sensor, which is placed on the back of the phone where your finger expects it. You can even swipe it to access your notifications. And no matter what you’re using your phone for, you’ll need a battery that lasts all day and charges fast — up to seven hours in 15 minutes.

Meet your Google Assistant
Pixel is the first phone with the Google Assistant built in. With your Assistant, you can have a natural conversation with Google to find answers or get things done on the go. Say "Ok Google" or touch and hold the Home button and your Assistant is ready to help. Ask it for a brief update on your day or to play a video on YouTube. Look up traffic on the way home from work or when the nearest pharmacy closes. You can even say “show me my camping photos with Andrew” and it'll instantly display the photos you're looking for. Your Assistant can also offer help with what’s on-screen in any app. So if your friend texts you to meet up at a new restaurant, you can just say “navigate there.”

The best smartphone camera. Ever.
The Pixel camera is not only the best smartphone camera we’ve ever made, it’s the highest rated smartphone camera anyone has ever made. Our DxOMark Mobile score of 89 is a great example of what’s possible when great hardware meets great software. Pixel puts cutting-edge computational photography in an ultra-fast and easy-to-use camera.

Pixel has a 12.3MP camera, featuring an f/2.0 aperture and big 1.55 micron pixels to capture lots and lots of light. Our team of photography gurus and image processing experts have spent the last year designing and tirelessly optimizing our entire camera stack.

Pixel’s camera lets you take stunning photos in low light, bright light or any light. Catch action shots as they happen with Smartburst, which takes a rapid-fire sequence of shots and automatically selects the best one. Use Lens Blur to achieve shallow depth of field and bokeh effects, making your subject pop. You can capture dramatic landscapes or make faces glow with new exposure controls.

And as a special bonus for Pixel owners, we’re including free unlimited storage for original quality photos and videos at full resolution in Google Photos.

More to love
Pixel ships with the newest Android operating system, Android 7.1 Nougat. Phones will get software and security updates as soon as they’re available, directly from Google. We’ve also made the update process easier. When a new update is available, it can download and install in the background — no more waiting around for your phone to update.

The Pixel also comes with Google Duo and Allo pre-installed so you can video call and text with all your friends, whether they’re on Android or iOS.

Make it yours
Pixel comes in two sizes, 5” or 5.5”, and three colors: Very Silver, Quite Black and our limited edition for the U.S. only, Really Blue. And whatever you choose, we’ve got cases to match. In addition to customizing Live Cases with your favorite photos and places, we’re introducing a new Artworks collection that features exclusive designs from artists like Justin Maller, and photographers like Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield. We’re also excited to offer a new collection of silicone and clear cases.

Pixel is available for pre-order today starting at $649 in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Germany and Australia. Pre-orders in India will begin October 13. In the U.S., we’re teaming up exclusively with Verizon to make Pixel available nationwide at all Verizon retail outlets, including Best Buy stores. We’re also offering Pixel unlocked on the Google Store and, for you Project Fi fans out there, you'll be happy to know that Pixel is the latest device to work on the Fi network.

Personally, I’m rocking the 5.5” Quite Black with a Live Case centered on 1060 W Addison. Go Cubs!

Posted by Brian Rakowski, VP, Product Management ]]> https://googledata.org/google-blog/introducing-pixel-our-new-phone-made-by-google/feed/ 0 Introducing a new kind of Wi-Fi system https://googledata.org/google-blog/introducing-a-new-kind-of-wi-fi-system/ https://googledata.org/google-blog/introducing-a-new-kind-of-wi-fi-system/#comments Tue, 04 Oct 2016 18:00:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=97e7bf40a5b6da371ebbff557574ae73
Today, we’re excited to introduce Google Wifi, a new connected Wi-Fi system designed to give you a fast signal in every room, on every device.

Most of us get Wi-Fi in our homes through a centralized router, but using a single router to spread signal throughout your whole home is like expecting one light bulb to light up every room. Walls and distance make it difficult for a single device to send a strong signal to every corner of your home, resulting in slow Wi-Fi and dead zones.

Last year, we introduced OnHub with partners TP-LINK and ASUS to create a better Wi-Fi experience, focusing on design and simplicity. Google Wifi, built on the strengths of OnHub, is our next step towards ensuring that our homes can have great Wi-Fi everywhere we need it.

Fast Wi-Fi throughout your home
Google Wifi was designed from the ground up to support the new ways we use Wi-Fi. These days, Wi-Fi has to be able to support lots of devices at the same time, and stand up to high-bandwidth activities like streaming video or gaming — in every room of your house. Google Wifi is an expandable system, so for larger homes, you can simply add Google Wifi points. They connect to one another and spread a strong network signal to every room.

The system uses a technology called mesh Wi-Fi (something usually only seen in expensive commercial installations). Within our mesh network, each Google Wifi point creates a high-powered connection, and the different points work together to determine the best path for your data. The result is fast Wi-Fi everywhere in your house, not just right next to the router.

Keeps itself fast
Most of us don’t want to spend time tweaking complex settings or managing our Wi-Fi network. Google Wifi comes with Network Assist technology, which works behind the scenes to keep your Wi-Fi fast so you don’t have to figure out how to adjust your router. Network Assist automatically places you on the clearest channel and optimal Wi-Fi band for your device. And as you roam around your house, Network Assist will seamlessly transition your device between the Google Wifi system points in real time, so you avoid dead spots or delays.

A simple way to control your network
For those times when you do want more control over your network, Google Wifi makes it simple through a companion app, available on Android or iOS. The app lets you do things like pause Wi-Fi on kids’ devices (like when it’s time to come to the dinner table). It also shows you which devices are connected and how much bandwidth they’re using and lets you prioritize devices within your network so you can stream that latest episode uninterrupted. Google Wifi was designed with user privacy as a top priority. For example, it has settings for easily controlling cloud management and industry-leading security features such as wireless encryption, verified boot, and auto updates to keep your network safe and secure.

Google Wifi will be available for pre-order in the U.S. in November. It will retail for $129 for a single pack, and $299 for a three-pack at the Google Store, Amazon, Best Buy and Walmart.

Join the waitlist on the Google Store, and we’ll let you know when you can get your hands on one, so you can enjoy a fast Wi-Fi signal in every corner of your home.

Posted by Ben Brown, Senior Product Manager ]]> https://googledata.org/google-blog/introducing-a-new-kind-of-wi-fi-system/feed/ 0 The fastest Chromecast yet, with 4K and HDR support https://googledata.org/google-blog/the-fastest-chromecast-yet-with-4k-and-hdr-support/ https://googledata.org/google-blog/the-fastest-chromecast-yet-with-4k-and-hdr-support/#comments Tue, 04 Oct 2016 18:00:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=56ac136120c01738289d21f49ea96296 The Upside Down, Jason Bourne and cliff jumping videos have in common? They all come in stunning 4K picture (which basically means the picture is suuuuuper crisp). And with the newly introduced Chromecast Ultra, now you can stream all of these 4K titles and more to your 4K TV.

Chromecast Ultra includes everything you love about Chromecast. Plus, it comes with advanced features like 4K and High Dynamic Range (HDR) support, faster speed and Wi-Fi improvements.

Stunning picture, deeper colors
Chromecast Ultra supports 4K, HDR and Dolby Vision, so you’ll get a crisper picture with higher resolution and more vibrant colors. At first, you'll be able to stream 4K content from Netflix, YouTube and Vudu, and we’re working to bring more 4K and HDR content on board. Later this year, Google Play Movies & TV will be rolling out 4K content. Even if your TV isn’t 4K-ready, Chromecast Ultra automatically optimizes your TV’s picture.

Faster than ever, with optional Ethernet port
Chromecast Ultra loads videos 1.8 times faster than other Chromecast devices and includes major Wi-Fi improvements to support streams from full HD to Ultra HD without a hitch. For those tricky Wi-Fi environments, we’re also adding Ethernet support for a wired connection.

Everything you love about Chromecast
Just like the original Chromecast, you can cast all of your favorite content from thousands of apps using your phone, tablet or laptop. Mirror any content from your Android device or from a browser tab on your laptop (using Chrome) to the TV. And it comes in a small size that hides nicely behind your TV, without adding clutter to your living room.

Works with Google Home
Today we also introduced Google Home, a voice-activated speaker powered by the Google Assistant. With Google Home, you can play music, get answers from Google, manage your everyday tasks, and control smart home devices, like Chromecast. Combined with Chromecast or Chromecast Ultra, use Google Home to control your TV — completely hands free. Simply say “Ok, Google, play the Jungle Book trailer on my TV” to watch the YouTube video on the big screen.

Chromecast Ultra will be available in November for $69 from the Best Buy, Google Store, Target, and Walmart in the U.S., as well as from international retailers in 15 more countries.

Join the waitlist on the Google Store and we’ll let you know when you can get your hands on Chromecast Ultra, so you can start enjoying some seriously crisp entertainment.

Posted by Suresh Kolla, Engineering Director Suresh Kolla Engineering Director ]]> The Upside Down, Jason Bourne and cliff jumping videos have in common? They all come in stunning 4K picture (which basically means the picture is suuuuuper crisp). And with the newly introduced Chromecast Ultra, now you can stream all of these 4K titles and more to your 4K TV.

Chromecast Ultra includes everything you love about Chromecast. Plus, it comes with advanced features like 4K and High Dynamic Range (HDR) support, faster speed and Wi-Fi improvements.

Stunning picture, deeper colors
Chromecast Ultra supports 4K, HDR and Dolby Vision, so you’ll get a crisper picture with higher resolution and more vibrant colors. At first, you'll be able to stream 4K content from Netflix, YouTube and Vudu, and we’re working to bring more 4K and HDR content on board. Later this year, Google Play Movies & TV will be rolling out 4K content. Even if your TV isn’t 4K-ready, Chromecast Ultra automatically optimizes your TV’s picture.

Faster than ever, with optional Ethernet port
Chromecast Ultra loads videos 1.8 times faster than other Chromecast devices and includes major Wi-Fi improvements to support streams from full HD to Ultra HD without a hitch. For those tricky Wi-Fi environments, we’re also adding Ethernet support for a wired connection.

Everything you love about Chromecast
Just like the original Chromecast, you can cast all of your favorite content from thousands of apps using your phone, tablet or laptop. Mirror any content from your Android device or from a browser tab on your laptop (using Chrome) to the TV. And it comes in a small size that hides nicely behind your TV, without adding clutter to your living room.

Works with Google Home
Today we also introduced Google Home, a voice-activated speaker powered by the Google Assistant. With Google Home, you can play music, get answers from Google, manage your everyday tasks, and control smart home devices, like Chromecast. Combined with Chromecast or Chromecast Ultra, use Google Home to control your TV — completely hands free. Simply say “Ok, Google, play the Jungle Book trailer on my TV” to watch the YouTube video on the big screen.

Chromecast Ultra will be available in November for $69 from the Best Buy, Google Store, Target, and Walmart in the U.S., as well as from international retailers in 15 more countries.

Join the waitlist on the Google Store and we’ll let you know when you can get your hands on Chromecast Ultra, so you can start enjoying some seriously crisp entertainment.

Posted by Suresh Kolla, Engineering Director ]]> https://googledata.org/google-blog/the-fastest-chromecast-yet-with-4k-and-hdr-support/feed/ 0 Google Science Fair 2016: a look back, and a giant leap ahead https://googledata.org/google-blog/google-science-fair-2016-a-look-back-and-a-giant-leap-ahead/ https://googledata.org/google-blog/google-science-fair-2016-a-look-back-and-a-giant-leap-ahead/#comments Tue, 27 Sep 2016 21:46:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=62c37e57aa5d96cbbf6806d0469e362e Editor's note: Today’s post comes from our first-ever Google Science Fair Grand Prize winner in 2011, Shree Bose. Back for the annual Science Fair five years later, here she shares her own story as a glimpse of what’s in store for this year’s winners. Thanks to our partners at Lego Education, National Geographic, Scientific American and Virgin Galactic for another great year of Google Science Fair. In case you missed it, you can still catch the livestream!

Five years ago to the day, I was a finalist in the first-ever Google Science Fair — a program where any student 13-18 is invited to solve the world’s biggest challenges through science and technology. I was fascinated by the peculiar ways cancer cells process energy and wondered if we might be able to target those processes. So, the idea behind my project was to study AMP kinase, an energy protein, to understand its importance in the way ovarian cancer cells develop resistance to drugs. I was 17 when I won the Grand Prize, and my life hasn’t been the same since.

Today 20 of the world’s brightest young scientists have that same chance ahead of them, and I am so excited and grateful to be here with them in Mountain View to re-live that experience.

The 2016 Google Science Fair finalists

Meeting President Obama(!)
Official White House photo by Pete Souza

For me, the Google Science Fair took my passion for science and gave me a global platform to share it with the world. I went on to do my undergraduate studies at Harvard University, majoring in Molecular and Cellular Biology with a minor in Global Health and Health Policy. My interest in using new metabolic tools to study cancer has led me to Duke University School of Medicine, where I’m currently pursuing an MD/PhD and looking forward to a career that brings together clinical medicine and basic science. But five years ago, it was the Google Science Fair that first provided me with the platform to share my ideas, unlocking doors to some incredible, once-in-a-lifetime opportunities: meeting President Obama, speaking at TEDx events all over the world and being included on Glamour magazine’s list of Top 10 College Women.

Back at Google today, I witnessed more than 500 students from local Bay Area schools — a majority that qualified for Title I funding — as they asked questions, found inspiration, and saw science and engineering in new, unexpected ways.
Those students had a chance to talk to the finalists, from 9 countries, who are working on things like better diagnosing cancer, fighting drought with fruit, training robotic hands, developing compostable feminine sanitary products and so much more. (I also have to point out, this is the first year a majority of the finalists are female, which makes me especially proud!)

My sincere congratulations to all of this year’s Google Science Fair finalists and winners. You might “just” be teenagers, but you’re also amazing researchers, entrepreneurs, technologists and explorers who are challenging themselves — and all of the rest of us — to make things better. To quote last year’s Google Science Fair winner (and my friend) Olivia Hallisey who is also back here this week as a judge:

"Every one of us, no matter our age or background, can make a difference. But change doesn’t happen overnight, and it often starts with a question. So look at the world around you, and challenge yourself to make something better."

As for me, the Science Fair gave me the confidence to continue asking questions, developing a passion for science and engineering, and even to co-found Piper, a company focused on developing electrical engineering kits for kids to learn the basics of building hardware. I just can’t wait to see where you will be five years from today.

And finally, announcing the 2016 Google Science Fair winners:

Grand Prize: Kiara, 16 — Johannesburg, South Africa. Fighting Drought with Fruit.
Scientific American Innovator Award: Luke, Julia and Ashton, 14 — Ohio, United States. Fighting foam waste with recycled filters.
National Geographic Explorer Award: Mphatso, 18 — Lusaka, Zambia. Keeping farms alive on a budget.
Lego Education Builder Award: Anushka, 13 — Oregon, United States. Smart wound care for the future.
Virgin Galactic Pioneer Award: Charlie, 16 — Massachusetts, United States. Making rockets more efficient.

The 2016 Google Science Fair winners!

Posted by Shree Bose, 2011 Google Science Fair winner https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6FNNcKSgLiM/V-rrBkuD8YI/AAAAAAAATF0/tvOg4g4kS4c6TBR0QiALygZnB_GEfJkbACLcB/s1600/_MG_3901.jpg Shree Bose 2011 Google Science Fair winner  ]]> Editor's note: Today’s post comes from our first-ever Google Science Fair Grand Prize winner in 2011, Shree Bose. Back for the annual Science Fair five years later, here she shares her own story as a glimpse of what’s in store for this year’s winners. Thanks to our partners at Lego Education, National Geographic, Scientific American and Virgin Galactic for another great year of Google Science Fair. In case you missed it, you can still catch the livestream!

The 2016 Google Science Fair finalists

Meeting President Obama(!)
Official White House photo by Pete Souza

Grand Prize: Kiara, 16 — Johannesburg, South Africa. Fighting Drought with Fruit.
Scientific American Innovator Award: Luke, Julia and Ashton, 14 — Ohio, United States. Fighting foam waste with recycled filters.
National Geographic Explorer Award: Mphatso, 18 — Lusaka, Zambia. Keeping farms alive on a budget.
Lego Education Builder Award: Anushka, 13 — Oregon, United States. Smart wound care for the future.
Virgin Galactic Pioneer Award: Charlie, 16 — Massachusetts, United States. Making rockets more efficient.

The 2016 Google Science Fair winners!

Posted by Shree Bose, 2011 Google Science Fair winner ]]> https://googledata.org/google-blog/google-science-fair-2016-a-look-back-and-a-giant-leap-ahead/feed/ 0 Introducing Google News Lite mode — faster news for slower networks https://googledata.org/google-news/introducing-google-news-lite-mode-faster-news-for-slower-networks/ https://googledata.org/google-news/introducing-google-news-lite-mode-faster-news-for-slower-networks/#comments Tue, 27 Sep 2016 13:00:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=467bb032ad3dcb899b059cf461f76e0c Posted by James Morehead, Product Manager, Google News

There are many parts of the world, like India, where slow 2G and 3G mobile networks are the norm. In places like this, when news breaks you’ll likely wait, and wait, and wait for articles to load on your smartphone. That’s why, starting this week, Google News and Weather for Android is introducing a new feature called Lite mode to help many of India’s 200 million smartphone users stay connected with news from around the world and in their local communities. We’ll be rolling this out to other countries in emerging markets in the coming months.

In the full (normal) mode of Google News, as seen below, we aggregate headlines, images and related content, making it fast and easy for people to find articles they care about. In the new Lite mode things look a little different — we keep the headlines and trim the rest of the components down to their essentials so that the app loads more quickly (and uses less than one-third of the data). When people read an article in Lite mode, they’ll also benefit from Google’s previously announced faster and lighter mobile web pages. By default Lite mode triggers automatically when a slower network is detected (users can also choose to control Lite mode directly).

Screen Shot 2016-09-09 at 9.08.53 PM.png

Lite mode is part of our overall goal to provide news that matters to people around the world. A couple of months ago we started providing local news sources to users in all Google News editions globally (71 countries and 38 languages), building on an announcement back in May of a Local Source tag that surfaces local sources for national stories.

We’re also working to bring news to people in their local languages. In India, we embarked on this effort back in 2007 with Hindi and have since expanded to include Malayalam, Tamil, Telegu and English, from more than 1,000 India-based publishers.

We plan to bring Lite mode to users in Brazil and Indonesia later this year, and more places next year.]]> Posted by James Morehead, Product Manager, Google News

We plan to bring Lite mode to users in Brazil and Indonesia later this year, and more places next year.]]> https://googledata.org/google-news/introducing-google-news-lite-mode-faster-news-for-slower-networks/feed/ 0 #IRegistered to vote. Have you? https://googledata.org/google-blog/iregistered-to-vote-have-you/ https://googledata.org/google-blog/iregistered-to-vote-have-you/#comments Mon, 26 Sep 2016 14:00:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=3d12e0f948cd2fa3cbdf64a5565cd777 ¡Hola! Desplazarse hacia abajo para leer este mensaje en español -Ed.
On the eve of National Voter Registration Day, we’re doing our part to encourage American voters to get registered for the 2016 election. We've already added in-depth information in Search for registration and how to vote, and now we're adding this same information in Spanish. Now both Spanish and English speakers will be able to get custom, state-by-state information on key registration deadlines, when to get to the polls, and even steps on how to vote early or by mail. We hope this feature helps simplify the registration process for more American voters.

By helping more people get registered, we're also helping ensure more people get to the polls and vote. The majority of Americans who register to vote end up voting — according to the US Census Bureau, in 2012, 86 percent of those who registered also voted in the November election.

Today's Google Doodle encourages people to get registered in time for National Voter Registration Day

YouTube creators also want you to head to the polls and #voteIRL. Tune in to this playlist to see how you can register to vote in the amount of time it takes Ryan Seacrest to host a radio show or The Fung Bros to shoot hoops. Surprising fact: it only takes one minute and 34 seconds! Once you’ve registered, join us in encouraging others along the voting process by sharing a post with #IRegistered on social media.

