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Showing posts from September, 2022

Test drive new McLaren Formula 1 themes in your Chrome browser

We’re more than halfway through a thrilling Formula 1 season, and McLaren is locked in a tight battle in the 2022 World Constructors Championship . Earlier this year, we partnered with the McLaren F1 Team to distribute Chrome browser and almost 500 Android devices – including phones, tablets and earbuds – across their entire racing organization to help streamline communications on race day. When McLaren debuted Chrome-inspired wheel covers , fans around the world told us they wanted more. Starting at this weekend’s Singapore Grand Prix, you’ll find more Chrome branding featured on their engine covers as part of our ongoing partnership. You can now personalize your Chrome browser with exclusive themes inspired by the McLaren F1 Team. The eight new themes feature McLaren’s papaya car, and race day images from some of your favorite circuits. Image of a Chrome browser window with the McLaren F1 car, showcasing the Chrome logo on its engine cover. Image of a Chrome brow...

Bite-size skills training for Brits short on time

Digital skills are a key part of many jobs and are crucial for helping small businesses grow. But with the hustle of daily life, many of us struggle to find the time to learn valuable new skills that could help with landing a new job, earning more money or growing a business. That’s why we’ve asked for advice from four people who’ve done this before: presenter and former footballer Ian Wright , entrepreneur and Dragon’s Den investor Steven Bartlett , finance professional turned YouTuber Patricia Bright , and founder of notonthehighstreet.co.uk Holly Tucker . Based on their experiences with switching careers or starting a business by learning a new skill, they’ve helped us create Skills to Go , a free, bitesize digital skills training programme. You can complete the short training sessions, which range from five to 20 minutes, as and when you have time — while commuting, over a coffee break or in between appointments. Our Skills to Go site suggests relevant topics — inclu...

How a second chance led Paula to Google

Welcome to the latest edition of “My Path to Google,” where we talk to Googlers, interns, apprentices and alumni about how they got to Google, what their roles are like and even some tips on how to prepare for interviews. Today’s post is all about Paula Martinez, a Google Cloud Marketing Manager based in Argentina. How would you describe your role? As a Partner Marketing Manager, my main responsibility is to design marketing campaigns for Google Cloud products and solutions with our regional technological and reseller partners. What does your typical workday look like? I try to start my day without any meetings so I can get organized, create my to-do list and tackle the most pressing tasks. I work a lot with our sales teams and partners to plan and execute marketing initiatives that fit market strategies. Part of my day is focused on measuring and analyzing those campaigns and, with the help of my team, creating action plans based on the results. I'm the only one on my team...

Celebrating the success of 47 European news innovators

We're announcing today the 47 recipients from 21 countries of the first Google News Initiative Innovation Challenge for Europe . Innovation Challenges, which we’ve previously run in other regions of the world, provide funding to help news organizations develop new paths to business sustainability. This Innovation Challenge was open to publishers with smaller newsrooms that produce original journalism, and whose projects focus on creating a more sustainable and diverse news ecosystem. The recipients will be working on issues ranging from fact-checking to artificial intelligence. Success: The team at Hromadske Radio will promote online audio consumption among Ukrainian audiences. With 605 applicants from 38 countries, we were impressed by the diversity and the quality of the proposed projects. There were creative solutions to common business challenges, including news organizations engaging with more diverse audiences, and providing greater transparency into how po...

Bringing more voices to Search

One of the ways Google Search helps you make sense of the world is by connecting you with the widest range of perspectives, from everyday people to authoritative reporting. Today we’re announcing two new features that will help bring you even more viewpoints, so you can have additional context and choices when you search. Find out what people are saying in online discussions and forums Forums can be a useful place to find first-hand advice, and to learn from people who have experience with something you’re interested in. We’ve heard from you that you want to see more of this content in Search, so we’ve been exploring new ways to make it easier to find. Starting today, a new feature will appear when you search for something that might benefit from the diverse personal experiences found in online discussions. The new feature, labeled “Discussions and forums,” will include helpful content from a variety of popular forums and online discussions across the web. For example, if you sear...

Search outside the box: How we're making Search more natural and intuitive

For over two decades, we've dedicated ourselves to our mission: to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. We started with text search, but over time, we've continued to create more natural and intuitive ways to find information — you can now search what you see with your camera, or ask a question aloud with your voice. At Search On today, we showed how advancements in artificial intelligence are enabling us to transform our information products yet again. We're going far beyond the search box to create search experiences that work more like our minds, and that are as multidimensional as we are as people. We envision a world in which you’ll be able to find exactly what you’re looking for by combining images, sounds, text and speech, just like people do naturally. You’ll be able to ask questions, with fewer words — or even none at all — and we’ll still understand exactly what you mean. And you’ll be able to explore information orga...

New ways to make more sustainable choices

Search interest in terms like electric vehicles , solar energy and thrift stores reached new highs globally over the past year — suggesting that people are looking for ways to practice sustainability in their daily lives. That’s a trend we love to see. Averting climate change requires all of us to act. At Google, we aim to make our operations more sustainable (like our goal to achieve net-zero emissions across all of our operations and value chain by 2030), and also make it easier for people and businesses to make more sustainable choices. At our Search On event, we’re sharing new ways Google can help you be more sustainable. Find more efficient cars and eco-friendly routes If you’re in the market for a new car, you’re probably looking to lower your fuel costs and emissions. Over the next few days, we’ll start to show the annual fuel cost for cars in search results. We’ll also show emissions estimates, so you know how a particular model you have your eye on compares to simi...

