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One of the first things I saw when I arrived at the Palace of Versailles in 2011 was a construction site. In partnership with Google, we were building the History Gallery , an exhibit that brought together our art collections and digital reconstructions of the palace in 3D. The History Gallery gave people a better understanding of Versailles, and eight years later, the partnership between the Palace of Versailles and Google Arts & Culture continues to give everyone access to this cultural treasure through technology. Today, we’re launching a new online exhibition for everyone who can’t make it to Paris or who wants to explore this majestic place in a new way: Versailles: The Palace is Yours . Our new app VersaillesVR —a technological first in the cultural world—takes visitors on a virtual reality tour of the Royal Grand Apartments, the Chapel and the Opera. To capture the imagery, we used photogrammetry—a technology that reconstructs three-dimensional models of objects and landm...

Editor’s note: To help families dealing with addiction, Google has given over $1 million worth of contributions to Partnership for Drug-Free Kids (PDFK) this year and worked with PDFK to show up for people who are seeking support. When someone searches for relevant queries such as "teen drug addiction" on Google or YouTube, they get the number to call an experienced parent coach who works with caregivers to develop individualized plans for helping loved ones with substance use. You can also find local and national helplines on our Recover Together site . I can still vividly remember confronting my mother when I was in my late teens. After a lifetime of dealing with her unreliability, I had just had it. In a blowup conversation, I told her that she had chosen drugs over me.  At the time, I looked at her years of being incarcerated or held up in halfway homes as abandonment. But I now know that there was no other place she would have rather been than to be home with me—clea...

At the end of a two-day summit in Sunnyvale, California, keynote speaker Dolores Huerta led a chant with the audience. She asked the crowd, “Who’s got the power?” And we responded, “We’ve got the power!” She continued: “What kind of power?” We responded: “Latina power!”  We were at the first-ever Latinas at Google Summit, which took place earlier this month. The summit, called “Building for the Future,” aimed to create community and discuss the unique U.S. experience of being a Latina at Google. Five hundred Googlers attended the summit, which featured guest speakers Huerta and “Orange Is the New Black” actress Jackie Cruz, as well as conversations with senior leaders at Google.  A group of Google volunteers, myself included, took seven months to carefully plan workshops, music, art exhibits and food inspired by our heritage. The size of the group was awe-inspiring, and so was their response after the event. When they gave us feedback, they told us they found community in ...

Today, using data for driving business decisions has become common practice for most companies, with many having a dedicated analytics team checking the impact of marketing investments, which channels to invest in and effect. But the majority of these activities are focused on optimizing parameters before the audience click the ad. The question is: are you taking the same data driven approach to your website design? If you don’t use data to optimize your site’s user experience, you risk low conversion rates and lost revenue. A well-designed user interface could increase your website’s conversion rate by up to 200 percent , and a better UX design could yield conversion rates up to 400 percent.  Now take your revenue, check your conversion rate, and calculate what it would be if the conversion rate would increase +200%. The number right there is why the companies that will thrive in the future most likely will be the ones that are data driven in, and focus as much on, both...

World Heart Day is this Sunday, and it raises awareness around the cause and prevention of cardiovascular diseases around the world. As part of these efforts, the World Heart Federation  recognizes “people from all walks of life who have shown commitment, courage, empathy and care in relation to heart health” as heart heroes . It’s an honor to have been included this year for my focus on using technology to promote lifestyle interventions such as increasing physical activity to help people lead healthier lives. Heart disease continues to be the number one cause of death in the U.S., so it’s more important than ever to identify and share simple ways to keep your heart healthy. I have two kids under the age of five and life can get really busy. When juggling between patients, children, work and errands, it’s easy to feel active when in reality, I’ve lost track of healthy habits. With Google Fit’s smart activity goals  and Heart Point tracking, I realized I wasn’t reaching...

Five years ago, the world watched feats of human strength and spirit at the Olympics in Socci and the World Cup in Rio. A robot made the first-ever landing on a comet. Citizens of the internet dumped buckets of ice on their heads to raise awareness and funds for ALS research. And while millions of teachers and students headed back to school in 2014, a team of passionate engineers, former teachers and ed tech experts at Google launched a new program—Google Classroom.  Since then, the community of educators and students using Classroom has grown to over 40 million worldwide. Thoughtful feedback from teachers has helped us build new features to meet the ever-changing needs of today’s schools. Here are five stories of how Google Classroom has evolved over the years. 1. Building a mission control center designed to save teachers time  When talking with educators, we learned that their biggest need was a tool that allowed them to spend less time on administra...

