Europe Blog
Our views on the Internet and society
Explore historic sites with Google World Wonders
Thursday, May 31, 2012
A month ago, we announced a major expansion of our Google
Art Project
, which featured art from museums around the world. Today, we're taking another significant step forward in our goal to increase access to culture with the Google
World Wonders
Project.
The World Wonders Project goes outdoors to bring online icons from all times and places, and from all over civilizations all over the world. It features 132 historic sites in 18 countries, from prehistoric
Stonehenge
to Ancient Rome’s vanished
Pompeii
and the mystical wooden
Kyoto temples
. The sites are natural as well as man-made, ranging from the sandy dunes of Australia’s
Shark Bay
to the rocky cliffs of America’s
Yosemite National Park
.
The World Wonders Project is the latest creation of the Google
Cultural Institute
, opened in Paris last year. Under the institute’s auspices, we have launched a series of exciting initiatives, ranging from the publication of high resolution images of the
Dead Sea Scrolls
to the digitization the archives of famous figures such as
Nelson Mandela
. For the World Wonders Project, we’ve worked with a prestigious set of partners including
UNESCO
, the
World Monuments Fund
,
Getty Images
and
Ourplace
. The partners have supplied official information and photographs.
In order to create World Wonders, we took our
Street View
technology to a new level. Most of the these historic sites could not be filmed by car. We needed to use camera-carrying trikes and pedal our way close enough. Street View helps millions each day make travel plans or get a helping hand with geography homework. With World Wonders, Street View supports preserving and promoting some of the world’s most significant monuments for future generations.
Our launch event took place today in Madrid. We chose Spain because the country enjoys a particularly rich architectural heritage, including 12 Wonders’ sites. There’s the old cities of
Salamanca
,
Toledo
,
Cuenca
,
Santiago de Compostela
and
Córdoba
, the
Roman aqueduct in Segovia
and
Roman walls in Lugo
, and the
archeological dig in Tárraco
. The Wonders website is launching in Spanish, as well as English, French, Italian, Hebrew and Japanese. The World Wonders Project YouTube channel adds a video dimension.
By bringing these sites online, we’re aiming to encourage visitors to travel to these fabulous sites. Many museum curators involved in our Art Project report spikes in entries after viewing their collections on their computers.
This project provides significant educational benefits. A
section
on the site offers valuable resources for teachers in primary and secondary schools, which enable them to teach history and geography in innovative ways. Educational packages for classroom use can be downloaded free of charge from the World Wonders website.
When I was a child, flipping through encyclopedias while researching for school projects, the thought of exploring the world’s famous historic and cultural sites was a distant dream. Today that dream becomes a little closer for all of us.
Posted by Melanie Blaschke, Product Marketing Manager, World Wonders Project
A victory for the web in France
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Today is an important day for the Web. A French court rejected claims from France’s largest television broadcaster
TF1
that
YouTube
has violated its copyright.
The case reaches back to March 2008 when TF1 sued YouTube over copyright infringement by making available of several of their TV programs on YouTube: TF1 claimed more than EUR140 million in damages.
The overall decision is a victory for everyone who uses the Web. Every day, hundreds of millions of people use computers and mobile devices, tablets and televisions to freely exchange ideas and information. After this decision, these creators can be secure to post their materials on YouTube and other platforms and we can host their content without fearing a giant liability. The end result will be more videos posted on the Net, more revenue generated for creative artists, and more exposure to a global audience for these artists. Already, we have deals in place with 3,000 media groups around the world, including important French partners such as
BFM
,
Arte
and
AFP.
The verdict demonstrates how the Internet is enriching French culture. Over the past year, we have signed contracts with five French collecting societies to pay royalties to French writers, musicians, and other artists. More generally, we have a major investment plan for the French economy and culture, demonstrating how committed we are to France.
By embracing the Web, this verdict moves France a step forward to further benefit from Internet’s massive economic and cultural opportunity. We hope this judgement will allow us to build
constructive partnerships
and bring more French language content online. Watch this space!
Posted by Christophe Muller, Head of YouTube partnerships, Southern Europe, Middle East and Africa
Helping kids answer Chancellor Merkel’s question
Monday, May 28, 2012
“How are we going to learn?”, asked German Chancellor Angela Merkel in February 2012, as she launched a “
Future Dialogue
” with citizens. At this year’s
Vision Summit
in Potsdam, Google was able to play a part in supporting a rather unusual group of education experts: twenty pupils and students aged 14 to 22 trying to come up with possible answers to Mrs Merkel’s question.
