Wednesday 31 October 2018
Tuesday 30 October 2018
Find out what motivates the Googlers building technology for everyone
There’s a common belief that having a disability means living a life with limits. At Google, we believe that technology can remove some of those limits and give everyone the same power to achieve their goals.
Building products that are accessible and work for everyone is important to us, and it starts with understanding the challenges that the more than one billion people around the world with a disability face every day.
As we come to the close of National Disability Awareness Month in the U.S., we’d like to introduce you to a few Googlers dedicated to removing those challenges and making technology more accessible.
by via The Keyword
Monday 29 October 2018
AI for Social Good
In pop culture, artificial intelligence (AI) often shows up as a robot companion, like TARS in “Interstellar,” or some far-out superintelligence. But in reality, AI—computer programming tools that help us find patterns in complex data and make everyday products more useful—already powers a lot of technology around us, and is addressing some of society’s biggest unsolved challenges.
For the past few years we’ve been applying core Google AI research and engineering to projects with positive societal impact, including forecasting floods, protecting whales, and predicting famine. Today we’re unifying these efforts in a new program called AI for Social Good. We’re applying AI to a wide range of problems, partnering with external organizations to work toward solutions.
But we’re far from having all the answers—or even knowing all the questions. We want people from as many backgrounds as possible to surface problems that AI can help solve, and to be empowered to create solutions themselves. So as a part of AI for Social Good, we’re also launching the Google AI Impact Challenge, a global call for nonprofits, academics, and social enterprises from around the world to submit proposals on how they could use AI to help address some of the world’s greatest social, humanitarian and environmental problems.
We’ll help selected organizations bring their proposals to life with coaching from Google’s AI experts, Google.org grant funding from a $25 million pool, and credits and consulting from Google Cloud. Grantees will also join a specialized Launchpad Accelerator program, and we’ll tailor additional support to each project’s needs in collaboration with data science nonprofit DataKind. In spring of 2019, an international panel of experts, who work in computer science and the social sector, will help us choose the top proposals.
We don’t expect applicants to be AI experts. For any nonprofit or researcher who has a great idea or wants help brainstorming one, we've built an educational guide with introductions to AI and the types of problems it’s well-suited for, as well as workshops in key locations around the world.
To give you a sense of the potential we see, here are a few examples of how Google and others have already used AI over the past few years:
- Wildlife conservation:To better protect endangered whales, we have to know where they are. With AI developed at Google—in the same vein as research by college student Daniel de Leon—it’s possible to quickly scan 100,000 hours of audio recorded in the Pacific to identify whale sounds. We hope one day we can not only better identify whales in these recordings, but also accurately deploy this system at scale to find and protect whales.
- Employment: In South Africa, Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator helps connect unemployed youth with entry-level positions. As a participant in Google Cloud’s Data Solutions for Change program, they’ve used data analytics and ML to match over 50,000 candidates with jobs.
- Flood prediction: Floods affect up to 250 million people, causing thousands of fatalities and inflicting billions of dollars of economic damage every year. At Google, we’ve combined physics-based modeling and AI to provide earlier and more accurate flood warnings through Google Public Alerts.
- Wildfire prevention: Two high school students in California built a device that uses AI to identify and predict areas in a forest that are susceptible to wildfires. This technology could one day provide an early warning to fire authorities.
- Infant health: Ubenwa is a Canadian company that built an AI system to analyze the sounds of a baby crying and predict the risk of birth asphyxia (when a baby's brain and other organs don’t get enough oxygen and nutrients during birth). It’s a mobile app so it can be widely used even where doctors aren’t readily available.
We’re excited to see what new ideas nonprofits, developers and social entrepreneurs from across the world come up with—and we’re looking forward to supporting them as best we can.
by via The Keyword
Find Halloween tricks, treats and other goodies in your neighborhood
You can find pretty much anything on Google Maps—a restaurant that matches your personal preferences, a place to charge your electric vehicle, or your local farmer’s market. But for those instances when Google Maps itself doesn’t have what you need, Google Maps Platform powers millions of third party experiences to help you find what you’re looking for—using the same map you know and love.
For Halloween, that means Nextdoor’s annual Halloween Treat Map, which allows neighbors to mark their homes with a candy corn icon if they plan to pass out candy, a haunted house icon if they plan to give their neighbors a spooky trick, or a teal pumpkin icon if they plan to pass out non-food treats.
Wondering why the non-food treat option exists? According to FARE (Food Allergy Research & Education), one in 13 children has a food allergy. For children with allergies, even a tiny trace of their allergen has the potential to cause a severe reaction. Unfortunately, many popular Halloween candies contain nuts, milk, egg, soy or wheat, which are some of the most common allergens in children and adults. By providing non-food treats, neighbors can help create a safe, fun alternative for children with food allergies and other conditions for whom candy may present a problem. And the Treat Map helps parents of those children find the homes in their neighborhood to stop by to make sure they have a safe and fun trick-or-treat experience.
Nextdoor is a free and private social network for neighborhoods used in over 210,000 communities across the globe—so chances are you’ll have a Treat Map in your very own neighborhood. To see for yourself, download the Nextdoor app from Google Play or the App Store or find it on the web at www.nextdoor.com.
by via The Keyword
Friday 26 October 2018
A passion for roasting coffee enables a firefighter to help fellow first responders
Editor’s note: Here’s the story of how Luke Schneider--a firefighter, paramedic and business owner--used technology to grow his coffee business and share his passion with others, while also giving back to his community. Learn more about Grow with Google--our initiative to help create economic opportunities for all Americans--here, and hear more about how we are supporting First Responders Day here.
Like so many Americans, seeing the heroic efforts of first responders in the aftermath of September 11th struck a chord with me. Their willingness to put their own lives in danger to save others, their tireless efforts over the following weeks and months, and their dedication to each other inspired me to become a firefighter myself.
The life of a firefighter can be stressful, and no single day is the same. But I always felt like a part of a family, especially when we gathered around for one consistent ritual: brewing a pot of coffee to get us through long shifts. That comforting, communal feeling was something I always cherished.
My wife Kate and I decided to start roasting coffee for our friends and family. This shared passion drove us to start our own business: Fire Dept. Coffee.
Like many small businesses, the beginning wasn’t easy. We didn’t know a lot about marketing and building a brand. But things really took off about two years ago, when we took our store online and started using Google My Business. Our online reviews helped more people find our website, and now almost 100 percent of our sales are online. We’ve also doubled our production in the past 12 months, and we currently employ seven people--half of them former firefighters or veterans themselves.
As our business grew, we wanted to do more for the community that had given us so much. After meeting Damien Pereira—a firefighter who was told he would never walk again after a serious spinal injury in the line of duty—we’re starting the Fire Dept. Coffee Foundation. We’ll donate 10 percent of our proceeds to supporting injured firefighters, first responders and their families.
With Fire Dept. Coffee, I want to continue to serve great tasting coffee to hard working people. But my highest honor is that our business growth allows us to give back to the ones who devote their lives to helping others.
by via The Keyword
Creepy images on Maps—and why they’re actually not that creepy
An extra leg. A super long arm. A shadowy figure. Even a plane in a lake. If you creep around Maps satellite imagery or Street View long enough, you’ll run into some seemingly spooky images. But don’t jump to any quick conclusions—they're never what they seem. Here are five spectacularly spooky snaps and reasons why they’re really not spooky at all!
Portal to a different dimension
I’ve never walked into a time portal or travelled between dimensions, but I imagine this is exactly what it would look like right before I’d disappear from reality and reappear in who knows where. At first glance, it’s easy to jump to conclusions, But the reality is a lot less exciting. The colors and graininess of this image are due to something many amateur photographers are familiar with – low light. Lighting is key to great imagery, which is why we make an effort to plan our Street View collects accordingly.
