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This is (probably) our last Keyword post of 2019 (and the decade). It’s cliche to talk about the passage of time, but as a new parent—my son was just a few weeks old at the time of this wrap-up post last December—I have an especially keen sense of how much can happen in a year. I also know it’s important to savor the individual moments. In that spirit, let’s look back at the stories that we shared from Google in 2019.   1. We invested in the communities around us, with a new Grow with Google Learning Center in New York and an expansion to libraries . We made investments in housing in the Bay Area and in data centers and offices across the U.S. In places like Chile , India , Mexico and Nigeria , our products and initiatives are helping connect more people to the opportunities afforded by the internet. And we officially reached 10 million people across Europe and the Middle East with digital skills training. 2. We continued our work to connect young people with digi...

His boots are on, his coat is well-pressed and his reindeer are ready. Santa is about to start his annual worldwide tour—and you can follow along. Take off time! Have you ever wondered what happens right before Santa’s hybrid sleigh takes off? This year, you’ll get to see an exclusive video of the behind-the-scenes preparations. Join the elves while they mark the last lists, the reindeer as they warm up before the long flight, and Mrs. Claus as she helps Santa get ready for the big day! Follow the map Starting Dec. 24 at 2 AM Pacific time, when he heads to the first stop in far-eastern Russia a bit after 10 PM local time, everyone will be able to follow Santa’s route around the world and toward their city. A live map will track the magic, showing Santa’s location, moment to moment, along with photos of seasonal scenes from hundreds of Local Guides around the world. He and his reindeer will visit more than 400 locations, and the Santa Tracker will display how f...

There are plenty of sites out there. Beyond producing great content, it’s vital to make yours stand out. How? One way is to provide an exceptional user experience (UX).  Use tools to put yourself in your user’s shoes, and then rectify anything that compromises their ability to move easily through your site. In turn, these optimizations can produce a positive impact on the performance of your ads.  1. Measure your site’s performance As a first step, assess your current website user experience to understand what developments are needed. Track important metrics about how your site performs in Google Search results using Search Console . Find out how often your site appears, its average position, click-through rates and more.  The Performance report provides visibility into how your search traffic changes over time, where it’s coming from and what search queries are most likely to show your site. See which pages have the highest (and lowest) click-through rate from ...

As we get ready to ring in 2020 here at Google Cloud, we’re taking a look back on stories that captured the imagination, provoked new ideas, and helped us be more efficient at work. Check out our top-read posts from 2019.  Build the cloud that's right for your business Just like you choose the right mix of apps you want on your phone, businesses that are using cloud computing choose the apps and services that will work for them. There are a lot of options available on Google Cloud, and some of the popular posts of the past year were about new technology that came out, as well as some new concepts to understand. 5 principles for cloud-native architecture—what it is and how to master it   Making hybrid and multi-cloud computing a reality Cloud Services Platform—bringing hybrid cloud to you Lots of businesses learned how to organize their data better.  Different types of data, like the price of a product or how many are sold, can be used to help a business und...

As our business evolves, the composition of our workforce often changes with it. Customer and user support, such as answering calls, product troubleshooting, and campaign set-up, has often been supplied by third-party companies on our behalf. In 2018, we announced a pilot program to enhance customer and user support by bringing some of these jobs in-house, so the work is undertaken by employees. Based on the great feedback we’ve received on that program, we’re expanding—by the end of 2020, we will have created more than 4,800 Google customer support jobs, including the one thousand Google customer support agents already working in our Google Operations Centers.  Agents in our Google Operations Centers work to provide exceptional service to Google’s customers and users and receive industry-leading wages and benefits, including three weeks of paid vacation, up to 22 weeks of paid parental leave, and comprehensive health care (medical, dental and vision coverage). Agents can also...

Every day, hundreds of people at Google work on building the best privacy protections into our products. In 2019, we made a renewed push around privacy tools, controls and engineering talent, an investment that is already making a difference—nearly 20 million people around the globe visit their Google Account daily, accessing security, privacy and ad settings. As a vice president of product for privacy, I look forward to supporting this work more in my new role leading Google's strategy on building world class privacy tools. Here’s a look at what we did in 2019 in this important area.  Keeping your data private and secure We’re committed to ensuring that our products meet user expectations around data sharing and data security. This year, we used findings from Project Strobe —an internal review of how third parties can request access to your Google account and Android device data—to implement new policies across Gmail , Android , Chrome and Drive to better protect your d...

Stadia has been up to a lot this past month. Since all Stadia updates and feature additions happen in the background with no downloads, patches or installs, it can be easy to miss a thing or two. To help our gamers keep track of everything, we’re introducing the first in a series of posts to keep you up to date on what’s new with Stadia. Chromecast Ultra All Chromecast Ultra devices received an update for Stadia compatibility, giving you access to another TV to play Stadia on. Whether you bought a bundle or not, you can now play Stadia on your TV with any Chromecast Ultra and the Stadia controller. The update also includes general performance and stability improvements for all Chromecast Ultras. Stream Connect Many games have become so complex that split-screen technology has declined because rendering two or more scenes at the same time is too taxing on consoles. Because Stadia runs in the cloud, there aren't the same restrictions you’d have on a local machine, and y...