The teams used used
Chromebooks
provided by us, Tumblr’s microblogging service and other online tools to keep track of their many ideas. The youngsters discussed dropping single-subject lessons from the curriculum altogether - instead, students should work on projects that combine maths, science, languages and other subjects in an integrated learning environment. They were also keen to integrate the web into their answers, suggesting collaborative working and information sharing - via online tools and wikis.
At the end of the event, the teams’ ideas were presented to the 1500 attendees at the Vision Summit. Afterwards, they spoke to an audience of another 300, among them journalists, photographers and TV crews at the Brandenburg Gate, just a few hundred meters from the Chancellor’s office. It was an appropriate setting to offer some potential answers to Chancellor Merkel’s question.
Posted by Ralf Bremer, Senior Manager Communications and Public Affairs, Germany
Rebooting computer science education in the UK
Friday, May 25, 2012
Last August
, Eric Schmidt lamented the sorry state of computer science education in UK schools. Since then we’ve been in discussion with various educational groups about ways we might help.
Through our grant programmes like
CS4HS
and
RISE
, we’ve long supported educational schemes of merit in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. But we wanted to do more.
One key issue stood out in particular -- the lack of qualified people able to teach computing as a science. So this week,
speaking at London’s Science Museum
, Eric announced a partnership between Google and TeachFirst, which we hope will help - in at least a small way - address the teacher shortfall.
From
Eric at Science Museum
Teach First
is a UK charity which recruits exceptional graduates and puts them to work in the most challenging schools. Google has provided funds for them to train and support more than 100 first rate science teachers over the next three years, with the majority focused on computer science. Overall we anticipate this should help more than 20,000 pupils from the most disadvantaged UK communities.
It should take just a few months for the benefits to begin. After undergoing an intensive training course this summer, the first batch of Teach First recruits will be placed into schools where they can make a difference right away, whilst receiving on the job mentoring and training for a further 2 years.
And to ensure they aren’t held back by a lack of equipment, we’ll also provide each computer science recruit with a small bursary to purchase teaching aids, such as
Raspberry Pi
or
Arduino
starter kits.
Rebooting computer science education won’t be straightforward, and it will take a generation coming through schools before we see a real difference. But that’s even more reason to start today.
Posted by Peter Barron, Director, External Relations, EMEA
Transparency for copyright removals in search
Friday, May 25, 2012
Cross-posted from the
Official Google Blog
We believe that openness is crucial for the future of the Internet. When something gets in the way of the free flow of information, we believe there should be transparency around what that block might be.
So two years ago we launched the
Transparency Report
, showing when and what information is accessible on Google services around the world. We
started off
by sharing data about the government requests we receive to
remove content
from our services or for
information about our users
. Then we began showing
traffic patterns
to our services, highlighting when they’ve been
disrupted
.
Today we’re expanding the Transparency Report with a
new section on copyright
. Specifically, we’re disclosing the number of requests we get from copyright owners (and the organizations that represent them) to remove Google Search results because they allegedly link to infringing content. We’re starting with search because we remove more results in response to copyright removal notices than for any other reason. So we’re providing information about
who sends
us copyright removal notices, how often, on behalf of which
copyright owners
and for
which websites
. As policymakers and Internet users around the world consider the pros and cons of
different proposals
to address the problem of online copyright infringement, we hope this data will contribute to the discussion.
For this launch we’re disclosing data dating from July 2011, and moving forward we plan on updating the numbers each day. As you can see from the
report
, the number of requests has been increasing rapidly. These days it’s not unusual for us to receive more than 250,000 requests
each week
, which is more than what copyright owners asked us to remove in all of 2009. In the past month alone, we received about 1.2 million requests made on behalf of more than 1,000 copyright owners to remove search results. These requests targeted some 24,000 different websites.
Fighting online piracy is very important, and we don’t want our search results to direct people to materials that violate copyright laws. So we’ve always responded to copyright removal requests that meet the standards set out in the
Digital Millennium Copyright Act
(DMCA). At the same time, we want to be transparent about the process so that users and researchers alike understand what kinds of materials have been removed from our search results and why. To promote that transparency, we have long shared copies of copyright removal requests with
Chilling Effects
, a nonprofit organization that collects these notices from Internet users and companies. We also include a notice in our search results when items have been removed in response to copyright removal requests.
We believe that the time-tested
“notice-and-takedown”
process for copyright strikes the right balance between the needs of copyright owners, the interests of users, and our efforts to provide a useful Google Search experience. Google continues to put substantial resources into improving and streamlining this process. We already mentioned that we’re processing more copyright removal requests for Search than ever before. And we’re also processing these requests faster than ever before; last week our average turnaround time was less than 11 hours.