In Minnesota, it looks like a commercial aircraft has plummeted into Lake Harriet, taking its unfortunate passengers with it. But don’t worry—no humans or aircraft were harmed in the making of this image. The reason it looks like the plane is underwater is because each satellite image you see on the map is actually a compilation of several images. Fast-moving objects, like planes, often show up in only one of the many images we use for a given area. When this happens, faint remnants of the fast-moving object can sometimes be seen.
One glance at this and you might just be convinced you’ve found the gateway to the spirit realm—and spotted an evil apparition on its way in! But lo and behold, there’s a perfectly good explanation for this one, too. The darkness and hazy figure are caused by a snafu we’ve all made ourselves – the camera cover is on! Small holes in the cover allowed just enough light in to capture this scary view.
We’ve all thought we’ve seen a ghost out of the corner of our eye (or at least I have) and from this image, you’d think you finally have proof of the other side. Fortunately (or unfortunately if you’re a ghost hunter), these ghostly figures appear rather often in Street View. This is because Street View cameras take photographs as they move. Once the photographs have been taken, they go through computer processing before they're ready for use on Google Maps. This includes stitching the still photos into panoramas. Sometimes when someone or something is moving while the images are captured, we capture only part of that moving object.
The dark side in your own front yard
Some super fans might be excited by this image, but others might find it terrifying to see the dark side in their very own front yard. There’s no technical explanation here. This was simply a good old-fashioned trickster who managed to get himself snapped by our Street View camera while taking out the trash—in full costume.
So sorry ghouls and ghosts, but these images just aren’t what they seem. Next time you see a spooky image on Maps or Street View, remember that whether it’s a technical glitch or just a person being silly, there’s always a perfectly reasonable explanation...or is there?
by via The Keyword
How do you thank someone for saving your life?
When I was a kid, I was in awe of first responders. At 15, I joined the Youth Corps of my hometown ambulance squad to learn First Aid. When the crew answered an emergency call, I rode in the ambulance with them. The best part was when we came to a stop. Once the doors of the ambulance opened, what happened next could be life changing.
Millions of brave women and men make their living or volunteer their time helping people in crisis, often risking their lives in the process, not once, but over and over—floods, traffic accidents, or pulling someone to safety from a burning building. For the average person, it could be devastating to experience just one of those events in a lifetime. For a first responder, that could be any day of the week. That’s why I’m excited to be part of Google’s announcement today, especially in light of the series of recent natural disasters in the US and around the world.
We wanted to find a meaningful way to thank first responders, one that would be as valuable to them as their work has been to us. From our research and from talking to organizations that work with these men and women, we know that being brave and strong doesn’t mean first responders aren’t impacted by the stress of their jobs. Many first responders struggle with the memories of those they didn’t save or the traumas they witnessed.
The First Responder Support Network (FRSN) was developed by and for first responders. Their goal is to provide education and assistance to those still recovering from incidents that impact their day-to-day life and thoughts, such as a child who didn’t make it or a wounded colleague.
Pat Green, FRSN.org’s executive director, told my colleague at Google: “It’s hard for a first responder to ask for help. I know this from personal experience. Together with our volunteers we provide understanding, hope, and a community of care, letting others know they don’t have to walk this journey alone."
FRSN’s one-week residential programs offer first responders access to counselors attuned to their unique experiences with a 2:1 ratio of volunteer peers who can share how they coped with similar situations. The waiting list for these programs is up to six months long.
Today we are granting $1 million to help the First Responder Support Network extend the reach of its programs. We will help expand its operations in Missouri, Arizona and Oregon, as well as help them open in two new locations by 2020. In addition, we will fund 80 scholarships for first responders who might not otherwise be able to attend the program.
I consider it a privilege to have worked side by side with first responders from my years as emergency medical services (EMS) volunteer to my recent work with the Google.org Crisis Connectivity program. Now I want to say thank you to first responders for all you do to keep our communities safe.
by via The Keyword
Thursday 25 October 2018
Reimagining the Google supply chain
Ever wonder how something like the Google Pixel starts out as a design and ends up in the palm of your hand?
To make products, like the Google Pixel, and all the technology that powers them—like Search, Gmail and YouTube—we rely on our supply chain. As we create more products and services for you, we also expand the reach of our supply chain to include new places, people and materials. Today, this includes more than 500 suppliers around the world who support our operations and manufacture hardware for devices and data centers.
As we work to continuously improve the way we design, source, produce, deliver, repair, and recover products, we wanted to share our commitment to create value along the entire supply chain. In our Responsible Supply Chain report, you’ll learn how we are working with individuals, communities and environments to do so. The report highlights our commitments and the progress we’ve made in areas like worker well-being, environmental impact and conflict minerals.
See the supply chain in action with immersive VR
If you want to learn more about where materials and products come from and the people and places that help create the devices we use in our daily lives, take a look at two new virtual reality project.
In our Made by Me VR experience, you’ll see what it’s like to walk in a worker’s shoes for the day at a Flex supplier factory in Zhuhai, China. With a smartphone and Daydream View, Cardboard, or another VR headset, you’ll be immersed in a 360-degree environment of the factory where you can view the factory floor and scan the faces of workers during an impromptu break-time corner.
Next up, in the Journey Of Gold, we will take you to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to see how the Nyamurhale mine—which once sold illegally mined, taxed and smuggled gold—has now implemented systems to aid conflict-free gold sourcing.
Similar to these two stories, we envision a supply chain that equally values people's lives, the environment, and local communities. Through transparency and collaboration, our goal is to unlock new possibilities and advance the technology industry toward a more sustainable future. Learn more at sustainability.google/responsible-supply-chain/.
by via The Keyword
Bust ghosts in the newest game built with Maps—Ghostbusters World
Earlier this year, we introduced a new way for game developers to create real world games using information about the world from Google Maps. It enables game studios to easily reimagine our world as whatever they can dream up and helps them find the best places in the world for players to fuel up or start a mission.
With Ghostbusters World™, the newest game built with Google Maps, you can grab your virtual proton pack and bust ghosts—all as you explore a game world built on the Google Maps you know and love. Brought to you by Sony Pictures Consumer Products, Ghost Corps, publisher FourThirtyThree Inc. (4:33), and developer Next Age, Ghostbusters World is available for free on Google Play and the App Store now.
As a Ghostbuster, your mission is to “bust” ghosts to keep the world safe and ghost-free (just in time for Halloween, in case you’re superstitious). Lurking among 3D buildings, landmarks and parks, you’ll find hundreds of ghosts from all dimensions of the Ghostbusters franchise like Wes Pinker, Splat and Achira—in addition to fan favorites like Stay Puft and Slimer. Catch them in your proton beam to drain their energy and then capture them in your containment unit. As you advance in the game, you’ll gain access to the latest in spectral neutralization and trapping technology.
Because some ghosts are just too strong to take down on your own (would you want to face Stay Puft solo?), you can team up with nearby Ghostbusters in multiplayer boss raids. Not a team player? No problem. If competition is what you’re after, just build up your ghost team (the ghosts you capture and store in your bank) and enter battles against other Ghostbusters around the world to gain valuable resources needed to make your ghosts stronger.
For those Ghostbusters who delight in the story—not just the action—there’s an all original story mode featuring your favorite classic characters. And if you’re feeling festive (or daring) this Halloween, there’s an AR Mode (built with ARCore on Android) that lets you blur the lines between ghostly fantasy and reality.
If you want to do your part to make sure your local streets are ghost-free this Halloween, try Ghostbusters World. Download it now from Google Play and the App Store.
by via The Keyword
Wednesday 24 October 2018
Fresh ways to stay up to date on your favorite places and find new ones
Ever wandered by your favorite store just to find out you missed a great sale? Or maybe you’re always the last of your friends to find out about the new hot spots opening in town. With more than 150 million places on Google Maps and millions of people looking for places to go, we made two updates so it’s even easier for you to keep up with the places you care about and find out about places coming soon.