Registering to vote is just the first step toward casting your ballot in this year’s election. We hope that you’ll be inspired to learn more about the candidates, the issues, and the voting process — and make your voice heard in 2016!

Posted by Jonathan Betz, Engineering Manager, Civic Engagement

_________________________________________________________________________________

Yo me registre para votar. ¿Y tu? #IRegistered

En la víspera del Día Nacional de Registro de Votantes, estamos haciendo nuestra parte para animar a los votantes estadounidenses para registrarse para las elecciones del 2016. Ya hemos añadido información detallada en búsqueda de como registrarte y cómo votar, y ahora estamos añadiendo esa misma información en español.

Ahora, tanto los hablantes de español e inglés podrán obtener información personalizada, estado por estado sobre las fechas clave de registro, horarios para llegar a las urnas, e incluso los pasos necesarios para votar temprano o por correo. Esperamos que esta función ayude a simplificar el proceso de registro para más votantes estadounidenses.

Al ayudar a que más personas se registren, también estamos ayudando a asegurar que más personas lleguen a las urnas y voten. La mayoría de los estadounidenses que se registran para votar terminan ejerciendo su voto - según la Oficina del Censo de Estados Unidos, en el año 2012, el 86 por ciento de los que se registraron también votaron en las elecciones de noviembre.

El Google Doodle de hoy anima a la gente para que se registren a tiempo como parte del Día Nacional de Registro de Votantes

Today's Google Doodle encourages people to get registered in time for National Voter Registration Day

_________________________________________________________________________________

Yo me registre para votar. ¿Y tu? #IRegistered

El Google Doodle de hoy anima a la gente para que se registren a tiempo como parte del Día Nacional de Registro de Votantes

Los creadores de YouTube también quieren que acudas a las urnas y voten en vida real con la campaña #voteIRL. Te recomendamos sintonizar esta lista de videos para aprender cómo puedes registrarte para votar casi en la misma cantidad de tiempo que le toma a Ryan Seacrest presentar su programa de radio o a los Fung Bros jugar baloncesto. De hecho, te sorprenderá saber que: ¡sólo te tomará un minuto y 34 segundos! Una vez que te hayas registrado, te invitamos a acompañarnos a animar a otros a lo largo del proceso de votar, compartiendo un post utilizando #IRegistered en tus redes sociales.

Registrarse para votar es sólo el primer paso para emitir tu voto en las elecciones de este año. ¡Esperamos que te inspires a aprender más sobre los candidatos, los temas, y el proceso de votación - y al mismo tiempo hacer oír tu voz en el 2016!

Publicado por Jonathan Betz, Gerente de Ingeniería, Participación Cívica

]]> https://googledata.org/google-blog/iregistered-to-vote-have-you/feed/ 0 Change is Made with Code https://googledata.org/google-blog/change-is-made-with-code/ https://googledata.org/google-blog/change-is-made-with-code/#comments Wed, 21 Sep 2016 17:00:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=e7aa97c32de66b47c6a17a875842d914
That’s not just a theoretical question. Today, only a small minority of women know how to write code. That limits their ability to participate in a growing part of our global economy. It limits their ability to affect change as entire industries are transformed by technology. And it limits their potential to impact millions of lives through the power of code.

To change this trajectory, we need to do all we can to inspire women and girls that learning to code is critical to creating a brighter future for everyone. That’s why I’m excited to share that, today, Google’s Made with Code, together with YouTube, is teaming up with the Global Citizen Festival and millions of teen girls to ignite a movement for young women to change the world through the power of code.

Over the last five years, millions of Global Citizens have influenced world leaders and decision makers, and contributed to shaping our world for the better. As we’ve seen this movement grow, we’ve learned about some incredible women who saw problems in their communities and realized that the biggest impact they could have was through computer science. They’ve used an interest in computer science and tech to help the homeless, stop sexual assault, and bridge the gender gap in technology - check out their stories here:

These women are doing big things, blazing a path for the next generation of girls, but they can’t do it alone. The vast potential around using code to improve the world cannot be realized if there are only a few voices influencing how it’s shaped. That’s why, today, we’re inviting teen girls everywhere to join the movement. Our new coding project gives young women a chance to make their voice heard by coding a statement about the change they want to see in the world.
This week, hundreds of thousands of girls from around the country have already used code to share their vision for a better, more inclusive, more equitable world:

These coded designs will be displayed onstage at the Global Citizen Festival, as symbols of the many different voices from teen girls, standing up for the change they want to see in the world.

Together with musicians, sisters, YouTube sensations and newly minted coders,
Chloe x Halle, teen girls are getting their start in code

Our efforts go well beyond this project. Made with Code is joining forces with Iridescent and UN Women to support the launch of the Technovation Challenge 2017 which gives girls the opportunity to build their own apps that tackle the real-life issues they see around them.

Please tune into the Global Citizen Festival livestream at youtube.com/globalcitizen on September 24 to catch all the action. And, more importantly, join us and encourage the young women in your life to try out coding and contribute their ideas for how to make a better future.

Posted by Susan Wojcicki, CEO, YouTube https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-795tCTWiCSI/V-K3lylC2OI/AAAAAAAATDY/kwzdr3Zn-Lg7n8jeXmGAeW--NqOTuVaIACLcB/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-09-21%2Bat%2B9.38.06%2BAM.png Susan Wojcicki CEO YouTube  ]]>
That’s not just a theoretical question. Today, only a small minority of women know how to write code. That limits their ability to participate in a growing part of our global economy. It limits their ability to affect change as entire industries are transformed by technology. And it limits their potential to impact millions of lives through the power of code.

To change this trajectory, we need to do all we can to inspire women and girls that learning to code is critical to creating a brighter future for everyone. That’s why I’m excited to share that, today, Google’s Made with Code, together with YouTube, is teaming up with the Global Citizen Festival and millions of teen girls to ignite a movement for young women to change the world through the power of code.

Over the last five years, millions of Global Citizens have influenced world leaders and decision makers, and contributed to shaping our world for the better. As we’ve seen this movement grow, we’ve learned about some incredible women who saw problems in their communities and realized that the biggest impact they could have was through computer science. They’ve used an interest in computer science and tech to help the homeless, stop sexual assault, and bridge the gender gap in technology - check out their stories here:

These women are doing big things, blazing a path for the next generation of girls, but they can’t do it alone. The vast potential around using code to improve the world cannot be realized if there are only a few voices influencing how it’s shaped. That’s why, today, we’re inviting teen girls everywhere to join the movement. Our new coding project gives young women a chance to make their voice heard by coding a statement about the change they want to see in the world.
This week, hundreds of thousands of girls from around the country have already used code to share their vision for a better, more inclusive, more equitable world:

These coded designs will be displayed onstage at the Global Citizen Festival, as symbols of the many different voices from teen girls, standing up for the change they want to see in the world.

Together with musicians, sisters, YouTube sensations and newly minted coders,
Chloe x Halle, teen girls are getting their start in code

Our efforts go well beyond this project. Made with Code is joining forces with Iridescent and UN Women to support the launch of the Technovation Challenge 2017 which gives girls the opportunity to build their own apps that tackle the real-life issues they see around them.

Please tune into the Global Citizen Festival livestream at youtube.com/globalcitizen on September 24 to catch all the action. And, more importantly, join us and encourage the young women in your life to try out coding and contribute their ideas for how to make a better future.

Posted by Susan Wojcicki, CEO, YouTube ]]> https://googledata.org/google-blog/change-is-made-with-code/feed/ 0 Bringing education to refugees in Lebanon with the Clooney Foundation for Justice https://googledata.org/google-blog/bringing-education-to-refugees-in-lebanon-with-the-clooney-foundation-for-justice/ https://googledata.org/google-blog/bringing-education-to-refugees-in-lebanon-with-the-clooney-foundation-for-justice/#comments Tue, 20 Sep 2016 10:00:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=877dd8e104992fffad6b2faee775ddee we invited people around the world to help us in supporting organizations on the ground — with Google.org matching every dollar. Since that time, Google.org has committed more than $16.5 million to refugee relief efforts, focused on immediate humanitarian assistance, information and connectivity, and education.

Clooney Foundation for Justice Grant
Today, we’re supporting the Clooney Foundation for Justice with a $1 million grant focused on education for refugee children in Lebanon. More than half of global refugees are under the age of eighteen, and in Lebanon, which is hosting the largest number of Syrian refugees per capita in the world, nearly half of those are Syrian refugee children who are currently out of school.

The Clooney Foundation for Justice is teaming up with SABIS, a global education network that has already taught many refugee children in Lebanon. SABIS is taking its accredited teaching methodology and making it accessible to more refugees in Lebanon by setting up semi-permanent schools in areas with a high concentration of refugee children. This grant will support expanding their efforts to develop a new school model, using digital tools, for up to 10,000 out-of-school children in Lebanon. Through our employee volunteering program, we’ll also provide technical expertise to help with everything from connectivity to cloud storage by having Googlers helping both on the ground and remotely.

This grant builds on our work with organizations who also support refugees in Germany, France, Turkey and Greece with access to education and learning opportunities. Collectively, our efforts across humanitarian assistance, connectivity and access to information and education will help more than 1 million refugees.

Information and Connectivity
In October 2015, we granted NetHope $900,000, and our employees from around the world helped set up WiFi hotspots and charging kits at key transit points along the refugee route in Europe. So far, more than 300,000 refugees have been able to access NetHope’s WiFi to access vital information. Googlers also helped build the site RefugeeInfo.eu with the International Rescue Committee, Mercy Corps, and others. The site is now accessible in 18 locations in Greece, Italy, Germany, Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia, and is being used more than 1,000 times a day.

We’re also working to help refugees in the United States get mobile connectivity by partnering with the International Rescue Committee to donate 1,000 Nexus devices and Project Fi wireless service to refugees in 24 cities across the country.

Education
In January, together with NetHope, we launched “Project Reconnect” — an effort to to equip German NGOs with 25,000 Chromebooks that help refugees learn more about local languages, resources, and job opportunities. To date, more than half of them have been delivered and used by nonprofits in Germany. Last year, we also gave a grant to Libraries without Borders to send their Ideas Boxes to create safe learning and playing spaces for children in refugee camps. These Ideas Boxes have been visited thousands of times in camps from Lesbos and Athens in Greece to the refugee camp of Grande Synthe in France and in Düsseldorf, Germany.

Discovering the resources of the Ideas Box in the Eleonas refugee camp, in Athens, Greece

A White House call to action
In June, we signed on as a founding partner of the White House’s Private Sector Call to Action for Refugees, an effort by the administration to bring together a cross-section of businesses to help make significant commitments that will have a measurable impact on refugees both in the United States and around the world. We’re participating in the conversation at the White House Summit on Refugees today in New York, and will continue to build on our efforts.

You can learn more about grantees and their work at google.org/refugees, and you can donate directly on our site and via the White House’s AidRefugees.gov.

Posted by Jacquelline Fuller, Director, Google.org https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ortc2qBz65s/V-CCwQEjH5I/AAAAAAAATA4/0hCOAPdRescymVIMl8Lf7bCM6qQPq_BcQCLcB/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-09-19%2Bat%2B5.28.26%2BPM.png Jacquelline Fuller Director Google.org  ]]> we invited people around the world to help us in supporting organizations on the ground — with Google.org matching every dollar. Since that time, Google.org has committed more than $16.5 million to refugee relief efforts, focused on immediate humanitarian assistance, information and connectivity, and education.

Clooney Foundation for Justice Grant
Today, we’re supporting the Clooney Foundation for Justice with a $1 million grant focused on education for refugee children in Lebanon. More than half of global refugees are under the age of eighteen, and in Lebanon, which is hosting the largest number of Syrian refugees per capita in the world, nearly half of those are Syrian refugee children who are currently out of school.

The Clooney Foundation for Justice is teaming up with SABIS, a global education network that has already taught many refugee children in Lebanon. SABIS is taking its accredited teaching methodology and making it accessible to more refugees in Lebanon by setting up semi-permanent schools in areas with a high concentration of refugee children. This grant will support expanding their efforts to develop a new school model, using digital tools, for up to 10,000 out-of-school children in Lebanon. Through our employee volunteering program, we’ll also provide technical expertise to help with everything from connectivity to cloud storage by having Googlers helping both on the ground and remotely.

This grant builds on our work with organizations who also support refugees in Germany, France, Turkey and Greece with access to education and learning opportunities. Collectively, our efforts across humanitarian assistance, connectivity and access to information and education will help more than 1 million refugees.

Information and Connectivity
In October 2015, we granted NetHope $900,000, and our employees from around the world helped set up WiFi hotspots and charging kits at key transit points along the refugee route in Europe. So far, more than 300,000 refugees have been able to access NetHope’s WiFi to access vital information. Googlers also helped build the site RefugeeInfo.eu with the International Rescue Committee, Mercy Corps, and others. The site is now accessible in 18 locations in Greece, Italy, Germany, Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia, and is being used more than 1,000 times a day.

We’re also working to help refugees in the United States get mobile connectivity by partnering with the International Rescue Committee to donate 1,000 Nexus devices and Project Fi wireless service to refugees in 24 cities across the country.

Education
In January, together with NetHope, we launched “Project Reconnect” — an effort to to equip German NGOs with 25,000 Chromebooks that help refugees learn more about local languages, resources, and job opportunities. To date, more than half of them have been delivered and used by nonprofits in Germany. Last year, we also gave a grant to Libraries without Borders to send their Ideas Boxes to create safe learning and playing spaces for children in refugee camps. These Ideas Boxes have been visited thousands of times in camps from Lesbos and Athens in Greece to the refugee camp of Grande Synthe in France and in Düsseldorf, Germany.

Discovering the resources of the Ideas Box in the Eleonas refugee camp, in Athens, Greece

A White House call to action
In June, we signed on as a founding partner of the White House’s Private Sector Call to Action for Refugees, an effort by the administration to bring together a cross-section of businesses to help make significant commitments that will have a measurable impact on refugees both in the United States and around the world. We’re participating in the conversation at the White House Summit on Refugees today in New York, and will continue to build on our efforts.

You can learn more about grantees and their work at google.org/refugees, and you can donate directly on our site and via the White House’s AidRefugees.gov.

Posted by Jacquelline Fuller, Director, Google.org ]]> https://googledata.org/google-blog/bringing-education-to-refugees-in-lebanon-with-the-clooney-foundation-for-justice/feed/ 0 A faster way to share photos and videos, and all-new movies https://googledata.org/google-blog/a-faster-way-to-share-photos-and-videos-and-all-new-movies/ https://googledata.org/google-blog/a-faster-way-to-share-photos-and-videos-and-all-new-movies/#comments Mon, 19 Sep 2016 17:00:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=8a71239fb9351621c7bdb5d62b66a7c9
Now, with Google Photos, you pick the photos, tap “share” and select the people you want to share with, instead of the apps — and we take care of the rest. If your friends are on Google Photos, they’ll get a notification. If you share via phone number, they’ll get a link to the photos and videos via SMS. And email addresses will get an email with a link from Google Photos. So you can spend less time toggling from app to app to share photos — dealing with failed texts or email attachment limits along the way — and more time enjoying life’s photo-worthy moments.

We’re also upping our game when it comes to automatic creations. Google Photos has always made movies for you using your recently uploaded photos. Now we’re going further, with new movies that are based on creative concepts — the kinds of movies you might make yourself, if you just had the time. And they’re not only limited to your most recent uploads.

One of the first concepts is designed to show your child growing up right before your eyes. Here’s an example:

We’re rolling out a couple more concepts this week, with more coming soon. Look out for a concept to commemorate the good times from this summer, and another one for formal events like weddings. And you don’t need to do a thing — these movies get made automatically for you.

These updates are rolling out today across Android, iOS, and the web.

Posted by David Lieb, Product Lead, Google Photos https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-IT1gpc5ZUtA/V-AYz6NEw1I/AAAAAAAAS_4/zyYAY6tVVig1_jlHpAANIlW1qCyNXHR1QCLcB/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-09-19%2Bat%2B9.55.02%2BAM David Lieb Product Lead Google Photos  ]]>
Now, with Google Photos, you pick the photos, tap “share” and select the people you want to share with, instead of the apps — and we take care of the rest. If your friends are on Google Photos, they’ll get a notification. If you share via phone number, they’ll get a link to the photos and videos via SMS. And email addresses will get an email with a link from Google Photos. So you can spend less time toggling from app to app to share photos — dealing with failed texts or email attachment limits along the way — and more time enjoying life’s photo-worthy moments.

We’re also upping our game when it comes to automatic creations. Google Photos has always made movies for you using your recently uploaded photos. Now we’re going further, with new movies that are based on creative concepts — the kinds of movies you might make yourself, if you just had the time. And they’re not only limited to your most recent uploads.

One of the first concepts is designed to show your child growing up right before your eyes. Here’s an example:

We’re rolling out a couple more concepts this week, with more coming soon. Look out for a concept to commemorate the good times from this summer, and another one for formal events like weddings. And you don’t need to do a thing — these movies get made automatically for you.

These updates are rolling out today across Android, iOS, and the web.

Posted by David Lieb, Product Lead, Google Photos ]]> https://googledata.org/google-blog/a-faster-way-to-share-photos-and-videos-and-all-new-movies/feed/ 0 See more, plan less – try Google Trips https://googledata.org/google-blog/see-more-plan-less-try-google-trips/ https://googledata.org/google-blog/see-more-plan-less-try-google-trips/#comments Mon, 19 Sep 2016 16:00:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=cc8ed9826b8e730636553b503f3abf1d
But knowing what to do once your vacation starts can turn what’s supposed to be fun into a lot of work. You might get recommendations from friends, professional travel guides, or online reviews — but figuring out how to squeeze everything you want to do into a finite window of time can be stressful, especially when you’re in a new place, often with limited access to the web. In fact, a GoodThink study showed that 74% of travelers feel the most stressful aspect of travel is figuring out the details.

We wanted to reduce the hassle and help travelers enjoy their hard-earned vacations. So today, we’re introducing a new mobile app to help you instantly plan each day of your trip with just a few taps of your finger: Google Trips.

Google Trips is a personalized tour guide in your pocket. Each trip contains key categories of information, including day plans, reservations, things to do, food & drink, and more, so you have everything you need at your fingertips. The entire app is available offline — simply tap the “Download” button under each trip to save it to your phone.

Choose your own adventure
For the top 200 cities in the world, Google Trips shows you a variety of day plans featuring the most popular daily itineraries. We’ve automatically assembled the most popular sights, attractions, and local gems into a full day’s tour — all based on historic visits by other travelers. Say you’re visiting Barcelona. You can choose from multiple day plans, like “Eixample District,” which maps out the can’t-miss buildings by Antoni Gaudi, the famous Spanish architect.

Plan each day of your trip like magic
Everyone has different interests and time constraints. No matter how popular an itinerary is, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution for the perfect day or the perfect trip. Google Trips can help you build your day around places you already know you want to visit.

Say your friends told you that you have to see the Sagrada Familia — and you’re looking for suggestions on things to do around that spot. Press the “+” button in the day plans tile to jump into a map view containing all the top attractions in your destination. If you’re time constrained, you can specify above the map whether you have just the morning or afternoon, versus a full day. Then simply tap and pin the Sagrada Familia to build your itinerary around it. Google Trips automatically fills in the day for you. If you want more options, tap the “magic wand” button for more nearby sights. You can pin any new spots you like, and if you want even more, each tap of the “magic wand” instantly gives you a new itinerary with updated nearby attractions like Palau Macaya or Parc del Guinardo, so you can build your own custom itinerary in minutes while munching on your morning churro.

For more details on how this works on our Research Blog.

All your travel info, all in one place
Keeping track of all your flight, hotel, car and restaurant reservations when you travel can be tough. With Google Trips, all your travel reservations are automatically gathered from Gmail and organized for you into individual trips, so you don’t have to search and dig up those emails. They’re waiting for you within the reservations tile, even without WiFi.

Vacations are a chance to recharge and experience new places and cultures. For your next trip, let us help you see all the sights you want to see, without all the work. Google Trips, available now on Android and iOS, has you covered from departure to return.