2020 is just around the corner, and we’re already looking ahead. But before we shift focus to the upcoming year, let’s take a look at what we’ve accomplished together over the last six months in G Suite. Giving businesses the assist  In November we hosted Google Cloud Next ‘19 in London, where even more assistive features were introduced in G Suite. For starters, you’ll start seeing suggestions in Google Docs to help correct grammar faux pas via cutting-edge, neural network technology. We’re also bringing the power of Smart Compose from Gmail over to Docs so you can draft work faster, along with other helpful updates .  Integrations between the Google Assistant and G Suite are also now available in beta for businesses to test. These integrations bring you new ways to accomplish more on the go with the Google Assistant when you’re logged into your G Suite account. This includes things like managing your calendar, sending quick messages and joining meetings hands-free. If...

Tori Pickens’ students at the George B. Armstrong Elementary School for International Studies joined millions of teachers and students around the world to do an Hour of Code last week. Hour of Code is a global computer science initiative that creates a fun and creative environment for students to be introduced to the concepts of computer programming. The activity they completed, Code Your Hero by CS First , allowed students to reflect on and honor the everyday heroes in their lives while learning computer science concepts.  As the Dynamic Technology/Computer Science teacher, Tori is responsible for envisioning and coordinating the technology and CS education for all 1,200 students in the Chicago school from Kindergarten through 8th grade. She is also a leader in CS4All Chicago , helping pilot and develop many of their curricula and initiatives. In a recent conversation, Tori talked to us about her Hour of Code experience, her teaching philosophy and the power of CS education. W...

Working with some of the best game creators in the world, we’ve learned that a successful studio comes down to great people who have a vision to execute on the best ideas. We’re always looking for people who share our passion and vision for the future of gaming, which is why I’m so excited that Typhoon Studios, the independent developers behind the upcoming Journey to the Savage Planet , is joining Stadia Games and Entertainment.  Under the leadership of its co-founders, Reid Schneider & Alex Hutchinson, Typhoon Studios has built an incredible team of industry veterans who are committed to the player experience. The Typhoon team will be joining our first Stadia Games and Entertainment studio that is based in Montreal and led by Sébastien Puel.  Typhoon Studios will continue to work on the launch of Journey to the Savage Planet for multiple platforms on January 28, 2020. Meanwhile, our priority will be on integrating the team from Typhoon Studios into Stadia Games and...

When you’re traveling somewhere without access to the internet or don’t want to use your data plan, you can still use the Google Translate app on Android and iOS when your phone is offline. Offline translation is getting better: now, in 59 languages, offline translation is 12 percent more accurate, with improved word choice, grammar and sentence structure. In some languages like Japanese, Korean, Thai, Polish, and Hindi the quality gain is more than 20 percent.  It can be particularly hard to pronounce and spell words in languages that are written in a script you're not familiar with. To help you in these cases, Translate offers transliteration, which gives an equivalent spelling in the alphabet you're used to. For example, when you translate “hello” to Hindi, you will see “नमस्ते” and “namaste” in the translation card where “namaste” is the transliteration of “नमस्ते.” This is a great tool for learning how to communicate in a different language, and Translate has...

Google has highlighted fact checks in Search and News for almost three years as a way to help people make more informed judgments about the content they encounter online. Fact checks from authoritative sources are highlighted on Google Search and are labeled in Google News . This is possible because fact-checking initiatives around the world mark up their work with ClaimReview , which allows fact-checkers to signal—and anyone online to automatically detect—that a webpage contains a fact check. A highlighted fact check as it appears in a Search result Today we’re sharing that these fact checks appear more than 11 million times a day in Search results globally and in Google News in five countries (Brazil, France, India, U.K. and U.S.). That adds up to roughly 4 billion impressions a year. This library of over 40,000 fact checks is publicly available for anyone to consult through  a dedicated search tool  and for researchers to access  through an open API ...

2019 is all but behind us. But before we move forward, we’re taking a moment to look back and reflect on another year filled with partner successes, new learnings and of course, product launches.  Below are some of our top moments from throughout the year. Celebrated our partners' successes Success stories  showed the amazing work of our global partners. Check out these stories to learn how partners like... India’s SonyLIV used Ad Manager to grow OTT ad impressions by 5x.  Argentine news outlet Clarín delivered high-impact, custom ad formats programmatically.  DAZN grew programmatic video revenue by over 150% using Exchange Bidding. See more success stories from 2019 here . Launched new product solutions In an effort to help publishers grow and simplify their advertising business, we developed several new features and updated existing ones:    Simplified how partners manage advertising revenue and increased trans...

