Reach customers via additional marketing channels with Analytics 360 + Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Supporting the military community for whatever’s next

Supporting the military community for whatever’s next

Advancing research on fake audio detection

When you listen to Google Maps driving directions in your car, get answers from your Google Home, or hear a spoken translation in Google Translate, you're using Google's speech synthesis, or text-to-speech (TTS) technology. Speech interfaces not only allow you to interact naturally and conveniently with digital devices, they're a crucial technology for making information universally accessible: TTS opens up the internet to millions of users all over the world who may not be able to read, or who have visual impairments.

Over the last few years, there’s been an explosion of new research using neural networks to simulate a human voice. These models, including many developed at Google, can generate increasingly realistic, human-like speech.

While the progress is exciting, we’re keenly aware of the risks this technology can pose if used with the intent to cause harm. Malicious actors may synthesize speech to try to fool voice authentication systems, or they may create forged audio recordings to defame public figures. Perhaps equally concerning, public awareness of "deep fakes" (audio or video clips generated by deep learning models) can be exploited to manipulate trust in media: as it becomes harder to distinguish real from tampered content, bad actors can more credibly claim that authentic data is fake.

We're taking action. When we launched the Google News Initiative last March, we committed to releasing datasets that would help advance state-of-the-art research on fake audio detection.  Today, we're delivering on that promise: Google AI and Google News Initiative have partnered to create a body of synthetic speech containing thousands of phrases spoken by our deep learning TTS models. These phrases are drawn from English newspaper articles, and are spoken by 68 synthetic "voices" covering a variety of regional accents.  

We're making this dataset available to all participants in the independent, externally-run 2019 ASVspoof challenge. This open challenge invites researchers all over the globe to submit countermeasures against fake (or "spoofed") speech, with the goal of making automatic speaker verification (ASV) systems more secure. By training models on both real and computer-generated speech, ASVspoof participants can develop systems that learn to distinguish between the two. The results will be announced in September at the 2019 Interspeech conference in Graz, Austria.

As we published in our AI Principles last year, we take seriously our responsibility both to engage with the external research community, and to apply strong safety practices to avoid unintended results that create risks of harm. We're also firmly committed to Google News Initiative's charter to help journalism thrive in the digital age, and our support for the ASVspoof challenge is an important step along the way.

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Touchdown! Score with Search and Assistant for Sunday’s Big Game

Bringing Project Sunroof solar data to Puerto Rico

How I used my phone to spend less time on … my phone

Richer interactivity in Data Studio

Explore art and culture through a new lens

The Analytics 360 Solution Guide: How today’s top brands gain a deeper understanding of the customer journey

Today, digital technology and mobile devices have put the consumer in control. The traditional, linear customer journey from awareness to purchase has been replaced with unique, unpredictable journeys—where no two are exactly alike. Understanding how customers engage at each step along the way is a key priority for marketers and an opportunity to deliver improved customer experiences that drive better marketing results.

In our new Analytics 360 Solution Guide, we share how leading marketers are building their strategies around the customer, adopting technology to help teams better collaborate, and integrating their ads and analytics data.

Put the customer at the center

Across our research, one thing became clear: Leading marketers are putting
customers at the heart of their strategy. Interactive entertainment company Electronic Arts Inc. has organized their teams around the customer. Marketing, analytics, and publishing teams all start from a single source of truth: customer insights.

Use technology to help teams collaborate

Leading marketers are adopting the same connected technology across the company to help teams work more effectively together. The professional baseball organization, Major League Baseball, has seen a significant reduction in time spent pulling and sharing reports since adopting a single platform.

Integrate ads and analytics data

Bringing together ads and analytics data in one platform gives marketers the opportunity to establish a deeper, more meaningful relationship with every
customer. With an integrated technology stack, online travel company BookIt was able to segment visitors by specific vacation destinations and then tailored its ad creative to match the vacations visitors were looking for.

Download the Analytics 360 Solution Guide now and learn how these companies and more are bringing their ads and analytics data together in Analytics 360.  

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Making Gmail on mobile better for you

An Olympian-turned-Googler trains the next generation of figure skaters

An update on our work to prevent abuse ahead of the EU elections

Concerns about disinformation run high ahead of elections, a time when secure access to authoritative information is essential. Over the past few years, as more attempts to disrupt democratic processes have come to light, the scale of our response has increased. The upcoming European Parliament elections in May of this year are a big focus for our teams.

Dedicated elections teams clamping down on abuse

Our work to prevent election-related abuse ahead of and during elections means teams and subject matter experts across Google are working closely together. These teams, many of whom are based in Europe, are trained to identify and stop a wide range of potential abuse that can range from State Sponsored phishing attacks to attempts to alter Maps so people can’t find their polling station. We’re also constantly working to get people to authoritative content and improving our systems to combat the effects of disinformation. We’re staffed so we can get ahead of abuse, clamp down on malicious activity, and react rapidly to breaking threats. Google’s Trust & Safety teams have long worked in partnership with Google Security’s Threat Analysis Group (TAG) and our partners at Jigsaw to identify malicious actors, disable their accounts, warn our users about them, and share intelligence with other companies and law enforcement officials.

Project Shield for political campaigns, journalists and NGOs in Europe

Journalists, campaigns and political parties, NGOs and election monitoring groups ensure people can stay informed during election periods. It’s never been more necessary to defend these groups from digital attacks that can exploit many thousands of computers to overwhelm a website’s servers and take it offline—preventing voters from getting official information when they need it most. Project Shield uses Google’s infrastructure to protect independent news sites from distributed denial of service attacks (DDoS) and from today, Jigsaw will be offering strong, free DDoS-protections to the organizations across Europe that are vital to free and fair elections. You can find out more about Jigsaw and apply for Shield protection here.