Posted by Stefan Frank, Product Manager, Google Trips https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Yl145tls6Qc/V-BUTIka0fI/AAAAAAAATAI/3U0DEQu7IG4_FR6Hyu6x0zLe3-4dqDH3gCLcB/s1600/GoogleTrips_1.original.png Stefan Frank Product Manager Google Trips  ]]>
But knowing what to do once your vacation starts can turn what’s supposed to be fun into a lot of work. You might get recommendations from friends, professional travel guides, or online reviews — but figuring out how to squeeze everything you want to do into a finite window of time can be stressful, especially when you’re in a new place, often with limited access to the web. In fact, a GoodThink study showed that 74% of travelers feel the most stressful aspect of travel is figuring out the details.

We wanted to reduce the hassle and help travelers enjoy their hard-earned vacations. So today, we’re introducing a new mobile app to help you instantly plan each day of your trip with just a few taps of your finger: Google Trips.

Google Trips is a personalized tour guide in your pocket. Each trip contains key categories of information, including day plans, reservations, things to do, food & drink, and more, so you have everything you need at your fingertips. The entire app is available offline — simply tap the “Download” button under each trip to save it to your phone.

...until today. Visitors from anywhere in the world are now invited to experience one of the UK’s most important political buildings on Google Arts and Culture.

Walk through historic rooms and hallways and get up-close looks at more than 50 photographs and works of art. Take a peek into the cabinet room, where the Prime Minister has held weekly cabinet meetings since 1735, or look around Margaret Thatcher’s office. Stroll down the grand main staircase, stopping to study the carefully ordered portraits of the house’s previous residents. Once you’re ready for some fresh air, you can wander through the gardens, where Winston Churchill liked to nap.

There are also two brand new online exhibits. The first introduces two of Britain’s most iconic leaders, Winston Churchill and Harold Wilson. The second highlights three of the building’s most historic rooms: the Cabinet Room, the Study and the Grand Staircase.

And if you want the full immersive experience, be sure to try it out using a Google Cardboard virtual reality viewer, complete with the built-in audio tour, with the Google Arts and Culture app on Android and iOS.

Posted by Suhair Khan, Program Manager, Google Cultural Institute https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xwAA9SuTxGM/V9pyoi0JVYI/AAAAAAAABew/6Lye-MqHXm45qMhAz1c9czcEBkuMBW8TgCEw/s1600/image001%2B%25281%2529.jpg Suhair Khan Program Manager Google Cultural Institute

]]> The storied halls of 10 Downing Street aren’t often open to the public. Those who want to see inside the Prime Minister’s residence and office usually have to wait for a rare open house...

...until today. Visitors from anywhere in the world are now invited to experience one of the UK’s most important political buildings on Google Arts and Culture.

]]> https://googledata.org/google-blog/experience-british-political-history-with-google-arts-and-culture/feed/ 0 Start sketching what you see for the future https://googledata.org/google-blog/start-sketching-what-you-see-for-the-future/ https://googledata.org/google-blog/start-sketching-what-you-see-for-the-future/#comments Wed, 14 Sep 2016 16:00:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=f8f666c3e833f8591c80102fd76a38d3 Baroque, don’t fix it: your favorite art contest is back! Today we’re kicking off the 2016 Doodle 4 Google contest, where art-loving K-12 students from across the U.S., Guam and Puerto Rico are invited to bring their imagination to life in a doodle of the Google logo, using any medium they choose. The winning masterpiece will hang on the Google homepage for a day, where millions will enjoy it.

We like to think about what’s next. So we’re asking kids to imagine what awaits them in the years to come and represent that vision of this year’s theme: “What I see for the future…” Yes, that means anything they see — even if it includes flying dogs, living on a shooting star, the trip of their dreams, or for the true Futurists out there — perhaps a distant world filled with dazzling new technology of all shapes and sizes.

This year’s contest is going to be one for the record books; the future and the ways to depict it are limitless. That’s why we’ll have an all-star group of judges including our very own Google Doodlers help select the National Winner. In addition to the homepage showcase, the winner will receive $30,000 towards a college scholarship, and the opportunity to work with the Doodle team at the Googleplex in Mountain View. As an added bonus: Their home school will get to spend $50,000 on technology to help foster the next generation of professionals (and who knows, maybe future Googlers, too!).

Submissions are open until December 2, 2016. So for you parents, teachers, babysitters, camp counselors or non-profit leaders out there: Encourage your kids and students to apply. We can’t wait to see what wonders await in their dreams for the future.

And now, we bid you farewell as we’re Van Goghing, Goghing, Gone.

Posted by Ryan Germick, Google Doodle Team Lead ]]> https://googledata.org/google-blog/start-sketching-what-you-see-for-the-future/feed/ 0 National Museum of African American History and Culture finds a new way to tell stories https://googledata.org/google-blog/national-museum-of-african-american-history-and-culture-finds-a-new-way-to-tell-stories/ https://googledata.org/google-blog/national-museum-of-african-american-history-and-culture-finds-a-new-way-to-tell-stories/#comments Wed, 14 Sep 2016 13:00:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=4e1a0d5408c0cb44a5699d638cd2fc47 Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC). A museum 100 years in the making, the NMAAHC is much more than just a collection of artifacts. Within its walls, visitors will take part in an immersive journey into the important contributions of African Americans in the United States. It’s a mosaic of stories — stories from our history that are core to who we are as a nation. And we’re proud to help bring these stories to life with a first-of-its-kind 3D interactive exhibit and a $1 million grant from Google.org, part of our ongoing work on racial and social justice issues.

A new way to explore artifacts
A few years ago, Dr. Lonnie Bunch, the NMAAHC’s director, came to Google’s headquarters and shared his vision to make the museum the most technologically advanced in the world. I immediately knew I wanted to be involved, and pulled together people from across the company: designers who focus on user interaction, members of the Cultural Institute, engineers who work on everything from Google Maps to YouTube, and members of the Black Googler Network. For the past year, we’ve been working to deliver on Dr. Bunch’s vision.

Our team quickly learned that museums are often only able to showcase a fraction of their content and archives to visitors. So we asked ourselves: what technology do we have at Google that could help enrich the museum experience? We worked closely with the museum to build an interactive exhibit to house artifacts from decades of African American history and let visitors explore and learn about them. With 3D scanning, 360 video, multiple screens and other technologies, visitors can see artifacts like a powder horn or handmade dish from all angles by rotating them with a mobile device. The interactive exhibit will open in spring 2017.

Travis McPhail in front of the National Museum of African American History and Culture on one of many site visits to the museum in Washington, DC

Taking an Expedition through African American history
In addition to the interactive exhibit, we’re also launching two new Google Expeditions that take students on a digital journey through African American history. Earlier this year, we formed the African American Expeditions Council — a group of top minds in Black culture, academia and curation — to help develop Expeditions that tell the story of Africans in America. The Google Cultural Institute has also worked to preserve and share important artworks, artifacts and archives from African American history. With participation from the National Park Service, the Expeditions and Cultural Institute teams captured images of the Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail, which commemorates the events, people and route of the 1965 Voting Rights March. A second Expedition, from the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site, takes you around Dr. King's childhood home and the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, where he preached.

Screenshot from the new Google Expedition highlighting the Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail, which commemorates the events, people and route of the 1965 Voting Rights March

Discovering and sharing new stories
At the end of this week, we're celebrating the opening of the NMAAHC during one of the most important weeks for African Americans in D.C., the week of the Congressional Black Caucus Annual Legislative Conference (ALC). On Friday night of ALC, we’ll salute NMAAHC Founding Director, Dr. Bunch, and the Congressional Black Caucus. The iconic Congressman John Lewis will be on hand to talk about the impact of Expeditions in telling the story that the NMAAHC will bring to life in so many important ways.

Day to day, I work on Google Maps, where we help people around the world find and discover new places. Working on this exhibit has given me a chance to help people discover something else — the ways African American history is vitally intertwined with our history as a nation. I’m proud of the role Google has played a role in taking people on that journey.

Posted by Travis McPhail, Software Engineer, Google Maps, and Team Lead, Project Griot
https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZlrEtjkoHm0/V9jtY68-BNI/AAAAAAAAS-g/AxeOln_ZJ0w7ZAMXP8UoHDdDi3kQtMJHwCLcB/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-09-13%2Bat%2B11.24.25%2BPM.png Travis McPhail Software Engineer, Google Maps Team Lead, Project Griot ]]> Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC). A museum 100 years in the making, the NMAAHC is much more than just a collection of artifacts. Within its walls, visitors will take part in an immersive journey into the important contributions of African Americans in the United States. It’s a mosaic of stories — stories from our history that are core to who we are as a nation. And we’re proud to help bring these stories to life with a first-of-its-kind 3D interactive exhibit and a $1 million grant from Google.org, part of our ongoing work on racial and social justice issues.

A new way to explore artifacts
A few years ago, Dr. Lonnie Bunch, the NMAAHC’s director, came to Google’s headquarters and shared his vision to make the museum the most technologically advanced in the world. I immediately knew I wanted to be involved, and pulled together people from across the company: designers who focus on user interaction, members of the Cultural Institute, engineers who work on everything from Google Maps to YouTube, and members of the Black Googler Network. For the past year, we’ve been working to deliver on Dr. Bunch’s vision.

Our team quickly learned that museums are often only able to showcase a fraction of their content and archives to visitors. So we asked ourselves: what technology do we have at Google that could help enrich the museum experience? We worked closely with the museum to build an interactive exhibit to house artifacts from decades of African American history and let visitors explore and learn about them. With 3D scanning, 360 video, multiple screens and other technologies, visitors can see artifacts like a powder horn or handmade dish from all angles by rotating them with a mobile device. The interactive exhibit will open in spring 2017.

Screenshot from the new Google Expedition highlighting the Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail, which commemorates the events, people and route of the 1965 Voting Rights March

Discovering and sharing new stories
At the end of this week, we're celebrating the opening of the NMAAHC during one of the most important weeks for African Americans in D.C., the week of the Congressional Black Caucus Annual Legislative Conference (ALC). On Friday night of ALC, we’ll salute NMAAHC Founding Director, Dr. Bunch, and the Congressional Black Caucus. The iconic Congressman John Lewis will be on hand to talk about the impact of Expeditions in telling the story that the NMAAHC will bring to life in so many important ways.

Day to day, I work on Google Maps, where we help people around the world find and discover new places. Working on this exhibit has given me a chance to help people discover something else — the ways African American history is vitally intertwined with our history as a nation. I’m proud of the role Google has played a role in taking people on that journey.

Posted by Travis McPhail, Software Engineer, Google Maps, and Team Lead, Project Griot
]]> https://googledata.org/google-blog/national-museum-of-african-american-history-and-culture-finds-a-new-way-to-tell-stories/feed/ 0 An extinct world brought back to life with Google Arts & Culture https://googledata.org/google-blog/an-extinct-world-brought-back-to-life-with-google-arts-culture/ https://googledata.org/google-blog/an-extinct-world-brought-back-to-life-with-google-arts-culture/#comments Tue, 13 Sep 2016 07:30:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=82e8d9bc495b931baa618e601e16f1d3
Starting today, anyone, anywhere can explore this world on Google Arts & Culture. We’ve partnered with 50+ of the world’s leading natural history institutions to bring this lost world to life again online. More than 150 interactive stories from experts, 300,000 new photos and videos, and more than 30 virtual tours await you...

With just a few clicks, you can come face to face with a 180 million year old giant, as virtual reality raises the colossal sea dragon from extinction. Discovered in Dorset in the U.K. and residing at London’s Natural History Museum. The Rhomaleosaurus — to give it its formal name — can now be explored in 360 degrees.

We also used VR to bring the Giraffatitan back to life in Berlin’s natural history museum. Standing at 13 meters (42 feet), it’s one of the tallest dinosaurs that ever lived. It was twice as tall as today’s giraffes, and could easily put its head through a fourth floor window.

We wanted to give you a glimpse of how these colossal creatures actually looked. So we worked with ecologists, paleontologists and biologists to put virtual skin and flesh on the preserved skeletons. From the size of the eye to the position of the snout and the bend of the neck, the texture and creases of the skin were all painstakingly recreated, and verified by a team of scientists. For the best experience, use a viewer like Google Cardboard to look the beast in the eye.

In addition to the VR experiences, this global exhibition of natural history has plenty more for experts and armchair explorers alike:

Turn back time by 4.6 billion years with the help of the Natural History Museum by scrolling through the history of life from the origins of the solar system, through the rise and the fall of prehistoric worlds.
See the giant sloth jaw that led Darwin to his groundbreaking theory of natural selection.
Explore the diversity of nature from the Lion fish to the Paradise Birdwing and learn from birds about the art of flirting.
View 3,000 species on display in one giant cabinet or find out how our own predecessors may have looked.
With Street View, walk around dinosaurs in New York, explore 30+ natural history museums from to Australia to Russia and even go underwater with turtles in Brazil.
Join YouTube’s Vsauce2 to discover the story of Martha, the last passenger pigeon.

The free collection opens today at g.co/naturalhistory and through the Google Arts & Culture mobile app on iOS and Android. And if you’re a teacher, there are more than 20 new Google Expeditions waiting for you and your classroom to discover. We hope you enjoy this journey through the history of nature as much as we do.

Posted by Amit Sood, Director of the Google Cultural Institute https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-yQoDsqVHEUY/V9cc-KEwxyI/AAAAAAAAS74/z5cylfCXQcYt6jm54mssXq03UVBB7yhjQCLcB/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-09-12%2Bat%2B2.23.37%2BPM.png Amit Sood Director of the Google Cultural Institute Google -->  ]]>
Starting today, anyone, anywhere can explore this world on Google Arts & Culture. We’ve partnered with 50+ of the world’s leading natural history institutions to bring this lost world to life again online. More than 150 interactive stories from experts, 300,000 new photos and videos, and more than 30 virtual tours await you...

With just a few clicks, you can come face to face with a 180 million year old giant, as virtual reality raises the colossal sea dragon from extinction. Discovered in Dorset in the U.K. and residing at London’s Natural History Museum. The Rhomaleosaurus — to give it its formal name — can now be explored in 360 degrees.

We also used VR to bring the Giraffatitan back to life in Berlin’s natural history museum. Standing at 13 meters (42 feet), it’s one of the tallest dinosaurs that ever lived. It was twice as tall as today’s giraffes, and could easily put its head through a fourth floor window.

Turn back time by 4.6 billion years with the help of the Natural History Museum by scrolling through the history of life from the origins of the solar system, through the rise and the fall of prehistoric worlds.
See the giant sloth jaw that led Darwin to his groundbreaking theory of natural selection.
Explore the diversity of nature from the Lion fish to the Paradise Birdwing and learn from birds about the art of flirting.
View 3,000 species on display in one giant cabinet or find out how our own predecessors may have looked.
With Street View, walk around dinosaurs in New York, explore 30+ natural history museums from to Australia to Russia and even go underwater with turtles in Brazil.
Join YouTube’s Vsauce2 to discover the story of Martha, the last passenger pigeon.

The free collection opens today at g.co/naturalhistory and through the Google Arts & Culture mobile app on iOS and Android. And if you’re a teacher, there are more than 20 new Google Expeditions waiting for you and your classroom to discover. We hope you enjoy this journey through the history of nature as much as we do.

Posted by Amit Sood, Director of the Google Cultural Institute ]]> https://googledata.org/google-blog/an-extinct-world-brought-back-to-life-with-google-arts-culture/feed/ 0 Capture and share VR photos with Cardboard Camera, now on iOS https://googledata.org/google-blog/capture-and-share-vr-photos-with-cardboard-camera-now-on-ios/ https://googledata.org/google-blog/capture-and-share-vr-photos-with-cardboard-camera-now-on-ios/#comments Mon, 12 Sep 2016 16:00:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=e1b3018a71b8d46d19ebcbd09f3b045f iOS as well as Android—you can capture 3D 360-degree virtual reality photos. Just like Google Cardboard, it works with the phone you already have with you.

VR photos taken with Cardboard Camera are three-dimensional panoramas that can transport you right back to the moment. Near things look near and far things look far. You can look around to explore the image in all directions, and even hear sound recorded while you took the photo to hear the moment exactly as it happened. To capture a VR photo, hold your phone vertically, tap record, then turn around as though you’re taking a panorama.

Bugaboo Spire in B.C., Canada captured by Googler Adam Dickinson

Starting today, you can also share your VR photos with friends and family on both iPhone and Android devices. Select multiple photos to create a virtual photo album, tap the share icon, and Cardboard Camera will generate a link (like this) that can be emailed, messaged, or posted in apps and on the web. With a VR viewer like Google Cardboard, your friends can relive those moments as if they were there.

From rock concerts to real estate to mountaintop vistas, more than 5 million moments have been captured with Cardboard Camera on Android. Share your VR photos with the #CardboardCamera hashtag—we can’t wait to see the world through your lens.

Posted by Carlos Hernandez, Software Engineer, Cardboard Camera
https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-QmaKVsluObM/V9yK2Wzv_0I/AAAAAAAAS_g/QggFGTdmzHAPephxMFis2IVcyZ1rPGGvgCLcB/s1600/Cardboard_Camera_Hero.png Carlos Hernandez Software Engineer Cardboard Camera ]]> iOS as well as Android—you can capture 3D 360-degree virtual reality photos. Just like Google Cardboard, it works with the phone you already have with you.

VR photos taken with Cardboard Camera are three-dimensional panoramas that can transport you right back to the moment. Near things look near and far things look far. You can look around to explore the image in all directions, and even hear sound recorded while you took the photo to hear the moment exactly as it happened. To capture a VR photo, hold your phone vertically, tap record, then turn around as though you’re taking a panorama.

Bugaboo Spire in B.C., Canada captured by Googler Adam Dickinson

From rock concerts to real estate to mountaintop vistas, more than 5 million moments have been captured with Cardboard Camera on Android. Share your VR photos with the #CardboardCamera hashtag—we can’t wait to see the world through your lens.

Posted by Carlos Hernandez, Software Engineer, Cardboard Camera
]]> https://googledata.org/google-blog/capture-and-share-vr-photos-with-cardboard-camera-now-on-ios/feed/ 0 Refreshing our Transparency Report for copyright removals https://googledata.org/google-blog/refreshing-our-transparency-report-for-copyright-removals/ https://googledata.org/google-blog/refreshing-our-transparency-report-for-copyright-removals/#comments Wed, 07 Sep 2016 21:00:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=79c1d316537fbdd42044c25293428880
The report hasn’t changed much since 2012 and was getting a little rusty. So today, we’re releasing a new version of the report that makes it easier for you to understand the data:

Examples of removal requests, similar to the annotations we added to government requests to remove content last year. These illustrate the range of things we’re asked to remove and the decisions we make in response.
A new Explore the Data page, which lets you search the database of removal requests and see a more detailed list of reporting organizations, domains, and copyright owners.
An explanation of how copyright notice and takedown is applied to Google Search, which we hope leads to a better overall understanding of the process.

In addition to this major overhaul, over the last two months we’ve made a few updates to other sections of the Transparency Report:

In late July, we published the data on government requests for user data for the second half of 2015. We coupled this update with a blog post about some of the recent advances in surveillance reform, including the Judicial Redress Act and the EU-US Privacy Shield.
At the beginning of August, we added added YouTube and Calendar to our HTTPS Report Card, continuing to show our progress toward secure connections for people across our products. Learn more about YouTube’s efforts on the YouTube Engineering blog.
A few weeks ago, we updated the government requests to remove content section with data for the second half of 2015. The data show an upward trend in governments asking us to remove content from our products and services, with content on YouTube, Search and Blogger cited most frequently.

Transparency reporting is an important way to shed light on the policies and actions of governments and corporations, and how they affect privacy, security, and the flow of information online. We’re always exploring new ways to explain legal policies and processes and will continue to add new examples and new data to our reports. You can follow us on Google+ to get the latest on updates to the Transparency Report and news on related projects.

