Europe Blog
Our views on the Internet and society
Celebrating online entrepreneurs who 'shine online'
Friday, November 30, 2012
What do you get if you combine a
Chinese language school
based in Spain and run by an Italian, a
travel information company
from the UK and a
German online tennis shop
? The answer: the winners of the
euronews Business Awards competition 2012
, which were sponsored by Google.
The three winners were in Brussels yesterday evening for a prize-giving ceremony. Each received a trophy, a Galaxy Nexus phone and a Chromebook, as well as training about how to make the most of the web from Google experts. And best of all, euronews made a mini-documentary about each of the winners, which will be aired on the euronews network and on
YouTube
.
Back in
September
, we launched the competition to find interesting stories of small and medium sized businesses using the internet to successfully attract customers, grow their market share or go global. From
pig farms
to
cooking schools
, more than 100 small businesses sent in their video submissions, reminding us of the vast array of businesses benefiting from the web.
A panel of expert judges whittled down all the video entries to a final shortlist of 15, it was up to members of the public to vote for their favourite videos in each of the three categories: Growing Online; Going International; and Women in Business. Over 4,000 people across Europe participated in the competition by watching the videos and voting for their favourites.
Times are tough across Europe but in Rostock, a town with one of the highest unemployment rates in Germany,
centercourt.de
has thrived online for over 12 years.
Orientalmente
's story demonstrates how the web helps entrepreneurs get new ideas off the ground quickly, creating new jobs in Spain, where finding work is very tough at the moment. And
MyDestination.com
shows how it's possible to build a global business in double quick time thanks to the Internet. All three winners are a timely reminder of how the internet helps small businesses in any part of Europe grow.
Posted by Al Verney, Senior Communications Manager, Google Brussels
Speak2Tweet goes live in Syria
Friday, November 30, 2012
A little less than two years ago, when Internet access was cut off in Egypt, we worked with Twitter to launch
Speak2Tweet
, giving the ability for anyone to tweet using just a voice connection.
Since yesterday, our Transparency Report
has shown
that Internet access is completely cut off in Syria.
Unfortunately we are hearing reports that mobile phones and landlines aren’t working properly either. But those who might be lucky enough to have a voice connection can still use Speak2Tweet by simply leaving a voicemail on one of these international phone numbers (+90 212 339 1447 or +30 21 1 198 2716 or +39 06 62207294 or +1 650 419 4196), and the service will tweet the message.
No Internet connection is required, and people can listen to the messages by dialing the same phone numbers or going
here
.
Posted by Maha Abouelenein, Head of Communications, Europe, Middle East and Africa
Discussing creative, constructive copyright reforms in Warsaw
Friday, November 30, 2012
Almost a year ago, massive street demonstrations forced the Polish government to reject an international treaty
ACTA
aimed at criminalizing copyright infringement. Today, we are moving away from this disarray and acrimony and launching a new constructive dialogue.
This week, 300 producers, distributors and consumers of creative content gathered in Warsaw’s
Kino Kultura
for the first ever
CopyCamp
. They shared their experience and perspectives on copyright, stories about how copyright works in practice, and setting the direction for the future of copyright in the digital world. The
Modern Poland Foundation
organized the event, under the honorary patronage of the
Digitization Ministry
. We partnered to make this possible, along with the
Polish Filmmakers Association
, the
ZAiKS Collecting Society
,
Trust for Central and Eastern Europe
.
Nina Paley
opened the event. She is the author of a cartoon film titled “Sita sings the blues” which tells the story of Ramayana using popular songs as soundtrack. Behind the entertaining presentation was a serious message: she started to make money on her films only after she started to apply open licensing to her art.
Paley presented another amusing film.
More than 30 other speakers, among them creators and creators’ organizations, collecting societies, members of the European Parliament, social activists, journalists, lawyers, academics and students, gave fast-paced short presentations. They ranged from a filmmaker’s and musician’s perspective on fair use and creativity, through discussions on the role of collecting societies, copyright education, internet platforms, the complex copyright stories of key icons of Polish culture and the way news publishers work with new internet business models. I talked about how the new technologies and creativity work together for the benefit of the authors and users and how copyright impacts this synergy.