Those using Google Maps for Android can now follow places right from the app. Rolling out now, just search for that coffee shop you love or that clothing store you’ve been meaning to pop into and tap the “Follow” button. Once you’ve followed places, news from them—like events, offers and other updates—will appear in the For you tab (where available, with more countries coming soon!).
And for those of you who want to be in the know about all the new places opening around town, you’ll start seeing profiles for places before they even open on Google Maps for Android and mobile search—just look for the opening date in orange.
Places that are opening soon can create a free Business Profile that will appear to people up to 3 months in advance of opening—letting trendsetters know ahead of time to mark their calendars. The feature is rolling out over the next few weeks and places interested in making sure their coming soon locations are shown on Maps and Search can get started with Google My Business here.
by via The Keyword
Tuesday 23 October 2018
More 4K, more fun with Google Play Movies & TV
Movie nights just got better! Now you can enjoy your favorite movies in the highest quality possible on Google Play Movies & TV—without ever leaving your couch.
Check out the full scoop on what’s new in the U.S. and Canada:
Movies you own will automatically be upgraded to 4K, on us:When 4K titles are available from participating Hollywood studios, we’ll upgrade your past movie purchases so you can stream in 4K, even if you originally bought the movie in SD or HD. It’s all on us, just open the Play Movies & TV app and we’ll let you know which titles have been upgraded.
Pay less for 4K movies:Starting today, most 4K movies on Google Play will cost you less, so you have more options to enjoy upgraded movies. Get started by browsing our top 4K titles.
Bring 4K to your TV: You shouldn’t need to buy an additional device to watch your 4K movies on the 4K TV you already own. In addition to 4K Sony Bravia TVs, you can now watch in 4K using the Play Movies & TV app on most 4K Samsung Smart TVs, and we’re working on adding support for LG as well.
Enjoy updated designs to our smart TV app:We’ve updated our app for Samsung, LG and Vizio TVs with a modern look and feel to provide a better experience.
We think watching in 4K should be a no brainer, so we’re continuously working to make that a reality. With Google Play, it’s now easier than ever for you to watch movies in the best quality possible, no matter which device you're using. And it doesn't stop here, we'll continue to make improvements so you can sit back, relax and enjoy your favorite movies, whenever and wherever.
by via The Keyword
Opening up opportunities in the UK
Today alone, you may have used Search at home to check the weather; your kids may have used YouTube to help learn something new at school; and you may have used Google Ads to seek out new customers at work..
Millions of people across the UK choose to use Google tools every day, but traditional economic measures do not take their value into account since many of these products are free. We wanted to explore the real value people unlock by using Google tools. Research firm Public First investigated how Google helps people work more productively, learn more, and have more fun across the UK. Here are a few of their key findings:
- At home.Families have fun with our products and use them to free up time. Every year, two thirds of adults use YouTube to figure out how to do DIY projects, and 60 percent use it to help them cook. People value online search so much that the average household would rather give up an hour of sleep each night than give up access to online search.
- At school.Parents and teachers alike use our products to support learning as part of the British education system. Parents of more than half of the school kids in the country said they use Google and YouTube to help their kids with their homework.
- At work.Google services help enable the growth of startups and scaleups via Google for Startups Campus London. They also help a new generation of small businesses, like independent app developers and YouTube creators, reach new global audiences and be more productive. Public First found that 88 percent of British adults use a search engine at least once a day to help get things done, which creates a time saving equivalent to an extra bank holiday every year.
The report uses a variety of methods to quantify the value of Google services to families throughout the UK. his includes looking at the value of time saved by using Google products and also what these free services are worth to those who use them. For consumers, the analysis shows that Google services provide at least £37 billion in consumer surplus.
Public First also calculated the business economic activity supported by Google services like Google Ads, Adsense, and Android. By combining third party estimates of the UK’s share of the revenue of these services with other work looking at the average Return on Investments they enable, the report estimates that Google’s services are conservatively supporting at least £55 billion in economic activity. And the combined value of all free internet services could boost GDP by 0.75 percentage points annually--or the equivalent of adding an industry the size of pharmaceuticals or agriculture every year.
Regardless of age, education, income or location, our products aim to benefit everyone. To make sure that everyone has access to these opportunities, all sorts of people, with various personal and professional ambitions, are attending Google Digital Garage sessions throughout the UK to up-skill in digital literacy. No matter what people want to do today or where they want to go next , Google is committed to helping open up possibilities for them.
We are proud of the findings in this report and invite you to read them in full here.
by via The Keyword
Monday 22 October 2018
A new approach to enabling abundant wireless connectivity
The ability to connect with people and services—whether that’s sending a message or streaming a video—has become part of our daily lives. Yet, far too often, we encounter situations where the connection is just too slow to use—or we have no connectivity at all.
In the U.S., while mobile Internet access is widely available, download speeds are among the slowest in the developed world. Why? You can think of wireless networks like a highway, and they’re getting congested as demand continues to grow, leading to slowdowns. So if we increase available wireless spectrum, it’s like adding lanes on a highway to carry additional traffic.
Together with a multitude of industries including mobile, cable, IoT and more, we’ve worked closely with the U.S. government to foster policies for a new shared spectrum approach to wireless connectivity. The Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) is a successful example of this approach. CBRS allows a wide array of business models to use shared spectrum—from mobile carriers to rural broadband providers to venue owners—without having to spend significant resources to acquire usage rights. A cloud-based Spectrum Access System (SAS) intelligently manages sharing between new and incumbent users. By sharing underutilized portions of spectrum, CBRS adds capacity, lowers barriers to commercial entry and paves a path to 5G.
Unlike today’s wireless networks, CBRS will consist of densely packed radios from multiple providers all sharing the same spectrum, and sometimes even the same network. This completely changes the way you plan, deploy and operate your network. We are bringing the best of Google, such as our geo-spatial insight, network infrastructure and computational capabilities to deliver a suite of products to enable CBRS networks, starting with Google’s SAS.
It is genuinely exciting to see the wireless ecosystem embrace CBRS and ultimately enhance wireless Internet for everyone. We’ve been at this for a long time, going back to a Presidential study that proposed the framework behind CBRS. Now, CBRS is rapidly approaching commercial availability with first deployments expected this year.
If you want to get started with CBRS, we’d love to hear from you.
by via The Keyword
Friday 19 October 2018
Adding three new colors to the Nest Thermostat family
Your home is your space. It’s also a place where you can express your style with color and personal touches. And we want our products to reflect your aesthetic while giving you the help you need. So we recently introduced three new colors to the Nest Learning Thermostat lineup (bringing the total to seven) to give you more options to fit your style.
These new finishes—black, brass and polished steel—are part of the new Artists Collection, inspired by the work of industrial artists who create beautiful pieces using various metals. Just like the original Nest Learning Thermostat that comes in copper, black, stainless steel or white, these new thermostats are designed to look beautiful in your home while also keeping you comfortable and helping you save energy.
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Polished steelis a high-end, highly polished design for those who like to keep things timeless and classy.
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Mirror black is striking and bold, with the deep lacquered black look of a grand piano.
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Brass is warm and subtle - it can act as a pop of color for your home or blend in with other metal accents you may have.
They can program themselves to create a personalized schedule and turn down automatically to save energy when you’re away. You can control your thermostat from a phone, tablet, Google Home Hub or even an Android Watch or Apple Watch with the Nest or Google Home app. And, you can use your smart speaker or display to change the temperature with your voice—just say, “Hey Google, set the temperature to 68.”