In-person security training from Google experts

Because it can be hard to know how to be safe online, we’re running in-person and online security trainings for those most at risk around the upcoming elections. Like how to use our Advanced Protection Program, which gives Google’s strongest security for those that need it most. So far we’ve trained close to 1,000 campaign and election officials, journalists and people from election-related NGOs in Europe in-person, so they can learn which security tools they need and how to use them. Our goal is to support these groups in keeping their information secure and enable them to publish freely so that people can access the stories, debates, policies and results when it matters most.

A new verification process for advertisers in the EU parliamentary election

People want to better understand the political advertising they see online, so we’re introducing a new policy and process to verify advertisers for the EU parliamentary election.  Anyone wanting to run EU parliamentary election ads on Google’s platforms must provide documentation to show they’re an EU-based entity or citizen of an EU member country - and we will provide disclosures on each ad to make it clear to voters who’s paying for the advertising. This includes ads for political organisations, political parties, political issue advocacy or fundraising, and individual candidates and politicians.

There’s more to come: in a few months’ time, we’ll introduce an EU Election Ads Transparency Report and a searchable ad library to make this information as accessible and useful as possible to users, practitioners, and researchers wanting to know more.

Supporting elections in Europe and around the world is hugely important to us. We’ll continue to work in partnership with the EU through its Code of Practice on Disinformation, including by publishing regular reports about our work to prevent abuse, as well as with governments, law enforcement, others in our industry and the NGO community to strengthen protections around elections, protect users, and help combat disinformation.

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Grow with Google is heading to libraries in all 50 states, starting today

For many people in cities and towns across America, the public library is the central place to access information, search for a job or even learn about running a small business. And librarians aren’t just checking out books to patrons—they’re providing key digital resources for their communities.

At the end of last year we announced our plans to bring Grow with Google to more local communities by teaming up with libraries in all 50 states across the country to help ensure that economic opportunity exists for everyone, everywhere.  

We’re kicking that work off today in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania—where Benjamin Franklin established America's first free public library—by hosting in-person workshops for job seekers, small businesses, librarians and nonprofit leaders. Later this week, we'll be continuing the Pennsylvania workshops in York and Erie, then heading to more states like Connecticut and Maryland. We’re looking forward to people across the country joining us at their local library to learn digital skills, from online marketing tips to how to use a spreadsheet.  We’ll have plenty of Googlers available for one-on-one training and to answer your questions. Follow our events page to see when we’ll be visiting your state.

To make sure that every library and nonprofit can access our free tools, content and programs, we’re launching the Grow with Google Partner Program. Partners can leverage the online resources and guides to meet the evolving needs of jobseekers, students and small businesses in their communities. We invite organizations to learn more and apply at grow.google/partners.

To further support local libraries, Google is providing a $1M sponsorship of the American Library Association to support digital skills trainings through microfunds to libraries across the country.  Pennsylvania libraries can now submit their ideas for training to the American Library Association. This funding will be made available as Grow with Google visits each state in the country.

It’s our mission to help people across the U.S. get the skills they need to grow their careers and businesses, and we're proud to get to work with nonprofit partners and libraries to make it possible. We hope to see you at the library.

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AI can accelerate the shift to a more sustainable future

Today’s industrial economy is hugely wasteful. In 2018, the global demand for resources was 1.7 times more than what the Earth can support in one year. As population size and consumption continues to grow, we need to make an unprecedented, economy-wide shift or the effect on the planet will be irreversible.

Instead of our current “take-make-waste” economy, we need to shift to a system where waste is dramatically reduced and growth is decoupled from the consumption of finite resources—a circular economy. This is much like what we see in nature: A tree grows from the energy of the sun and the nutrients in the soil, once it dies it turns into soil to fuel the growth of new life. In this model, everything from cars and refrigerators to packaging and clothing would be repurposed and reborn for use again.

However, upheaving our industrial economy built over centuries requires new approaches and technological might. According to research we published this week with Ellen MacArthur Foundation and McKinsey & Company, AI can not only accelerate the shift to a more sustainable future, but also generate new value.

Already, AI is helping businesses quickly make sense of data and make complex decisions. Looking specifically at two industries—food and consumer electronics—the value of AI starts to become more clear.

• Designing products that last.We need to rethink the way we design products so they maintain their value over longer periods of time or so they can be reused. Already, AI has enabled the discovery and production of new materials that help do this. The Accelerated Metallurgy project—run by the European Space Agency together with a group of leading manufacturers, universities and designers—used AI technology quickly and efficiently to produce and test new metal alloys which can substitute harmful chemicals and less durable materials.
• Optimizing infrastructure. After we build products, instead of just consuming and disposing of them, we can create better infrastructure that allows us to use the products over and over again. For example, electronic devices, home appliances and vehicles could be leased and returned for resale or remanufactured so almost no new raw materials would need to be mined. This requires efficient reusing, repairing, remanufacturing and recycling of products. This is where AI can help out by improving the processes to sort recycled materials and disassemble products. 
• Maximizing new business models.Similarly, business models need to shift to prioritize the elimination of waste. This means an emphasis on subscription services or leasing rather than owning products. AI can help increase the value of these business models by combining real-time and historical data to help us make better decisions about pricing and demand prediction, predictive maintenance and smart inventory management. Stuffstr, a company that buys used products from consumers to sell in second-hand markets shows how AI can optimize opportunities to eliminate waste. With an AI algorithm the company is able to quickly set competitive prices for the seller, while offering Stuffstr a good margin on the second-hand market.

A truly circular economy will be one that all of us are a part of which is why, in addition to continuing to look for ways to apply AI to our products and operations at Google, we’re hosting a contest called Circular Economy 2030. The contest invites social entrepreneurs from around the world to submit proposals for revenue-generating ideas that use data analytics and machine learning to advance a circular economy.

Addressing these complex global challenges requires new skills and capabilities in design, business, systems thinking and data science. Together, we can reverse the global challenges created by a take-make-waste economy and create a circular world of abundance.

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Our fight to protect the future of software development

Today we asked the Supreme Court of the United States to review our long-running copyright dispute with Oracle over the use of software interfaces. The outcome will have a far-reaching impact on innovation across the computer industry.