Posted by Jess Hemerly, Public Policy, Google Transparency Report https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-eMS8soHdlbg/V9Bieemg4sI/AAAAAAAAS6E/gW0WR-kXMcIDrqXDP_LD4m5od6S0pHneACLcB/s1600/Google%2BTransparency%2BReport.jpg Jess Hemerly Public Policy Google  ]]>
The report hasn’t changed much since 2012 and was getting a little rusty. So today, we’re releasing a new version of the report that makes it easier for you to understand the data:

Examples of removal requests, similar to the annotations we added to government requests to remove content last year. These illustrate the range of things we’re asked to remove and the decisions we make in response.
A new Explore the Data page, which lets you search the database of removal requests and see a more detailed list of reporting organizations, domains, and copyright owners.
An explanation of how copyright notice and takedown is applied to Google Search, which we hope leads to a better overall understanding of the process.

In addition to this major overhaul, over the last two months we’ve made a few updates to other sections of the Transparency Report:

In late July, we published the data on government requests for user data for the second half of 2015. We coupled this update with a blog post about some of the recent advances in surveillance reform, including the Judicial Redress Act and the EU-US Privacy Shield.
At the beginning of August, we added added YouTube and Calendar to our HTTPS Report Card, continuing to show our progress toward secure connections for people across our products. Learn more about YouTube’s efforts on the YouTube Engineering blog.
A few weeks ago, we updated the government requests to remove content section with data for the second half of 2015. The data show an upward trend in governments asking us to remove content from our products and services, with content on YouTube, Search and Blogger cited most frequently.

Transparency reporting is an important way to shed light on the policies and actions of governments and corporations, and how they affect privacy, security, and the flow of information online. We’re always exploring new ways to explain legal policies and processes and will continue to add new examples and new data to our reports. You can follow us on Google+ to get the latest on updates to the Transparency Report and news on related projects.

Posted by Jess Hemerly, Public Policy, Google Transparency Report ]]> https://googledata.org/google-blog/refreshing-our-transparency-report-for-copyright-removals/feed/ 0 Sheep View: Where there’s a wool, there’s a way https://googledata.org/google-blog/sheep-view-where-theres-a-wool-theres-a-way-2/ https://googledata.org/google-blog/sheep-view-where-theres-a-wool-theres-a-way-2/#comments Wed, 31 Aug 2016 12:00:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=2c8295ae3eba60aa41f1f291cf472c09

Sheep View 360

When we herd about the Sheep View project, we thought it was shear brilliance. So we decided to help the Faroese by supplying them with a Street View trekker and 360 cameras via our Street View camera loan program. Last week, the Google Maps team arrived in the Faroe Islands to help train and equip the local community to capture even more (but slightly less woolly) Street View imagery.

Now that the Faroe Islands is supplied with a Trekker and 360 cameras, residents and tourists can assist the sheep in collecting Street View imagery of their beautiful lands using selfie-sticks, bikes, backpacks, cars, kayaks, horses, ships and even wheelbarrows. The Visit Faroe Islands office in Tórshavn and Atlantic Airways at the airport will be lending out Street View 360 cameras to visitors willing to lend a hoof.

The Faroe Islands have shown us that even sheep can contribute to Street View. If your hometown or favorite hiking trail hasn’t made it into Google Maps yet, grab your own 360 camera or apply to borrow one from us through our Street View camera loan program. We’re excited to see what ewe map!

Posted by David Castro González de Vega, Google Maps Program Manager https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fzv6Y0RTrws/V8YrY8mjULI/AAAAAAAAS18/qBSLmHwW310gItDLSnioxX94Z3CxkwD5gCLcB/s1600/primaryimage2_10mb.jpg David Castro González de Vega Google Maps Program Manager Google  ]]>

The Faroe Islands have shown us that even sheep can contribute to Street View. If your hometown or favorite hiking trail hasn’t made it into Google Maps yet, grab your own 360 camera or apply to borrow one from us through our Street View camera loan program. We’re excited to see what ewe map!

Posted by David Castro González de Vega, Google Maps Program Manager ]]> https://googledata.org/google-blog/sheep-view-where-theres-a-wool-theres-a-way-2/feed/ 0 Search is a Jack of all trades https://googledata.org/google-blog/search-is-a-jack-of-all-trades/ https://googledata.org/google-blog/search-is-a-jack-of-all-trades/#comments Thu, 25 Aug 2016 14:00:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=8a08a77d0cfd20a79eddc832fc71edc0
It’s been said solitaire’s roots are in fortune telling. If that’s true, today your fate rests on your quick wit and the luck of the draw. When you search for “solitaire” on Google, the familiar patience game may test yours!

If you’re looking for something a bit simpler, tic-tac-toe is your best bet. In this game of naughts and crosses, you can select your level of difficulty or even go head to head against a friend. Xs and Os to the winner (hugs and kisses, that is!).

For some other fun tips, try asking Google, “what sound does a pig make?” Or if you’re looking to settle a bet and feeling lucky, “flip a coin” may come in handy.

These are just a sample of the delightful surprises that await you on Google. After all, Search is for so much more than research and practical matters -- it’s for fun, too!

Posted by Stephen Cognetta ]]> https://googledata.org/google-blog/search-is-a-jack-of-all-trades/feed/ 0 Explore the hidden worlds of the National Parks https://googledata.org/google-blog/explore-the-hidden-worlds-of-the-national-parks/ https://googledata.org/google-blog/explore-the-hidden-worlds-of-the-national-parks/#comments Thu, 25 Aug 2016 04:00:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=2da85e46bdf4114ff1c233453166b97c
The U.S. National Parks are full of wonders, but most people don’t get the chance to visit in person. While nothing beats the real thing, for this month’s 100th anniversary of the National Parks Service, we wanted to see if we could use Google’s technology to help share the parks with everyone.
Starting today anyone can take a virtual tour of some of our most breathtaking National Parks, no matter where you are, with Google’s The Hidden Worlds of the National Parks.

This Google Arts & Culture exhibit and interactive documentary in honor of this month’s NPS Centennial is available on the web and in the Google Arts & Culture App on iOS/Android. You can immerse yourself in 360-degree video tours through some of the most remote and breathtaking places in five different National Parks. And if you want to learn more about what you’re seeing, you can browse the fascinating archive of artifacts from the National Parks’ many museums.

At each park, a local ranger guides you through places most people never get to go — spelunking through ancient caves at Carlsbad Caverns, flying above active volcanoes in Hawai’i, and swimming through the coral reefs of the Dry Tortugas in Florida.

We’ve also created the Hidden Worlds Expedition for educators to help open up new learning opportunities and share these experiences with even more people. The Expedition can be accessed on the Expeditions App (available on Google Play in the U.S.).

Today's Doodle celebrating U.S. National Parks & monuments. More info at google.com/doodles.

The National Parks are American treasures, and everyone should see what they have to offer. We hope that by making it easy for people to get a taste of the wilderness, we can encourage a new generation of parks goers to head out and explore in person. Get ready for an adventure!

Posted by Nick Carbonaro, Creative Lead https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5HXhhpSveDo/V8CUhSpQP7I/AAAAAAAAS1E/dizFEZU6_M4hvuSnjs7ngJ3GhWfTHbyVQCLcB/s1600/NPS.png Nick Carbonaron Principal Software Engineer ]]>
The U.S. National Parks are full of wonders, but most people don’t get the chance to visit in person. While nothing beats the real thing, for this month’s 100th anniversary of the National Parks Service, we wanted to see if we could use Google’s technology to help share the parks with everyone.
Starting today anyone can take a virtual tour of some of our most breathtaking National Parks, no matter where you are, with Google’s The Hidden Worlds of the National Parks.

This Google Arts & Culture exhibit and interactive documentary in honor of this month’s NPS Centennial is available on the web and in the Google Arts & Culture App on iOS/Android. You can immerse yourself in 360-degree video tours through some of the most remote and breathtaking places in five different National Parks. And if you want to learn more about what you’re seeing, you can browse the fascinating archive of artifacts from the National Parks’ many museums.

At each park, a local ranger guides you through places most people never get to go — spelunking through ancient caves at Carlsbad Caverns, flying above active volcanoes in Hawai’i, and swimming through the coral reefs of the Dry Tortugas in Florida.

We’ve also created the Hidden Worlds Expedition for educators to help open up new learning opportunities and share these experiences with even more people. The Expedition can be accessed on the Expeditions App (available on Google Play in the U.S.).

Today's Doodle celebrating U.S. National Parks & monuments. More info at google.com/doodles.

Here’s some of what you can expect from Trends over the next few weeks:

Search insights revealing what the world is wondering about the events—from fencing to synchronized swimming (and every moment in between!)
Data interactives like our alternative medal table and top searched sports per country
Trending sports and athletes lists, showing what’s of interest at any given moment

Explore Trends in a new way
As you explore the site, you may notice something else—a new Google Trends Explore page. With a fresh design and features like a color-coded map, you can analyze search data in new ways. For example, you can compare interest in previous Olympic Games over the years:

Every four years, the Olympics captivate the world’s attention. We’re excited to be able to help fans get even more out of the Games with insights from Search.

Posted by Lisa Creed, Product Manager https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-D5UDPGAdyDU/V640qipN7lI/AAAAAAAASyQ/iQBncnYeHUMOCrKIBRRoAX_qBjbA5GA9gCLcB/s1600/Rio_Trends.jpg Lisa Creed Product Manager  ]]>
Olympics Trends Hub
Throughout the next few weeks, Google Trends will give you a unique view into the games with a new Trends Hub just for the Olympics. There, you’ll be able to see which athletes, events and moments are captivating audiences—and searches—worldwide. For example, which country is searching for beach volleyball the most? Landlocked Switzerland. And the title of most searched grandmother in the world goes to British swimmer Adam Peaty's nan.

Here’s some of what you can expect from Trends over the next few weeks:

Search insights revealing what the world is wondering about the events—from fencing to synchronized swimming (and every moment in between!)
Data interactives like our alternative medal table and top searched sports per country
Trending sports and athletes lists, showing what’s of interest at any given moment

Every four years, the Olympics captivate the world’s attention. We’re excited to be able to help fans get even more out of the Games with insights from Search.

Posted by Lisa Creed, Product Manager ]]> https://googledata.org/google-blog/dive-or-run-swim-vault-into-the-olympics-with-google-trends/feed/ 0 Go bananas for the 2016 Doodle Fruit Games https://googledata.org/google-blog/go-bananas-for-the-2016-doodle-fruit-games/ https://googledata.org/google-blog/go-bananas-for-the-2016-doodle-fruit-games/#comments Fri, 05 Aug 2016 03:01:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=da229565ea59b2bcbf647321da4d1665 2016 Doodle Fruit Games. For the next couple of weeks in the latest Google app for Android and iOS, journey to an otherwise unassuming fruit stand in Rio, where produce from all over the market are ripe to compete for the title of freshest fruit.

The name of today’s featured game is to see who’s the fastest fruit on the track in this berry special race. Don’t be MELONcholy if your sprint turns into more of a smoothie.

If you like the taste of that, be sure to weave your way through the ice cooler to see if you’re the chillest lemon around. Remember: No one likes sour losers!

We hope you find these fruits as apPEELing as we do. And don’t forget to share your cherry impressive results with friends to see who claims the top seed. These two games are just a taste of what's in store, so come back to the Google app throughout the week to catch the featured game of the day.

Posted by Matt Cruickshank, Google Doodler https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xausnUUeFZw/V6OLFnHPhAI/AAAAAAAASwg/7tqruAhwtdsVJhjIBFTqutNRgoYctAH9gCLcB/s1600/peach_autograph.gif Matt Cruickshank Google Doodler Google  ]]> 2016 Doodle Fruit Games. For the next couple of weeks in the latest Google app for Android and iOS, journey to an otherwise unassuming fruit stand in Rio, where produce from all over the market are ripe to compete for the title of freshest fruit.

The name of today’s featured game is to see who’s the fastest fruit on the track in this berry special race. Don’t be MELONcholy if your sprint turns into more of a smoothie.

If you like the taste of that, be sure to weave your way through the ice cooler to see if you’re the chillest lemon around. Remember: No one likes sour losers!

Posted by Matt Cruickshank, Google Doodler ]]> https://googledata.org/google-blog/go-bananas-for-the-2016-doodle-fruit-games/feed/ 0 Let Google be your guide to Rio de Janeiro https://googledata.org/google-blog/let-google-be-your-guide-to-rio-de-janeiro/ https://googledata.org/google-blog/let-google-be-your-guide-to-rio-de-janeiro/#comments Mon, 01 Aug 2016 07:01:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=54f3faba55959dfebafdafb7335ff1e6
In celebration of the next chapter in Olympics history, we’re bringing the best our products have to offer to help people around the world stay up-to-date with the Olympic Games Rio 2016:

Discover the event schedule, medal counts, and athlete information in Search
Get results and view TV schedules in 30+ countries
Watch official broadcasters’ event highlights on YouTube in 60+ countries
Explore Rio and venues in Google Maps
Keep up to date with the latest search Trends from around the world

On Google, searching for information about your favorite athletes and sports, the medal race, or your country’s schedule has never been easier. Pro tip: if you search on the Google app on Android and iOS, you’ll also see an option to get automatic updates on top event and medal wins, so you’ll never miss a beat.

To give you a glimpse into the Games, watch official broadcasters’ video highlights on YouTube in more than 60 countries around the world. And as an added bonus, YouTube is sending 15 top creators to Rio, giving you a taste of what it’s like to be there with mobile live streaming.

With Street View in Google Maps, everyone can enjoy the magic of Rio de Janeiro. Even if you’re a world away, preview the places where the world's most talented athletes will make history and explore the breathtaking beauty of Brazil.

Google Trekker operator captures 360-degree imagery from inside Rio’s Olympic Park

Great triumphs, victories and stunning surprises await us all this summer. This is just a hint of what’s to come—we hope you’ll let Google be your guide.

Posted by Jonathan Livni, Product Manager https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/76qfDkapREe1f6uKxqP8OD2FWwLPpbs7U_sojTc9-VgzDlMoy99BQSVkkGltjrWdERaLjSB-0ZfVjXPkBO8uQJkLeRfLYBmlY1p_zsHpYRZkJfkizjOO87hC-Zpbc_JM0iZgTsLo Jonathan Livni Product Manager  ]]>
In celebration of the next chapter in Olympics history, we’re bringing the best our products have to offer to help people around the world stay up-to-date with the Olympic Games Rio 2016:

Discover the event schedule, medal counts, and athlete information in Search
Get results and view TV schedules in 30+ countries
Watch official broadcasters’ event highlights on YouTube in 60+ countries
Explore Rio and venues in Google Maps
Keep up to date with the latest search Trends from around the world

Google Trekker operator captures 360-degree imagery from inside Rio’s Olympic Park

Great triumphs, victories and stunning surprises await us all this summer. This is just a hint of what’s to come—we hope you’ll let Google be your guide.

Posted by Jonathan Livni, Product Manager ]]> https://googledata.org/google-blog/let-google-be-your-guide-to-rio-de-janeiro/feed/ 0 Explore Rio from every angle https://googledata.org/google-blog/explore-rio-from-every-angle/ https://googledata.org/google-blog/explore-rio-from-every-angle/#comments Fri, 29 Jul 2016 15:00:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=ba385041b9e731c2e2a2ab6a40459ad4 interactive online collection of some of the city’s most famous art exhibits and landmarks, including some inspiring real-life stories from the city's favelas, all available on Google Arts & Culture. Bem-vindos ao Rio!

Arts, monuments and more
The collection includes 360° panoramas with Street View technology, some 3,000 images from photo archives and art exhibits, virtual reality tours with Google Cardboard and videos showcasing a new generation of Cariocas making their mark in the city's cultural landscape. From iconic monuments and spectacular views, to the history of Guanabara Bay and the majestic Theatro Municipal, these online exhibits capture Rio from every angle.

Take an interactive tour of Rio's best-known monument—the Christ the Redeemer statue perched atop Corcovado mountain—or explore its storied musical history through album covers designed by Elifas Andreato.

Left: Bronze statue of Carlos Drummond de Andrade Right: Exploring Elifas' album covers through time

You can also go back in time by taking a peek at one of the richest collections of archival photographs of Rio, or tag along on a guided tour of the works of Rio-based artist and author Ziraldo, whose comics and children's books have marked the lives of generations of Brazilians.

Take a virtual reality tour with Cardboard

Mapping the whole city
A huge part of Rio’s history and culture resides in the hillside favelas that dot the landscape. In fact, one in five Rio residents live in favelas, but only 0.001 percent of the city's favelas appear on the map. That means 1.4 million people have no addresses to list on job applications or bank accounts, and aren’t able to access many economic opportunities, essential services, even basic rights as citizens. So we teamed up with local NGO Grupo Cultural AfroReggae to map the favelas. Two years later, streets and 10,000+ local businesses in 26 favelas now appear on Google Maps, thanks to "Tá no Mapa," our "On the Map" project.

The Rocinha favela before and after our mapping project

Beyond the Map
Along the way, we met some amazing people with remarkable stories, so we decided it was time to go "Beyond the Map" and shine a spotlight on an often overlooked side of Rio. With AfroReggae's help, we brought Street View and 360° technology to favelas for the first time, creating an immersive experience that lets you go beyond GPS coordinates and get to know the people and culture of communities that many people otherwise wouldn't get the chance to visit. You can even experience what it feels like to zip through the narrow streets of a favela on a motorcycle taxi!

This new online collection opens its virtual doors today at g.co/riodejaneiro on Google Arts & Culture. It is available on the web on mobile, tablet and desktop, and on the Google Arts & Culture app on iOS and Android devices. The Beyond the Map project can also be viewed at g.co/beyondthemap.

With the world’s eyes on Rio, we’re excited to give you a glimpse of all the splendor and creativity the city has to offer!

Posted by Alessandro Germano, Global Product Partnerships
Alessandro Germano Global Product Partnerships https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ZnsjBGqEP3k/V5rGIC2KcZI/AAAAAAAASvM/dkja-J0UdA0DaVMm4r8ERbFB1wrdZlX1wCLcB/s1600/Conservac%25CC%25A7a%25CC%2583o%2BRio%25282%2529.jpg

Update Aug 1: Added information about the "Beyond the Map" experience.]]> interactive online collection of some of the city’s most famous art exhibits and landmarks, including some inspiring real-life stories from the city's favelas, all available on Google Arts & Culture. Bem-vindos ao Rio!

Arts, monuments and more
The collection includes 360° panoramas with Street View technology, some 3,000 images from photo archives and art exhibits, virtual reality tours with Google Cardboard and videos showcasing a new generation of Cariocas making their mark in the city's cultural landscape. From iconic monuments and spectacular views, to the history of Guanabara Bay and the majestic Theatro Municipal, these online exhibits capture Rio from every angle.

Take an interactive tour of Rio's best-known monument—the Christ the Redeemer statue perched atop Corcovado mountain—or explore its storied musical history through album covers designed by Elifas Andreato.

This new online collection opens its virtual doors today at g.co/riodejaneiro on Google Arts & Culture. It is available on the web on mobile, tablet and desktop, and on the Google Arts & Culture app on iOS and Android devices. The Beyond the Map project can also be viewed at g.co/beyondthemap.

With the world’s eyes on Rio, we’re excited to give you a glimpse of all the splendor and creativity the city has to offer!

Posted by Alessandro Germano, Global Product Partnerships

Update Aug 1: Added information about the "Beyond the Map" experience.]]> https://googledata.org/google-blog/explore-rio-from-every-angle/feed/ 0 Google Play Family Library: Share what you love with the ones you love https://googledata.org/google-blog/google-play-family-library-share-what-you-love-with-the-ones-you-love/ https://googledata.org/google-blog/google-play-family-library-share-what-you-love-with-the-ones-you-love/#comments Wed, 27 Jul 2016 15:30:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=8bc67a10f58f34fbea6b740f162e9ff9 Zoolander, swapping tips on playing Monument Valley, or reading Dragons Love Tacos to the kids at bedtime, these shared moments bring us closer together.

For families like mine, who bond over shared entertainment, we’re introducing Family Library, a way for up to six family members to share purchases on Google Play. When you buy an eligible app, game, movie, TV show, or book in the Play Store, you can now share it with your family—across devices—with no additional sign-up fee.

Share across your family’s devices
Today’s families have a lot of devices, and it should be easy to share content no matter where we are or what we’re doing. Everyone in my family loves the Star Wars movies and we all want to be able to watch them, on our phones, tablets, laptops, or TV. All purchases added to Family Library are available across Android devices, and movies, TV shows, and books can be enjoyed on iOS devices and the web.