These new Nest Learning Thermostats are available in the US (and the polished steel finish is also available in Canada) for $249.
by via The Keyword
Thursday 18 October 2018
Robbie Ivey’s story: how technology removes barriers
At Google we believe in the power of technology to make a difference in people’s lives. And for 19-year-old Robbie Ivey from Michigan, that certainly rings true.
Robbie has duchenne muscular dystrophy, which has left him able to control only his eyes, head and right thumb joint. Among the many challenges Robbie and his family face, nighttime is one of the key ones. For years, Robbie’s mom Carrie has set her alarm every few hours to get up and change his position in bed so he doesn’t get bed sores or infections. Earlier this year, a sleep-deprived Carrie put out a message to the Muscular Dystrophy Association asking for help to try and find a better way. She got a response from Bill Weir, a retired tech worker, who thought he could set up Robbie’s bed to be controlled by voice activation. While working on the bed, Bill had an epiphany: if he can control the bed this way, why not everything else in Robbie’s bedroom universe?
As part of our efforts to spotlight accessible technologies throughout National Disability Awareness Month, we hear directly from Robbie about how technology has helped him gain more independence in his life as he starts off on his first year at Oakland Universityin Rochester.
by via The Keyword
Wednesday 17 October 2018
Open platforms like Android unlock potential
As a scientist, educator and businesswoman, my goal is to engage as many young minds as possible to get them excited about science and technology. That’s why the explosion in affordable technology over the last few years has been so exciting for STEM evangelists like me. Technology is no longer available only to the affluent and the privileged; instead, computers, tablets and smartphones are in the hands of individuals across all income levels. Reaching such a diverse audience is critical to our society’s ability to design the next generation of digital technologies and train the workforce of the future.
As a professor and the founder and Chief Technology Officer atZyrobotics, a company that develops interactive STEM games and learning tools for children, I want our company’s educational programs to be available to the greatest number of people in order to have the greatest level of impact. In order to be successful, companies like mine need to reach kids where they spend their time—on their tablets, phones and other electronic learning devices. That means we want our apps to be compatible with as many devices as possible, and it’s why we’ve chosen to use Android’s open platform for our development. I’ve been able to reach far more people by building upon open platforms like Android than I ever could by teaching in a classroom.
As an app developer, I’ve benefited from Android’s ease of use, open coding platform, and popularity within diverse segments of the population. We've been able to expand our reach to all audiences, particularly those in disadvantaged communities. Many lower-income people (and many in developing countries) rely on more affordable or older Android devices, and because Android lets us update apps on older-model phones, we can ensure we’re providing the best experience to these users. Open platforms are also the main reason why most of our apps, including those that teach young children to code, are free.
Zyrobotics would be far less successful without the app stores housed on Android and Apple and the number of users we are able to reach through those platforms. Both Google and Apple’s app stores have been especially useful in helping us maximize our apps’ exposure to the children and parents with whom we want to connect, and helped us introduce important STEM concepts to children as early as five and six years old through30 STEM-focused apps and games, such as our award-winning Turtle “Learn to Code” app.
The United Statescontinues to lag behind other industrialized nations when it comes to preparing our children for STEM careers, and thattechnology workforce gap is partly a result of a lack of early engagement in STEM. Reaching children when their interests are just beginning to take shape is vital to building a more vibrant, diverse and successful STEM workforce for the future. Android helps us do that. I support smart regulation of technology companies that helps ensure that today’s technology be made even more widely available, accessible and unbiased.
The benefits of technology to educate and empower the next generation are immeasurable. Open platforms create opportunities—for companies like mine, and the people we serve. Let's keep it that way.
Ayanna Howard, Ph.D., is Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Zyrobotics, an educational technology company, and the Linda J. and Mark C. Smith Professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Her artificial intelligence (AI), robotics and assistive technology research has resulted in more than 250 peer-reviewed publications and a number of commercialized products.
by via The Keyword
Titan M makes Pixel 3 our most secure phone yet
Security has always been a top priority for Pixel, spanning both the hardware and software of our devices. This includes monthly security updates and yearly OS updates, so Pixel always has the most secure version of Android, as well as Google Play Protect to help safeguard your phone from malware. Last year on Pixel 2, we also included a dedicated tamper-resistant hardware security module to protect your lock screen and strengthen disk encryption.
This year, with Pixel 3, we’re advancing our investment in secure hardware with Titan M, an enterprise-grade security chip custom built for Pixel 3 to secure your most sensitive on-device data and operating system. With Titan M, we took the best features from the Titan chip used in Google Cloud data centers and tailored it for mobile.
Here are a few ways Titan M protects your phone.
Security in the Bootloader
First, to protect Android from outside tampering, we’ve integrated Titan M into Verified Boot, our secure boot process.
Titan M helps the bootloader—the program that validates and loads Android when the phone turns on—make sure that you’re running the right version of Android. Specifically, Titan M stores the last known safe Android version and prevents “bad actors” from moving your device back to run on an older, potentially vulnerable, version of Android behind your back. Titan M also prevents attackers running in Android attempting to unlock the bootloader.
Lock Screen Protection & Disk Encryption On-Device
Pixel 3 also uses Titan M to verify your lock screen passcode. It makes the process of guessing multiple password combinations harder by limiting the amount of logon attempts, making it difficult for bad actors to unlock your phone. Only upon successful verification of your passcode will Titan M allow for decryption.
In addition, the secure flash and fully independent computation of Titan M makes it harder for an attacker to tamper with this process to gain the secrets to decrypt your data.
Secure Transactions in Third-Party Apps
Third, Titan M is used not only to protect Android and its functionality, but also to protect third-party apps and secure sensitive transactions. With Android 9, apps can now take advantage of StrongBox KeyStore APIs to generate and store their private keys in Titan M. The Google Pay team is actively testing out these new APIs to secure transactions.
For apps that rely on user interaction to confirm a transaction, Titan M also enables Android 9 Protected Confirmation, an API for protecting the most security-critical operations. As more processes come online and go mobile—like e-voting, and P2P money transfers—these APIs can help to ensure that the user (not malware) has confirmed the transaction. Pixel 3 is the first device to ship with this protection.
Insider Attack Resistance
Last, but not least, to prevent tampering, Titan M is built with insider attack resistance. The firmware on Titan M will never be updated unless you have entered your passcode, meaning bad actors cannot bypass your lock screen to update the firmware to a malicious version.
With the Pixel 3, we’ve increased our investment in security and put industry-leading hardware features into the device, so you can rest assured that your security and privacy are well protected. In the coming months, the security community will be able to audit Titan through its open-source firmware. In the meantime, you can test out Titan M and all of the smarts Pixel 3 brings, when it goes on sale on Thursday, October 18 in the U.S.
by via The Keyword
Tuesday 16 October 2018
Complying with the EC’s Android decision
In July, in our response to the European Commission’s competition decision against Android, we said that rapid innovation, wide choice and falling prices are classic hallmarks of robust competition, and that Android has enabled all of them. We believe that Android has created more choice, not less. That’s why last week we filed our appeal of the Commission’s decision at the General Court of the European Union.
At the same time, we’ve been working on how to comply with the decision. We have now informed the European Commission of the changes we will make while the appeal is pending.
First, we’re updating the compatibility agreements with mobile device makers that set out how Android is used to develop smartphones and tablets. Going forward, Android partners wishing to distribute Google apps may also build non-compatible, or forked, smartphones and tablets for the European Economic Area (EEA).
Second, device manufacturers will be able to license the Google mobile application suite separately from the Google Search App or the Chrome browser. Since the pre-installation of Google Search and Chrome together with our other apps helped us fund the development and free distribution of Android, we will introduce a new paid licensing agreement for smartphones and tablets shipped into the EEA. Android will remain free and open source.