Standardized software interfaces have driven innovation in software development. They let computer programs interact with each other and let developers easily build technologies for different platforms. Unless the Supreme Court steps in here, the industry will be hamstrung by court decisions finding that the use of software interfaces in creating new programs is not allowed under copyright law.

With smartphone apps now common, we sometimes forget how hard it once was for developers to build apps across a wide range of different platforms. Our 2008 release of the open-source Android platform changed the game. It helped developers overcome the challenges of smaller processors, limited memory, and short battery life, while providing innovative features and functionality for smartphone development. The result was a win for everyone: Developers could build new apps, manufacturers could build great new devices, and the resulting competition gave consumers both lower prices and an extraordinary range of choice.

We built Android following the computer industry’s long-accepted practice of re-using software interfaces, which provide sets of commands that make it easy to implement common functionality—in the same way that computer keyboard short-cuts like pressing “control” and “p” make it easy to print. Android created a transformative new platform, while letting millions of Java programmers use their existing skills to create new applications. And the creators of Java backed the release of Android, saying that it had “strapped another set of rockets to the [Java] community’s momentum.”

But after it acquired Java in 2010, Oracle sued us for using these software interfaces, trying to profit by changing the rules of software development after the fact. Oracle’s lawsuit claims the right to control software interfaces—the building blocks of software development—and as a result, the ability to lock in a community of developers who have invested in learning the free and open Java language.

A court initially ruled that the software interfaces in this case are not copyrightable, but that decision was overruled. A unanimous jury then held that our use of the interfaces was a legal fair use, but that decision was likewise overruled. Unless the Supreme Court corrects these twin reversals, this case will end developers’ traditional ability to freely use existing software interfaces to build new generations of computer programs for consumers. Just like we all learn to use computer keyboard shortcuts, developers have learned to use the many standard interfaces associated with different programming languages. Letting these reversals stand would effectively lock developers into the platform of a single copyright holder—akin to saying that keyboard shortcuts can work with only one type of computer.

The U.S. Constitution authorized copyrights to “promote the progress of science and useful arts,” not to impede creativity or promote lock-in of software platforms. Leading voices from business, technology, academia, and the nonprofit sector agree and have spoken out about the potentially devastating impacts of this case.

We support software developers’ ability to develop the applications we all have come to use every day, and we hope that the Supreme Court will give this case the serious and careful consideration it deserves.  

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Find more balance in your life this year, with help from Google

Adapting to the needs of learners, educators and schools with Chromebooks

Helping companies improve their customer support with Chatbase

Choose your own adventure with 13 Google for Education tools

Let the sunshine in: opening the market for more renewable energy in Asia

Expanding knowledge access with the Wikimedia Foundation

For 18 years, Wikipedia has been the internet’s encyclopedia, contributing to the vast knowledge available on the open web, and the Wikimedia Foundation has long shared in our mission of making information accessible to people around the world.

Our organizations have partnered throughout the years on initiatives that further our joint goals around knowledge access, including making information available through Google Search. Many individual Googlers also show their support for Wikimedia, through donations and from active participation in the community. We look forward to continuing our close partnership with new initiatives and commitments to achieving our shared goals.

As the next billion people come online, it’s critical that the content on the web reflect the diversity of its users. Currently, the web is lacking content in many local languages and thus restricts the information that people can access. By collaborating on programs to increase the availability of local language content and providing technology tools for Wikipedia editors, we aim to bridge this gap and empower local editors to serve their communities with relevant content in their native languages.

Creating new articles from scratch can be time and resource intensive for volunteer editors, and translation tools can be useful to help generate local language content. To make it easier for editors to create this native language content, we’re providing access to the Google Translate API through Wikipedia’s content translation tool at no cost. We’re also working with Wikimedia and their editor community to expand our Project Tiger initiative (now collectively referred to as GLOW - Growing Local Language Content on Wikipedia), which we piloted last year as a competition between 12 language communities in India to create more native language content. We will expand these programs with Wikimedia affiliates and volunteers to provide editors with resources and insights to drive the creation of new Wikipedia articles across 10 languages in India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria and the Middle East and North Africa region.

Bringing local language information online comes with new challenges in maintaining Wikipedia’s content and citation standards. Google Cloud Custom Search API helps editors ensure contributions are appropriately cited from sources. Our Cloud Vision API enables editors to digitize public domain books in Indic languages to include more diverse, reputable sources for citations. Both of these tools will be provided to Wikimedia at no cost.

While efforts to empower editors will help them continue to add more information and knowledge to the web, we also aim to support the long-term health of the Wikimedia projects so they are  available for generations to come. To that end, Google.org is donating $2 million to the Wikimedia Endowment, the first of Google’s contributions to its fund for long term sustainability. This brings our total support to more than $7.5 million, which includes an additional $1.1 million to the Wikimedia Foundation annual fund during a special campaign last year where Google employees helped decide where to direct Google's donation dollars.

With this continued partnership, we look forward to the strides we can make in bringing more of the world’s information online and making knowledge accessible to all.

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When Iowa’s snow piles up, TensorFlow can keep roads safe

Iowa may be heaven, but it’s a snowy one. With an average of around 33 inches of snow every year, keeping roads open and safe is an important challenge. Car accidents tend to spike during the winter months each year in Iowa, as do costly delays. And dangerous commutes can mean hazards for people and commerce alike: the state is one of the country’s largest producers of agricultural output, and much of that is moved on roads.

To improve road safety and efficiency, the Iowa Department of Transportation has teamed up with researchers at Iowa State University to use machine learning, including our TensorFlow framework, to provide insights into traffic behavior. Iowa State’s technology helps analyze the visual data gathered from stationary cameras and cameras mounted on snow plows. They also capture traffic information using radar detectors. Machine learning transforms that data into conclusions about road conditions, like identifying congestion and getting first responders to the scenes of accidents faster..

This is just one recent example of TensorFlow being used to make drivers’ lives easier across the United States. In California, snow may not be an issue, but traffic certainly is, and college students there used TensorFlow to identify pot holes and dangerous road cracks in Los Angeles.