At the same time, we try to catch erroneous or abusive removal requests. For example, we recently rejected two requests from an organization representing a major entertainment company, asking us to remove a search result that linked to a major newspaper’s review of a TV show. The requests mistakenly claimed copyright violations of the show, even though there was no infringing content. We’ve also seen baseless copyright removal requests being used for anticompetitive purposes, or to remove content unfavorable to a particular person or company from our search results. We try to catch these ourselves, but we also notify webmasters in our
Webmaster Tools
when pages on their website have been targeted by a copyright removal request, so that they can
submit a counter-notice
if they believe the removal request was inaccurate.
Transparency is a crucial element to making this system work well. We look forward to making more improvements to our Transparency Report—offering copyright owners, Internet users, policymakers and website owners the data they need to see and understand how removal requests from both governments and private parties affect our results in Search.
Update
December 11, 2012
: Starting today, anyone interested in studying the data can
download
all the data shown for
copyright removals
in the
Transparency Report
. We are also providing information about how often we remove search results that link to allegedly infringing material. Specifically, we are disclosing how many URLs we removed for each
request
and
specified website
, the overall removal rate for each request and the specific URLs we did not act on. Between December 2011 and November 2012, we removed 97.5% of all URLs specified in copyright removal requests. Read more on
Policy by the Numbers
.
Posted by Fred von Lohmann, Senior Copyright Counsel
Partnering with Missing Children Europe
Friday, May 25, 2012
Missing Children Europe
and its member organisations do vital work finding missing or sexually exploited children - and supporting their families in time of crisis with emotional, social and legal help via the European
116000 telephone hotline
.
Google has been
working with the group for a while
and we’re pleased to report that the first part of our collaboration with them is now live, in time for International Missing Children’s Day, today. Thanks to
Google technology
embedded in their website, it’s now possible to search for publicly available information across all MCE member websites at the same time.
The European Commission is hosting a
conference
next week in Brussels to raise awareness about the vital work of the European 116000 Missing Children hotline. If children go missing, relatives can call the hotline and speak with specialists. Today, Missing Children Europe launched a promotional film short called “Futures”, which will run on TV, in cinemas and on YouTube:
These are great examples of how technology can help to make both the online and offline worlds a better place for children, in line with our commitments we made when we signed up to the Commission's
Better Internet for Kids
coalition. We’ll continue working with Missing Children Europe and its members in coming months to help them share information and work together more effectively using our technology.
Posted by Marco Pancini, Senior Policy Counsel
Big Tent comes home
Thursday, May 24, 2012
How should children stay safe online? When does cracking down on pornography morph into censorship? Has the social media revolution enhanced or diminished our society? How can we reconcile copyright with the split-second creations and sharing of the digital age? Our
Big Tent
returned to its birthplace to the UK this week to take on these tough issues.
For the debate on pornography and child safety, we invited one of our fiercest critics, the
Daily Mai
l. Columnist Amanda Platell outlined her newspaper’s campaign for government-mandated filters for adult content online while Andrew Heaney of TalkTalk, a UK based Internet Service Provider described his company’s
network-based filter
. On the other side of the debate,
Index on Censorship’s
new chief executive Kirsty Hughes and Google’s UK Public Policy director Sarah Hunter warned of the risks - both practical and in principle - of filtering.
From the serious subject of adult content, we took a quirky but informative break to watch Aleks Krotoski demonstrate her
Serendipity Engine
, an algorithmic contraption of bicycle parts and light bulbs.
Last year, our executive chairman Eric Schmidt
urged the UK
to reform its computer science education, helping spark a nationwide debate. At this year’s event, he addressed a range of issues from how the next five billion people to come online will shape the web to his concerns about privacy and criminality online. In response a question about the disruptive nature of technology, he answered,“If you thought when you got your job at 20 that it would never change you were misinformed. Retrain yourself to be curious.”
UK Universities and Science Minister
David Willetts
addressed concern that university debt is threatening aspiring entrepreneurs, speaking of the importance of promoting innovation clusters and how big data and text analysis can fuel growth.
For this year’s Big Tent we partnered with the
Music Managers Forum
, the world’s largest representative body of artist management. MMF’s Chairman, Brian Message, challenged to Geoff Taylor of the
BPI
to spend more time thinking about innovation than legislation. TV comedy writer
Graham Linehan
raised laughs when he said he thought films would get better if people were asked to pay when they leave the cinema.
We also heard from journalists who are integrating digital media and user content into news storytelling - from local news in Australia's Northern Territory, to hard hitting social media fuelled reporting on Arab protests, to understanding the London riots through the lens of data.
The day concluded with a debate between two authors whose new books examine the impact of the social web on society and individuals.