Easily manage sharing and family purchases
As with most family matters, flexibility and choice is important. With Family Library, you can choose which items you want to share and which to keep to yourself—for example, I’ll probably keep my collection of comic books in my personal library. Flexibility is also built into your purchasing options. When you sign up, you’ll select a credit card to share as your family payment method, but your family members will always have the option of buying stuff with their personal credit cards or gift cards. And for your younger family members, you’ll have the option to approve each of their purchases.

Share a Music subscription with your family
Finally, if your family loves music, you can also subscribe to the Google Play Music family plan. On this plan, up to six family members can stream millions of songs on demand for $14.99 a month. We launched the family plan late last year, and today we’re expanding it to Ireland, Italy, Mexico, and New Zealand. And you can now sign up on the web, in addition to your Android device.

Starting today, Family Library will be rolling out over the next few days and will be available in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. To get started, sign up in Google Play, invite your family members, and start sharing what you love!

Posted by Raj Iyengar, Product Manager, Google Play https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3j_0lZ3pI-w/V5ejW8jcoJI/AAAAAAAAStw/ht0F9TZzSeM5ssT7p3rZSoJCiIWb7LReACLcB/s200/FamilyPlay.jpg Raj Iyengar Product Manager Google Play  ]]> Zoolander, swapping tips on playing Monument Valley, or reading Dragons Love Tacos to the kids at bedtime, these shared moments bring us closer together.

For families like mine, who bond over shared entertainment, we’re introducing Family Library, a way for up to six family members to share purchases on Google Play. When you buy an eligible app, game, movie, TV show, or book in the Play Store, you can now share it with your family—across devices—with no additional sign-up fee.

Share across your family’s devices
Today’s families have a lot of devices, and it should be easy to share content no matter where we are or what we’re doing. Everyone in my family loves the Star Wars movies and we all want to be able to watch them, on our phones, tablets, laptops, or TV. All purchases added to Family Library are available across Android devices, and movies, TV shows, and books can be enjoyed on iOS devices and the web.

Easily manage sharing and family purchases
As with most family matters, flexibility and choice is important. With Family Library, you can choose which items you want to share and which to keep to yourself—for example, I’ll probably keep my collection of comic books in my personal library. Flexibility is also built into your purchasing options. When you sign up, you’ll select a credit card to share as your family payment method, but your family members will always have the option of buying stuff with their personal credit cards or gift cards. And for your younger family members, you’ll have the option to approve each of their purchases.

Share a Music subscription with your family
Finally, if your family loves music, you can also subscribe to the Google Play Music family plan. On this plan, up to six family members can stream millions of songs on demand for $14.99 a month. We launched the family plan late last year, and today we’re expanding it to Ireland, Italy, Mexico, and New Zealand. And you can now sign up on the web, in addition to your Android device.

Starting today, Family Library will be rolling out over the next few days and will be available in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. To get started, sign up in Google Play, invite your family members, and start sharing what you love!

Posted by Raj Iyengar, Product Manager, Google Play ]]> https://googledata.org/google-blog/google-play-family-library-share-what-you-love-with-the-ones-you-love/feed/ 0 The art of collaboration: from Sheets to the streets https://googledata.org/google-blog/the-art-of-collaboration/ https://googledata.org/google-blog/the-art-of-collaboration/#comments Wed, 20 Jul 2016 04:00:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=5c92202a556db9a6f6c925ec12f81705
In partnership with Refinery29, a lifestyle digital media company, we linked up with renowned illustrators Marina Esmeraldo in Barcelona, and Mallory Heyer in NYC. We gave them a simple creative assignment—to “break the grid”—which literally can mean pushing the “grid” of Google Sheets to its limits, but also taps into the idea of supporting and celebrating women globally who break free of confined roles and ways of thinking, which is core to Refinery29's mission.

Marina and Mallory connected a handful of times on Google Hangouts to plan and sketch out ideas, and creatively “hack” Sheets in order to make art: resizing cells into thousands of pixel-like squares, merging cells to create color blocks, creating vibrant color gradients with conditional formatting and cell values, and other cool things we had no idea you could do with Sheets.

The result was a bright, beautiful design that celebrates the diversity and strength of women, and we wanted to share their finished project in a BIG way.

The final step was to convert Marina and Mallory’s final piece from the cells of a spreadsheet to the bricks of a giant wall—to go from Sheets to the streets. So, we turned to Colossal Media, a Brooklyn-based company that hand-paints murals all over the world.

After hand-mixing each of the colors and prepping the artwork for large-scale painting, Colossal spent five days painting each cell, letter, and gradient by hand, to create a 13’ x 34’ mural of the spreadsheet.

And that’s how art was #madewithGoogleSheets.

To see it for yourself, check out Marina & Mallory’s spreadsheet or head to Bogart & Thames in Brooklyn to visit the wall in person (until August 14). We're delighted by the creativity and imagination brought about by artistic collaboration, and proud to be associated with the work’s inspirational message supporting strong women everywhere.

Posted by Michael Bolognino, Product Marketing Manager ]]> https://googledata.org/google-blog/the-art-of-collaboration/feed/ 0 The new Google Arts & Culture, on exhibit now https://googledata.org/google-blog/the-new-google-arts-culture-on-exhibit-now/ https://googledata.org/google-blog/the-new-google-arts-culture-on-exhibit-now/#comments Tue, 19 Jul 2016 15:00:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=6c904f2c233b9bfa0763de162e3c162a Google Arts & Culture website and app, by the Google Cultural Institute. The app lets you explore anything from cats in art since 200 BCE to the color red in Abstract Expressionism, and everything in between.

Our new tools will help you discover works and artifacts, allowing you to immerse yourself in cultural experiences across art, history and wonders of the world—from more than a thousand museums across 70 countries:
• Search for anything, from shoes to all things gold
• Scroll through art by time—see how Van Gogh’s works went from gloomy to vivid
• Browse by color and learn about Monet’s 50 shades of gray
• Find a new fascinating story to discover every day—today, it’s nine powerful men in heels

With a virtual reality viewer like Google Cardboard, you can use the Google Arts & Culture app on iOS and Android to take a virtual tour of the street art scene in Rome; step inside a creation by famous street artist, Insa; or even travel 2,500 years back in time and look around the ancient Greek temple of Zeus.

You can also subscribe to the new Google Arts & Culture YouTube channel. Find out what Kandinsky and Kanye West have in common and meet the New York-based “cyborg artist” Neil Harbisson.

We’re sure you’ll want to see some of the artworks in real life too—and the Google Arts & Culture app is there to help. Click “Visit” on a museum’s page to get opening times, find out what’s on that day and navigate there in one click. We’ve also been experimenting with a new feature. The Art Recognizer is now available in London’s Dulwich Picture Gallery, Sydney’s Art Gallery of New South Wales and the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC. Just pull up the app, point your phone’s camera to a painting on display and find all the information you want to know about the artwork. We’re planning to roll this out to museums around the world—so stay tuned.

There’s much to learn about our shared cultural heritage. Download the app for iOS and Android to unlock a world of experiences, every day.

Posted by Duncan Osborn, Product Manager, Google Cultural Institute https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-i-NlpIDu4cU/V41iDtvxXwI/AAAAAAAASss/nUeudu0ftYAvYiQCqCfseyUUyLG9sEH5ACLcB/s200/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-07-18%2Bat%2B4.10.35%2BPM.png Duncan Osborn Product Manager Google Cultural Institute  ]]> Google Arts & Culture website and app, by the Google Cultural Institute. The app lets you explore anything from cats in art since 200 BCE to the color red in Abstract Expressionism, and everything in between.

Our new tools will help you discover works and artifacts, allowing you to immerse yourself in cultural experiences across art, history and wonders of the world—from more than a thousand museums across 70 countries:
• Search for anything, from shoes to all things gold
• Scroll through art by time—see how Van Gogh’s works went from gloomy to vivid
• Browse by color and learn about Monet’s 50 shades of gray
• Find a new fascinating story to discover every day—today, it’s nine powerful men in heels

With a virtual reality viewer like Google Cardboard, you can use the Google Arts & Culture app on iOS and Android to take a virtual tour of the street art scene in Rome; step inside a creation by famous street artist, Insa; or even travel 2,500 years back in time and look around the ancient Greek temple of Zeus.

You can also subscribe to the new Google Arts & Culture YouTube channel. Find out what Kandinsky and Kanye West have in common and meet the New York-based “cyborg artist” Neil Harbisson.

We’re sure you’ll want to see some of the artworks in real life too—and the Google Arts & Culture app is there to help. Click “Visit” on a museum’s page to get opening times, find out what’s on that day and navigate there in one click. We’ve also been experimenting with a new feature. The Art Recognizer is now available in London’s Dulwich Picture Gallery, Sydney’s Art Gallery of New South Wales and the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC. Just pull up the app, point your phone’s camera to a painting on display and find all the information you want to know about the artwork. We’re planning to roll this out to museums around the world—so stay tuned.

There’s much to learn about our shared cultural heritage. Download the app for iOS and Android to unlock a world of experiences, every day.

Posted by Duncan Osborn, Product Manager, Google Cultural Institute ]]> https://googledata.org/google-blog/the-new-google-arts-culture-on-exhibit-now/feed/ 0 A voice for everyone in 2016 https://googledata.org/google-blog/a-voice-for-everyone-in-2016/ https://googledata.org/google-blog/a-voice-for-everyone-in-2016/#comments Fri, 15 Jul 2016 16:59:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=82453dee18169ee1c50e7a5ee22020b8
Now when you search for “register to vote” or similar queries, Google will display a detailed state-by-state guide providing information on how to register, general requirements, and deadlines.

No matter which state you’re in or how you plan to cast your ballot, you can find the step-by-step information you need to register correctly and on time—right at the top of your Search page and in the Google app.

And for the kickoff of the Republican National Convention next week (and coming in time for the Democratic National Convention the following week), when you search for these events on the Google app, you’ll find a summary of the event, nominees and the lineup of speakers. You’ll also find a livestream video from YouTube, and relevant social media posts, so you can stay up-to-date with both the political parties and the public.

We hope these new features in Search will help keep you informed this election season and make it easier for you to make it to the ballot box in November.

Posted by Jacob Schonberg, Product Manager https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-w6HLf-zWS8o/V4koXZyA7GI/AAAAAAAASsY/GSdKGgAxABw3GJ7X77XwIJFsj1bA9Ha-ACLcB/s200/registerConvention.gif  ]]>
Now when you search for “register to vote” or similar queries, Google will display a detailed state-by-state guide providing information on how to register, general requirements, and deadlines.

No matter which state you’re in or how you plan to cast your ballot, you can find the step-by-step information you need to register correctly and on time—right at the top of your Search page and in the Google app.

And for the kickoff of the Republican National Convention next week (and coming in time for the Democratic National Convention the following week), when you search for these events on the Google app, you’ll find a summary of the event, nominees and the lineup of speakers. You’ll also find a livestream video from YouTube, and relevant social media posts, so you can stay up-to-date with both the political parties and the public.

We hope these new features in Search will help keep you informed this election season and make it easier for you to make it to the ballot box in November.

Posted by Jacob Schonberg, Product Manager ]]> https://googledata.org/google-blog/a-voice-for-everyone-in-2016/feed/ 0 Focusing on diversity https://googledata.org/google-blog/focusing-on-diversity/ https://googledata.org/google-blog/focusing-on-diversity/#comments Thu, 30 Jun 2016 21:17:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=f0c0ace0cfd25b13b3cd86b96a4bf00e diversity at Google and across the tech industry. Today we’re updating google.com/diversity with our 2015 demographics, and sharing some areas where we’ve seen progress in building a more diverse and inclusive Google.

More women in technical and leadership roles
Women now comprise 31 percent of all Googlers, and we’ve seen strong growth of women in technical and leadership roles. Similar to last year, one in five of our technical hires in 2015 were women, helping bring the total number of women in technical roles from 18 to 19 percent. Additionally, women now hold 24 percent of leadership roles across Google—up from 22 percent.

Overall hiring progress
For the first time this year, we’re sharing the percentage of our hires who are Black and Hispanic. In 2015, our hiring for Black, Hispanic, and female Googlers grew faster than our current demographic representation for each of these groups. And our Hispanic Googlers in technical roles increased from 2 to 3 percent.

This data reflects the gender composition of Google’s global technical workforce and the race & ethnicity composition of Google’s U.S. workforce as of January 1, 2016. For more stats, visit google.com/diversity.

Building an Inclusive Culture
Hiring is important, but it’s equally important to make workplaces inclusive, fair and supportive for all employees. We’re continuing to build a culture where Googlers can grow, thrive and want to stay. We want to build a place where everyone feels comfortable sharing ideas and opinions—and empowered to grow their careers.

We check and recheck processes like promotion and performance reviews to make sure they’re producing equitable outcomes, and address any gaps we find. For example, Googlers in engineering or product management roles are able to nominate themselves for promotion, and in 2010 we discovered that women in technical roles were less likely than men to self-nominate. We found that with a small nudge—emailing these findings to all technical Googlers—the rate of women self-nominating went up and now the gap between men and women has closed.

Compensation is another example. We’ve long had gender pay equity in our workforce, and we recently shared our approach to compensation with the hope that other companies will adopt similar fair pay practices.

We also continue to invest in our unconscious bias trainings. Over 65 percent of Googlers have participated in our unbiasing workshops, and all new Googlers take the workshop as part of their orientation. We’ve shared these materials and research on our platform re:Work with Google so anyone from any industry can create unbiasing trainings for their team.

We saw encouraging signs of progress in 2015, but we’re still far from where we need to be. To learn more about our diversity and inclusion efforts, hear from leaders across Google:

Posted by Nancy Lee, Vice President, People Operations https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7_k6HVjLL74/V4b4XDBY2jI/AAAAAAAASpc/_SOLvVbaay4qyUgjoXTIACW1Zj-CT-SvACLcB/s320/Diversity.jpg  ]]> diversity at Google and across the tech industry. Today we’re updating google.com/diversity with our 2015 demographics, and sharing some areas where we’ve seen progress in building a more diverse and inclusive Google.

More women in technical and leadership roles
Women now comprise 31 percent of all Googlers, and we’ve seen strong growth of women in technical and leadership roles. Similar to last year, one in five of our technical hires in 2015 were women, helping bring the total number of women in technical roles from 18 to 19 percent. Additionally, women now hold 24 percent of leadership roles across Google—up from 22 percent.

This data reflects the gender composition of Google’s global technical workforce and the race & ethnicity composition of Google’s U.S. workforce as of January 1, 2016. For more stats, visit google.com/diversity.

Building an Inclusive Culture
Hiring is important, but it’s equally important to make workplaces inclusive, fair and supportive for all employees. We’re continuing to build a culture where Googlers can grow, thrive and want to stay. We want to build a place where everyone feels comfortable sharing ideas and opinions—and empowered to grow their careers.

We check and recheck processes like promotion and performance reviews to make sure they’re producing equitable outcomes, and address any gaps we find. For example, Googlers in engineering or product management roles are able to nominate themselves for promotion, and in 2010 we discovered that women in technical roles were less likely than men to self-nominate. We found that with a small nudge—emailing these findings to all technical Googlers—the rate of women self-nominating went up and now the gap between men and women has closed.

Compensation is another example. We’ve long had gender pay equity in our workforce, and we recently shared our approach to compensation with the hope that other companies will adopt similar fair pay practices.

We also continue to invest in our unconscious bias trainings. Over 65 percent of Googlers have participated in our unbiasing workshops, and all new Googlers take the workshop as part of their orientation. We’ve shared these materials and research on our platform re:Work with Google so anyone from any industry can create unbiasing trainings for their team.

We saw encouraging signs of progress in 2015, but we’re still far from where we need to be. To learn more about our diversity and inclusion efforts, hear from leaders across Google:

Posted by Nancy Lee, Vice President, People Operations ]]> https://googledata.org/google-blog/focusing-on-diversity/feed/ 0 Supporting Bay Area nonprofits focused on homelessness https://googledata.org/google-blog/supporting-bay-area-nonprofits-focused-on-homelessness/ https://googledata.org/google-blog/supporting-bay-area-nonprofits-focused-on-homelessness/#comments Wed, 29 Jun 2016 16:00:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=789571facd610cdd84e5757016877feb
These are just some of the questions people ask Google about homelessness in San Francisco, according to Google Trends. Many of these questions don’t have simple answers, and decades of efforts have not significantly moved the needle. There are more than 6,600 homeless people in the city, many of whom are children. People who experience homelessness often struggle from chronic stress, trauma, and frequent moves, and are unable to take advantage of many educational or economic opportunities.

We want to do our part in tackling this complex issue. Since 2014, Google.org has invested more than $5 million in Bay Area nonprofits who are working to combat homelessness, and today we’re committing an additional $1.2 million for these efforts. The Google News Lab is also joining the San Francisco Chronicle and 70+ news outlets across the country to help raise awareness as part of the Beyond Homelessness initiative, launching today.

The organizations we’re supporting are tackling the issue of homelessness in new ways and from multiple angles, and include Hamilton Family Center, Larkin Street Youth Services, HandUp, First Place for Youth, Lava Mae, LifeMoves, Abode Services - Project Welcome Home, GLIDE, Downtown Streets Team and Destination: Home.

In San Francisco and across the Bay area, these 10 organizations provide a range of services and programs focused on rapid re-housing and prevention, basic services, job training and more. Our newest grantee, Destination: Home, plans to use their $1 million grant to build a rapid re-housing system for homeless families in Mountain View and Sunnyvale in the form of security deposits, motel stays, time-limited rental assistance, move-in assistance, and a support system to make sure individuals and families find stable housing.

HandUp has helped both homeless and low-income individuals and families overcome poverty via a giving platform that connects donors directly with neighbors who are struggling to meet basic needs. The Downtown Streets Team provides a work experience program for homeless men and women through beautification projects in San Francisco’s Civic Center/Mid-Market neighborhoods. And Lava Mae is expanding their mobile showers for the homeless to Los Angeles with an additional $200K in Google.org grant funding.

The Downtown Streets Team helps people like Norman “Will” Williams gain work experience. Learn more on their website.

One in 25 kids in San Francisco Unified School District are homeless, and many families face at least a nine-month wait list for temporary shelter. In 2015, we supported the Hamilton Family Center (HFC) with a $1 million grant aimed to reduce the homeless family wait list for shelter by creating direct lines of communication with SFUSD teachers and staff to report and respond to new and potential cases of homelessness. HFC has already seen a 25 percent reduction in the family wait list, and hopes to continue that momentum.
Homelessness in our cities is a challenge decades in the making—and will require continued innovation and dedication to solve. We’re committed to helping, through financial support, volunteering and raising awareness. Find out more about this issue on our Google Trends site and join us in finding solutions by visiting Beyond Homelessness or contributing to any of our grantee organizations.

Posted by Justin Steele, Bay Area Giving Lead, Google.org https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-t51u82Gg5pg/V4cJDtzfrZI/AAAAAAAASpw/c4xslSQpcrw7xK8Tdcly5_sAPrgxhaZwACLcB/s200/10-1.jpg  ]]>
These are just some of the questions people ask Google about homelessness in San Francisco, according to Google Trends. Many of these questions don’t have simple answers, and decades of efforts have not significantly moved the needle. There are more than 6,600 homeless people in the city, many of whom are children. People who experience homelessness often struggle from chronic stress, trauma, and frequent moves, and are unable to take advantage of many educational or economic opportunities.

We want to do our part in tackling this complex issue. Since 2014, Google.org has invested more than $5 million in Bay Area nonprofits who are working to combat homelessness, and today we’re committing an additional $1.2 million for these efforts. The Google News Lab is also joining the San Francisco Chronicle and 70+ news outlets across the country to help raise awareness as part of the Beyond Homelessness initiative, launching today.

The organizations we’re supporting are tackling the issue of homelessness in new ways and from multiple angles, and include Hamilton Family Center, Larkin Street Youth Services, HandUp, First Place for Youth, Lava Mae, LifeMoves, Abode Services - Project Welcome Home, GLIDE, Downtown Streets Team and Destination: Home.

The Downtown Streets Team helps people like Norman “Will” Williams gain work experience. Learn more on their website.