After anti-ACTA protests started the Polish debate on copyright, the speakers agreed that contemporary Polish copyright framework is antiquated. By getting traditional content industries and Internet advocates to sit down together, the CopyCamp represents a hopeful first step in what we will hope becomes a constructive partnership.
Posted by Agata Wacławik-Wejman, Senior Policy Counsel, Warsaw
Big Tent Paris - digital revolution or bust?
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Concrete, not canvas, was the backdrop for our first Big Tent in Paris. We held the event in the imposing Palais d’Iéna, home of our hosts the
Conseil économique, social et environnemental
. The President of the CESE, M. Jean Paul Delevoye, pointed out that concrete was the great symbol of progress when the palace was built in the 1930s.
Today, the Internet represents progress and the day’s theme was to ask how the digital revolution can bring economic growth back to France and Europe. According to a
new OECD study
, the Net already accounts of 13 percent of American business output, impacting every industry, from communications to cars, and restaurants to retail. OECD economist Taylor Reynolds called on other countries to collect data in order to make comparable estimates in other countries. In a video message, the French digital economy minister
Fleur Pellerin
said digital companies grow faster and are more profitable than others in Europe. That’s why, she said, digital companies must be at the heart of future French economic growth.
While that idea sounds uncontroversial, it provoked a series of hotly debated questions during the course of the day. Does the digital revolution create or destroy jobs? How do we balance the value of data and the protection of consumers? Why do investors in digital startups prefer London or Berlin to Paris? We heard about the size of the opportunity for France, as in this
film.
We also heard about the scale of France's competitive challenge, as in this film promoting London, not Paris, as a home for start ups.
For France, will it be a digital revolution, or bust?
Posted by Elisabeth Bargès, Public Policy Manager, Innovation, France
The real Mountain View: on the piste with Street View
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
As the ski season approaches and you’re busy digging out your thermal underwear and snow boots, we hope to make your holiday preparations a little more enjoyable by adding some of the world’s favourite ski runs and resorts to Google Maps. Whether you’re looking to discover a piste you’ve never tried before, or just want to take in some of the breathtaking scenery to get in the mood for your trip, we hope you have fun exploring locations across Europe (including runs in Switzerland, Austria, Norway, Sweden, Italy and Spain), Canada (including runs at Blue Mountain, Lake Louise and Fernie) and the US (including runs in Utah and Michigan).
For example, take a look at
Sölden
, a popular ski resort in the Ötztal valley of Tyrol, Austria. It’s not just tourists who flock there every year, but fans of professional skiing - Sölden regularly hosts the giant slalom competition as part of the Alpine World Cup in late October.
View Larger Map
Or virtually visit one of the iconic resorts in Switzerland like St. Moritz or Zermatt.
View Larger Map
Whenever we launch new imagery, our users start to develop creative and inspiring uses for the images. For example,
Skiline.cc
has integrated our snowy pictures into their web app which lets skiers virtually
recap their day
on the slopes.
Street View travels further north
Continuing the wintery theme, we’re introducing our first ever imagery in Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago that lies about 400 miles north of mainland Europe - and the most northerly territory we’ve ever had on Street View. Svalbard was allegedly first discovered by Viking explorers in the 12th century, and now you can discover the beautiful tundras and harsh landscapes of the sparsely populated islands for yourself.
Svalbard is important today, hosting the
Svalbard Satellite station
, used by organisations like NASA and the ESA and the
Global Seed Vault
, a facility that provides spare samples of seeds found in gene banks all over the world.
View Larger Map
View Larger Map
The ice roads
Finally, we’re also delighted to introduce some brand new imagery of the ice roads in Estonia, fashioned from the frozen waters of the Baltic Sea. Although these roads are only open when the weather permits and the ice is thick enough, we were lucky enough to capture the 10km ice road from Rohuküla to Sviby and the 3km stretch from Haapsalu to Noarootsi, among others.
View Larger Map
View Larger Map
Posted by Ulf Spitzer, Street View Program Manager
Defending the open Web in Germany
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
For years now, you’ve been able to type a few words into your computer and get answers from an ever-growing sea of websites. Soon, however, this could change. The German Parliament this week begins debating a proposal for a new law which threatens to change the web as we’ve known for the last two decades - and make finding online information much more difficult in future.
That’s why today we’re launching an information campaign,
Dein Netz
, to give the facts about the proposed law and to invite you to contribute to the debate, in person and online.