His entire life, Tim Shaw dedicated himself to football and dreamed of playing professionally. At 23, his dream came true when he was drafted and spent six years as an NFL linebacker. Then, in 2013, Tim felt his body begin to change. It started with small muscle twitches or bicep spasms; once, a gallon of milk slipped out of his hand while he was unloading groceries. During a game when he was perfectly positioned to tackle his opponent, his arm couldn’t hang on and the player slid past. His performance kept inexplicably declining and just before the 2013 season, Tim was cut from the Titans.  Five months later, Tim was diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease). With no known cause or cure, ALS not only impacts movement, but can make speaking, swallowing and even breathing difficult. Through our partnership with the ALS Therapy Development Institute , we met Tim and learned that the inability to communicate was one of the hardest p...

Technology in everyday homes has evolved since the start of the decade. Almost every part of the home can be connected to the internet, allowing local or remote control of thermostats, cameras, locks, lights, switches, sensors, and even doggy doors. While smart home devices are abundant, the lack of an industry-wide connectivity standard leaves people confused and frustrated when trying to understand what devices work with each smart home ecosystem. It also places a heavy burden on manufacturers to make sure all devices are compatible with each other. We're joining Amazon, Apple and others to create Connected Home over IP, a new independent working group managed by the Zigbee Alliance (separate from the existing Zigbee 3.0/Pro protocol). Our goal is to bring together market-tested technologies to develop a new, open smart home connectivity standard based on Internet Protocol (IP). Google’s use of IP dates back to the launch of Nest Learning Thermostat in 2011. IP also enables en...

With the latest Chrome OS update, we’re continuing to make Chromebook secure, fast and intuitively simple. Now you can control your music or podcasts from the lock screen, and manage your privacy settings across apps more easily. Control music at a glance The latest Chrome OS update brings controls for music and podcasts to your Chromebook’s lock screen, making it easier for you to control your audio content while your device is locked. Now, if you’re hosting a party and are using your Chromebook as a speaker, you can quickly skip to the next song or pause content without needing to unlock your device. This new feature works with YouTube Music, Spotify, iHeartRadio, dozens of other apps, and any media played through Chrome browser.  Now you can control music and podcasts from your Chromebook's lock screen Manage app settings more easily Now you can see and manage the settings for different types of apps on Chromebook — Play Store apps, web applicatio...

A couple of weeks ago at Google for Argentina, we shared how Google has opened up opportunities and a path for growth for people and businesses in Argentina. Here’s what we highlighted at the event: Our impact in Argentina In 2018, Google contributed to the national economy with more than 52 billion Argentinian pesos, helping more than 30,000 companies, publishers, media and nonprofit organizations across the country generate income. Small and medium businesses (SMEs) are an important part of the national economy, yet only 52 percent of Argentine SMEs have a website, which is essential to stand out online, find new customers, and grow their businesses.  Google for Small Businesses  is a new website that brings together Google tools designed for small and medium businesses. Get around faster with Google Maps To improve the mobility of all Argentines, we launched two-wheeler mode in Google Maps. The new feature helps motorcyclists move around the country faster an...

Imagine ending homelessness, solving climate change, or guaranteeing a sustainable future for the world. Nonprofits work hard to make these goals a reality. They tackle the most urgent issues facing society, and Google products help make their missions more visible and far-reaching. Let’s look at three ways the nonprofit community thrived in 2019 with the support of Google for Nonprofits and partner teams. 1. Staying in the know Followers of Google for Nonprofits’ monthly newsletters and livestreams enjoyed a steady stream of news and tips about Google products. They learned how to spread their messages on YouTube, how to make a bigger impact with Google Earth and Maps, and gained insights from Google Analytics.  Nonprofits also learned from each other . Thrive DC shared their mission to end homelessness in Washington, D.C., and how Google for Nonprofits helped them drastically improve their efficiency and productivity. GoVolunteer described how Google helps them grow and...

Who doesn’t love holiday photos? Luckily for Pixel 4 owners, the camera on your phone is packed with all of the features you need to get the perfect picture every time, year round. All is calm, all photos are bright Holiday decorations and lights can make it difficult to capture that perfectly lit photo. Pixel 4’s Dual Exposure Controls ensure that no matter how decked your halls are, you always get the great photo you want by giving you control over the lighting, silhouettes and exposure in your shots. Celebrate the festival of lights no matter how dark it is thanks to Night Sight on Pixel 4. As your family gathers around the menorah, snap a great picture of your loved ones’ faces lit by candle light by using the low-light photography mode on Pixel. And for those staying up and waiting for Santa, use Night Sight to capture the stockings hung by the chimney with care even as the fire dwindles.  Ring in the New Year in new ways Looking for an evening activi...

According to the World Wildlife Fund , vertebrate populations have shrunk an average of 60 percent since the 1970s. And a recent UN global assessment found that we’re at risk of losing one million species to extinction, many of which may become extinct within the next decade.  To better protect wildlife, seven organizations, led by Conservation International , and Google have mapped more than 4.5 million animals in the wild using photos taken from motion-activated cameras known as camera traps. The photos are all part of Wildlife Insights , an AI-enabled, Google Cloud-based platform that streamlines conservation monitoring by speeding up camera trap photo analysis. With photos and aggregated data available for the world to see, people can change the way protected areas are managed, empower local communities in conservation, and bring the best data closer to conservationists and decision makers. Wildlife managers at Instituto Humboldt take advantage of a new AI-enab...