Andrew Keen
and
Nick Harkaway
debated the question of whether the social revolution has enhanced or diminished our society. While coming from different perspectives, Keen and Harkaway did agree that Internet users should take more active decisions in how they use services online to ensure they protect themselves and their data.
The Big Tent programme heads to Dublin, Cannes and Tel Aviv next and the content from the UK event will be available on our
YouTube channel
soon.
Posted by Jon Steinberg, External Relations
Internet at Liberty 2012 Conference: Join the discussion
Monday, May 21, 2012
This week, 300+ Internet activists, policy makers, academics and NGO leaders from over 30 countries, including many from Europe, will gather in Washington, D.C. to discuss the future of free speech online. The event is called
Internet at Liberty 2012
, and we want you to join the discussion.
The future of free expression is uncertain. According to the
Open Net Initiative
, more than 620 million Internet users—31% of the world’s total Internet users—live in countries where there is substantial or pervasive filtering of online content. And when free expression is in jeopardy, so are reporters; as the
Committee to Protect Journalists
found, nearly half of all the writers, editors, and photojournalists imprisoned around the world are online journalists.
Dictatorships and authoritarian regimes are the worst offenders, but democracies around the world are also questioning whether the Internet requires monitoring and supervision. 2012 is a crucial year. As governments are trying to draw the right lines, we are bringing the most challenging and important debates to you via Internet at Liberty 2012.
Join us on May 23 and May 24 by watching our livestream at
YouTube.com/citizentube
, and feel free to Tweet your questions and comments (@InternetLiberty). If you are in the DC area, consider joining us at the event live. You can register
here
. Space is limited, but this is a crucial issue and we want you to participate.
For more information, check out the
detailed schedule of events
.
Posted by Bob Boorstin, Director, Public Policy
Keep the Internet open
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
It was a needed wake up call. Vinton Cerf, our Chief Internet Evangelist, recognised as one of "
the fathers of the Internet
", came to Brussels this week to talk about keeping the Internet open.
At meetings at the European Commission and European Parliament, at a lecture at the University of Leuven, and at other encounters, Vint explained how the Internet stands at a crossroads. Built from the bottom up, powered by the people, it has become a powerful economic engine and a positive social force. But its success has generated a worrying backlash: the number of governments that censor Internet content has grown to 40 today from about four in 2002.
Of course, Vint acknowledged that “like almost every major infrastructure, the Internet can be abused and its users harmed.” But he argued that “we must take great care that the cure for these ills does not do more harm than good.”
In particular, Vint cautioned against a move by governments to seize control of the Net at the International Telecommunication Union, a United Nations organisation which counts 193 countries as its members. The ITU is conducting a review of the international agreements governing telecommunications and aims to expand its regulatory authority to the Internet at a summit scheduled for December in Dubai. Vint warned that such a move holds potentially profound implications for the future of the Internet and all of its users.
Last June, then–Prime Minister Vladimir Putin stated the goal of Russia and its allies as “establishing international control over the Internet” through the ITU. And in September 2011, China, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan submitted a proposal for an “International Code of Conduct for Information Security” to the UN General Assembly, with the goal of establishing government-led “international norms and rules standardizing the behavior of countries concerning information and cyberspace.”
The decisions taken in Dubai in December have the potential to put government handcuffs on the Net. To prevent that - and keep the Internet open and free for the next generations - we need to prevent a fundamental shift in how the Internet is governed. I encourage you to take action now: insist that the debate about Internet governance be transparent and open to all stakeholders.
Posted by Posted by Al Verney, Communications Manager, Brussels
Reaching out to Germany’s Silver Surfers
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
For many senior citizens, the Internet seems overwhelming, and often, downright dangerous. In Germany, privacy concerns have combined with the elderly’s natural reticence to technology to keep many senior citizens offline.
In order to begin changing this perception, we partnered with the Federal Associations of Senior Citizens, which includes 100 organisations and 13 million members, and the “Deutschland sicher im Netz” (Germany Safe Online - our partner in the Good to Know campaign in Germany) to raise awareness among all age groups on online safety and security. At this month's SenNova congress and fair for senior citizens, we hosted a booth with our partners to help inform participants about how to stay safe and get the most out of the Internet.
Of the 20,000 visitors to the fair, we held 800 individual conversations in three days. Many senior citizens appreciated meeting “Google in person.” We handed out more than 4.000 pamphlets including tips and tricks for Search and Social Networks which we especially created with our partners for seniors.