Third, we will offer separate licenses to the Google Search app and to Chrome.
We’ll also offer new commercial agreements to partners for the non-exclusive pre-installation and placement of Google Search and Chrome. As before, competing apps may be pre-installed alongside ours.
These new licensing options will come into effect on October 29, 2018, for all new smartphones and tablets launched in the EEA. We’ll be working closely with our Android partners in the coming weeks and months to transition to the new agreements. And of course, we remain deeply committed to continued innovation for the Android ecosystem.
by via The Keyword
Helping shoppers buy effortlessly from Best Buy, Nike, and Sephora over the holidays
Today, 76% of U.S. holiday shoppers over 18 use three or more channels.1 At the same time, they expect their experiences to be fast, frictionless, and personalized wherever they are, on whatever device they use. A recent study shows that Google is the first place US shoppers go to discover or find a new brand or product. With Shopping Actions, they can move seamlessly from browsing to buying with a universal cart that works across Search, the Google Assistant, and Google Express whether they’re on mobile, desktop or even a Google Home device.
Today, we’re announcing new Shopping Actions partnerships with Nike, Best Buy, and Sephora, enabling shoppers to search and shop effortlessly for tens of thousands of products ahead of this holiday season.
Best Buy gives customers even more ways to shop
Best Buy knows that when it comes to buying tech, it’s important that customers can shop how, when and where they want. With Shopping Actions, Best Buy’s products are now available on Google Express. Shoppers can use their voice to ask the Google Assistant to check store hours, order status, or even place an order.
"We’re committed to enriching lives with technology, and part of that means giving people the tools they need to research and buy in stores, online and at home. This partnership let’s our customers explore the latest tech in a whole new way."
-Allison Peterson, President of E-commerce, Best Buy
Nike serves athletes wherever they shop
As the first brand from the Footwear and Apparel industry to join Shopping Actions, Nike makes it easy for shoppers to discover and buy from a rich online assortment. Whether they are shopping through Search or with their voice on the Google Assistant, later this month shoppers will be able to find and buy Nike products directly on Google’s platforms.
"We’re excited to partner with Google and together deliver premium Nike content and inspiring experiences to consumers. We’ll enable frictionless discovery and purchase of Nike products across Google’s ecosystem and elevate the consumer experience with direct access to Nike products and additional benefits when they add their NikePlus membership at checkout."
- Eric Wood, VP of Digital Partnerships, Nike
Sephora leads the way in seamless omnichannel experiences
Sephora is passionate about seamless shopping. Across their award-winning App, website, and 400+ stores, Sephora constantly innovates to offer a connected, smart and fast shopping experience. With 1 out of 3 last-minute shoppers saying they choose where to buy gifts based on how soon they can get them, Sephora saw a perfect fit with Shopping Actions.2 Sephora clients can now buy across Google’s properties and earn valuable Beauty Insider points with each purchase as part of Sephora’s robust loyalty program -- with overnight delivery to almost anywhere in the US.
Get started
Nike, Best Buy, and Sephora join hundreds of other merchants already taking part in the program, a 7x increase since we first launched the program. It's easier than ever to join Google Shopping Actions, thanks to integrations with e-commerce solution partners including ChannelAdvisor, CommerceHub, Feedonomics, and Zentail. Even more are coming soon.
1. Google/Ipsos, U.S., Omnichannel Holiday Study, Holiday shoppers 18+ who shopped in previous 48 hours, n=5944, Nov. 2017–Jan. 2018.
2. Google/Ipsos, U.S., Omnichannel Holiday Study, Holiday shoppers 18+ who were last minute shoppers n=1121, Nov. 2017–Jan. 2018.
by via The Keyword
Monday 15 October 2018
Friday 12 October 2018
Thursday 11 October 2018
Everything to know about the Google Assistant on our new family of hardware
Earlier this week, we introduced a new lineup of devices—with the Google Assistant built in—to help you get things done at home, at work, or on the go throughout your day.
But let’s take a step back. So far this year, we’ve introduced a number of ways to have a more natural conversation with Google. For example, you’re able to speak two languages interchangeably with the Assistant on smart speakers and phones, and Continued Conversation lets you go back and forth with the Assistant without repeating “Hey Google” between questions. Plus, the Assistant works with every major connected device brand in the U.S. for your home, from dishwashers and dryers to AC units and locks.
Here’s a look at all of the exciting new Assistant features and devices coming to you over the next few weeks:
Smart Displays
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Google Home Hub joins our lineup of Smart Displays, which already includes the JBL Link View and Lenovo Smart Display, with another offering from LG later this year.
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Major updates to your Smart Display: Previewed at our recent Made by Google event, these new features will roll out to the entire family of Smart Displays over the next few weeks:
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With multi-room audio, you can add your Smart Display to a speaker group and play music throughout the house.
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With Live Albums from Google Photos, your Ambient Mode will always show off the best photos of your favorite people and pets without you having to curate them. It will also make sure to pick your best photos, so that receipts, screenshots, duplicates, and blurry or sensitive photos will not appear on your Smart Display.
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With Nest Hello Doorbell, your Smart Display will now show who is at the door when someone rings, and allows you to send quick responses.
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With Home View, you can see and control all of your smart home devices in a single dashboard by swiping down from the top edge of your Smart Display.
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Your Google Assistant can now also control many popular media and entertainment devices, including TVs (Hisense, Philips, Sharp,Sony, Vizio, Xiaomi), set top boxes (Dish, Foxtel, nVidia Shield, Sling, Vodafone), speakers (Denon), smart remotes (Logitech Harmony) with many more coming soon from Caavo, LG, Panasonic, Roku®, Telus, and Telstra. Enjoy universal controls to power devices on and off, adjust playback/volume, and browse a visual channel guide—all by touch or by voice on your Smart Display.
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Phones
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Screen callsand block spam:When you get an incoming call from an unknown caller, just tap “Screen call” to let the Google Assistant help out. You'll see a transcript of the caller's responses in real-time. This feature is coming to Pixel 3 this month and to Pixel 1 and 2 in November.
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Book reservations at more restaurants:Later this year, Pixel users in New York, Atlanta, Phoenix and the San Francisco Bay Area will be the first to experiment with a new Google Assistant feature, powered by Duplex technology, which handles booking a restaurant reservation over the phone on your behalf.
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A visual snapshotof your day:Available across all smartphones, you’ll soon be able to see event recommendations, pull up your recent notes and lists and get important reminders from the visual overview. Just tap on the icon in the top right corner of the screen after you’ve activated your Google Assistant or swipe up.
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Take advantage of the Assistant in the lockscreen: After opting-in through your Assistant settings, the Assistant can respond to queries like “Hey Google, what’s next on my calendar?” without unlocking your Pixel 3 each time.
New accessories to enjoy the Assistant
The Pixel 3 comes with Pixel USB-C Earbuds optimized for the Google Assistant, so you can ask to play your favorite playlist while on a run, without looking at your phone. Just press and hold the dedicated button to talk to the Google Assistant.
We also introduced Pixel Stand, which brings a contextually relevant Google Assistant experience to your phone. When you dock your phone, the display UI adjusts so that it’s easily glanceable from across the room. It gives you quick access to the Google Assistant, so you can get a rundown of your day, see the traffic for your commute, listen to your favorite podcast or cast a show to your TV.
Better manage your time and activities on devices
Our new phones, smart speakers and Smart Displays come with Digital Wellbeing built in to give youthe tools that help you and your family balance your time and activities on these devices.
If you have a Smart Display or a speaker with the Google Assistant built in, open the Google Home app on your phone. Soon, you’ll see a “Filters” setting that will allow you to easily manage your kids’ digital activities and a new “Downtime” feature to create a schedule that will block the device between certain hours. Pixel 3 and other phones will also be getting Digital Wellbeing features— you’ll be able to ask the Assistant to “Set wind down for 10pm” and the Google Assistant will gently transition your display to a grayscale screen. Or, you can ask "How much time have I spent on my phone today" to keep track of your time spent on the phone.
