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During a recent visit to Google’s Color, Material and Finish (better known as CMF) studio, I watched while Jess Ng and Jenny Davis opened drawer after drawer and placed object after object on two white tables. A gold hoop earring, a pale pink shell — all pieces of inspiration that Google designers use to come up with new colors for devices, including the just-launched Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro . “We find inspiration everywhere,” Jenny says. “It’s not abnormal to have a designer come to the studio with a toothbrush or some random object they found on their walk or wherever.” The CMF team designs how a Google device will physically look and feel. “Color, material and finish are a big part of what defines a product,” Jess, a CMF hardware designer, says. “It touches on the more emotional part of how we decide what to buy.” And Jenny, CMF Manager for devices and services, agrees. “We always joke around that in CMF, the F stands for ‘feelings,’ so we joke that we design feelings.” The new...

Earlier this year, Google’s Women Techmakers launched “ Tech Bytes, ” a series featuring Black women engineers and developers at Google. Tech Bytes supports our broader effort to spotlight Black women in tech by sharing their technical expertise, and creating a space for Black women in the industry to connect. For our latest episode of Tech Bytes , we sat down with Kendra Claiborne, an Application Engineer at YouTube, to learn more about her role and passion for technology. Tell us about your path to joining the tech industry. Where were you before? My journey into tech started when I was eight years old, building websites for fun and searching online to learn how the computer works. My passion for programming led me to pursue a degree in Computer Science at the University at Buffalo. During my undergraduate years, I took an internship at a startup that specialized in building custom applications on the Salesforce platform. I was very unfamiliar with Salesforce when I first star...

Note: For this edition, Jacquelline Fuller is passing the pen to her colleague Hector Mujica, who leads our Economic Opportunity work, to share more about how we approach skill building and recent support from Google.org to honor Hispanic Heritage Month. One of our goals is to help people — especially those without college degrees — gain the skills they need to pursue in-demand, higher-paying careers. This is a topic that is deeply personal to me, as a Latino in tech, and that is important to Google, as a company that strives to create greater equity and access to opportunity — particularly for underserved communities. We know that 80% of middle-class jobs in the U.S. require a strong knowledge of digital skills, and that these jobs often pay better. That’s why we partner with nonprofit organizations to help them bring digital skilling solutions to historically underserved and excluded people, like the Latino community. We support organizations like the Hispanic Federation and Per...

50 years ago this month, Ray Tomlinson sent the very first email. He was a programmer working on ARPANET, the system that laid the groundwork for what would become the internet as we know it today. He tested the messaging system by sending emails to himself, and later said that the first note was probably something like “QWERTYUIOP.” More than 30 years after this breakthrough, a Google engineer named Paul Buchheit conducted his own email experiments. In a 2005 blog post , Paul described the problem he was trying to solve: “My email was a mess. Important messages were hopelessly buried, and conversations were a jumble…I couldn't always get to my email because it was stuck on one computer, and web interfaces were unbearably clunky. And I had spam. A lot of it.” These pain points are part of what motivated Paul to come up with a better system — Gmail. Buchheit created Gmail as a browser-based email program that allowed users to easily search their own messages. “With Gmail, I got...

Google believes that to have sustainable economic growth, we must have inclusive growth. It is why we developed the Grow with Google digital skills training program, which provides free training to help individuals grow their careers and businesses. Through our digital skilling programs and Google.org grantees, we have helped put nearly 170,000 Americans into new jobs, and of these, 67% are from underrepresented groups, including 44% women. Our Google Career Certificates , available on Coursera, have helped people enter high-growth career fields including Data Analytics, IT Support, Project Management and User Experience Design. Because we believe that collective action is key to success, we created a network of more than 150 companies who accept the Grow with Google Certificates as credentials for roles, including Walmart, Infosys, Verizon and of course, Google (and we are hiring, by the way!). Today, we’re announcing an expansion of our Google Career Certificates program, includin...

For nearly three decades, the UN has been bringing together almost every country on Earth for climate summits called COP, which stands for ‘Conference of the Parties.’ Many believe this year’s summit, COP26, is the world’s best chance to get runaway climate change under control. The UK is asking influential world leaders to bring their plans for real world changes to Glasgow, plans that will help swiftly bring down emissions — from coal to cars to cash — and limit global warming to the 1.5 degree maximum. But while world leaders gather to discuss their commitments, the people and groups who are fighting for climate action are being showcased. Organized by the UK Government, this is the area where the public, civil society, indigenous peoples, youth groups, charities, academics, artists and businesses can have their voices heard at COP26, through an extensive programme of events, workshops, talks and exhibitions that promote dialogue, awareness, education and commitments. Visit the ...

Citizen journalism is playing a crucial role in helping South African communities unite. Food for Manzi is one organization which tells the untold stories of rural communities and agriculture in South Africa to challenge stereotypes and spread positivity. With support from the Google News Initiative, they set up the Sinelizwi citizen journalism project which trained 62 citizens from all nine Provinces to tell local stories to empower and unite local communities. Projects like this are why Google invests in the Google News Initiative (GNI), and this week we held the first GNI for Africa event . The event is an opportunity for journalists, publishers and content creators in Africa to find out more about Google’s training programmes for journalists and news business professionals. From understanding how small and medium size news organizations can grow their digital business to how to use consumer insights and data to better understand reader preferences and increase profitability a...