One in 25 kids in San Francisco Unified School District are homeless, and many families face at least a nine-month wait list for temporary shelter. In 2015, we supported the Hamilton Family Center (HFC) with a $1 million grant aimed to reduce the homeless family wait list for shelter by creating direct lines of communication with SFUSD teachers and staff to report and respond to new and potential cases of homelessness. HFC has already seen a 25 percent reduction in the family wait list, and hopes to continue that momentum.
Homelessness in our cities is a challenge decades in the making—and will require continued innovation and dedication to solve. We’re committed to helping, through financial support, volunteering and raising awareness. Find out more about this issue on our Google Trends site and join us in finding solutions by visiting Beyond Homelessness or contributing to any of our grantee organizations.

Posted by Justin Steele, Bay Area Giving Lead, Google.org ]]> https://googledata.org/google-blog/supporting-bay-area-nonprofits-focused-on-homelessness/feed/ 0 Technology to help teachers do what they do best https://googledata.org/google-blog/technology-to-help-teachers-do-what-they-do-best/ https://googledata.org/google-blog/technology-to-help-teachers-do-what-they-do-best/#comments Mon, 27 Jun 2016 16:00:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=2f6a1b17b621c5314bd1b9022036965f This week our Google for Education team will be joining thousands of educators at the annual ISTE conference. Follow along on their blog and Twitter for the latest news and updates. -Ed.
Great teachers inspire us, listen to us and learn from us; they bring the most mundane subjects to life. Technology can help great teachers do what they do best—stimulating minds and fostering skills in the next generation—and make learning even more rewarding for students. So we’re excited by the updates and improvements to our tools for the classroom we’re announcing this week at the ISTE conference, one of the largest education technology gatherings in the world.

Expeditions for all
Since we launched the Expeditions Pioneer Program last September, more than a million students from 11 countries have taken one of our 200+ virtual reality trips—from the Great Barrier Reef, to the ancient ruins of Machu Picchu. Today, we’re making Expeditions available to everyone. To get started, all teachers need to do is download the Expeditions app onto a set of devices and choose where in the world they want to take their class. The app is available today for Android and will be available for iPhones and iPads soon.

While Expeditions can be used with many of the devices schools or students already have, Best Buy Education will also be making Expeditions kits available for schools to purchase. These kits will contain everything teachers need to bring their classes on amazing Expeditions: a tablet, virtual reality viewers and a router to connect them all.

Google Cast for Education
Sharing information on the classroom’s big screen helps students learn from one another. But today, students have to physically connect their computers to the projector to share their screens with the class. To open classroom collaboration and bring projecting into the 21st century, we’re announcing Google Cast for Education, a free Chrome app that lets students and teachers share their screens wirelessly from everywhere in the classroom, no new hardware required. Cast for Education carries video and audio across complex school networks, has built-in controls for teachers, and is integrated with Google Classroom.

Quizzes in Google Forms
Getting feedback helps students learn and teachers teach. But grading tests and quizzes is time-consuming; teachers often have to take time away from other tasks to do it, and if it’s not done promptly, everyone misses out on the opportunity to learn from the things students got wrong. Starting today, Quizzes in Google Forms will grade multiple choice and checkbox questions automatically—so teachers can spend less time grading work and more time teaching.

Teachers can set correct answers in Forms and even add review materials in the form of explanations, supplemental websites, or review videos—so students can get quick, informative feedback on how to improve. Plus, teachers can get an instant snapshot on what their students understand, so they know which lessons need more explanation or what to teach next.

Creative apps on Chromebooks
Teachers tell us educational apps on Chromebooks help them improve skills like problem-solving, teamwork, communication and creativity. In collaboration with teachers at EdTechTeacher, we’re announcing a collection of creative apps on Chromebooks that schools can now purchase at a discount: Explain Everything, Soundtrap, and WeVideo. These apps let students demonstrate their understanding of curriculum in their own way by creating unique animations, music, and videos.

Students use creative apps at Muller Road Middle School in South Carolina

As technology becomes an integral component of our classrooms, we also want it to be so easy to use that it fades into background, allowing teachers to spend their time doing what they love: engaging and inspiring students.

Posted by Bram Bout, Director, Google for Education https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0W6hCYoTSzc/V3RKu90C3GI/AAAAAAAASnc/Bih4KnjUc6kwNRHhxH1k8AMjQ6roMEg3QCLcB/s1600/Expedition.jpg ]]> This week our Google for Education team will be joining thousands of educators at the annual ISTE conference. Follow along on their blog and Twitter for the latest news and updates. -Ed.
Great teachers inspire us, listen to us and learn from us; they bring the most mundane subjects to life. Technology can help great teachers do what they do best—stimulating minds and fostering skills in the next generation—and make learning even more rewarding for students. So we’re excited by the updates and improvements to our tools for the classroom we’re announcing this week at the ISTE conference, one of the largest education technology gatherings in the world.

Expeditions for all
Since we launched the Expeditions Pioneer Program last September, more than a million students from 11 countries have taken one of our 200+ virtual reality trips—from the Great Barrier Reef, to the ancient ruins of Machu Picchu. Today, we’re making Expeditions available to everyone. To get started, all teachers need to do is download the Expeditions app onto a set of devices and choose where in the world they want to take their class. The app is available today for Android and will be available for iPhones and iPads soon.

While Expeditions can be used with many of the devices schools or students already have, Best Buy Education will also be making Expeditions kits available for schools to purchase. These kits will contain everything teachers need to bring their classes on amazing Expeditions: a tablet, virtual reality viewers and a router to connect them all.

Students use creative apps at Muller Road Middle School in South Carolina

As technology becomes an integral component of our classrooms, we also want it to be so easy to use that it fades into background, allowing teachers to spend their time doing what they love: engaging and inspiring students.

Posted by Bram Bout, Director, Google for Education ]]> https://googledata.org/google-blog/im-feeling-yucky-searching-for-symptoms-on-google/feed/ 0 Showing support on World Refugee Day https://googledata.org/google-blog/showing-support-on-world-refugee-day/ https://googledata.org/google-blog/showing-support-on-world-refugee-day/#comments Mon, 20 Jun 2016 07:00:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=d331c556d1d17ecc0bb7df1d1738903b
Though the Internet played a role in his flight from Syria, connectivity has played a crucial role in helping him rebuild his life in Greece. While living in Greek refugee camps, Walaa used YouTube to learn English, and his language skills are now so good that he’s served as a community advocate and translator. He says he’s far from done: next, he hopes to learn Greek.

As refugees across Europe adapt to new contexts, access to information and education are crucial to help them develop the skills they need. Last fall we encouraged you to donate to a public matching campaign to help refugees access not only basic humanitarian aid, but also resources to create a bridge to their new communities. Since then we’ve helped the International Rescue Committee build an online information hub for refugees, Mercy Corps develop Translation Cards to allow field workers to communicate across languages more easily, partner with NetHope to install low-cost WiFi in refugee camps, and support refugee education through Kiron, a nonprofit providing refugee-tailored university courses available both online and offline.

In addition to Walaa, we’ve heard from other refugees who are finding ways to adjust thanks to Internet and education access. For example, Ahmed is an Iraqi computer scientist now living in Berlin. While waiting for his residence permit, he began teaching coding classes at refugee welcome centers as part of Project Reconnect, an initiative we launched with NetHope to equip NGOs with Chromebooks. Kashif, who traveled through seven countries from a small Pakistani town to Berlin, is studying online with Kiron and dreams of working as an engineer at NASA.

Ahmed giving CODE.org classes to young refugees through the Chromebooks in a refugee center in Berlin

On World Refugee Day, we hope you’ll take time to hear stories of more refugees who are working so hard to rebuild their lives.

We also want to thank everyone across the globe who donated last year, and encourage you to continue to support our partners in their critical work. Though the impact of this refugee crisis will be felt for many years to come, we’ll continue to look for ways to contribute.

Posted by Jacquelline Fuller, Director of Google.org ]]> https://googledata.org/google-blog/showing-support-on-world-refugee-day/feed/ 0 Digital Love Letters for fathers who are incarcerated https://googledata.org/google-blog/digital-love-letters-for-fathers-who-are-incarcerated/ https://googledata.org/google-blog/digital-love-letters-for-fathers-who-are-incarcerated/#comments Fri, 17 Jun 2016 16:02:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=7e8550f4091549a068f9b2703d12fa86 #LoveLetters, a partnership among nonprofits to give the children of incarcerated parents a chance to have their voices heard. Today, in celebration of Father’s Day, you can watch Love Letters for incarcerated fathers. This work is part of our continued commitment to raising awareness about racial injustice, and to bearing witness to the human costs of mass incarceration.

The costs of mass incarceration have disproportionately affected the lives of Black men. From 1980 to 2007, about one in three of the 25.4 million adults arrested for drugs was African-American. And if that current trend continues, one in three Black boys born today can expect to spend time in prison during his lifetime. All in all, we’re now at a point where there are more African-American men incarcerated in the U.S. than the total prison populations of India, Argentina, Canada, Lebanon, Germany, Finland, Israel and England combined.

Children share digital “Love Letters” for their fathers who are incarcerated

Many of these men are also fathers—and their children have suffered greatly. The loss of a father to incarceration adversely affects children’s educational, social and emotional well-being, even decades later. Children with an incarcerated parent are three times more likely to have behavioral problems or depression, and at least twice as likely to suffer from learning disabilities, ADD/ADHD, and anxiety.

This is what Love Letters conveys: the hurt of the children left behind—and the enduring bond between a child and a parent despite the barrier of prison walls. So for Father's Day, we worked with the NGOs Pops the Club and Place4Grace to encourage children and youth in California to share their love letters to their fathers behind bars. We're also working with the California Department of Corrections to share the video with fathers behind bars throughout the state.

To learn about criminal justice reform legislation now going through Congress, visit sentencingproject.org, vera.org, or brennancenter.org. As David Drummond, Alphabet’s vice president of corporate development, said at an event this week: “We like disruption, and if there’s a system worth disrupting, it’s the criminal justice system.” We hope that by raising awareness about the impact of mass incarceration on children and families, we can help to change it. Please join us in this effort—watch the video and share with #LoveLetters on social media.

Posted by Malika Saada Saar, Public Policy and Government Relations Senior Counsel – Civil and Human Rights https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-EYfRUNBt158/V2gktZ4D69I/AAAAAAAASk8/0ZmJRbHs_2kmdqgQbiRRydqKTTRV8zt9gCLcB/s1600/LoveLetters.jpg  ]]> #LoveLetters, a partnership among nonprofits to give the children of incarcerated parents a chance to have their voices heard. Today, in celebration of Father’s Day, you can watch Love Letters for incarcerated fathers. This work is part of our continued commitment to raising awareness about racial injustice, and to bearing witness to the human costs of mass incarceration.

The costs of mass incarceration have disproportionately affected the lives of Black men. From 1980 to 2007, about one in three of the 25.4 million adults arrested for drugs was African-American. And if that current trend continues, one in three Black boys born today can expect to spend time in prison during his lifetime. All in all, we’re now at a point where there are more African-American men incarcerated in the U.S. than the total prison populations of India, Argentina, Canada, Lebanon, Germany, Finland, Israel and England combined.

Children share digital “Love Letters” for their fathers who are incarcerated

Many of these men are also fathers—and their children have suffered greatly. The loss of a father to incarceration adversely affects children’s educational, social and emotional well-being, even decades later. Children with an incarcerated parent are three times more likely to have behavioral problems or depression, and at least twice as likely to suffer from learning disabilities, ADD/ADHD, and anxiety.

This is what Love Letters conveys: the hurt of the children left behind—and the enduring bond between a child and a parent despite the barrier of prison walls. So for Father's Day, we worked with the NGOs Pops the Club and Place4Grace to encourage children and youth in California to share their love letters to their fathers behind bars. We're also working with the California Department of Corrections to share the video with fathers behind bars throughout the state.

To learn about criminal justice reform legislation now going through Congress, visit sentencingproject.org, vera.org, or brennancenter.org. As David Drummond, Alphabet’s vice president of corporate development, said at an event this week: “We like disruption, and if there’s a system worth disrupting, it’s the criminal justice system.” We hope that by raising awareness about the impact of mass incarceration on children and families, we can help to change it. Please join us in this effort—watch the video and share with #LoveLetters on social media.

Posted by Malika Saada Saar, Public Policy and Government Relations Senior Counsel – Civil and Human Rights ]]> https://googledata.org/google-blog/digital-love-letters-for-fathers-who-are-incarcerated/feed/ 0 Tango: See more with a new kind of phone https://googledata.org/google-blog/tango-see-more-with-a-new-kind-of-phone/ https://googledata.org/google-blog/tango-see-more-with-a-new-kind-of-phone/#comments Thu, 09 Jun 2016 18:30:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=4bc5e7046cec14eb81eec6b12e701ee4
But, for the past three years, the Project Tango team has been working to help devices understand physical space and motion more like people do. Today we’re taking the next step with the first Tango-enabled phone (Lenovo’s PHAB2 Pro). We’re also graduating the effort from Project Tango to, simply, Tango.

Tango helps you answer a new set of questions about your world through specialized hardware and apps. Some of the coolest apps that work with Tango are the ones that overlay digital objects on top of your surroundings. For example if you’re shopping for a new bed, Tango lets you view your bedroom through your phone and visualize different options—even walk around the virtual furniture like it’s actually there.

With a Tango-enabled phone, you also have a toy box, a solar system, and a pet shop in your pocket. You can play with a huge set of dominoes, explore the planets, defend yourself from invading aliens, or feed your virtual dog—all through your phone. The best part is that you don’t have to clean up afterwards.

In the future, we hope Tango can help you navigate a mall, museum or place you’ve never been. Tango can overlay directions to your destination, then provide more info once you arrive. We've already started to work on this—we previewed it in February with the National Art Museum of Catalunya, and we plan to bring select locations online later this year.

Whether you’re shopping, playing, or just finding your way around, Tango helps you explore the world in a new way. There are already lots of great apps exploring these new capabilities, and as Tango finds its way into more devices, there will be more to come. If you’d like to learn more, visit the Tango website, or tune in to Nat and Lo for a behind-the-scenes look at Tango.

Posted by Johnny Lee, Director of Engineering https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-G2kndpgyNqU/V1cNAla-6PI/AAAAAAAASds/S0UjCr_hY7wDoTVQ2roMCN_IWS09aqDPQCLcB/s1600/dinogif.gif  ]]>
But, for the past three years, the Project Tango team has been working to help devices understand physical space and motion more like people do. Today we’re taking the next step with the first Tango-enabled phone (Lenovo’s PHAB2 Pro). We’re also graduating the effort from Project Tango to, simply, Tango.

Tango helps you answer a new set of questions about your world through specialized hardware and apps. Some of the coolest apps that work with Tango are the ones that overlay digital objects on top of your surroundings. For example if you’re shopping for a new bed, Tango lets you view your bedroom through your phone and visualize different options—even walk around the virtual furniture like it’s actually there.

With a Tango-enabled phone, you also have a toy box, a solar system, and a pet shop in your pocket. You can play with a huge set of dominoes, explore the planets, defend yourself from invading aliens, or feed your virtual dog—all through your phone. The best part is that you don’t have to clean up afterwards.

In the future, we hope Tango can help you navigate a mall, museum or place you’ve never been. Tango can overlay directions to your destination, then provide more info once you arrive. We've already started to work on this—we previewed it in February with the National Art Museum of Catalunya, and we plan to bring select locations online later this year.

Whether you’re shopping, playing, or just finding your way around, Tango helps you explore the world in a new way. There are already lots of great apps exploring these new capabilities, and as Tango finds its way into more devices, there will be more to come. If you’d like to learn more, visit the Tango website, or tune in to Nat and Lo for a behind-the-scenes look at Tango.

Posted by Johnny Lee, Director of Engineering ]]> https://googledata.org/google-blog/tango-see-more-with-a-new-kind-of-phone/feed/ 0 Celebrating My Account’s first birthday with improvements and new controls https://googledata.org/google-blog/celebrating-my-accounts-first-birthday-with-improvements-and-new-controls/ https://googledata.org/google-blog/celebrating-my-accounts-first-birthday-with-improvements-and-new-controls/#comments Wed, 01 Jun 2016 14:00:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=97c7c883288768ef5972bdf60fa15fea A year ago today, we launched My Account, a hub that gives you quick access to controls for safeguarding your data and protecting your privacy on Google. My Account puts privacy and security tools in one place, including long-standing features like Ads Settings and newer ones like the Privacy and Security Checkups. Collectively, these tools make it easy for you to control your privacy and security from any device.

In the past year, more than one billion people around the world have used My Account. Now, on the first anniversary of its launch, we're excited to introduce three new features to easily access your controls and protect your data.

A helping hand when you lose your phone
We entrust our phones with some of our most personal data: texts from loved ones, family photos, work emails, bank account information, and more. In the wrong hands, that data could cause trouble. Unfortunately, millions of phones are stolen every year in the U.S. alone, and countless more are lost in taxis, cafes, and couch cushions around the world. But when your phone goes missing, it’s not always easy to figure out where to start, who to call, or how to keep your information safe.

Find your phone is a new feature that will help you if your phone is ever lost or stolen. In a few simple steps, you can not only locate your phone, but also lock and call it, secure your account, leave a callback number on the screen, and more. The feature can be used to find lost Android and iOS devices, and soon, you’ll also be able to access it by searching Google for “I lost my phone.”

New ways to access My Account
People are increasingly using their voices to navigate apps and services—for example, mobile voice searches on Google have tripled in the past two years. So, we’re making it easier to get to My Account just by using your voice. In the latest Google app you can simply say, “Ok Google, show me my Google account,” and we’ll take you right there. This is available today in English, with other languages coming soon.

We’re also making it easier than ever to find My Account by searching Google. Coming soon, you’ll be able to simply search for your own name, and if you’re signed in, you’ll see a shortcut to My Account.

When you entrust your data to Google, you should expect powerful security and privacy controls. These features are just the latest in our ongoing efforts to protect you and your personal information. We'll continue to make updates based on your feedback.

Posted by Guemmy Kim, Product Manager, Account Controls and Settings https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vIUHbY4iisE/V04c8WG9lAI/AAAAAAAASaU/1WErcDVt8WAxBLwRZ6n68bJlDWYH9VJ-QCLcB/s1600/Security.jpg  ]]> A year ago today, we launched My Account, a hub that gives you quick access to controls for safeguarding your data and protecting your privacy on Google. My Account puts privacy and security tools in one place, including long-standing features like Ads Settings and newer ones like the Privacy and Security Checkups. Collectively, these tools make it easy for you to control your privacy and security from any device.

In the past year, more than one billion people around the world have used My Account. Now, on the first anniversary of its launch, we're excited to introduce three new features to easily access your controls and protect your data.

A helping hand when you lose your phone
We entrust our phones with some of our most personal data: texts from loved ones, family photos, work emails, bank account information, and more. In the wrong hands, that data could cause trouble. Unfortunately, millions of phones are stolen every year in the U.S. alone, and countless more are lost in taxis, cafes, and couch cushions around the world. But when your phone goes missing, it’s not always easy to figure out where to start, who to call, or how to keep your information safe.

Find your phone is a new feature that will help you if your phone is ever lost or stolen. In a few simple steps, you can not only locate your phone, but also lock and call it, secure your account, leave a callback number on the screen, and more. The feature can be used to find lost Android and iOS devices, and soon, you’ll also be able to access it by searching Google for “I lost my phone.”

Leonika Sari says: I’m a developer and founder of the startup Reblood, which aims to awareness and promote blood donation in Indonesia. But in my downtime, I help people regain access to their Gmail accounts. Imagine not being able to access your Gmail or finding out your account was hijacked—it’s quite scary! I like helping people get back into their accounts so they can continue living their life.

Answering posts in the Google Product Help Forums has also taught me a lot about how to run my startup. It’s shown me the importance of listening and replying to users. Google treats every piece of user feedback as a useful resource to improve the product—which inspires me to pay more attention to feedback about my own product and quickly turn that into product improvements. I also see parallels between the community of volunteers in the Top Contributor program and my own company Reblood’s community of donors. It makes me happy that I can help people, even those I’ve never met.