So that’s what’s new with the Assistant! We’re continuing to make it more helpful, fun and available on new devices—whether you’re at home, on the go or somewhere in between.
by via The Keyword
Helping parents have the tech talk with their kids
In real life (or IRL, as my son reminds me) I work hard to ensure my child is safe, confident, and kind. And whether he's chatting with friends, doing homework or playing games, I want to make sure the same is true whenever he’s online. To make that happen, it’s up to me to have the right conversations and provide the right tools to guide him on making smart choices, no matter where he is.
However, parents often feel less tech savvy than their kids. That’s why, as part of October’s National Cybersecurity Awareness and National Bullying Prevention Month, we’re partnering with the National PTA and DonorsChoose.org on two new initiatives to help kids be safe and positive online. 😎 Our goal this year is to reach 5 million kids with Be Internet Awesome.
Helping parents teach their kids to make smart decisions online
Research shows us that parents want to teach their kids how to be safe online but are unsure how to get the conversation going. To help them, we created workshop kits so that parents can teach one another about how to spark productive discussions on digital safety and citizenship.
Each Be Internet Awesome kit is bilingual—English and Spanish—and includes:
- A Google Pixelbook to power the workshop
- A presentation developed in partnership with the Family Online Safety Institute including topics on online safety, digital citizenship, and tips and resources to create a positive digital experience for your family’s needs
- Family Guides to inspire co-learning at home about online reputation and social sharing, phishing and scams, privacy and security, cyberbullying and inappropriate content
- Posters for the school to remind students to Be Internet Awesome by being smart, alert, strong, kind, and brave
- A school banner as recognition for participating in Be Internet Awesome
In addition, we’ve partnered with the National PTA to award grants worth $1,000 to local PTAs in every state to help facilitate Be Internet Awesome workshops. Members interested in applying for one of the 200 workshop grants or a BIA kit can visit the national PTA site here. And later this fall, we are making the content from the kit (presentation and family guides) available digitally for everyone on the resources page of our website.
Supporting our teachers and their classrooms
Teachers often have a list of needs or a passion project they would love to bring to their students if only there was a little extra in the budget. So we’ve teamed up with DonorsChoose.org, a nonprofit with a web platform that is part matchmaker, part Scholastic Fairy Godmother. Teachers post their school project wishes on the platform and people like you—or companies like us—find projects we’d love to sponsor.
With DonorsChoose.org, we’ve built a $1 million Classroom Rewards program to encourage and celebrate classroom achievement with Be Internet Awesome. Upon completion of the program, K-6 teachers can unlock a $100 credit towards their DonorsChoose.org project. Teachers can kick off the Be Internet Awesome lessons with one called #ItsCoolToBeKind. 💚 Check out the details here.
To learn more about Google’s Be Internet Awesome program, visit our website in English or Spanish, and share the Interland game with your kids.
As my son would say, TTYL.
by via The Keyword
Bringing the power of cloud to news organizations
As news consumption becomes increasingly digital, local, small and medium-sized news organizations need new tools to thrive. We created the Google News Initiative Cloud Program, to help publishers use Google Cloud to come up with imaginative solutions to business and storytelling. The first phase of the program focused on providing 200,000 free G Suite license to news companies with fewer than 500 employees through this application.
Building on that effort, today we’re opening applications for the GNI Cloud Credit Program. This will give qualifying organizations with fewer than 1,000 employees the opportunity to apply for up to $100,000 each in Google Cloud Platform credits, as well up to $50,000 in implementation support. This provides publishers with an on-ramp to implement technologies that can help them build more sustainable businesses and provide readers with relevant, engaging and more personalized content.
With a wide range of tools, cloud technology can be tailored to each news organization's unique needs. To help get the most of their Cloud Credits, all publishers in the program will work with third-party cloud specialists to craft a strategy that uses cloud’s diverse tools to support storytelling and business needs.
For example, with Google Cloud Platform credits, publishers can simplify time-intensive tasks like translating articles and transcribing interviews through tools like Cloud Speech to Text and the Cloud Translation API.
Cloud can help publishers understand articles and classify content to provide more personalized offerings to their readers using the Natural Language Processing API and intelligently organize entire photo archives of millions of photos to help reporters uncover new sources of information to tell more engaging stories.
With BigQuery and machine learning, publishers can modernize their infrastructure to improve distribution and analyze digital behaviors to better understand their audiences. And publishers will be able to build a more scalable, engaging app experiences with tools like Firebase, while lessening the burden on their support teams.
The Cloud Program is a key part of the Google News Initiatives’s mission to elevate quality journalism, enable new business models, and empower news organizations to innovate through technology. We are partnering with key industry associations around the world including WAN-IFRA, ONA, and LMA to spread the word about this program to more news organizations around the globe.
You can learn more about other Google News Initiative here.
by via The Keyword
Wednesday 10 October 2018
Join us at advanced TV events this fall
The TV industry is steadily embracing digital as people consume more live, linear, and on-demand content across all screens. This presents both exciting opportunities and interesting challenges as we navigate this new space and build for the future of the TV experience. As part of this shift, we recently announced Google Ad Manager’s advanced TV solutions to help our partners deliver seamless, personalized, and measurable commercial experiences everywhere audiences are watching.
This fall, alongside several of our partners, we’re participating in two events to share how we’re bringing the power of digital to advanced TV: the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Show in New York and TV Week New York City. These forums are some of the best places to learn about industry trends, new technologies, and how to provide high-quality experiences as the TV landscape evolves.
We hope you’ll join us at these events to learn more about how we’re reimagining the commercial break and taking television into the future with our partners.
National Association of Broadcasters Show:
The NAB comes to the Javits Convention Center in New York City from October 17 - 18 and features three Google Ad Manager sessions at its Streaming Summit.
Wednesday, October 17
2:30 PM: Bringing Addressability to Every Screen Including Linear Television
3:15 PM: Best Practices for Deploying Server Side Ad Insertion
Thursday, October 18
10:15 AM: Monetizing Video Content Direct-to-Consumer
NYC TV Week:
TV Week returns to New York City on October 29 - November 1, bringing together leaders across broadcast, cable, advertising and technology to discuss emerging trends in the TV industry. You can find Google Ad Manager sessions at the Advanced Advertising Summit and Next TV Summit.
Thursday, November 1 - Advanced Advertising Summit
9:10 AM: Keynote: Embracing an advanced TV Future
https://ift.tt/2C7kfGG
3:20 PM: Reality-Check Roundtable: Cross-Channel Ad Planning/Buying/Selling
Thursday, November 1 - Next TV Summit
2:15 PM: Keynote: Delivering a Premium Viewership Experience
3:45 PM: Panel: Marketing & Advertising Trends in Video Consumption & Advertising
We’re excited to share insights into the future of advanced TV at these events, and we hope to see you there. Learn more about the NAB Show NY and NYC TV Week.
by via The Keyword
Tuesday 9 October 2018
Five reasons (and two colors) why we love the new Chromecast
We launched our first Chromecast in 2013 with the aim to make it easy to get your favorite content right from your phone to your TV. With thousands of compatible apps to cast from, people are tapping the Cast button more than ever. And since Chromecast, the Made by Google family of products has continued to grow, bringing the best of hardware, software and AI together. So for this fifth year of Chromecast, we wanted to share five reasons we’re excited about our newest Chromecast:
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Fits right in.With a new design and two colors—Chalk and Charcoal—Chromecast blends in with your decor and the rest of the Made by Google family.