We took away some important lessons. More than their digitally native grandchildren and great-grandchildren, seniors desire face-to-face discussions about the Internet. This includes the importance of printed materials, keeping the information we provide simple and jargon free and presented in a manner that is easy to read. After an intensive discussion with a very active 70 year old lady, who told us she uses only Google as her Internet, she finished the conversation with the words: "You made my day!" She was so thankful that we were there to explain to her basics on search and other tools, as her children don´t have or take the time to explain information she finds too complicated. Another lady told me that she came to the event just to see us, as she needs more information on how to use the Internet.
Our next step of the project is the launch of a competition to find “Germany`s most digital senior citizen” on June 1st. The award winning ceremony will be held on October 29th at the Google offices in Berlin.
Posted by Sabine Frank, Media Literacy Policy Counsel, Berlin
Launching Street View in e-Estonia
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Estonia is an e-leader. The Baltic nation boasts one of the world’s highest broadband penetration rates and has carved out a pioneering role in promoting e-government and online freedom. About 94 per cent of tax returns last year were made online. Estonians
vote on their laptops
and sign legal documents on a smartphone. Cabinet meetings are paperless. It’s all quite impressive in a country where, only two decades ago population, it was difficult to obtain a phone line.
Most important, Estonians know firsthand about the need to keep networks open. The country suffered a massive cyberattack three years ago. Instead of imposing draconian plans to control the net, however, its reaction has been to embrace the Internet has become a symbol of progress and freedom.
For all these reasons, we take particular pleasure today to announce the launch of our popular Google Maps
Street View
feature in Estonia. From now on, anyone, anywhere, will, with the click of a computer mouse, be able to stroll in the cobbled medieval streets of of the capital Tallinn, the university town of Tartu, the colorful wooden houses of Pärnu. Or enjoy Estonia’s pristine nature, strolling down the sandy white beaches of the country’s Baltic coast, deep forests, picturesque lakes and rivers, mysterious swamps and rich flora and fauna.
Grotere kaart weergeven
Our users have told us that this ability to view a location as if they were actually there helps them find information about the places they live and visit. Street View permits us to preview holiday accommodation and look at nearby amenities such as parks, roads, bus stops, shopping areas and parking when planning your move. Can't remember the name of that amazing restaurant or clothes store you visited a few months ago? Walk the streets and find it. And then use the driving directions in Google Maps, with Street View images of intersections and landmarks, to get there.
Grotere kaart weergeven
Street View is educational. It encourages study of the geography, vegetation and landscape of different parts of the world. Teachers can incorporate Street View, Google Maps and Google Earth into geography or history lesson plans or arrange a virtual field trips. StreetView also promotes business, allowing potential customers to view your store or office, and find out how to get there.
We’re delighted to add Estonia to our Street View family and we look forward to working with Estonians as they pursue their bright e-future.
Posted by Simon Meehan, Senior Policy Analyst, Southern and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa
Supporting innovation in the African news industry
Thursday, May 10, 2012
We’re eager to see journalism flourish in the digital age, in all forms and on all continents. Today, with half a dozen other generous sponsors, we’re taking a big step forward with a new $1 million
African News Innovation Challenge
.
This initiative is the latest in a series of projects to spur innovation in African journalism. Since 2010 we’ve been working with newsrooms across the continent to show journalists how the Internet can help them be better reporter. In Ghana we’re helping journalists produce evidence-based reporting on the country’s new oil wealth; in Senegal we gave journalists training on
election reporting
, and in Kenya we helped pioneer Africa’s first data journalism boot camp. Participants produced eight separate data-driven stories or news apps, including a
TV documentary
that exposed the plight of rural schools and an
analysis of government spending at county level
that has been nominated for an international award.
Now, we’re looking for even more innovations aimed at strengthening and transforming African news media. The News Innovation Challenge will provide grants ranging from $12,500 to $100,000 for project proposals falling into four categories: news gathering, storytelling, audience engagement and the business of news. Proposals can include ideas that improve everything from data-based investigative journalism and crowdsourced citizen reporting, to new ways of distributing news on mobile platforms, or new revenue models that help wean media off a reliance on advertising. In addition to cash grants, winners will receive technical, business development and marketing advice.
The
African Media Initiative
, Africa’s largest association of media owners and operators, is running the Challenge. Other partners include
Omidyar Network
, the
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
, the
John S. and James L. Knight Foundation
, the
U.S. State Department,
the
Konrad Adenhauer Stiftung
and the
World Association of Newspapers & News Producers
.
Entries must be submitted to this
website
by midnight Central African Time on July 10, 2012. While news pioneers from anywhere in the world are welcome, all entries must have an African partner that will help develop and test the innovation. Entries will be judged by an international jury, and finalists will get a chance to refine their proposals during one-on-one mentoring sessions at a “tech camp” in Zanzibar in August 2012.