German news publishers are seeking to extend dramatically the reach of copyright law. Today it prevents copying of articles, but the proposals would place restrictions on even a ‘snippet’ of an article, such as is common found in search engine results. Snippets help people understand, compare and evaluate which websites to visit. If enacted, the law would force search engines, news aggregators and many other online services that help people locate information online to contract with publishers in order to show a snippet of what is available.
That would be complete reversal of the legal situation today where the display of snippets is permitted. The European Journalism Centre recently compared this to asking “your
local newsstand
... to pay royalties for exhibiting the papers and magazines” it has on display. From then on, the simple act of linking or displaying snippets would become fraught with legal risk.
It would also be a reversal of the practices we see on the web today. When Google’s web crawler requests copies of pages from a publisher’s website, it is clear from where the request comes, and it is for the publisher to decide whether their server responds. In fact, virtually all publishers welcome crawlers and many voluntarily provide specific additional information to help crawlers find pages (in the form of a
sitemap
). A further set of highly refined controls is also available to publishers through the robots exclusion protocol that we have
blogged
in the past.
The end result is that, as one of many ways people find news content, Google News and Google search sends around four billion clicks through to publishers each month. That’s significant for us because there is no advertising on
Google News
in Europe. But Google is frequently one of the advertising service providers for the major news publishers (even of our most vocal critics in this debate), so our opportunity to make money is when users click on a link and go to the site of of one of our partners in the news industry. Looked at globally and across all web publishing businesses, Google shared $7 billion of advertising revenue last year.
We want to build win-win ways to partner with publishers. What we want to avoid is a system that puts the brakes on the open Internet, limits choice for people looking for information, and dramatically raises the cost of online innovation.
Please take a few minutes to look through our campaign site. Please get involved. You only have a limited amount of time to defend your Internet!
Posted by Simon Hampton, Director, Public Policy, Europe
Partnering with GEN and Le Nouvel Observateur
Monday, November 26, 2012
Publishers are making the transition to the digital age and we’re working in France to make this happen to benefit readers. On November 28 and 29th, we’re supporting a workshop titled
"Journalistic Tools for News Photos"
with key French newspapers.
Le Nouvel Observateur
is hosting. The
Global Editors Network
, a non-profit media association that promotes innovation in journalism, is producing the content.
Representatives from Le Nouvel Observateur,
Libération
,
Le Parisien
/ASK Media,
France 24
,
Play Bac/Mon Quotidien
,
OWNI
and
Citizenside
, are entering teams. During the workshop, the teams will be challenged to incorporate digital photography, animated GIF, slideshows, pictures, 3D, and augmented reality into their news coverage. Three masterclasses will be offered. Christian Witt, Strategic Partner Development Manager, Google TV, will speak about the opportunities around connected TVs and Google TV.
On the evening of November 29, the teams will present their final projects. Google’s consultant for editorial innovation
Daniel Sieberg
, Emmy-nominated and award-winning science and technology TV correspondent and author, will give a keynote speech about the future of journalism. A jury of experts will select the best project, and the team will be invited to the Editors' Lab final stage – the International News Hackathon during the 2013
GEN News Summit
in June 2013 at the Paris City Hall. Last year’s event attracted several hundred entires from around the world.
This workshop represents only the latest initiative to partner with the French press. Over the past year, we have worked with
Le Monde to bring Tunisian journalists
into their newsroom. We worked with
Liberation on their Forum de Lyon
. And we have sponsored digital
news awards
for students studying at Institut de Science Politique’s Journalism School.
For more information regarding the Editors’ Lab - Paris, contact GEN Deputy Director
Antoine Laurent
or Le Nouvel Observateur Online Editor
Aurelien Viers
.
Posted by Anne-Gabrielle Dauba-Pantanacce, Head of Communications, France
Small businesses: Europe's economic engine
Friday, November 23, 2012
If Europe is to power its way to economic recovery, small and medium enterprises, which
create two out of three private sector jobs
, are likely to provide the necessary acceleration.
In recent months, we’ve been working to highlight how these same SMEs are taking advantage of the Internet to attract new customers, grow market share and go global. The
euronews Business Awards
competition asked SMEs to explain how they “shine online”, and attracted video entries from seven countries.