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Same size, but even more powerful.Thanks to a 15 percent improvement in hardware speed, our newest Chromecast supports smooth streaming in 1080p at 60 frames per second, giving you a more lifelike image. So when you’re watching the game, it will feel even more like you’re there.
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Stream hands-free. Chromecast and Google Home work seamlessly together. Just say what you want to watch from compatible services, like YouTube or Netflix, and control your TV just by asking. Try, “Hey Google, play Cobra Kai from YouTube,” or “Hey Google, play Lost in Space from Netflix.” (You’ll need a Netflix subscription to get started.)
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More than a screen—it’s a canvas.When you’re not streaming, you can personalize your TV with new Live Albums from Google Photos. Enjoy a constantly updating stream of photos of the people and pets you care about and skip blurry ones and duplicates—all without lifting a finger. Plus, new photos will show up automatically on your TV.
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Your tunes in every room.Whether you’re listening to your favorites on YouTube Music or Spotify, there’s nothing better than hearing on all your speakers—including your high-quality speakers connected to your TV. Later this year, you'll be able to add Chromecast to speaker groups, so you can listen to your music in sync throughout the house.
And, of course, Chromecast is still just $35. So it’s an affordable way to upgrade your TV at home or the perfect gift this upcoming holiday season for the streamer in your life.
The new Chromecast is available from the Google Store starting today in Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Great Britain, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, Sweden, and the U.S., with even more countries to follow in 2019.
by via The Keyword
Monday 8 October 2018
Teaching students about geography, one Google Hangout at a time
I'm always looking for creative ways to get my fifth-grade students excited about social studies and geography. Thanks to technology, they're able to see the lessons come to life and visit every state in the country without ever leaving their classroom. One way I’ve done this with my students is through “Mystery Hangouts,” a game a teaching partner introduced to me a few years ago. Last year, I put a fun spin on it and challenged my fifth-grade class to complete what I called the “Race to 50 States.”
I used Google Hangouts Meet to connect my class with another one in an unknown state. To solve the mystery of where the other class was located, students shared fun facts about their state and asked yes or no questions like, “Are you west of the Mississippi River?”
Not only is the game engaging and fun, but it’s also educational. In addition to using their geography knowledge, my students also learned skills in critical thinking, mapping, listening, collaboration, technology and communication. After a few Hangouts Meet sessions, I received so much positive feedback from students and parents alike that I set an ambitious goal for this year’s class: reach all 50 states by the end of the school year.
If this sounds like something your class might be interested in, visit the “Resource” section of the Teacher Center, where I share how to play the game. It’s only a guide, so feel free to tweak the rules for your class. All you need is internet access and maps to get started. Before you know it, your students will be learning more about their country, one mystery location at a time.
by via The Keyword
Saturday 6 October 2018
Friday 5 October 2018
A bird flies into a bar … and other top searches this week
It’s almost the weekend, but the birds are already having too much fun. Here’s a look at some of the most-searched trends of the week:
Boozy Birdies
Searches for “drunk birds” took flight this week after birds in Minnesota were flying into windows with abandon—apparently drunk after eating fermented berries. Of the non-inebriated bird species, cockatiels, pigeons and mockingbirds had the most searches.
The most Nobel among us
Donna Strickland became the first woman to win the Physics prize since Marie Curie, which caused searches for “Marie Curie” to spike 2,500 percent. People also searched for the names of those who invented their favorite technologies like the light bulb, the telephone, and the internet (we can give you a hint on that last one).
Let’s taco ‘bout it
Search interest in “Free tacos today” were up over 3,900 percent this week in celebration of National Taco Day. Fish, shrimp, and chicken tacos are among the most searched taco varieties, followed by pork, carne asada, and breakfast tacos.
Toys, toys toys
This week, people across the country wondered “Is Toys R Us coming back?” Indeed, Toys R Us is getting back into the retail game, which is good news for all of the people searching for famous giraffes like Geoffrey the Giraffe (the official Toys R Us mascot), and his friends April and Sophie.
High Alert
It wasn’t just you! This week, millions of people across the country received a Presidential alert sent by FEMA, and people in Washington, Oregon, and Arkansas had the highest number of searches for information about the alert. Other top-searched questions include “What was the presidential alert?” and “Why did I get a presidential alert?”by via The Keyword
Thursday 4 October 2018
Helping CommonLit expand free literacy resources for teachers
As a seventh grade teacher in rural Mississippi, Michelle Brown's serious love for teaching was only matched by her serious lack of resources. Frustrated by trying to teach with outdated books, she turned to technology to find a solution. She built CommonLit in 2014 to help teachers like her better address the unique needs of students at different reading levels. A free online reading program, CommonLit combines high-quality reading materials with guiding questions, assessments, and data analytics for teachers and students. In the handful of years since launching, CommonLit has created a more personalized and engaging classroom reading experience for more than 5 million students from Wichita to New Delhi to Johannesburg, helping them become more confident and skilled readers.
Since 2005, Google.org has given more than $250 million toward education with over $60 million going directly to nonprofits that serve teachers, and we’re proud to continue building on this commitment. Today, in honor of World Teachers’ Day, we’re announcing a $3.5 million grant to CommonLit to help expand their free, literacy resources to more teachers around the globe. To start, they’re collaborating with local education organizations like UNETE to pilot a Spanish-language version of their platform in schools across Mexico with a goal of adding 500 reading lessons in Spanish for students by June 2020. From there, they’ll continue to explore other opportunities to expand to even more countries, classrooms and teachers.
Technology alone can’t solve all of the challenges teachers face, but it can be a meaningful tool for closing educational gaps like access to quality, engaging learning materials. We’re proud that over the years, we’ve supported a number of organizations that are teacher-obsessed. From DonorsChoose.org, a crowd-funding platform for U.S. public school teachers to get classroom resources, to Nova Escola’s digital teacher lesson plans in Brazil, to the TeacherApp in India, we are committed to supporting and cheering on teachers for the dedication they show to their students day in and day out.
Consider recognizing a teacher in your life by donating to a nonprofit in their honor today and sharing your #WorldTeachersDay story about someone who has inspired you to keep learning.
by via The Keyword
Promoting inclusive storytelling with the Google Podcasts creator program
Podcasting has quickly become one of the best ways to share and listen to stories, but its future depends on a diverse array of stories, voices and creators. With the launch of the Google Podcasts app in June, we’re working to make it easier for people around the world to find and access podcasts. While there are more podcasts than ever before, there continues to be an imbalance in who is creating them. Women and people of color are still underrepresented as hosts, and many of the world’s most popular podcasts hail from western, urban areas. In June we announced the Google Podcasts creator program, which aims to support these underrepresented voices in podcasting, and make it easier for people to learn how to get into this growing medium.
Beginning today, through November 18th, the application window is official open globally for the first round of the Google Podcasts creator program, which will kick off in January 2019. We’re partnering with one of the best in the podcasting industry, PRX, who will lead and manage the program. PRX has demonstrated a long-time commitment to promoting diversity and inclusion in the space. As a pioneer of the podcasting space, PRX will lend this valuable expertise to the podcasters in the program..
The Google Podcasts creator program is focused on three main pillars: empowering and training underrepresented voices through an accelerator program, educating a global community with free tools, and showcasing participants’ work as a model for others. PRX, alongside a global advisory committee, will select teams to receive mentorship, seed funding, and an intensive 20-week training. Applications will be accepted from around the globe. You can learn more and apply to the program on PRX’s Google Podcasts creator program website.
For podcast enthusiasts that want to learn more about what it takes to create a podcast, but are not yet ready to apply to the program, PRX will draw on learnings from the program to develop a series of broadly accessible podcasting 101 videos in multiple languages, as well.