José says: I work in the Systems and Education Innovation Department for Colegio Alameda de Osuna in Madrid. My son, Jorge, is studying psychology at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. We’re both passionate about helping and are members of the Top Contributor Program. I’m a TC and Jorge is a Rising Star, the entry level into the Top Contributor program.

I was the first one to discover Google Product Help Forums. Helping people in the forums is very similar to teaching. It allows me to do something I like—teach—while enabling me to reach a much larger number of people than I would in the classroom. Plus, I get to learn more about tools I use in my job on a daily basis.

Jorge says: My dad told me about the forums last summer when I was off from school. I thought I’d give it a try and now I’m hooked. I like it because helping others makes me feel good. When I was first starting, my dad would help me by suggesting solutions or showing me other ways of answering a question. Now that I’m back in school and busy with classes, the Top Contributor program helps us stay in touch. In fact, I think it improves our relationship.

The Top Contributor program has brought us many great connections. The forums bring you closer to people, whether it’s through the questions you answer or the motivation to help that all the TCs share. And those bonds are something I wouldn’t change for anything.

Posted by Brenna Robertson, Program Manager https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4wrE6JaDuHg/V0X_bMLjbnI/AAAAAAAASXQ/RjqXaudd0qQXgK5wpvwg6cIMj-zcFRx4gCLcB/s1600/Contributors2.jpg  ]]> This is the second of two posts spotlighting our Top Contributors. Read part one here. - Ed.
If you’ve ever asked a question about a Google product in the Google Product Help Forums or on Twitter, chances are you’ve encountered a Top Contributor—passionate Google product experts who enjoy sharing their knowledge with their fellow users. We introduced you to two of the super users in this program yesterday, and now we’re shining a spotlight on a few more. If you’re interested in becoming a Top Contributor, start participating in a Google Product Forum or on social media, and let us know you’re interested.

José says: I work in the Systems and Education Innovation Department for Colegio Alameda de Osuna in Madrid. My son, Jorge, is studying psychology at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. We’re both passionate about helping and are members of the Top Contributor Program. I’m a TC and Jorge is a Rising Star, the entry level into the Top Contributor program.

I was the first one to discover Google Product Help Forums. Helping people in the forums is very similar to teaching. It allows me to do something I like—teach—while enabling me to reach a much larger number of people than I would in the classroom. Plus, I get to learn more about tools I use in my job on a daily basis.

Jorge says: My dad told me about the forums last summer when I was off from school. I thought I’d give it a try and now I’m hooked. I like it because helping others makes me feel good. When I was first starting, my dad would help me by suggesting solutions or showing me other ways of answering a question. Now that I’m back in school and busy with classes, the Top Contributor program helps us stay in touch. In fact, I think it improves our relationship.

The Top Contributor program has brought us many great connections. The forums bring you closer to people, whether it’s through the questions you answer or the motivation to help that all the TCs share. And those bonds are something I wouldn’t change for anything.

Posted by Brenna Robertson, Program Manager ]]> https://googledata.org/google-blog/meet-more-of-our-top-contributors/feed/ 0 Passionate Google users helping others with Google products https://googledata.org/google-blog/passionate-google-users-helping-others-with-google-products/ https://googledata.org/google-blog/passionate-google-users-helping-others-with-google-products/#comments Wed, 25 May 2016 16:00:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=d760e14183fe20245d30c7dde3374d41 This is the first of two posts spotlighting our Top Contributors. Read part two here. - Ed.
If you’ve ever asked a question about a Google product in the Google Product Help Forums or on Twitter, chances are you’ve encountered a Top Contributor—passionate Google product experts who enjoy sharing their knowledge with their fellow users. Last year, Top Contributors helped more than 55 million people with 30 different Google products, answering questions and providing tips.

The super users in the Top Contributor program come from 60+ different countries. Their passion for our products and willingness to help others make them a community. To showcase the faces and stories behind this group of helpful users, we asked a few Top Contributors to share a bit about themselves. This is the first of two posts—come back tomorrow to learn more.

Jo says: As a writer, editor, and all-around book enthusiast, I spend a lot of time using word-processing programs. I first discovered Google Docs when I saw a Chromebook ad on TV. I was intrigued by the idea of working in the cloud and not needing an external hard drive to backup my work.

I use Docs for both my professional and personal writing and have completed works of nonfiction as well as novels in it. As senior editorial director at Book Publishing Co., I use Docs for reviewing and editing manuscripts, writing copy, and communicating with authors and colleagues. My authors and colleagues are fascinated when we're in a document at the same time and they see me making changes. It looks like magic to them!

Helping others navigate Docs might seem like an unusual hobby, but I love it. I like exercising my brain by exploring all that an app can do. It’s rewarding to answer users’ questions and help them solve conundrums, especially knowing that my reply could potentially reach hundreds or even thousands of others users who visit the forum with a similar issue. The occasional “thank you” or “you saved the day” is icing on the cake.

Kojo says: I grew up in a small town in the central region of Ghana, the oldest of five children—which meant I learned how to work hard. Being the oldest meant I had to set a positive example for my siblings and cousins. I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry with honors from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, where I’m now a teaching and research assistant.

I first got involved with Google products as a Google Student Ambassador, a program that gives students the opportunity to be a liaison between their university and Google. During that time, I gave tutorials to anyone from first year students to senior faculty in my department, teaching them how to incorporate Google apps like Drive, Docs, Sheets and Slides into their day-to-day.

When I became a teaching and research assistant, I started using Google Forms to create short quizzes and Google Groups to send assignments and notes to the students in my lab experiment groups. Those experiences inspired me to start helping out in the forums, where I specialize in Nexus and Photos—products I don’t often get to use in the classroom.

I love troubleshooting issues with products because it challenges me to pinpoint issues given very little information. It not only teaches me to solve problems, but it also shows me how I can interrelate things when teaching in order to help students. My experience there inspires me to take on more challenges elsewhere. Next up: grad school.

Get involved with the Top Contributor Program
We’re always looking for people around the world who have strong Google product knowledge, a friendly attitude, and enjoy helping others. If you’re interested in becoming a Top Contributor, start participating in a Google Product Forum or on social media, and let us know you’re interested. Once you’re helping people on a regular basis, you may be invited to become a Rising Star, the first level in the Top Contributor program.

Posted by Brenna Robertson, Program Manager https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5ZWYMlLdPW8/V0X2xnTn2wI/AAAAAAAASWg/9MKD-Ka9qYggMXKdzHsYjIr8QgSC3G8wgCLcB/s1600/Contributor.jpg  ]]> This is the first of two posts spotlighting our Top Contributors. Read part two here. - Ed.
If you’ve ever asked a question about a Google product in the Google Product Help Forums or on Twitter, chances are you’ve encountered a Top Contributor—passionate Google product experts who enjoy sharing their knowledge with their fellow users. Last year, Top Contributors helped more than 55 million people with 30 different Google products, answering questions and providing tips.

The super users in the Top Contributor program come from 60+ different countries. Their passion for our products and willingness to help others make them a community. To showcase the faces and stories behind this group of helpful users, we asked a few Top Contributors to share a bit about themselves. This is the first of two posts—come back tomorrow to learn more.

Kojo says: I grew up in a small town in the central region of Ghana, the oldest of five children—which meant I learned how to work hard. Being the oldest meant I had to set a positive example for my siblings and cousins. I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry with honors from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, where I’m now a teaching and research assistant.

I first got involved with Google products as a Google Student Ambassador, a program that gives students the opportunity to be a liaison between their university and Google. During that time, I gave tutorials to anyone from first year students to senior faculty in my department, teaching them how to incorporate Google apps like Drive, Docs, Sheets and Slides into their day-to-day.

When I became a teaching and research assistant, I started using Google Forms to create short quizzes and Google Groups to send assignments and notes to the students in my lab experiment groups. Those experiences inspired me to start helping out in the forums, where I specialize in Nexus and Photos—products I don’t often get to use in the classroom.

I love troubleshooting issues with products because it challenges me to pinpoint issues given very little information. It not only teaches me to solve problems, but it also shows me how I can interrelate things when teaching in order to help students. My experience there inspires me to take on more challenges elsewhere. Next up: grad school.

Get involved with the Top Contributor Program
We’re always looking for people around the world who have strong Google product knowledge, a friendly attitude, and enjoy helping others. If you’re interested in becoming a Top Contributor, start participating in a Google Product Forum or on social media, and let us know you’re interested. Once you’re helping people on a regular basis, you may be invited to become a Rising Star, the first level in the Top Contributor program.

Posted by Brenna Robertson, Program Manager ]]> https://googledata.org/google-blog/passionate-google-users-helping-others-with-google-products/feed/ 0 10 things you may have missed at Google I/O https://googledata.org/google-blog/10-things-you-may-have-missed-at-google-io/ https://googledata.org/google-blog/10-things-you-may-have-missed-at-google-io/#comments Tue, 24 May 2016 18:35:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=6254dda2e84796cb866fb667e1ed6a86
1. It’s not just for grown-ups.
A day before Google I/O officially began, we hosted I/O Youth. Over the course of the day, 120 students from Bay Area-based schools engaged in four hands-on activities focused on storytelling, designing, and coding. They heard from inspiring speakers that bring creative solutions to their jobs like Brent Bushnell, CEO of the entertainment company Two Bit Circus, and Pavni Diwanji, who leads our Google-wide efforts to create a better experience for kids online. Check out 11-year-old Cindy Zhou’s coverage of I/O Youth for Time for Kids.

2. Machine learning is already making products smarter.
As Sundar said during his keynote, machine learning and artificial intelligence are changing computing in incredible ways. One of the biggest uncracked nuts in A.I. is understanding natural language. But we’re making progress, and we can see people are eager for it—on the Google app on Android, over 20 percent of the searches we get in the U.S. are now by voice. Ok Google!

3. ATAP is bridging the physical and the digital.
On Friday, ATAP took the stage to share a glimpse of what’s going on in the ATAP garage. In “Pearl,” an interactive 360 story made for mobile by Academy award-winning director Patrick Osborne, a girl and her dad crisscross the country in their beloved hatchback. Project Jacquard introduced a twist on the iconic denim jacket—the Levi’s® Commuter™ Trucker Jacket, with Jacquard’s interactive fabrics woven in. With the LG Electronics Inc. smartwatch and JBL by Harman speaker prototypes Project Soli demonstrated, you don’t have to touch a screen to view a message or change a song. And Ara showed off a developer version of their modular phone and provided a peek into a future where phones can be customized for function and style.

The Soli smartwatch prototype (developed in collaboration with LG Electronics Inc.) is controlled without touching the screen

4. We're working to make I/O more inclusive for everyone.
As in past years, we made an effort to make I/O a diverse and welcoming conference for women and minorities who are underrepresented in technology. Women at I/O made up 23 percent of our 7,000+ attendees (at last year’s conference, women made up a similar percentage of our 5,000 attendees). We partnered with 13 community groups for women in technology, and offered travel grants to attendees making the trip. On Tuesday night, we hosted a Women Techmakers dinner for 1,000 women.

Women Techmakers dinner

We also want I/O to be more accessible for people with disabilities. To that end, we worked with Googlers and attendees with disabilities to provide things like real-time captioning for all breakout sessions at the conference.

Finally, this was also the first year we released ethnicity and race information for a Google conference.

5. We’ve made custom hardware for machine learning.
We designed and built a chip (of the silicon variety) that’s specifically made for machine learning. We call it a Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) because it's tailored for TensorFlow, our machine learning software that’s openly available to all. A TPU is an order of magnitude (10x) more power efficient than a traditional computer chip—and TPUs were also the secret hardware sauce for AlphaGo, our machine learning system that played and won 4 of 5 matches with Lee Sedol in Korea.

6. The Google Play Music experience blended Google smarts with musical discovery.
Not far from the dancing paint robot, I/O’s Google Play Music room brought Google Search and Google Play Music together in perfect harmony. On the Play Connections Wall, you could explore connections between different artists, albums, and songs, powered by the Knowledge Graph. Nearby, a display with 3,000+ earphone jacks let you listen to songs from Google Play Music’s many different playlists, complete with LED lights that matched the mood of each song. The audio cables powering the display added up to 18,000 feet (3.4 miles)—almost as tall as Mount Kilimanjaro.

7. Android Pay is powering commutes in the U.K. and ATMs in the U.S.
Last week we announced the first countries outside of the U.S. to get Android Pay, starting with the U.K. Londoners will also be able to use Android Pay across the Transport for London network, including on the tube, bus, and rail. That’s 13 million journeys where you can now just tap and pay. In the U.S., Bank of America customers will be able to start using their phones to withdraw money in ATMs across the country starting in June.

8. Your favorite Google apps are coming to Daydream.
As part of our effort to make VR even more accessible and immersive, we’re planning to bring some of your favorite Google apps to Daydream, including Play Movies, Street View, Google Photos, and YouTube. The YouTube VR app will provide an easier, more immersive way to find and experience virtual reality content on YouTube. Look out for it sometime later this year.

9. Android apps are coming to a Chromebook near you.
Chromebooks are now the #2 most popular PC operating system in the U.S., and soon you’ll be able to do even more with them. We’re bringing the Google Play Store to Chromebooks, so you can download and use all your favorite Android apps, right on your Chromebook.

10. It was full of festival fun.
Bringing I/O to Shoreline Amphitheatre meant a conference with a festival feel. Interactive experiments let people from around the world send paper planes and splashes of virtual paint zooming onto the keynote stage. That night, Charli XCX and Kygo performed for a crowd lit up with glow sticks. And at After Hours, acrobats mingled alongside a karaoke rickshaw, DJs spun from the tops of art cars, and domes that held tech talks during the day were converted into underwater discos and a planetarium.

For more from #io16, check out this photo album from the event or take a tour of the sandbox in 360 degrees:

Posted by Emily Wood, Managing Editor, Google Blogs https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DMY1ngwflog/V0Xz0RRWipI/AAAAAAAASWU/CMfpXcIfbLwu-GkW2XOFI1s-XkRSXa-rgCLcB/s1600/Copy%2Bof%2BCopy%2Bof%2BDSC_0615.jpg  ]]>
1. It’s not just for grown-ups.
A day before Google I/O officially began, we hosted I/O Youth. Over the course of the day, 120 students from Bay Area-based schools engaged in four hands-on activities focused on storytelling, designing, and coding. They heard from inspiring speakers that bring creative solutions to their jobs like Brent Bushnell, CEO of the entertainment company Two Bit Circus, and Pavni Diwanji, who leads our Google-wide efforts to create a better experience for kids online. Check out 11-year-old Cindy Zhou’s coverage of I/O Youth for Time for Kids.

For more from #io16, check out this photo album from the event or take a tour of the sandbox in 360 degrees:

Posted by Emily Wood, Managing Editor, Google Blogs ]]> https://googledata.org/google-blog/10-things-you-may-have-missed-at-google-io/feed/ 0 I/O: Building the next evolution of Google https://googledata.org/google-blog/io-building-the-next-evolution-of-google/ https://googledata.org/google-blog/io-building-the-next-evolution-of-google/#comments Wed, 18 May 2016 18:00:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=ad503013a8e9bfe1b6c060466fe7e4cd
The Google assistant
When we think of the Google search experience today—a rich panel of information on [Zika virus], or an alert telling you your flight is delayed—it’s striking to see how far things have come from the early days of 10 blue links. Many of these advances have been thanks to machine learning and artificial intelligence—specifically, areas like natural language processing, voice recognition and translation—and they have helped us build an increasingly useful and assistive experience for users. They are the ingredients that make Google speech recognition the most accurate in the world, and that let you take a picture of a sign in Chinese and see it translated into English.

Progress in all of these areas is accelerating, and we believe we are at a seminal moment. People are increasingly interacting naturally with Google, and aren’t just looking for the world’s information but actually expecting Google to help them with their daily tasks.

Which is why we’re pleased to introduce...the Google assistant.

The assistant is conversational—an ongoing two-way dialogue between you and Google that understands your world and helps you get things done. It makes it easy to buy movie tickets while on the go, to find that perfect restaurant for your family to grab a quick bite before the movie starts, and then help you navigate to the theater. It’s a Google for you, by you.

The assistant is an ambient experience that will work seamlessly across devices and contexts. So you can summon Google’s help no matter where you are or what the context. It builds on all our years of investment in deeply understanding users' questions.

Today we gave a preview of two new products where you’ll soon be able to draw on the Google assistant.

Google Home
Google Home is a voice-activated product that brings the Google assistant to any room in your house. It lets you enjoy entertainment, manage everyday tasks, and get answers from Google—all using conversational speech. With a simple voice command, you can ask Google Home to play a song, set a timer for the oven, check your flight, or turn on your lights. It’s designed to fit your home with customizable bases in different colors and materials. Google Home will be released later this year.

Allo and Duo
Allo is a new messaging app that also comes complete with the Google assistant, so you can interact with it directly in your chats, either one-on-one or with friends. Because the assistant understands your world, you can ask for things like your agenda for the day or photos from your last trip. If you’re planning a dinner with friends, you can ask the assistant to suggest restaurants nearby, all in one thread.

Allo includes Smart Reply, which suggests responses to messages based on context, and comes with fun ways to make your chats more expressive, including emojis, stickers, and the ability to get creative with photos. There’s also an Incognito mode that provides end-to-end encryption, discreet notifications, and message expiration.

In addition to Allo, we’re introducing Duo, a companion app for one-to-one video calling. With Duo, our goal is to make video calling faster and more reliable, even on slower network speeds. We also introduced a feature called Knock Knock, which gives you a live video of the other caller before you answer.

Best of all, both Allo and Duo are based on your phone number, so you can communicate with anyone regardless of whether they’re on Android or iOS. Both apps will be available this summer. Read more here.

Android N, Wear, VR, and Instant Apps
Today we shared details about what’s coming in Android N, including better performance for graphics and effects, reduced battery consumption and storage, background downloads of system updates, and streamlined notifications so you can power through them faster, and updated emojis including 72 new ones. And we want your help coming up with a name for N that can be a sweet successor to Marshmallow. Read more and help us #NameAndroidN at Android.com/N.

On top of Android N, we’ve built a new platform for high quality mobile VR called Daydream. Together with Android manufacturers, we're working on upcoming phones, and sharing designs with them for a VR viewer and controller that will be really immersive, comfortable and intuitive to use. Your favorite apps and games will be coming to Daydream too, including Google's—like YouTube, Street View, Play Movies, Google Photos and the Play Store. More to come this fall.

We also previewed Android Wear 2.0, including a revamped user experience and standalone apps that run right on the watch, no matter where your phone is or even if it's off.

Finally, we’re introducing Android Instant Apps—which let you run Android apps instantly, without requiring installation.

Firebase
Today we launched a big expansion of Firebase, our most comprehensive developer offering to date. Going beyond a mobile backend, the platform helps developers quickly build high-quality apps, grow their user base, and earn more money across iOS, Android and the mobile web.

Tackling global challenges with smarter tools
Machine learning and AI are changing not only computing, but also the way in which we tackle problems we’ve never been able to solve before. The opportunities are even greater when we harness the powers of open-source tools to make them available to the broader developer and researcher community. Imagine what we could do if we work together and use these technologies to tackle challenges in climate change, health care or education. As our machine learning and AI capabilities get smarter and more versatile, these possibilities are starting to appear on the horizon. These are very exciting times indeed.

Posted by Sundar Pichai, CEO, Google https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Nilr6F7t1AU/Vzx1LP1d1SI/AAAAAAAASUc/rkjvgsCCl3kH3k331gHAWxMC05MZWxNiwCLcB/s1600/GH_Livingroom.jpg  ]]>
The Google assistant
When we think of the Google search experience today—a rich panel of information on [Zika virus], or an alert telling you your flight is delayed—it’s striking to see how far things have come from the early days of 10 blue links. Many of these advances have been thanks to machine learning and artificial intelligence—specifically, areas like natural language processing, voice recognition and translation—and they have helped us build an increasingly useful and assistive experience for users. They are the ingredients that make Google speech recognition the most accurate in the world, and that let you take a picture of a sign in Chinese and see it translated into English.

Progress in all of these areas is accelerating, and we believe we are at a seminal moment. People are increasingly interacting naturally with Google, and aren’t just looking for the world’s information but actually expecting Google to help them with their daily tasks.