The winners - chosen by a jury and public vote - will receive their prizes at a reception at Google’s Brussels office on Thursday 29th November between 18:00 and 20:00.
If you’d like to join us in raising a glass to their success, please register here
.
Centercourt
, from Germany, started in a bedroom and is now one of the biggest online tennis shops.
MyDestination
, started in the UK, now provides local insider knowledge about hundreds of destinations around the world. And
Orientalmente
, a Spanish language school specialised in teaching Chinese, has just started out - and is growing fast online.
In Cyprus recently, our Greek country manager Stefanos Loukakos spoke at the European Commission’s first
SME Assembly
. He highlighted how the Internet is helping small Greek businesses in straightened times. As a company that started only 14 years ago in a garage, we know how small companies can become big ones. “The Internet enables the SMEs of today to become the multinationals of tomorrow,” Loukakos argued in his speech. The Commission highlighted the comment as one of its
top quotes of the day
.
Posted by Angela Steen, Senior Policy Analyst, Google Brussels
Join the Arabic Web Days movement
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
Cross-posted with the
Official Google Blog
Arabic content on the web represents just 3 percent of the total digital content online—yet Arabic speakers make up more than 5 percent of the global population. To help build a vibrant Arabic web, we’ve created Arabic Web Days, an initiative in the Middle East and North Africa focused on boosting the amount of Arabic content online. (
Note
: the video below is in Arabic only.)
For the next 30 days, we’re holding a series of online and offline events along with our partners Vinelab, Wamda, Yamli and Taghreedat, as well as Twitter, Wikipedia, TED, Soundcloud, and regional organizations Al Arabiya, TwoFour54 and Qatar Foundation’s Qatari Computing Research Institute. Here’s how you can get involved:
Participate in a series of
Hangouts on Google+
to get tips and tricks from industry experts on contributing Arabic content to the web—through online journalism, YouTube videos, Wikipedia editing, translation of English content, SEO and more
Join the
YouTube Tweet Up
in Doha, Qatar on December 15 to learn how to create viral Arabic videos and make money through YouTube
Participate in the region's
first Arabic infographics competition
with Tajseed
Volunteer to be part of a
TED initiative to create quality Arabic digital content
via Arabic subtitling during a kick-off event with TED, twofour54 and Taghreedat in Abu Dhabi on December 4
Sign up for
developer training at g|days
in Jordan on December 5-6 and Egypt on December 9-10 to learn about Arabic localization, webmaster tools, SEO and YouTube for Business
Learn about the Egyptian Ministry of Education’s
educational channels on YouTube
which include different curricula from first to twelfth grade, as well as e-Lessons via video and Google+ Hangouts.
Celebrate 12/12/12 as
National Arabic Web Day
Connect
with us: add the Arabic Web Days
badge
to your site, upload a video to
youtube.com/arabicwebdays
, visit our website:
www.arabicwebdays.com
and follow us on
Google+
and
Twitter
(in Arabic)
To get more details and to sign up for any of the above events, visit Arabic Web Days on
Google+
or see the
Arabia Blog
. Until then, let’s go Arabic!
Posted by Maha Abouelenein, Head of Communications, Middle East and North Africa
Rebuilding an illustrious ancestor to modern computing
Friday, November 16, 2012
As any traveller knows, photos are no match for the vividness of a physical encounter. The same is true for historians of computing. It’s only once you’ve seen something in reality -- be it the great
computing Colossus
, or the
Great Pyramid
-- that you fully appreciate the mastery of its creators. Unfortunately, few relics remain from the early days of computing, which is why we are so happy to support those striving to bring them back to operational life.
One such worthy project is the EDSAC rebuild, currently being championed by the
Computer Conservation Society
. Earlier this year Google provided funding to support the reconstruction work. Since then much progress has been made, which you can learn about on the
project’s new website
.
EDSAC holds an important place in computing history. While not the world’s first stored program computer (beaten by the prototype
Manchester Baby
), EDSAC heralded a cultural shift in computing.
From the moment it became operational
in May 1949, EDSAC was put to work by Cambridge University researchers, helping solve problems in many scientific fields -- far beyond the military and code-breaking tasks to which computing had previously been dedicated.