Officials in Iowa say machine learning could also be used to predict crash risks and travel speeds, and better understand drivers’ reactions or failures behind the wheel. But that doesn’t mean drivers will be off the hook. Iowa’s transportation and public safety departments constantly spread the same message: when it’s winter, slow down. Add some time onto your daily commute, and don’t use cruise control during a storm. That way, both drivers and state officials can work together to make winter travel less dreary—and a lot safer.

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Engaging policy stakeholders on issues in AI governance

AI has become part of the fabric of modern life, with applications in sectors ranging from agriculture to retail to health to education. We believe that AI, used appropriately, can deliver great benefit for economies and society, and help people to make decisions that are fairer, safer, and more inclusive and informed.

As with other technologies, there are new policy questions that arise with the use of AI, and governments and civil society groups worldwide have a key role to play in the AI governance discussion. In a white paper we’re publishing today, we outline five areas where government can work with civil society and AI practitioners to provide important guidance on responsible AI development and use: explainability standards, fairness appraisal, safety considerations, human-AI collaboration and liability frameworks.

There are many trade-offs within each of these areas and the details are paramount for responsible implementation. For example, how should explainability and the need to hold an algorithm accountable be balanced with safeguarding the security of the system against hackers, protecting proprietary information and the desire to make AI experiences user-friendly? How should benchmarks and testing to ensure the safety of an AI system be balanced with the potential safety costs of not using the system?

No one company, country, or community has all the answers; on the contrary, it’s crucial for policy stakeholders worldwide to engage in these conversations. In the majority of cases, general legal frameworks and existing sector-specific processes will continue to provide an appropriate governance structure; for example, medical device regulations should continue to govern medical devices, regardless of whether AI is used in the device or not. However, in cases where additional oversight is needed, we hope this paper can help to promote pragmatic and forward-looking “rules of the road” and approaches to governance that keep pace with changing attitudes and technology.

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New features for service area businesses on Google My Business

Around the world and back with Google for Education

Applications are open for the Google North America Public Policy Fellowship

Starting today, we’re accepting applications for the 2019 North America Google Policy Fellowship. Our fellowship gives undergraduate and graduate students a paid opportunity to spend 10-weeks diving head first into Internet policy at leading nonprofits, think tanks and advocacy groups. In addition to opportunities in Washington, D.C. and California, we’ve expanded our program to include academic institutions and advocacy groups in New York and Utah, where students will have the chance to be at the forefront of debates on internet freedom and economic opportunity. We’re looking for students from all majors and degree programs who are passionate about technology and want to gain hands on experience exploring important intersections of tech policy.

The application period opens today for the North America region and all applications must be received by 12:00 p.m. ET/9 a.m. PT, Friday, February, 15th. This year's program will run from early June through early August, with regular programming throughout the summer. More specific information, including a list of this year’s hosts and locations, can be found on our site.

You can learn about the program, application process and host organizations on the Google Public Policy Fellowship website.

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What's new in Scratch 3.0, a programming language designed for kids

How an IT support certificate transforms careers

Get more shut-eye in 2019 with help from Google

How machine learning can drive change in traffic-packed L.A.

Helping teens root out misinformation and get media savvy

Google AI Impact Challenge: a week to apply, plus research on why you should

In my twelve years at Google, I've seen that big things happen when you don't shy away from big ideas—especially when you pair those ideas with emerging technology. We're trying to encourage more of that kind of thinking with the Google AI Impact Challenge, a call for organizations to use AI to help address social, humanitarian and environmental problems. Before you read on, remember this: there are only seven days left to apply to the Challenge!

Hundreds of nonprofits and research organizations have already applied, and there’s good reason for all the excitement. Recently, we collaborated with McKinsey on research to identify ways AI can drive social change. The resulting report shows that AI projects have the potential to improve all 17 of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals: end poverty and hunger, promote good health and wellbeing for all, and several more.

What works?

According to the research, AI has the greatest potential for impact in four areas: health and hunger, education, justice, equality and inclusion. AI can have the largest and most immediate impact through the application of computer vision, giving machines the ability to understand images and videos, and natural language processing, teaching computers to parse and understand human languages.

Computer vision can be used to improve health through better disease detection, our environment through wildlife tracking, and our education through new forms of learning for people with different learning capabilities. You’ve seen natural language processing at work in chatbots, which make the job-seeking process more efficient, or allow for better interaction between people seeking medical help and health providers.

What’s the hold up?

While AI cannot solve every problem, its potential is profound. So why isn’t every nonprofit and social entrepreneur embracing it? Three of the greatest challenges are access to talent, access to relevant data, and the capacity to deploy and sustain an AI project once it’s created. Nonprofits and their funders, the private sector and governments will need to work together to address these challenges.

To solve for talent scarcity, we need to continue to push for more education globally—especially for professionals willing to pursue AI. Private and public sector organizations may be able to open access to subsets of their data that could serve the clear public interest. Tools like Dataset Search are making it easier to discover potentially relevant datasets. Also, Nonprofits should look for opportunities to collect and share data most relevant to the problems they are looking to address. Finally, funders should consider how they can best support the ongoing deployment of AI projects and ensure social sector professionals have access to basic AI training.

McKinsey’s findings also show that to be successful, AI tools and techniques must be applied responsibly: clear principles must be established so that the solutions consider potential negative impacts—like the perpetuation of bias—on disadvantaged populations.

So, back to what I told you to remember: applications for the AI Impact Challenge close in seven days, on January 22 (@ 11:59:59 PST, to be exact). I’ll be part of an international panel of expert reviewers that will review all finalists and ultimately decide which ones will receive funds from our $25 million pool as well as other resources. We're excited to see what you come up with.

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Cloud Covered: 6 things you might have missed from Google Cloud last year

What was new with Google Cloud in 2018? Well, it depends on what particular cloud technology you’re interested in. There was plenty of news on the AI and machine learning front, along with developments on a variety of enterprise cloud components. The open cloud community continued to be a thriving place to collaborate, and Google Cloud user productivity and efficiency grew, too.