The winners will be announced at the Africa’s largest gathering of media owners and executives, at the
Africa Media Leaders Forum
, in Ivory Coast in November 2012.
We’re also active in promoting digital journalism outside of Africa, such as supporting the
Nordic News Hacker
, the
Global Editor Network’s data journalism prize
and
International Press Institute media innovation prizes
. As media organizations continue to adapt to the new digital world, we’re committed to working with journalists to help them use technologies to gather and tell important stories.
Posted by Julie Taylor, Head of Communications, Sub Saharan Africa
Launching the Tony Sale Award for Computer Conservation
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Computers are now an everyday part of life for many, yet most people know little about their history. At Google we’re keen to help celebrate and preserve the stories of computing’s past. We’ve
blogged
, made
short films
and
partnered
with
museums
-- now it’s time to shine the spotlight on the efforts of others.
To that end, we are delighted to support this week’s launch of an international award recognising those who have made an outstanding engineering achievement in computing conservation. Named in honour of the late
Tony Sale
, acclaimed for his work
rebuilding Colossus
, the award will be managed by the UK’s
Computing Conservation Society
(CCS).
Tony Sale led the team that rebuilt the Colossus computer. He also helped start the campaign to save Bletchley Park, found The National Museum of Computing and establish the Computer Conservation Society.(Photo thanks to The National Museum of Computing)
Entries are invited from any individual or group worldwide who has made a demonstrable contribution to preserving the world’s computing heritage, and whose work is (or could be put) on public display. Nominations close at end-July. Further details and application forms can be found at the
CCS’s website
.
Posted by Lynette Webb, Senior Manager, External Relations
Championing Free Expression - The Hay Festival in Hungary
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Her father was tortured and her mother was made to kneel on broken glass. Jung Chang, the author of the global sensation
Wild Swans
, which at the last count has sold 13 million copies, talked with passion and humanity about human rights during the Cultural Revolution in China at the first ever
Budapest Hay Festival
this past weekend.
Google has been working with the
Hay Literary Festival
for more than a year, helping it grow from its origins in Wales into an international organisation that now hosts festivals around the globe. This was the first festival ever held in Central Europe.
In Budapest, Chang described how she cornered the late Zairean dictator,
Mobutu Sese Sosuku
, under a hairdryer at a salon in Hong Kong, to persuade him to give details of his friendship with
Mao Tse-tung
. She also revealed how
Imelda Marcos
had a soft spot for
Richard Nixon
.
Another who tackled issues of free speech and technology was rock star turned global activist,
Bob Geldof
. He pointed to strong growth rates in Africa and warned policy makers in Europe and the United States that they ignored the economic potential of Africa, driven in large part by the opening up of the Internet. Other speakers at the two festival included
Tibor Fischer
, the Hungarian-born writer whose parents, both basketball players, fled the country after the Soviet suppression of the 1956 uprising, and Nigerian author
Ben Okri
.
One of the attractions of the Hay festival is the quality of speakers and the diversity of subject matter. Taking its name from a picturesque village on the border of England and Wales, made famous by its bookshops, the Hay Festival has been described as the "Woodstock of the mind.” It attracts tens of thousands of people per day during the 10 days of readings, speeches and interviews. We will unveil our
Big Tent
concept to a Hay audience at this year’s
event
, opening on May 31.
Later in the year, we will participate in four Hay gatherings that come within the Europe, Middle East and Africa region. Beirut takes place in early July, while the autumn will see festivals in Istanbul, Nairobi and Segovia, Spain.
Posted by Richard Schuster, Communications Manager, Google, Hungary
Hello from Tunisia
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
It was a perfect way to celebrate the Arab Spring.
UNESCO
last week marked its World Press Day in Tunisia, the country that led the rush for freedom in the Arab world. We sponsored the event, hosting Tunisian President
Moncef Marzouki
who met with
Daniel Calingaert
, Freedom House’s Vice President in Washington DC via an On Air Hangout on
UNESCO’s Google+ page
.
World Press Day marks an appropriate moment to review our progress in the Middle East and North Africa. We’re investing and digging deep roots. Over the past year, we have doubled our regional workforce. We have hosted g|daysreaching an estimated 12,000 entrepreneurs and developers in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan. Our
Google Media Academy
has trained nearly 2,000 journalists.
Google products are going Arabic. Only about three percent of the web now is in Arabic, while more than 10 percent of the world’s web population speaks it as a mother tongue. In order to encourage more local content, we have launched eight local YouTube domains and 11 local maps domains. An Egyptian who searches YouTube is no longer directed to Western videos but instead is able to access local content. We have introduced Arabic versions of Voice Search, Driving directions for Maps, and Google+.