EDSAC was the world’s first computer to
use subroutines
(originally charmingly called “Wheeler jumps” after their creator), which remain a key part of modern programming. EDSAC also served as the prototype for
LEO, the world’s first business computer
, and was the foundation for the
world’s first computer science diploma course
at Cambridge University.
EDSAC is
remembered fondly
by those who worked with it. We look forward to its reincarnation providing fresh insight into a remarkable period of British computing history.
Posted by Lynette Webb, Senior Manager, External Relations
Explore the stellar neighborhood with your browser
Friday, November 16, 2012
Visualising the exact location of every star in the galaxy is a problem of, well, galactic proportions. With over 200 billion stars, capturing every detail of the Milky Way currently defies scientists and laptops alike. However, using imagery and data from publicly available datasets, including from NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA), we were recently able to take one small step in that direction by plotting the location of the stars closest to our sun.
The result is a new Chrome Experiment called
100,000 Stars
that visualises the stellar neighborhood. Using your mouse or trackpad, you can zoom in and out to explore our galaxy. Zooming in reveals the names of the most prominent stars close to our sun – click each name to learn more about it and see a digital rendition.
Zooming in further shows the relative location of the Oort cloud, the planetary orbits, and finally the Sun. Zooming out gives you some context for where we are in the Milky Way, although please keep in mind this view is an artist’s rendition. Click the tour button in the upper left for a quick trip to some of the coolest perspectives in the galaxy.
The experiment makes use of Google Chrome’s support for
WebGL
,
CSS3D
, and
Web Audio
. Music was generously provided by
Sam Hulick
, who video game fans may recognize as a composer for the popular space adventure series, Mass Effect.
As you explore this experiment, we hope you share our wonder for how large the galaxy really is. It’s incredible to think that this mist of 100,000 measurable stars is a tiny fraction of the sextillions of stars in the broader universe.
Posted by Aaron Koblin, Creative Lab
The Power of Beautiful Data
Thursday, November 15, 2012
Some 90% of the data in the world today has been created in just the last two years, according to the web site
Visualizing.org.
We are producing more data than ever before — 2.5 quintillion bytes every day — and we're generating entirely new types of data from sources like social media, sensor networks, electronic trading, and smart grids.
This past weekend, more than 1000 computer science and design students, from Bangalore to Beirut, and Sydney to Santiago, attempted to make sense of some of this vast sea of data. The
Visualizing Global Marathon
encouraged students to display data in useful and beautiful ways. In addition to working together via an online dashboard, the students received inspiring sessions from data experts via
Google hangouts
.
Contestants are competing in three categories: building
early warning disease tools
,
improving transportation networks
, and offering insights into the
US election
from social media.
For a taste of the entries, take a look below. The first graph visualises diseases in countries located around the Equator.
This graph breaks down the spread of disease by country.
Winners will be announced on December 5. Some $15,000 worth of prizes will be distributed.
Posted by Laura Scott, EMEA External Relations
Indoor Google Maps launches in Belgium
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
We’ve all been there: your online map has delivered you safely to your destination but once you enter the building itself, you get lost in an unfamiliar world. Whether you’re trying to find an exhibit within the tangled passages of a museum, looking for your gate at the airport, or seeking a place to grab a coffee before your train leaves the station, you often have to rely on a freestanding map with a ‘You Are Here’ sign, or a friendly employee to guide you.
But at Google we’re trying to fix this. Starting today, Google Maps users in Belgium can enjoy a fast and convenient way to navigate indoors in places such as retail stores, museums, galleries and train stations as we introduce accurate floor plans of many locations.
We’ve initially got indoor maps for over 60 locations such as
BOZAR
,
The Centre for Fine Arts
, the
National Basilica of the Sacred Heart
and the Universities of
Louvain-la-Neuve
,
Ghent
and
Brussels
and also included are a number of churches and university campuses (see here for a selected
list
).
For Android users who have updated to the latest version of Google Maps, detailed floor plans will automatically appear when you’re viewing the map and zoomed in on a building where indoor maps are available. In many locations the familiar blue dot indicates your location within several meters, and when you move up or down a level in a building with multiple floors, the interface will automatically update to display which floor you’re on.
This launch is part of our focus on our European users - our indoor maps are available in many locations across the
UK,
France,
Switzerland,
Denmark
and
Sweden
and we’re continuing to expand our coverage quickly.