These popular stories from last year illustrate some of what you can do with Google Cloud technology.

1. Machine and deep learning made leaps. On the hardware front, special chips designed for high performance, called Cloud TPUs, are now broadly available to speed up machine learning tasks. And we partnered with NASA’s Frontier Development Lab to use ML to build simulations and algorithms to answer one big question: Is there life on other planets?
   
2. Organizations are starting to extract more value from their data. Tools like BigQuery and the Ethereum digital currency dataset, which we recently made available to everyone, help businesses find insights from their data. And The New York Times is digitizing its huge photo archive, along with all its associated data, using Google Cloud storage and database technology.
   
3. There’s a new way to keep your information secure. The Titan Security Key arrived in the Google Store in 2018. Use these security keys to add two-factor verification to your Google Accounts and other services. They’re designed to defend against attacks like phishing that steal user credentials.
   
4. The cloud opened the door to creating all kinds of applications and projects. For game developers, the OpenMatch open source project cuts down on development time for building multiplayer games with its matchmaking framework. And a novelist is using the new Cloud Speech-to-Text API to add visuals to poetry readings.
   
5. Productivity gains with cloud came in all shapes and sizes. Check out the new developer hub for G Suite, providinglots of pro tips for developers to create, manage, and track their projects, including this tip on automatically adding a schedule from Google Sheets into Calendar.
   
6. You can build on Google Cloud Platform (GCP) even more easily. A new type of containers called gVisor arrived to give developersmore options when building applications. Plus, we brought the infrastructure that powers Google Search to developers with Cloud Source Repositories for easier code search. And the Cloud Services Platform arrived in 2018—this integrated family of cloud services lets you build an end-to-end cloud while removing manual tasks from the daily workload.  
   

For even more of what was popular last year in Google Cloud, take a look at the top Google Cloud Platform stories of 2018. And if one of your goals this year is to start using cloud more, mark your calendar to attend Google Cloud Next ’19.

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Why we’re putting 1.6 million solar panels in Tennessee and Alabama

Android Enterprise Recommended validates top management solutions

Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) providers play a vital role in enabling and managing the business features and services in Android — helping customers deploy devices and applications consistently at scale. Today, we’re launching the Android Enterprise Recommended program for Enterprise Mobility Management to help customers find the best equipped EMMs to successfully deploy Android.

Since we’ve collaborated closely with EMM partners over the years, we understand what it takes to demonstrate excellence in this area. With this program, we’re recognizing partners who provide the most comprehensive technical solutions and have knowledgeable teams focused on modern Android security and management. 

We’re pleased to welcome Blackberry, Google Cloud, I3 Systems, IBM, Microsoft, MobileIron, Softbank, SOTI, and VMware to the program. These partners have validated solutions or will be launching their offerings throughout 2019, and we’ll add more approved partners over time. More details about our partners can be found here.

Customers can expect Android Enterprise Recommended EMMs to demonstrate the following qualities (and the full list of guidelines can be found on our site):

• Experience across multiple Android Enterprise implementation types  

• Proven ability to deliver advanced security and management features

• A consistent deployment experience, with admin consoles that simplify set-up of Android Enterprise

• Documentation and guides that provide best practices for Android Enterprise set-up and configuration

• Google-trained personnel across field sales, technical pre-sales and deployment support

• Commitment to staying current on the latest Android product features and training requirements

Similar to last year’s launch of the Android Enterprise Recommendedprogram for devices, where we validated knowledge worker and rugged devices against an elevated set of requirements, we’re taking a similar approach to EMMs. By raising the bar of excellence, we’re helping customers select which partners are best equipped to help them fully leverage the robust security and management capabilities in the Android platform.  

There’s so much more companies can achieve through mobility. With the Android Enterprise Recommended program, Google and the Android ecosystem are stepping up to help customers enjoy a more powerful, versatile and best-in-class enterprise mobility experience.

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Introducing the Google.org Fellowship

Three reasons to participate in Hash Code this year

Hash Code, Google’s team programming competition, is back...and this time, it’s going global. Think you could optimize video serving on YouTube? Or how about route Loon balloons to provide Internet coverage? These are all prompts from past competitions—so if you think you’re up for the challenge, register today and join developers around the world as they tackle a new Google engineering problem. Hash Code 2019 kicks off with the Online Qualification Round on Thursday, February 28th. Top teams from this round will be invited to Google Ireland in April to compete for cash prizes and the title of Hash Code 2019 Champion.

Whether you’re new to programming or a coding competition pro, there are plenty of reasons to participate in Hash Code. Here are our top three:

1. Optimization problems for the win. Just like the problems that Google engineers tackle, there’s never one right answer to a Hash Code problem. Instead, each round of the competition is designed as a “battle of heuristics”—imperfect solutions. There are many ways to approach the challenge, and teams should continuously iterate on their solution throughout the round. Getting familiar with past problems is the best way to prepare; hold a practice session (or two) with your team using the Hash Code archive.
   
2. Hash Code is all about community. From competing on a team of two to four people, to participating in the competition from a Hash Code hub (a local meetup that you can organize), opportunities to connect with other Hash Coders are everywhere. This is the first year Hash Code is open to developers globally, and we’re excited to see this community continue to grow. Meet other Hash Coders, find teammates and stay up-to-date on all the latest Hash Code buzz in our Facebook group.
   
3. Googley fun. Hash Code is an opportunity to get a glimpse into software engineering at Google, and when our teams come together to solve challenging problems, you can bet they have some fun while doing it. Hash Code’s no different—take a look at last year’s Final Round highlight reel to see what we mean, or check out the #HashCode conversations on social media.
   

The best way to experience Hash Code is to discover it for yourself. Register at g.co/hashcode by February 25th to be a part of this year’s competition.