When you’re in the zone playing a video game, multitasking becomes difficult. You might miss capturing a fun in-game moment to share with friends, or forget to turn down the volume late at night.   We think the Assistant can be a great teammate to help you stay focused on playing while still getting things done. Available in beta starting today, your Xbox One now works with the Google Assistant, letting you control your gaming experience by voice with any Google Assistant-enabled smart speaker or smart display, like the Google Nest Hub Max, or any Android mobile device. With the new Xbox Action for the Google Assistant, you can ask the Assistant to launch a game and your console will automatically turn on and load the game so it’s ready for you to start playing. To save you even more time, you can also easily search for games by voice, so there’s no more need to use the on-screen keyboard.  After you save humanity from the Swarm or finish a match with your friends in...

Saccheria Franceschetti, a family business based in Brescia, Italy, has seen a lot of change in the 80 years since it was founded. Originally set up to produce bags from old fabric, it has now adopted 21st-century solutions like artificial intelligence to keep its competitive edge. As the third largest distributor of flexible packaging in Europe today, the 50-employee business uses AI to optimize its warehouses and logistics, and to monitor business processes in real time. At Google, we’re inspired by the tech savvy of companies like Saccheria Franceschetti, and we think there are thousands of small- and medium-sized businesses in Italy that could benefit from the same knowledge. That’s why Google has collaborated with the School of Management of the Politecnico University of Milan to develop Machine Learning Checkup , a free tool that enables companies to evaluate their readiness for artificial intelligence, and to understand how to make the most of the solutions offered by this te...

In many places in the world, entry-level smartphones are often the first and only way people get access to the internet. As we build Android for everyone, making sure that these devices are affordable and high quality is a top priority. That’s why we launched Android (Go edition) in 2018—a platform tailored for smartphones with 1.5GB of memory or less. As we release Android 10 (Go edition), here's a look at how we're making experiences for entry-level device owners better, across the platform and apps. Android 10 (Go edition) With Android 10 (Go edition), we've made Android faster and more secure.  First, this new release helps you switch between apps faster and in a memory-efficient way. Speed and reliability are also enhanced—apps now launch 10 percent faster than they did on Android 9 (Go edition).  Encryption underpins our digital security, as it protects your data even if your device falls into the wrong hands. That’s why Android 10 (Go edition) includes a n...

Fondly referred to as “El Barrio,” East Harlem is home to one of the largest Latino communities in New York City. It was here that I grew up learning about and celebrating my Puerto Rican and Dominican heritage. From the vibrant murals depicting Latino legends to the salsa music playing from apartment windows, a walk through the neighborhood was a constant reminder of the pride my community felt for our culture.  At my bilingual elementary school, our teachers taught us about Latino artists, scientists, athletes and other cultural icons. We learned about how Roberto Clemente , an Afro-Boricua who played for the Pittsburgh Pirates, was not only one of the most accomplished baseball players of all time, but was also well known for his philanthropic and humanitarian efforts. And how Celia Cruz , whose music was often played at my family gatherings, brought Latin music to the mainstream with her powerful voice and Afro-Latino rhythms. The societal contributio...

Every time you search on Google, there are thousands, sometimes millions, of webpages with helpful information. When you’re looking for news, those pages could be from a large traditional news publisher or a new digital outlet. They could be from a local news site, or a small publisher specializing in health or fitness or food or fashion. Our job is to sort through those and connect you with the most relevant information.  At the same time, we recognize that the internet has changed the way we find and access information, and that publishers are facing challenging business environments as a result. So I’d like to talk about how we connect people with news and how we support news publishers around the world.  Our approach to search   People trust Google to help them find useful and authoritative information, from a diverse range of sources. To uphold that trust, search results must be determined by relevance—not by commercial partnerships .  That’s why we d...