Posted by Cedric Dupont, Product Manager, Google Maps
Transparency Report: government requests on the rise
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Cross-posted with the
Official Google Blog
We think it’s important to shine a light on how government actions could affect our users. When we first launched the
Transparency Report
in early 2010, there wasn’t much data out there about how governments sometimes hamper the free flow of information on the web. So we took our first step toward greater transparency by disclosing the number of government requests we received. At the time, we weren’t sure how things would look beyond that first snapshot, so we pledged to release numbers twice a year. Today we’re updating the Transparency Report with data about government requests from January to June 2012.
This is the sixth time we’ve released this data, and one trend has become clear: Government surveillance is on the rise. As you can see from the graph below, government demands for user data have increased steadily since we first launched the Transparency Report. In the first half of 2012, there were 20,938 inquiries from government entities around the world. Those requests were for information about 34,614 accounts.
The number of government requests to remove content from our services was largely flat from 2009 to 2011. But it’s spiked in this reporting period. In the first half of 2012, there were 1,791 requests from government officials around the world to remove 17,746 pieces of content.
You can see the country-by-country trends for requests to hand over
user data
and to
remove content
from our services in the Transparency Report itself, but in aggregate around the world, the numbers continue to go up.
As always, we continue to improve the Transparency Report with each data release. Like before, we’re including
annotations
for this time period with interesting facts. We’re also
showing new bar graphs
with data in addition to tables to better display content removal trends over time. We’ve now translated the entire Transparency Report into 40 languages, and we’ve expanded our FAQ—including one that explains how we sometimes
receive falsified court orders
asking us to remove content. We do our best to verify the legitimacy of the documents we receive, and if we determine that any are fake, we don’t comply.
The information we disclose is only an isolated sliver showing how governments interact with the Internet, since for the most part we don’t know what requests are made of other technology or telecommunications companies. But we’re heartened that in the past year, more companies like
Dropbox
,
LinkedIn
,
Sonic.net
and
Twitter
have begun to share their statistics too. Our hope is that over time, more data will bolster public debate about how we can best keep the Internet free and open.
Posted by Dorothy Chou, Senior Policy Analyst
Google Play music arrives in Europe
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Music lovers rejoice! There’s now an even easier way to manage and listen to your music. Today
music on Google Play
is live in the UK, Germany, France, Spain and Italy.
Google Play lets you store 20,000 songs from your existing music collection in a personal library in the cloud, so you can access it from all your devices. In addition, our new matching feature streamlines the process of uploading your music, so it will be added to your library even more quickly. Both of these we offer free of charge.
You can also buy new music from your favourite artists and build out your collection. We’ll automatically sync your entire music library—both purchases and uploads— so you can listen across all your devices. No need to worry about cables, file transfers or running out of storage space. Even listen when you’re offline - simply “pin” the playlists and albums you want and they’ll be available on your Android device. And for any song you’ve purchased on Google Play, you can share a free full listen with your friends on Google+.
We’ve partnered with all the major record labels and thousands of indie labels to sell their music in Google Play. And if you’re a talented, unsigned or independent musician looking for your big break, check out the
Google Play artist hub
, a great way to sell your music directly to fans.
Check out Google Play today. It will be music to your ears.
Posted by Paul Joyce, product manager for Google Play
Inspiring the next generation of Spanish innovators
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
When highlighting Spain's heritage, it is common to focus on the great artists like Picasso, Dali, and Gaudi. Less often heralded are their
scientific counterparts
, the talented Spanish inventors and researchers who didn't just dream of the future, they helped create it. One such oft-overlooked contributor is
Leonardo Torres Quevedo
. His inventions range from cable cars to the world’s first chess playing computer.
In this, the hundredth anniversary year of his chess machine, Google was delighted to partner with the
Technical University of Madrid
to help resurrect Torres Quevedo’s memory. Together, we celebrated the opening of an exhibition in the main hall of the Telecommunication Engineering department featuring a number of his machines, as well as a
formal lecture programme
exploring his influence across many engineering fields.
It was a great day. Dr Alberto Rodriguez Raposa, the Director General of Telecommunications and IT from the Ministry of Industry opened the exhibitions. Speakers in the seminar included senior representatives from different engineering departments across the university, as well as Dr Francisco González de Posada, Professor of Applied Physics at the University of Madrid and a renowned expert in Torres-Quevedo’s achievements.