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Become a Google for Education Certified Innovator in 2019

The Google for Education Certified Innovator Program supports educators in developing new projects for their classrooms and school districts. Members participate in a year-long mentorship program that begins with workshops called Innovator Academies where teachers, coaches and Google experts learn from each other. Today, applications for the 2019 Innovator Academies are open.

We’re sharing a few of the projects that have been started at past Innovator Academies—plus, alumni tips for educators who might want to develop their own.

Start in your own backyard

Tai Preuninger, Mesquite Independent School District in Texas

After discovering that my students had no idea their hometown (Mesquite) was ten miles away from Dallas, I created Hometown 360, which uses VR to document the history and geography of the city. With sections on local institutions and time-lapse maps tracking changes in the area over time, students can see a panoramic view of their hometown. There’s even a Make It Your Own page, so that teachers and students can use it as a model for similar projects elsewhere.

Get connected and share information

Joanna Carroll, Princeville School District in Illinois

With LocatEd, a free app I developed to connect educators with each other, I wanted to make a resource where people can ask questions, share ideas and find professional learning. The app has 300 users in 24 countries and is organized into three sections: locate guidance, locate innovative ideas, and locate professional development. Recently, an educator in the U.S. used LocatEd to ask a question about 3D printing—and soon after, had an answer from a teacher in Spain.

Let people come to you

Diana Gill, East Porter School District in Indiana

For my Innovator Academy project, I used Google Slides to develop several handy guides to copyright and fair use that I can customize for different situations. With these guides, I set out to make the topic of copyright fun—for example, one of my guides draws on Beastie Boys lyrics to explain how to attribute images through Creative Commons.

Learn by doing

John Zingale, Vancouver iTech Preparatory in Washington

I believe history should be taught using hands-on, individualized, project-based (“HiP”) methods that give students real-world experience and help them retain more information. For my own Innovator Academy project, I created the HiPStory Network, where educators can share their social studies projects in one central location. On the Contribute page, teachers can mentor one another or share projects that worked in their classrooms.

Keep at it

Todd DeSando, Windermere Preparatory School in Florida

To get through to one of my students, a non-native English speaker who had moved around a lot growing up, I began using emojis at the beginning of every day to check in with him about how he was feeling. This inspired me to come up with GIFs4Kids: a resource of GIFs for education that uses Google Translate to automatically make them accessible in 24 languages, with 400 GIFs already available. I encourage anyone thinking through an idea to keep at it—after a few tries submitting my project, I was able to develop and share it at the Academy in Washington DC.

Fall in love with your problem

Derek Doucet, Peterborough, Ontario

I’m passionate about teaching foreign languages, but I believe language training needs to be immersive and start at younger ages. That’s why I created Au Bear, an app for kids that uses Google Translate and Google Maps’ geotagging function to let students have contextual conversations in a foreign language. Parents control the settings on their own phones, and can choose from additional features like Storytelling or Playing Music from libraries of stored content for their kids.

You don’t need to know how to code!

Becky Shorey, Green Mountain High School, Colorado

I never saw myself as a tech whiz, but through my experience in the classroom saw how technology can make teachers’ jobs easier. So I created NaviGlobe Treks, a tool to allow for collaborative creation of VR trips using Google Earth, 360 video and Street View Maps across academic subjects. I had zero background in coding, but still was able to create this tech project at the Academy by collaborating with those around me.

Inspired? Find out more and apply to become a Certified Innovator.

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What's new with Google Fi in 2019

Stop the presses: How a new publishing platform can help local news

The challenges of local newsrooms are well-documented. Newspapers with long histories have had to cut back on staff and reduce coverage and reporters who try to start new digital publications face an interminable struggle with technical and business problems. It just doesn’t make sense, for instance, that every team of local reporters should have to invent the right mix of product features, get world-class tech and user experience talent, and then turn it all into the perfect bespoke publishing system to get their stories to readers.

Shouldn't doing great editorial work be enough?

We think so, and that's why the Google News Initiative has partnered with Automattic/WordPress and invested $1.2 million in its effort to create Newspack: a fast, secure, low-cost publishing system tailor-made to the needs of small newsrooms. Other funders include the Lenfest Institute for Journalism, The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and Civil Media collectively contributing another $1 million.

Journalists should be writing stories and covering their communities, not worrying about  designing websites, configuring CMSs, or building commerce systems. Their publishing platform should solve these problems for them. So while Newspack publishers will have access to all the plugins created by the WordPress developer community, the core product is not trying to be all things to all publishers. It is trying to help small publishers succeed by building best practices into the product while removing distractions that may divert scarce resources. We like to call it "an opinionated CMS:” it knows the right thing to do, even when you don’t.

ut what about where there are no proven models for success? Automattic will be working in partnership with Spirited Media and News Revenue Hub to better understand the features and capabilities that contribute to publisher success and to measure the business impact of those features. We'll also be advising on the Newspack feature set, based on feedback from our extensive contact with local publishers, and providing technical support on the integration of Google products.

The Newspack project takes another step—following on our Google News Initiative Cloud Program and GNI/YouTube innovation funding—towards our goal of local news sustainability by providing critical pieces of technology at high quality and low cost.

Newspack will begin development in the coming weeks, and will be made available to publishers globally later in the year.

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Want to get fit in 2019? Here's how Google can help

Pick up where you left off on Search

Have a minute? Learn something new from Women Techmakers

Women Techmakers creates visibility, community and resources for women in technology by hosting events, offering free trainings and piloting new initiatives with different groups and partners around the world. Whether you’re exploring a job in tech or looking to improve the influence of your work, we offer resources for women in all phases of their career. In our latest YouTube series, Women Techmakers in 60 Seconds, we explain advanced technical topics in one minute or less, making them more approachable and accessible.

The series gives you access to experts who tackle topics, technologies and skills they’ve spent years honing, stripping that subject of its complexity and distilling the concept in a bite-size way. For example, you might’ve heard the term “virtual machine” or “VM” before and nodded along—but what is it, really? This episode offers a quick tutorial that reveals the mystery behind VMs in just 60 seconds. We also discuss topics like APIs, Web Accessibility and more. In the comments below the video, we’ll include additional resources for you to explore if you want a deeper dive into the video’s theme.