Many magic moments have occurred in the past year. We hosted celebrity high profile hangouts with entertainer
Myriam Fares
and the Arab world’s biggest pop star, Amr Diab. We also launched the Official Google Arabia Google+
page
.
Earlier this month, two Qatar museums,
Museum of Islamic Art
and
Mathaf
, joined the Google Art Project. Egypt, the first episode of "Inside Google" aired on
Al Hayat Al Youm
, Egypt's number one Prime Time TV show. Egypt’s very own Amr Mohamed became a global finalist in the
YouTube Space Lab
. And next week we will crown a national winner for the
Ebda2
with Google competition to provide local entrepreneurs seed capital to start their own business kickstarting the internet ecosystem in Egypt to flourish.
This Arabization drive is producing impressive results. Google searches are up by 25 percent year on year in the region. Some 167 million YouTube videos are viewed each day in the Middle East and Africa - the second highest number in the world, behind the U.S. and ahead of Brazil. These daily views represent 112 percent increase since last October - more than double the views in just one year. An hour of YouTube video is uploaded each minute in the Middle East and North Africa. Since the launch of our local map domains, we have seen 50 percent growth in maps usage throughout the region.
Our goal is clear – to become part of the local landscape, giving people around the Middle East and North Africa access to information, preferably in their own language. For us, our contribution to UNESCO’s World Press Day represents yet another strong step towards this goal.
Posted by Maha Abouelenein, Head of Communications, Middle East and North Africa
Fostering a new generation of coders
Friday, May 4, 2012
Last year, our executive chairman
Eric Schmidt urged the UK
to take advantage of its “great computer heritage” by increasing the number of students studying computer science. We’ve now teamed up with the
Guardian
newspaper to encourage a new generation of coders.
As part of our joint initiative, the Guardian hosted a
two-day hackathon
event for pupils from four UK schools. In each school, 20 pupils - all aged between 13 and 15 - were given the challenge of creating a website in just over 24 hours. Developers from Google and the Guardian were on hand to offer advice.
Photograph: Alys Tomlinson/The Guardian
Seven projects emerged from the hackathons. They ranged from an online community for sharing and editing photos to a collaborative calendar that allows users to upload and share blogs, links and photos. By the end of the event, most students had a working knowledge of programming languages including Java, Python and html.
Much more work is required, but there are encouraging signs. In January the Education Secretary Michael Gove took the bold step of
scrapping the existing ICT curriculum
, freeing schools in the UK to teach a richer mix of programming, computer science and advanced IT rather than simply how to use software.
Most of the students who participated in our hackathon had little experience in computer coding. The promising results suggest that everyone, with a little support, can learn to code and embrace the digital future.
Posted by Peter Barron, Director, External Relations, Europe, Middle East and Africa
Celebrating World Press Freedom Day
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Update from Tunis
: UNESCO kicked off its World Press Freedom celebrations here at a ceremony at the presidential palace conducted via Google Hangout. Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki spoke with Freedom House Vice President Daniel Calingaert in Washington DC. The President said that his country's revolution last year "was done in the defense of freedom of expression," vowing that "Tunisia will never give up the freedom of expression is has won." A full two day program on press freedom continues Friday and Saturday under the theme “Media Freedom Helping to Transform Societies: New Voices, Youth and Social Media.”
The United Nations designates every May 3 as
World Press Freedom Day
. The day is designed to raise awareness about of the importance of freedom of the press and remind governments of their commitment to respect and uphold the right to freedom of expression enshrined in the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
.
This year,
UNESCO
is marking the day in Tunisia. The choice of setting honours the North African country’s recent uprising in favor freedom of expression, one in which the Internet played an important role. On Thursday afternoon,
Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki
will host the ceremony conferring the
Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize
on a deserving individual, organisation or institution that has made an outstanding contribution to the defence of press freedom.
We’re proud to be sponsoring the celebrations. President Marzouki announced the event through his official
Google
page and we’re organising a Google Hangout from the presidential palace, allowing guests from Amsterdam, Tripoli and Washington, D.C. to speak with the Tunisian President.
Thursday’s ceremony will be followed by a two-day conference bringing journalists, NGOs and officials from all over the world to Tunisia. They will discuss how to improve the safety of journalists, deal with defamation, develop opublic service broadcasting, and the issue of media ownership in a changing media landscape. Throughout, the impact of the Internet and social media will be on the agenda.
We’re involved here as well. Maha Abouelenein, our head of communications in MENA, will participate in a session about new media in the afternoon of May 4. Khaled Koubaa, our policy manager for North Africa, will appear on the same day on a panel titled “Innovation in Gathering and Sharing News. Finally, I will speak on May 5 about freedom of expression.