Podcasts are a way to bring additional voices, perspectives and experiences into your day-to-day life. The Google Podcasts creator program is designed to help support these voices, so that everyone can find a story that resonates with them.
by via The Keyword
Wednesday 3 October 2018
Ignite innovation with workplace rituals
Rituals are ubiquitous across cultures and time. From marriage and burial rituals to pregame and postgame sporting rituals, these intentional routines have been performed for centuries to foster a desired outcome or behavior.
Now, organizations are tapping into the power of ritual to encourage innovation. These small acts can be used in the workplace to engender a sense of community, build cohesion and ultimately help take an organization from good to great.
How rituals can help teams
The sporting world is filled with examples of how rituals help wire organizations to achieve greatness. In fact, New Zealand's national rugby team, the All Blacks, credits much of their success to the rituals that form the bedrock of their culture. After each match—win or lose, home or away—everyone on the team cleans the dressing room until it’s spotless. It’s a ritual designed to show thanks, build humility and reinforce that each team member is just as important as the other. The Japanese soccer team beautifully demonstrated a similar ritual when they left their locker room spotless after a gut-wrenching loss in the World Cup.
These sporting rituals are more than just good manners or superstitions. In fact, researchers are starting to find that these types of symbolic actions do in fact have an effect on behavior. According to recent studies, regularly performing rituals helps regulate emotions, elevate performance states and foster social connections.
Take for example one of my favorite workplace rituals that happens at OXO, the global housewares manufacturer. The company focuses on building products that fit comfortably into people’s hands, and they adopted a team ritual to bring that value to light. Whenever an employee finds a lost glove, they bring it back to the office to hang on the wall to depict all the different hands they are designing things for. This ritual may look like a seemingly random act on the from the outside, but OXO defined a clear intention to constantly visualize and focus on who they are building products for.
Using rituals to encourage innovation
If you want to encourage innovation on your team, design rituals that emulate characteristics that are associated with it, like being comfortable with failure and team collaboration.
Rituals can help build the muscle memory of an organization’s culture, but they have to be intentional and repeatable. Think of your organization’s operating system as its collective set of rules, norms and behaviors. These are the basic pieces of code that define how your organization runs. If you want to recode your organizational operating system to be more innovative, you must create new cultural algorithms in the form of rituals.
My team has a ritual that we take part in at the beginning of every weekly team meeting: Everyone shares a failure—personal or professional—and what they learned from it. The ritual is repeated every week and helps build psychology safety and comfort around failure. Similarly, Alphabet’s X holds an annual celebration that celebrates failure where they share stories about defunct projects, failed experiments and even personal failures. Old prototypes, sticky notes with product ideas and family mementos are placed on a small altar and burned during this ritual.
You can also develop rituals to encourage collaboration and strong team cohesiveness—characteristics which are associated with more creative teams. For example, Google employees can reward a coworker with a peer bonus when they go above and beyond and exemplify these qualities. Not only does the peer bonus ritual recognize the collaborator with a small monetary gift, but it also recognizes them with a thank you note that is sent to their peers and managers. We’ve built an entire peer bonus system online that allows team members to recognize this positive behavior again and again, helping to build reinforce this behavior.
Ultimately, the rituals you build come down to the values you want to instill. Ask yourself: How can we bring our values to life and make them tangible through rituals? For centuries, humans have innately understood that small, tangible acts done routinely can carry meaning. Now it’s time to see how they can create new cultural algorithms for your organization or team to run on.
by via The Keyword
Coming together to create a prior art archive
Patent quality is a two-way street. Patent applicants should submit detailed disclosures describing their inventions and actively participate in the examination process to define clear distinctions between their inventions and existing technology. Examiners reviewing patent applications should conduct thorough searches of existing technology, reject any attempts to patent existing technology, and develop a clear record of the differences between the patent claims and what came before. The more that the patent system supports and incentivizes these activities, the more reliable the rights that issue from patent offices will be, and the more those patents will promote innovation.
A healthy patent system requires that patent applicants and examiners be able to find and access the best documentation of state-of-the-art technology. This documentation is often found in sources other than patents. Non-patent literature can be particularly hard to find and access in the software field, where it may take the form of user manuals, technical specifications, or product marketing materials. Without access to this information, patent offices may issue patents covering existing technology, or not recognize trivial extensions of published research, removing the public’s right to use it and bringing the reliability of patent rights into question.
To address this problem, academia and industry have worked together to launch the Prior Art Archive, created through a collaboration between the MIT Media Lab, Cisco and the USPTO, and hosted by MIT. The Prior Art Archive is a new, open access system that allows anyone to upload those hard-to-find technical materials and make them easily searchable by everyone.
We’re proud to support the Prior Art Archive, and have devoted significant resources to this and other important quality initiatives. The Prior Art Archive is searchable through Google Patents, and all of the documents in the Archive have been labeled with Cooperative Patent Classification codes using Google’s machine learning models. The labels are a feature we rolled out in Google Patents to help make the most relevant technical materials easier to find. We’ve also recently launched a site accessible to the public and examiners, TDCommons, where companies can publish technical information they don’t want to patent free of charge.
We’re also excited to use AI and machine learning to take prior art searching to the next level. To this end, we’ve recently created an open ecosystem, the Google Patents Public Datasets, to make large datasets available for empirical public policy, economics, and machine learning research. We’re committed to developing and making available technology that improves patent quality, and ultimately strengthens our patent system.
by via The Keyword
Tuesday 2 October 2018
Start a new .page today
Today we’re announcing .page, the newest top-level domain (TLD) from Google Registry.
A TLD is the last part of a domain name, like .com in “google.com” or .google in “blog.google” (the site you’re on right now). The .page TLD is a new opportunity for anyone to build an online presence. Whether you’re writing a blog, getting your business online, or promoting your latest project, .page makes it simple and more secure to get the word out about the unique things you do.
Check out 10 interesting things some people and businesses are already doing on .page:
- Ellen.Page is the website of Academy Award®-nominated actress and producer Ellen Page that will spotlight LGBTQ culture and social causes.
- Home.Page is a project by the digital media artist Aaron Koblin, who is creating a living collection of hand-drawn houses from people across the world. Enjoy free art daily and help bring real people home by supporting revolving bail.
- ChristophNiemann.Page is the virtual exhibition space of illustrator, graphic designer, and author Christoph Niemann.
- Web.Page is a collaboration between a group of designers and developers who will offer a monthly online magazine with design techniques, strategies, and inspiration.
- CareersXO.Page by Geek Girl Careers is a personality assessment designed to help women find tech careers they love.
- TurnThe.Page by Insurance Lounge offers advice about the transition from career to retirement.
- WordAsImage.Page is a project by designer Ji Lee that explores the visualizations of words through typography.
- Membrane.Page by Synder Filtration is an educational website about spiral-wound nanofiltration, ultrafiltration, and microfiltration membrane elements and systems.
- TV.Page is a SaaS company that provides shoppable video technology for ecommerce, social media, and retail stores.
- Navlekha.Page was created by Navlekhā, a Google initiative that helps Indian publishers get their content online with free authoring tools, guidance, and a .page domain for the first 3 years. Since the initiative debuted at Google for India, publishers are creating articles within minutes. And Navlekhā plans to bring 135,000 publishers online over the next 5 years.
Security is a top priority for Google Registry’s domains. To help keep your information safe, all .page websites require an SSL certificate, which helps keep connections to your domain secure and helps protect against things like ad malware and tracking injections. Both .page and .app, which we launched in May, will help move the web to an HTTPS-everywhere future.
.page domains are available now through the Early Access Program. For an extra fee, you’ll have the chance to get the perfect .page domain name from participating registrar partners before standard registrations become available on October 9th. For more details about registering your domain, check out get.page. We’re looking forward to seeing what you’ll build on .page!
by via The Keyword