As the days get shorter and colder, it’s getting much harder for us to step out from under our bed covers and into the dark morning. When Daylight Saving Time ends this weekend in Europe and the weekend after in North America, we’ll need to adjust ourselves even more. So, what’s the best way to deal with the new sleeping schedule? The Nest team spoke to Dr. Logan Schneider who gave us five tips to get your winter sleep schedule ready. Originally a sleep scientist at Stanford Medicine, Logan is now the sleep expert at Google Health. He’s also the brain behind Sleep Sensing on the new Google Nest Hub , the smart screen that helps you get a better night's sleep. Start adjusting on time… or don’t adjust at all That extra hour of sleep this weekend can feel like jet lag for some. Soon, your sleep rhythm might make you want to go to bed earlier than usual. Logan's advice is to start preparing a few days in advance to make the transition easier for your body. Dr. Logan says: “Rat...

At Google, we keep more people safe online than anyone else with products that are secure by default, private by design and put you in control of your data. To celebrate Cybersecurity Awareness Month , we’ve introduced new features and technologies that keep your data private and secure. Protecting your privacy with products that are secure by default Protecting your privacy starts with the most advanced digital security. That’s why we make our products secure by default and help keep your data safe with customized recommendations in Security Checkup , an easy, personalized way to secure your Google Account. So whether you’re browsing the web, managing your inbox, or sharing your vacation photos, we’re keeping you safe with automatic protections built right into our products. Today we’re excited to share some new security products and features: Introducing the New Security Hub on Pixel: The Security Hub brings all your security-related features and settings into one...

When I reflect on the past two decades of computer science research, few things inspire me more than the remarkable progress we’ve seen in the field of artificial intelligence. In 2001, some colleagues sitting just a few feet away from me at Google realized they could use an obscure technique called machine learning to help correct misspelled Search queries. (I remember I was amazed to see it work on everything from “ayambic pitnamiter” to “unnblevaiabel”). Today, AI augments many of the things that we do, whether that’s helping you capture a nice selfie , or providing more useful search results , or warning hundreds of millions of people when and where flooding will occur . Twenty years of advances in research have helped elevate AI from a promising idea to an indispensable aid in billions of people’s daily lives. And for all that progress, I’m still excited about its as-yet-untapped potential – AI is poised to help humanity confront some of the toughest challenges we’ve ever f...

Editor’s note: Today’s guest post is from Ryan Robinson, blogger and podcaster from ryrob.com. Interested in growing your blog’s audience? Over the past few years, I’ve built an audience of over 500,000 readers — and today, I wanted to share some of the best strategies I’ve learned. With some repetition and a healthy dose of creativity, putting just one of these tips into practice could help you double (or even triple!) your readership. Lesson 1: Use video to show your human side Video is a great way to build an instant connection with new visitors — whether it’s an introduction video on your homepage, or tutorial videos within your blog posts. This humanizes you and helps you connect more deeply with your audience. Readers can actually hear your voice, see your body language, and get to know you better. You don’t need a lot of fancy equipment to get started. You can use your smartphone to record a quick introduction of yourself and your blog. Host it on YouTube, then embed it ...

Last week we unveiled the new Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro — and we unveiled a lot . Aside from the two new phones themselves, there was also Google Tensor , our custom system on a chip (SoC) that takes advantage of our machine learning research. Then there’s Magic Eraser , which will take unwanted people and objects out of your photos — plus Pixel Pass , a new way to buy, and a ton of new features packed into Android 12 . More from this Collection Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro The Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro have arrived, and so have plenty of new features. View all 8 articles Amid all the new , you may have missed a thing or two. But don’t worry, we went ahead and collected everything you might have missed, and some extras, too. One of the key differences between Pixel 6 and previous editions is the radical redesign of the hardware encased in aluminum and glass . 2. Real Tone is a significant advancement , making the Pixel 6 camera more equitable, and that’s not al...

What you share with friends, family and others on phone calls is your business. Google Fi has always been committed to keeping your personal information safe, and we want to help you keep your personal conversations private, too. That’s why today, we're announcing end-to-end encrypted calls, starting with Android phones on Fi. What is end-to-end encryption? End-to-end encryption is a complex term for a simple idea: that no one besides you and the person you’re talking to should be able to hear what you're saying over the phone. End-to-end encryption has become an industry standard for real-time communications such as messaging — and now, we’re bringing it to phone calls, right from your Phone app. Calls between two Android phones on Fi will be secured with end-to-end encryption by default, so you can have peace of mind knowing your calls are staying between you and the person you’re talking to. End-to-end encryption is the latest addition to the collection of privacy a...

Last week, we announced new widgets for Android to bring helpful content and actions from your Google apps right to your Home screen. And today, they’re officially live. Here’s a rundown of what’s now available, and what we’re most excited about. Personalization with Material You Your device should be just as unique as you are, so we’ve redesigned our widgets to bring the best of Material You to your Android phone. All widgets can be resized so you can fit different combinations on your phone screen based on what’s important to you. As you resize, your widgets will change. If you make your widgets bigger, you’ll get more functionality (more space means we can squeeze in more useful features). And on select Android 12 devices — including the Pixel 3 or later — widgets will dynamically change color as you move each one around your chosen wallpaper. Resize each widget to best suit you. Easy directions with Maps If you’re on the go, the new Google Maps widget makes ...