We’re proud to produce content by and for women in the technology industry. Every other Wednesday, we’ll publish a new video highlighting Women Techmakers from both within and outside of Google. Be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss an episode. If you’re interested in learning more and getting involved with Women Techmakers, check out our website and sign up to become a member.

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Reimagining the commercial break in 2019

Hey Google, what's new with the Assistant at CES this year?

Two new ways the Google Assistant can help with an upcoming trip

A year of lessons learned from Google.org

Principles for evolving technology policy in 2019

The past year has seen a range of public debates about the roles and responsibilities of technology companies. As 2019 begins, I’d like to share my thoughts on these important discussions and why Google supports smart regulation and other ways to address emerging issues.

We’ve always been and still are fundamentally optimistic about the power of innovative technology. We’re proud that Google’s products and services empower billions of people, drive economic growth and offer important tools for your everyday life. This takes many forms, whether it’s instant access to the world’s information, an infinite gallery of sortable photos, tools that let you share documents and calendars with friends, directions that help you avoid traffic jams, or whatever Google tool you find most helpful.

But this optimism doesn’t obscure the challenges we face—including those posed by misuse of new technologies. New tools inevitably affect not just the people and businesses who use them, but also cultures, economies and societies as a whole. We’ve come a long way from our days as a scrappy startup, and with billions of people using our services every day, we recognize the need to confront tough issues regarding technology's impacts.

The scrutiny of lawmakers and others often improves our products and the policies that govern them. It’s sometimes claimed that the internet is an unregulated “wild west,” but that's not the case. Many laws and regulations have contributed to the internet’s vitality: competition and consumer protection laws, advertising regulations, and copyright, to name just a few. Existing legal frameworks reflect trade-offs that help everyone reap the benefits of modern technologies, minimize social costs, and respect fundamental rights. As technology evolves, we need to stay attuned to how best to improve those rules.

In some cases, laws do need updates, as we laid out in our recent post on data protection and our proposal regarding law enforcement access to data. In other cases, collaboration among industry, government, and civil society may lead to complementary approaches, like joint industry efforts to fight online terrorist content, child sexual abuse material and copyright piracy. Shared concerns can also lead to ways to empower people with new tools and choices, like helping people control and move their data—that’s why we have been a leader since 2007 in developing data portability tools and last year helped launch the cross-company Data Transfer Project.

We don’t see smart regulation as a singular end state, it must develop and evolve. In an era (and a sector) of rapid change, one-size-fits-all solutions are unlikely to work out well. Instead, it's important to start with a focus on a specific problem and seek well-tailored and well-informed solutions, thinking through the benefits, the second-order impacts, and the potential for unintended side-effects.

Efforts to address illegal and harmful online content illustrate how tech companies can play a supportive role in this process:

• First, to support constructive transparency, we launched our Transparency Report more than eight years ago, and we have continued to extend our transparency efforts over time, most recently with YouTube’s Community Guidelines enforcement report.

• Second, to cultivate best practices for responsible content removals, we’ve supported initiatives like the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism, where tech companies, governments and civil society have worked together to stop exploitation of online services.

• Finally, we have participated in government-overseen systems of accountability. For instance, the EU’s Hate Speech Code of Conduct includes an audit process to monitor how platforms are meeting our commitments. And in the recent EU Code of Practice On Disinformation, we agreed to help researchers study this topic and to regular reporting and assessment of our next steps in this fight.

While the world is no longer at the start of the Information Revolution, the most important and exciting chapters are still to come. Google has pioneered a number of new artificial intelligence (AI) tools, and published a set of principles to guide our work and inform the larger public debate about the use of these remarkable technologies. We’ll have more to say about issues in AI governance in the coming weeks. Of course, every new breakthrough will raise its own set of new issues—and we look forward to hearing from others and sharing our own thoughts and ideas.

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Stay organized in 2019 with new features in Classroom

Building a connected workforce in the new year

A new year has arrived, and with it fresh opportunities to transform your business.

Android can help power a more productive workforce and enhance customer experiences. As we look ahead to the rest of 2019, here are a few ways Android can help power a connected workforce, capable of meeting the evolving needs of digital enterprise.

Raising the bar with Android Enterprise Recommended

Last year we launched Android Enterprise Recommended, which makes it simpler for organizations to select, deploy and manage enterprise devices and services.

The program establishes best practices and common requirements for devices and services, backed by a thorough testing process conducted by Google. Devices in the program meet an elevated set of specifications for hardware, deployment, security updates, and user experience.

In September, we expanded the program to a new category of rugged devices for more demanding environments, which helps organizations in purchasing and deploying trusted Android hardware.

Enterprises are increasingly relying on Android as their go-to platform for rugged mobile deployments, with Android on pace to become the largest rugged OS by shipments in 2019, according to IDC.

Fueling global growth

Strengthening development tools has been central to helping companies grow with Android. We recently streamlined app publishing tools to help enterprises more quickly get the right apps to their employees. And the Android Management API, which came out of beta last year, brings a complete suite of management features for nearly any use case.

Additionally, companies are using Android to build great solutions for their customers and enhance team collaboration. Whether it’s Uber deploying Android devices to grow internationally or Pitney Bowes improving office shipping and mailing to expand their business, there are plenty of ways that Android helps companies meet their goals.

In 2019, we’re eager to see how companies will use the power of Android to move their business forward.

Security intelligence, backed by Google

While a new year is typically filled with optimism, it’s likely that fresh security challenges will be lurking. That’s why strong platform security is built into each Android device, backed by multiple layers of protection.

In 2018, Android 9 Pie delivered fresh helpings of security smarts. The Android platform uses industry-leading tools like exploit mitigation and sandboxing techniques to prevent bugs from being exploited. And Google Play Protect, the world’s largest threat detection system, is always working to protect devices, data, and applications.