Helping you find and control personalized results in Search

Have you ever watched a great cooking show? The fun is not just in seeing the finished dish, but also in understanding the inspiration, ingredients, execution and presentation — all the factors that went into making the meal. That’s how we feel about Search: There’s value not just in seeing your search results, but also in understanding the factors that went into our systems to determine that those results would be useful for you. That’s why we share information about how Google Search works, and build tools like About this result . Today, we’re expanding About this result to help you understand and control how Search connects you to helpful results that are tailored for you. Search results for you About this result already tells you about some of the most important factors that Google Search uses to connect results to your queries. These are factors like looking at whether a webpage has keywords that match your search, or if it contains related terms, or if it’s in...

Find the perfect dish, no matter your craving

Let’s say you’re in charge of picking a restaurant for a family reunion dinner. You know your mom loves Italian food, but your niece and nephew are super picky about pizza. Your uncle insists on a great view, but your sister won’t go anywhere that doesn’t have good dessert. Oh, and you have to book a reservation by tomorrow. That’s a tall order — even for a foodie like you. Sometimes finding a specific craving or determining a unique place to set a mood can take some time. When you’re searching for answers, it should come naturally and in a way that’s easy — especially when you’re catering to a family of picky eaters. Today, we’re announcing a new set of features to help you find the perfect meal, from the first search to your first bite. Satisfy your craving by searching for specific food dishes Our research shows 40% of people already have a dish in mind when they search for food. So to help people find what they’re looking for, in the coming months you’ll be able to search...

4 new updates that make Maps look and feel more like the real world

Google Maps has always pushed the boundaries of what a map can do. Features like live traffic transformed how people get from point A to B, and insights like busyness information changed the way people make decisions about where to go. At Search On, we shared how we’re reimagining Google Maps yet again, with a visual and intuitive map that allows you to experience a place as if you’re there — all thanks to the newest advancements in computer vision and predictive models. Get a vibe check before you visit 💯✅ If you’re visiting a new neighborhood, it can be hard to figure out what's worth exploring, what’s new, and what the local gems are. Soon, with our new neighborhood vibe feature, you’ll be able to select a neighborhood and see the most popular spots come to life thanks to helpful photos and information from the Google Maps community right on the map. Say you’re on a trip to Paris — you can quickly know if a neighborhood is artsy or has an exciting food scene so you can mak...

Search On 2022: Search and explore information in new ways

At Search On today, we shared how we’re getting closer to making search experiences that reflect how we as people make sense of the world, thanks to advancements in machine learning. With a deeper understanding of information in its many forms — from language, to images, to things in the real world — we’re able to unlock entirely new ways to help people gather and explore information. We're advancing visual search to be far more natural than ever before, and we're helping people navigate information more intuitively. Here's a closer look. Helping you search outside the box With Lens, you can search the world around you with your camera or an image. (People now use it to answer more than 8 billion questions every month!) Earlier this year, we made visual search even more natural with the introduction of multisearch , a major milestone in how you can search for information. With multisearch, you can take a picture or use a screenshot and then add text to it — similar...

An #IamRemarkable facilitator on the power of self-promotion

Editor's note: This article discusses a person who had suicidal thoughts. If you or someone you know needs help, use Find a Helpline to access local emotional support resources. What do you gain from being a facilitator? Helping people gives me a lot of positive energy. For example, I’ve run workshops with refugees whose lives began changing for the better, and women who’ve lived through wars. You can’t beat the feeling of helping people. I love it, and don’t even mind running a workshop with people in New Zealand at 3 a.m., which I did during their lockdown. What kinds of issues do you deal with as a facilitator? Sometimes in a workshop, when people have to read what they’ve written, they start crying, shaking, can’t read or can’t turn on the camera. You have to be sensitive and reassure them. I’ve had times where everybody was crying — for example, when we heard the story of a trans woman from Iran. But emotion connects people, too. Hearing others' li...

Recovery, community and healing on the job at Google

Just shy of a year ago, I can still vividly remember scanning The Keyword and coming across the headline, “How my recovery community helps keep me sober.” Fresh out of grad school, I had been working at Google for just three months and I had been in recovery for almost three years. It was the first time in my life I wasn’t using drugs and alcohol to cope with the stresses and insecurities of work. Before I found recovery, I thought I owed my academic and professional successes to substance abuse. I drank and used drugs “to relax,” make friends and numb the chronic depression that immobilized me otherwise. Frankly, I didn’t know if I was cut out for Google on my own. Read Article How my recovery community helps keep me sober Google software engineer Nick shares his struggles with alcohol and drugs and how his recovery community helps him maintain sobriety. Read Article Finding hope through community When I opened that link and read about Google’s Recover T...

Supporting the EU and securing the digital space

Citizens, companies and governments across the European Union agree that everyone should be free to live their lives and use technology without fear that their information will be stolen or held ransom by cybercriminals or other malicious actors. But with each passing week, cyber threats are growing more costly and more aggressive, undermining the trust essential to a vibrant, inclusive digital society. This is a moment that calls for international leadership, which is why it’s notable that the European Commission has featured security at the center of its vision for digital transformation. Today, Google is publishing a set of recommendations and white paper supporting the Commission’s efforts, and we commit to extending our full capabilities to help secure Europe’s “digital decade”. The need We applaud the European Commission’s effort to meet this moment, and believe that companies should step up to do their part as well. The stakes have never been clearer. Even before Russia...