Please stay with us to follow UNESCO’s Tunis World Press Freedom celebrations.
Posted by William Echikson, Head of Free Expression, Europe, Middle East and Africa
Big Data, Part II: Mining gold in public data
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
European Commission Vice President Neelie Kroes, calls it a “goldmine.” Better yet, Europe enjoys plenty of the resource. What is so potentially valuable? The data collected by governments.
Under Mrs. Kroes’s lead, the Commission is taking important steps to open access to public data. It is creating a European Open Data Portal making the Commission’s data accessible and easy to use. The Commission would like other public administrations to follow suit.
Public data could boost Europe’s economies without requiring new public spending.
Estimates
suggest that the European Union could add EUR 40 billion per year in the continent’s economic activity if it fully opened up access to public data. Another recent
study
finds that direct and indirect economic impact of public data amount to about EUR140 billion annually. Individuals and firms can use this information to develop new business ideas.
Another benefit is increased accountability of public services. Openness in public administration helps to nurture trust in institutions -which is particularly needed in times of economic crisis. Empowered and informed citizens may feel more confident to explore new ideas and create new businesses.
France has taken a strong step forward in this field.
Etalab
, the French governement initiative launched the
data.gouv.fr
site late last year. Journalists, researchers, and all French citizens now can analyze line by line the budget of the French government, or know what books are held by public libraries.
Etalab encourages the public to develop apps with the information. Citizens are able to build applications such as
where does my money go
. Along with other companies, we are sponsoring a service called Dataconnexions, which aims to boost the reuse of public data in general and especially those of the portal data.gouv.fr.
Data Connxtions
is organising a number of events throughout the year 2012, including four contests application development. We are holding Google Open Data Workshop, the first of which was held on March 14. Excerpts are visible below.
Bravo! We look forward to seeing more initiatives like Etalab in the future.
Patricia Wruuck, Policy Analyst, Brussels and Elisabeth Bargès, Public Policy and Government Affairs, Google France
2012: The Year of Big Data
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
“Big Data” looks set to become one of this year’s big business trends, and to our delight, Europe is taking a new, positive view on this long overlooked resource. European Commission officials recently have outlined ambitious EU
plans
to benefit from the increasingly large and complex datasets that permeate the information economy.”
We’re excited about the promise of Big Data. This week, we hosted at a policy colloquium in Mountain View, titled “Empowering Data-driven Innovation." Our RSVP list included the United Nations, White House, and Census Bureau; scholars like UC Berkeley’s Marti Hearst; and representatives from companies such as Salesforce and General Electric.
A decade ago, researchers estimated that around five exabytes of data was produced each year. Today, more than
five exabytes
of data were stored online every day. We recently announced that 60 hours of video is uploaded each minute on YouTube and Facebook users generated an average of 3.2 billion Likes and Comments per day during the first quarter of 2012. From Fusion Tables and Public Data Explorer to Flu Trends and Translate, Google’s data innovations and initiatives have produced robust tools for making sense of data.
Recent
research
from MIT professor Erik Brynjolfsson suggests that data-guided management provides private companies with a crucial competitive edge and that companies making good use of data can have five to six percent higher productivity. Professor Brynjolfsson is coming to Brussels and speaking at the
Bruegel Think Tank
on May 7. Retailers such as Zara analyze data of sales and inventory to speed up the fashion cycle; instead of launching new collections each six months, Zara has new ideas on the shelves within weeks. By sharing data and using controlled experimentation, Fiat and Nissan have cut new model development time by 30 to 50 percent.
Data provides the raw material to uncover patterns. Digital technologies also facilitate experimentation. These insights can be used to create new products and services and keep improving them. At Google, we use data to test new services and algorithms. At any one time, we are running 100-200 experiments, analyzing patterns in the results and seeing which versions produce the best feedback. Our own chief economist Hal Varian has predicted that the skills needed to make sense of this data will turn the job of a statistician into something sexy.
Public administration, not just the private sector, can gain from data innovation. During his recent visit to Brussels, our executive chairman Eric Schmidt recounted how the Germany’s federal labour agency managed to save about EUR10 billion - all while speeding up placing people in jobs. Data based innovation similarly can help address societal problems, reducing, for example, traffic congestion and emissions through providing real-time traffic information.
Like all good things, data can be misused so we need sensible approaches to deal with privacy issues. Yet the gains from data-driven innovation far outweigh any risks. One particular area of interest here in Brussels is opening access to the reams of data collected by governments. We’ll discuss this topic tomorrow.
Patricia Wruuck, Policy Analyst, Brussels
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2012: The Year of Big Data
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