When Neha Palmer was a kid, she idolized Marie Curie. Reading a book about the pioneering scientist inspired her to pursue the field herself. “I think of it as the geek’s princess story,” she says. And now, both in and out of her role at Google, she’s working to inspire others who want to find a way to translate their passion for science and the environment into a career.  Neha leads the team responsible for purchasing clean energy to fuel Google’s data centers. She's helping to reach our goal of remaining carbon neutral, which we have been since 2007, and matching all of Google’s energy consumption with 100 percent renewable energy, which we have achieved for two years in a row . Thanks to the work of Neha’s team, Google recently announced our largest ever purchase of renewable energy and was recognized by the Environmental Protection Agency with its Green Power Leadership Partner of the Year award. For this installment of The She Word , Neha explains why renewable energy is...

Chrome Browser keyboard shortcuts (which also work on Chromebook) can be major timesavers. Keyboard shortcuts , also called “hot keys,”  help you speed up a wide variety of tasks, including taking a screenshot, locking your screen, and even (fittingly) viewing all keyboard shortcuts—just click Ctrl + Alt + / . These six Chromebook keyboard shortcuts are among the most popular shortcuts that can help you do more in less time. While these tips are especially helpful for those of you who use Chromebooks at work, you might find they help you get things done faster, regardless of whether you're at work or home. 1. Dock browser windows. Digging into projects often requires opening more than one browser window—also called a “browser instance”—at a time. This can be an effective way to organize work. You can open one browser instance for dashboards, one for apps, another for Gmail, a third for Google Docs you’re working on, and, perhaps, one for music. If you find yourself going back ...

The latest version of Chrome OS brings the Google Assistant to more Chromebooks. It’s starting to roll out now to more non-managed, consumer devices.  The Assistant on Chromebook helps you stay productive, control your smart devices, and have a little fun along the way. To get started, enable the Assistant in your Chromebook’s settings and then try asking or typing some of these queries:  “Hey Google, create a new document” Quickly create new Docs, Sheets and Slides in your Google Drive. Or open a pre-existing file by specifying its title in your query. With your Assistant, access files in Drive even faster than before.   “Hey Google, what’s next on my calendar?” Your Assistant can help you stay on top of your busy schedule. You can ask it when your next meeting starts, find out when your next flight is scheduled, or add an event to your calendar.  “Hey Google, remind me to buy a cake for Ciara’s birthday” Set helpful remi...

We believe you should be able to easily understand how your data is used and why, so you can make choices that are right for you. Recently we’ve heard concerns about our process in which language experts can listen to and transcribe audio data from the Google Assistant to help improve speech technology for different languages. It's clear that we fell short of our high standards in making it easy for you to understand how your data is used, and we apologize. When we learned about these concerns, we immediately paused this process of human transcription globally to investigate, and conducted a full review of our systems and controls. Now we want to share more about how audio recordings work, and some changes we’re making:  Your audio data isn’t stored by default By default, we don’t retain your audio recordings. This has been the case, and will remain unchanged. You can still use the Assistant to help you throughout the day, and have access to helpful features like Voice M...

Throughout history, technology has changed the nature of work. This has created new opportunities and jobs, but there are also concerns about technology’s impact on job security and displacement. Google.org’s $2 million grant to Nesta , a global innovation foundation, will set up partnerships with trade unions in Sweden, Finland, Denmark, the Netherlands and Belgium. The program will provide training to workers whose jobs are changing rapidly as a result of automation or digitalization—for example, people working in administrative roles, manufacturing and the service industry.  Nesta will deliver training through a new program called FutureFit , which will help workers get the skills they need to adapt to changes in their workplace. Using training methods such as nano learning—where trainings are broken down into small chunks—and gamification, the program will shed light on learner behavior and motivation. This evidence will be used to inform future training. While research f...

Today I am in Helsinki, Finland, to meet with Finnish Prime Minister Rinne to discuss his priorities for the European Union Presidency, from building sustainable economic growth to achieving a carbon-free future.  The Nordic countries are great examples of how the internet can help drive economic growth. As part of our vision to build a more helpful Google for everyone, we are supporting Europe’s digital ambitions in two ways.  First, by continuing to invest in sustainable digital infrastructure across Europe. Today, I announced that we plan to invest 3 billion euros to expand our data centers across Europe over the next two years. That will bring our total investment in Europe’s internet infrastructure to 15 billion euros since 2007. Our investments generate economic activity for the region and support more than 13,000 full-time jobs in the EU every year, according to a study published today by Copenhagen Economics. As part of this new investment, we plan to invest a...