The work profile is another powerful security tool, keeping company data in a separate, secure container on the device. Administrators can manage and secure a separate corporate profile and data, while the user gets full control over the rest of the device. And on Pixel and Android One devices, Digital Wellbeing can help sustain an employee’s new year's resolution for a better work-life balance.

Looking ahead to 2019

We’re continuing to invest in Android, and businesses are using the platform to build next-generation experiences for their workforce and customers. In the new year, we’ll continue to work with our hardware, software, services, and mobility management partners, who are building build custom app and device solutions for employees and customers. Our goal is to enable companies to connect every worker from boardrooms, out in the field, to the factory floor.

Android Enterprise Recommended is a centerpiece of these efforts, and we’re looking forward to extending its impact in the new year.

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Back to the drawing board! Doodle for Google returns.

Help influence and understand how your products appear on Google

Here’s how the Google Assistant became more helpful in 2018

In 2018, the Google Assistant learned to speak new languages (Nǐ hǎo!), expanded to new regions (like the Netherlands, Indonesia and Turkey), and became smarter with new features that can help you throughout your day. Along the way, more people started using the Assistant to get some help—active users of the Google Assistant grew four times over the past year. By the end of this month, we expect the Google Assistant to be available on one billion devices, up from 500 million last May.

Here are some of the ways the Assistant became more helpful in 2018:

• Google Home for the holidays: It was another record year for our Google Home family of devices, with millions sold this holiday season. Smart displays were particularly popular—one out of every seven Google Home devices activated over the holiday period was a Google Home Hub. With a rich visual display for photos, videos and visual answers, people found new ways to use their Assistant on Google Home Hub—hundreds of millions of photos were shown and hundreds of millions of minutes of music and videos were enjoyed over this holiday season.
  
• The Assistant went global: We taught the Assistant to speak new languages and understand local cultures—it’s now in nearly 30 languages and 80 countries, up from eight languages and 14 countries last year. And the Assistant became multilingual, so you can speak more than one language to it at home.
  
• Smart home central: You can manage your smart home all in one place with the Google Assistant, which is now compatible with over 10,000 smart home devices from over 1,600 popular brands. The number of smart devices that have been connected to the Google Assistant increased more than 600% over the last year.
  
• Book your table with Pixel: Pixel users in select states in the U.S. were the first to get access to an experimental new Google Assistant feature—powered by Duplex technology—which helps you complete tasks over the phone, like calling a restaurant to book a table.
  
• Natural conversation: The Assistant became a smarter conversationalist, so it can understand and respond to you naturally. Last summer, we introduced Continued Conversation, which lets you have a natural back-and-forth conversation with the Assistant. The Assistant can also understand more complex requests, so you can ask about many things at once, like “What’s the weather like in New York and in Austin?” And Pretty Please helped people encourage polite manners with their family.
  
• Broadcast to your family:When you’re on the go, it’s easier to stay connected to your loved ones with Broadcast replies. This holiday season, more than 24 million broadcast messages and replies were sent.
  
• Cooking companion: With our line-up of new Smart Displays and Google Home Hub, the Google Assistant can give you a hand in the kitchen with recipes and step-by-step cooking instructions, and we made it an even better sous chef with smart recommendations based on the time of day and your preferences. People used Google Home devices to cook over 16 million recipes this holiday season, with over a million recipes used on Christmas day alone.
  
• Family time: From family games to story time to music, we worked to make the Assistant a great way to connect and enjoy time with your family. You can ask the Assistant to read along some of your favorite titles with you, complete with sound effects and music that bring the story to life. And you can sing along to your favorite songs with your Smart Display. And for families with kids, parents probably could have guessed that “Baby Shark” was the most requested song on Google Home speakers this holiday season.
  
• Getting organized: Notes and lists in the Google Assistant made holiday shopping a little less stressful, helping you add and keep track of lists with just your voice. We also helped you get many things done with just one command with Routines. You can even start a routine by hitting dismiss on your alarm right from the Clock app on Android.
  
• Eight new voices: Thanks to advancements in AI, we can now create new voices for the Assistant in just a few weeks, while capturing subtleties like pitch, pace and all the pauses that convey meaning—so the voices are natural-sounding and unique. We brought eight new voices for the Google Assistant in the U.S. this year, including voices with British and Australian accents.
  
• Smart suggestions on your phone: We gave the Assistant on your phone a fresh look and made it more helpful. You can see a quick snapshot of your day, with suggestions and visual reminders based on the time of day, location and recent interactions with the Assistant.
  
• Book a ride and movie tickets: We made it easier to plan your night out, with features like booking a ride service from the Assistant and buying movie tickets from Fandango.
  
• Take care of your IOUs:You can use the Google Assistant to pay your friends back with Google Pay, so you can spend more time having fun and less time dealing with the hassle of paying each other back.
  

From day one, we’ve built the Assistant with one goal in mind: to help you get things done. Tomorrow, we’ll unveil even more ways the Assistant can help you at home, in the car and on the go at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. If you’re at CES, be sure to swing by the Google Assistant Playground (Central Plaza-1) for a firsthand look!

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New year, new skills: learn how to code with Grasshopper in 2019

EDU in 90: Back for season four

Any teacher will tell you that time is of the essence when it comes to the classroom. We heard from educators that they wanted a quick, easy way to keep up with the latest product updates and resources, so we created EDU in 90, a video series from Google for Education, to deliver just that.

Last season, we explored updates to Classroom and the new Teacher Center Resource Hub. We also uncovered your favorite strategies for creatively leveraging tools—like creating graphic novels with Google Drawings and using Slides to develop class newsletters.

Today, we’re kicking off season four of EDU in 90, with updates on Google Classroom, Quizzes in Google Forms and computer science. And based on your feedback, we’ll be focusing future episodes on topics like accessibility features, innovative uses for G Suite for Education tools, and favorite classroom apps from your peers. 

Don’t miss an episode—be sure to check out our series playlist and subscribe to the Google for Education YouTube channel.

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