Which is why we’re pleased to introduce...the Google assistant.

The assistant is conversational—an ongoing two-way dialogue between you and Google that understands your world and helps you get things done. It makes it easy to buy movie tickets while on the go, to find that perfect restaurant for your family to grab a quick bite before the movie starts, and then help you navigate to the theater. It’s a Google for you, by you.

We also previewed Android Wear 2.0, including a revamped user experience and standalone apps that run right on the watch, no matter where your phone is or even if it's off.

Finally, we’re introducing Android Instant Apps—which let you run Android apps instantly, without requiring installation.

Firebase
Today we launched a big expansion of Firebase, our most comprehensive developer offering to date. Going beyond a mobile backend, the platform helps developers quickly build high-quality apps, grow their user base, and earn more money across iOS, Android and the mobile web.

Tackling global challenges with smarter tools
Machine learning and AI are changing not only computing, but also the way in which we tackle problems we’ve never been able to solve before. The opportunities are even greater when we harness the powers of open-source tools to make them available to the broader developer and researcher community. Imagine what we could do if we work together and use these technologies to tackle challenges in climate change, health care or education. As our machine learning and AI capabilities get smarter and more versatile, these possibilities are starting to appear on the horizon. These are very exciting times indeed.

Posted by Sundar Pichai, CEO, Google ]]> https://googledata.org/google-blog/io-building-the-next-evolution-of-google/feed/ 0 An eye for detail: Zoom through 1,000 artworks thanks to the new Art Camera from the Google Cultural Institute https://googledata.org/google-blog/an-eye-for-detail-zoom-through-1000-artworks-thanks-to-the-new-art-camera-from-the-google-cultural-institute/ https://googledata.org/google-blog/an-eye-for-detail-zoom-through-1000-artworks-thanks-to-the-new-art-camera-from-the-google-cultural-institute/#comments Tue, 17 May 2016 13:00:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=922547ecec02780981b91b17a9c44eb8 hidden signature or the individual dabs of paint that give the impression of shimmering, turbulent waters.

Zooming into these images is the closest thing to walking up to the real thing with a magnifying glass. This is why we’re so excited about our new Art Camera—a custom-built camera ready to travel around the world to bring people more of these ultra-high-resolution images than ever possible before.

The Port of Rotterdam by Paul Signac, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen

A gigapixel image is made of over one billion pixels, and can bring out details invisible to the naked eye. So creating digital images in such high resolution is a complex technical challenge. You need time, highly specialized and expensive equipment, and only a few people in the world can do the job. In the first five years of the Google Cultural Institute, we’ve been able to share about 200 gigapixel images. But we want to do much more. That’s why we developed the Art Camera.

The Art Camera is a robotic camera, custom-built to create gigapixel images faster and more easily. A robotic system steers the camera automatically from detail to detail, taking hundreds of high resolution close-ups of the painting. To make sure the focus is right on each brush stroke, it’s equipped with a laser and a sonar that—much like a bat—uses high frequency sound to measure the distance of the artwork. Once each detail is captured, our software takes the thousands of close-up shots and, like a jigsaw, stitches the pieces together into one single image.

Many of the works of our greatest artists are fragile and sensitive to light and humidity. With the Art Camera, museums can share these priceless works with the global public while ensuring they're preserved for future generations. We want to give museums the tools they need to do this important work, so we're sending a fleet of these cameras from museum to museum around the world—for free.

The Art Camera will dramatically increase the scale and depth at which museums are able to provide access to our shared cultural heritage to anyone around the world. For example, if you wanted to see Van Gogh’s six famous portraits of the Roulin family up close, you’d need to travel across the Netherlands then over to LA and New York. Now the Art Camera can travel for you. It’s already captured the Portrait of Armand Roulin, which you can explore alongside the rest of the family, all in one place.

Today, we’re sharing the first thousand ultra-high resolution images of artworks from artists including Pissarro, Signac, Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Monet and many more from museums across Australia, India, the Netherlands, Brazil and everywhere in between. As we prepare to celebrate International Museum Day and welcome more than 25 new museums on the Google Cultural Institute, we want to thank everyone who worked with us to test the new camera in the recent months. Thanks to their work, today you can start zooming and explore more art in the details than ever before!

Posted by Ben St. John, Engineer, Google Cultural Institute Ben St. John Engineer Google Cultural Institute ]]> hidden signature or the individual dabs of paint that give the impression of shimmering, turbulent waters.

Zooming into these images is the closest thing to walking up to the real thing with a magnifying glass. This is why we’re so excited about our new Art Camera—a custom-built camera ready to travel around the world to bring people more of these ultra-high-resolution images than ever possible before.

The Port of Rotterdam by Paul Signac, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen

A gigapixel image is made of over one billion pixels, and can bring out details invisible to the naked eye. So creating digital images in such high resolution is a complex technical challenge. You need time, highly specialized and expensive equipment, and only a few people in the world can do the job. In the first five years of the Google Cultural Institute, we’ve been able to share about 200 gigapixel images. But we want to do much more. That’s why we developed the Art Camera.

The Art Camera is a robotic camera, custom-built to create gigapixel images faster and more easily. A robotic system steers the camera automatically from detail to detail, taking hundreds of high resolution close-ups of the painting. To make sure the focus is right on each brush stroke, it’s equipped with a laser and a sonar that—much like a bat—uses high frequency sound to measure the distance of the artwork. Once each detail is captured, our software takes the thousands of close-up shots and, like a jigsaw, stitches the pieces together into one single image.

Many of the works of our greatest artists are fragile and sensitive to light and humidity. With the Art Camera, museums can share these priceless works with the global public while ensuring they're preserved for future generations. We want to give museums the tools they need to do this important work, so we're sending a fleet of these cameras from museum to museum around the world—for free.

The Art Camera will dramatically increase the scale and depth at which museums are able to provide access to our shared cultural heritage to anyone around the world. For example, if you wanted to see Van Gogh’s six famous portraits of the Roulin family up close, you’d need to travel across the Netherlands then over to LA and New York. Now the Art Camera can travel for you. It’s already captured the Portrait of Armand Roulin, which you can explore alongside the rest of the family, all in one place.

Today, we’re sharing the first thousand ultra-high resolution images of artworks from artists including Pissarro, Signac, Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Monet and many more from museums across Australia, India, the Netherlands, Brazil and everywhere in between. As we prepare to celebrate International Museum Day and welcome more than 25 new museums on the Google Cultural Institute, we want to thank everyone who worked with us to test the new camera in the recent months. Thanks to their work, today you can start zooming and explore more art in the details than ever before!

Posted by Ben St. John, Engineer, Google Cultural Institute ]]> https://googledata.org/google-blog/an-eye-for-detail-zoom-through-1000-artworks-thanks-to-the-new-art-camera-from-the-google-cultural-institute/feed/ 0 Introducing Spaces, a tool for small group sharing https://googledata.org/google-blog/introducing-spaces-a-tool-for-small-group-sharing/ https://googledata.org/google-blog/introducing-spaces-a-tool-for-small-group-sharing/#comments Mon, 16 May 2016 14:40:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=7b60313de6ab8a219626e8b534411e8f
We wanted to build a better group sharing experience, so we made a new app called Spaces that lets people get people together instantly to share around any topic.

With Spaces, it’s simple to find and share articles, videos and images without leaving the app, since Google Search, YouTube, and Chrome come built in.

When someone shares something new to a space, the conversational view lets you see what the group is talking about without missing a beat.

And if you ever want to find something that was shared earlier—articles, videos, comments or even images—a quick search lets you pull it up in a snap.

When someone shares something new to a space, the conversational view lets you see what the group is talking about without missing a beat.

And if you ever want to find something that was shared earlier—articles, videos, comments or even images—a quick search lets you pull it up in a snap.

You can create a space with just one tap for any topic and invite anyone via messaging, email, a social network, or whatever way you like.

We’ll also be experimenting with Spaces this week at Google I/O. We’ve created a space for each session so that developers can connect with each other and Googlers around topics at I/O, and we've got a few surprises too. If you’re joining us in person at I/O, make sure you install Spaces on Android or iOS before you arrive!

Spaces is rolling out today on Android, iOS, desktop, and mobile web for all Gmail accounts. Give it a try and create your first space today.

Posted by Luke Wroblewski, Product Director ]]> https://googledata.org/google-blog/introducing-spaces-a-tool-for-small-group-sharing/feed/ 0 Introducing The Data Center Mural Project https://googledata.org/google-blog/introducing-the-data-center-mural-project/ https://googledata.org/google-blog/introducing-the-data-center-mural-project/#comments Thu, 12 May 2016 16:22:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=418c1d8c89272d074261e4f3cc6ca775
To begin to change that, we created the Data Center Mural Project: a partnership with artists to bring a bit of the magic from the inside of our data centers to the outside.

We’re starting with two data center locations.

In Mayes County, Oklahoma, digital artist Jenny Odell’s mural is made up of Google Maps satellite imagery. Her mural artwork focuses on types of infrastructure that enable the flow of goods, power and information—not unlike data centers themselves.

Belgium local street artist Oli-B took inspiration from “the cloud” for his colorful mural on the outside of our St. Ghislain data center. He’s painted clouds that include elements specific to the region, the data center and the people who run it—including the sheep that roam the data center grounds and a balloon from the annual festival L'Ascension à Saint-Ghislain.

Soon, we’ll add murals at two more data centers, and eventually we hope to bring the project to more locations around the world. Check out photos, videos and more at g.co/datacentermurals.

Posted by Joe Kava, VP Google Data Centers https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-x6bAhXfUGcM/VzSicUl9qII/AAAAAAAASR8/qfqskRgB2Kov5cbQzqF8ibFw9LL7eXZCACLcB/s1600/Launch-Thumbnail%2B%25281%2529.jpg Joe Kava VP Google Data Centers ]]>
To begin to change that, we created the Data Center Mural Project: a partnership with artists to bring a bit of the magic from the inside of our data centers to the outside.

We’re starting with two data center locations.

In Mayes County, Oklahoma, digital artist Jenny Odell’s mural is made up of Google Maps satellite imagery. Her mural artwork focuses on types of infrastructure that enable the flow of goods, power and information—not unlike data centers themselves.

Belgium local street artist Oli-B took inspiration from “the cloud” for his colorful mural on the outside of our St. Ghislain data center. He’s painted clouds that include elements specific to the region, the data center and the people who run it—including the sheep that roam the data center grounds and a balloon from the annual festival L'Ascension à Saint-Ghislain.

Soon, we’ll add murals at two more data centers, and eventually we hope to bring the project to more locations around the world. Check out photos, videos and more at g.co/datacentermurals.

Posted by Joe Kava, VP Google Data Centers ]]> https://googledata.org/google-blog/introducing-the-data-center-mural-project/feed/ 0 Translate where you need it: in any app, offline, and wherever you see Chinese https://googledata.org/google-blog/translate-where-you-need-it-in-any-app-offline-and-wherever-you-see-chinese/ https://googledata.org/google-blog/translate-where-you-need-it-in-any-app-offline-and-wherever-you-see-chinese/#comments Wed, 11 May 2016 15:00:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=801aee6d714b91d004a124adf731d258
First, say hello to Tap to Translate on Android. We know millions of you painstakingly copy-paste text between Google Translate and other apps. Now, you can just copy the text of a chat, comment, song lyric, etc. in whichever app you’re using, and a translation will pop up right there—no need to switch apps:

Watch the video to learn more. Tap to Translate works for all 103 of Google Translate’s languages on any Android phone running Jellybean (4.2) and above.

Next, Offline Mode now works on iOS, and joins Android in using small offline packages. We know that many of you found the previous packages too big to download on unreliable data connections or to keep on your phone’s limited storage. That’s why we shrunk them by 90 percent, to a much more manageable 25 MB each.

Offline Mode is easy to set up: Just tap the arrow next to the language name to download the package for that language, and then you’ll be ready to do text translations whether you’re online or not—and it works with Tap to Translate too. We’ve just added a Filipino language pack, bringing our total number of offline languages to 52.

Finally, we’re adding Word Lens in Chinese. It’s our 29th language for instant visual translation, and it reads both to and from English, for both Simplified and Traditional Chinese. Try it on menus, signs, packages, and other printed text. As with all Word Lens languages, it works offline.

With Tap to Translate, improved Offline Mode, and Word Lens in Chinese, we hope you’ll find the latest version of Google Translate a helpful companion. These updates are rolling out over the next few days.

Posted by Barak Turovsky, Product Lead, Google Translate
]]> https://googledata.org/google-blog/translate-where-you-need-it-in-any-app-offline-and-wherever-you-see-chinese/feed/ 0 Putting a Spotlight on Local News Sources https://googledata.org/google-news/putting-a-spotlight-on-local-news-sources/ https://googledata.org/google-news/putting-a-spotlight-on-local-news-sources/#comments Mon, 09 May 2016 10:00:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=9f59b7ccfa2c98c261a0dbc958fdb598
TL;DR Google News has launched a “Local Source” Tag to surface local coverage of major stories.
Local news publishers play a critical role in covering the stories that impact us every day in our cities, schools and neighborhoods. Local reporters are often members of the communities they serve, bringing additional context and perspective to a story. Local news is also important to our users: according to the March 2015 Pew Research study Local News in a Digital Age, which looked at three metro areas across the U.S., “nearly nine-in-ten residents follow local news closely—and about half do so very closely”.

With more than 75,000 news sources, many of the publishers in Google News specialize on specific topics and locales. The local section in Google News surfaces content from regional papers to hyper-local blogs that otherwise wouldn’t appear in national news.

But not all local stories stay local. When a local story is picked up by national publishers, it can be difficult for local sources to be heard even after they’ve done the legwork and research to break a story. Consistent with our goal to surface diverse perspectives, we’re excited to share that a new "Local Source" tag is now live across all Google News editions. This new feature brings greater exposure for local news outlets reporting on stories that have gone national. "Local Source" articles are identified automatically by looking at where a publisher has written about in the past and comparing that to the story location. You’ll see the tagged articles in the expanded story box on news.google.com and in the Google News & Weather iOS and Android apps.

A great example of hyperlocal news is 9-year-old reporter Hilde Lysiak. Hilde made headlines when she reported on the story of a murder in her hometown which she published on her own local news site -- Orange Street News (AMP-enabled to load really fast on mobile). Her reporting attracted the attention of major newspapers and morning shows like Good Morning America after she was criticised for being too young to cover hard news. It was one reason we invited Hilde to visit the Googleplex on World Press Freedom Day 2016. And just like Hilde, at Google News we are committed to connecting people to the news that matters most to them -- be that local, national or international.

9-year-old Hilde Lysiak visited Google on World Press Freedom Day, May 3, 2016.

]]>
TL;DR Google News has launched a “Local Source” Tag to surface local coverage of major stories.
Local news publishers play a critical role in covering the stories that impact us every day in our cities, schools and neighborhoods. Local reporters are often members of the communities they serve, bringing additional context and perspective to a story. Local news is also important to our users: according to the March 2015 Pew Research study Local News in a Digital Age, which looked at three metro areas across the U.S., “nearly nine-in-ten residents follow local news closely—and about half do so very closely”.

9-year-old Hilde Lysiak visited Google on World Press Freedom Day, May 3, 2016.

]]> https://googledata.org/google-news/putting-a-spotlight-on-local-news-sources/feed/ 0 Digital #LoveLetters from children of the incarcerated https://googledata.org/google-blog/digital-loveletters-from-children-of-the-incarcerated/ https://googledata.org/google-blog/digital-loveletters-from-children-of-the-incarcerated/#comments Sat, 07 May 2016 16:00:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=5d60e573f89a3d0c67121dc2c952217f we announced a new effort from Google.org focused on racial justice, including support for organizations working to end mass incarceration. This is a critical issue in the United States, which represents 5 percent of the world’s population, but 25 percent of the world’s prison population. And Blacks are incarcerated at nearly six times the rate of whites—in fact, the United States imprisons a larger percentage of its Black population than South Africa did at the height of apartheid.

An often overlooked fact of mass incarceration is that many first-time, nonviolent offenders who receive prison sentences are parents. There are 2.7 million American children with a parent behind bars, and Black children are 7.5 times more likely to have a parent behind bars than their white counterparts. The experience of having a parent in prison is traumatizing to a child: a new study from the Annie E. Casey Foundation found that the incarceration of a parent can have as much impact on a child’s well-being as abuse or domestic violence.

So this Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, in an effort to raise awareness of the impact of mass incarceration, we’ve partnered with NGOs on Love Letters: a series of videos that contain children’s messages of love for a mother or father in prison. These digital love letters are demonstrations of the unbreakable love between parent and child, and of the pain of growing up without a parent present.

The videos reveal a side of mass incarceration that many people don’t get a chance to see. They allow us to bear witness, to be proximate to the very human costs of incarceration. Before I joined Google, I spent years as a human rights lawyer working on criminal justice reform. When I visited women’s prisons, I saw how broken women prisoners were because almost all were mothers to small children. Few received visits from family or children because of how remote women’s prisons usually are. When children did visit, some weren’t allowed to hug or touch their mothers. I also visited detention centers for girls, where many were the daughters of incarcerated mothers. The girls had been trafficked or arrested for running away from group homes or abusive foster placements, and they shared with me the pain of not having a mother there to teach them and protect them.

The impact of mass incarceration is generational and devastating. I hope that after watching these videos, you’ll choose to learn more about the critical work organizations like The Osborne Association, Hour Children, and Google.org grantees Essie Justice Group, the Ella Baker Center and the Equal Justice Initiative are doing to support children affected by incarceration and to advance criminal justice reform. You can also learn more about mass incarceration on vera.org and contribute to the conversation with #LoveLetters on social media.

Posted by Malika Saada Saar, Public Policy and Government Relations Senior Counsel – Civil and Human Rights Malika Saada Saar Public Policy and Government Relations Senior Counsel – Civil and Human Rights ]]> we announced a new effort from Google.org focused on racial justice, including support for organizations working to end mass incarceration. This is a critical issue in the United States, which represents 5 percent of the world’s population, but 25 percent of the world’s prison population. And Blacks are incarcerated at nearly six times the rate of whites—in fact, the United States imprisons a larger percentage of its Black population than South Africa did at the height of apartheid.

An often overlooked fact of mass incarceration is that many first-time, nonviolent offenders who receive prison sentences are parents. There are 2.7 million American children with a parent behind bars, and Black children are 7.5 times more likely to have a parent behind bars than their white counterparts. The experience of having a parent in prison is traumatizing to a child: a new study from the Annie E. Casey Foundation found that the incarceration of a parent can have as much impact on a child’s well-being as abuse or domestic violence.

So this Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, in an effort to raise awareness of the impact of mass incarceration, we’ve partnered with NGOs on Love Letters: a series of videos that contain children’s messages of love for a mother or father in prison. These digital love letters are demonstrations of the unbreakable love between parent and child, and of the pain of growing up without a parent present.

The videos reveal a side of mass incarceration that many people don’t get a chance to see. They allow us to bear witness, to be proximate to the very human costs of incarceration. Before I joined Google, I spent years as a human rights lawyer working on criminal justice reform. When I visited women’s prisons, I saw how broken women prisoners were because almost all were mothers to small children. Few received visits from family or children because of how remote women’s prisons usually are. When children did visit, some weren’t allowed to hug or touch their mothers. I also visited detention centers for girls, where many were the daughters of incarcerated mothers. The girls had been trafficked or arrested for running away from group homes or abusive foster placements, and they shared with me the pain of not having a mother there to teach them and protect them.

The impact of mass incarceration is generational and devastating. I hope that after watching these videos, you’ll choose to learn more about the critical work organizations like The Osborne Association, Hour Children, and Google.org grantees Essie Justice Group, the Ella Baker Center and the Equal Justice Initiative are doing to support children affected by incarceration and to advance criminal justice reform. You can also learn more about mass incarceration on vera.org and contribute to the conversation with #LoveLetters on social media.

Posted by Malika Saada Saar, Public Policy and Government Relations Senior Counsel – Civil and Human Rights ]]> https://googledata.org/google-blog/digital-loveletters-from-children-of-the-incarcerated/feed/ 0