In parallel, a chess tournament for 14-17 year olds from regional chess clubs was staged in the hall alongside the exhibition, with the winner playing a simulation of the original chess machine.
It’s important to remember scientific pioneers like Leonardo Torres Quevedo, not only to pay rightful tribute to their achievements, but to inspire others to follow in their footsteps.
This is an appropriate time for reflection. Innovation when combined with an entrepreneurial streak, as demonstrated by Torres Quevedo, can be a powerful catalyst for economic growth, and a vital determinant of a country’s competitiveness on the world stage. In the current context, through these type of partnerships, we seek to inspire the next generation of Torres Quevedo’s to help get countries back on the fast lane to the future.
Posted by Barbara Navarro, Director of Public Policy and Corporate Affairs for Spain, Italy, Portugal and Greece
Encouraging the Next Generation of Female Engineers
Monday, November 12, 2012
A 3D printing lab. A digital music master class. A class explaining how to build robots. The third annual
Greenlight@Brussels Day
brought 250 teenage girls from around Belgium for a day of workshops designed to encourage them to become engineers. We helped finance the event and a Google software engineer Emily Soldal came from Sweden to provide mentoring.
Too few women study science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Less than one fifth of engineers in the European Union are women, according to
Engineering UK
. This represents a giant waste of talent, particularly in this period of high youth unemployment. The EU estimates in its
Forsight Report
that there will be 700,000 unfilled tech jobs by 2015.
We support a number of
educational initiatives
to bring more women into computer science.
Greenlight for Girls
is an international non-profit organization. At its annual Brussels event, experts, volunteers and role models from all over Europe contributed to the day’s learnings. European Commission Vice President Neelie Kroes contributed a video message, encouraging the young women “to remember they can be anything they want to be”.
Take a look and consider a career in computer science. Events like Greenlight@Brussels showcase how computer science can be combined with other fields - and provide students a competitive advantage in a tight job market.
Posted by Angela Steen, Senior Policy Analyst, Google
NextUp Europe: meet the next generation of YouTube stars
Thursday, November 8, 2012
Over the last couple of months some of Europe’s most exciting creative talents have sent us their entries for
NextUp Europe
, a video contest that aims to unearth the YouTube stars of tomorrow across the UK, France, Netherlands, Germany, Russia, Poland, Italy and Spain.
NextUp is a development program designed exclusively for YouTube partners with bags of potential. Many talented creators are already using the platform to reach a worldwide audience and make money from their videos by allowing YouTube to run ads alongside them and sharing the revenue. Thousands of partner channels are now making
six-figure sums
annually.
We’d love to see even more partners using the site as a launchpad to career success, so we’re supporting them through training, education and promotions via NextUp. By helping them invest in new equipment and training, our NextUp winners are going to develop whole new genres and online experiences for audiences around the world -
ironing skydiving
anyone?
We’ve been busy watching all the entry videos and we’ve selected a list of
25 winners
from across the continent. Winners included UK creator RageNineteen and Spain’s Iker Plan, and you can see their entries below.
Things You Should Know, by RageNineteen
Next Up 2012, by Iker Plan
Each winning creator will receive an all-expenses-paid to trip to London, where they’ll attend a week of hands-on training and mentorship in our brand new creator space. In addition, winners will get a €4,000 video equipment package and €3,000 in cash to help boost the quality of their content.
We’re delighted that we received so many high-quality entries that highlight the passion and talent of the YouTube community. Check out some of the above entries and click ‘Subscribe’ to get regular updates from their channels.
Posted by Kinzie Kramer, YouTube Partner Marketing
Marking the fall of the Iron Curtain
Thursday, November 8, 2012
There are certain events in history that are momentous enough to make you remember where you were at the time. This Friday is the 23rd anniversary of one of those moments—the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989.
To mark this turning point in history, we’re releasing a collection of online exhibitions under the theme of
The Fall of the Iron Curtain
. Partners, including The DDR Museum in Berlin, Polish History Museum, Romanian broadcaster TVR and Getty Images, have created 13 exhibitions containing
documents
,
videos
and
photos
telling the stories behind how events unfolded.
Independent historians have also contributed their expertise. For example, Niall Ferguson, professor of history at Harvard University, provides video commentary on events as part of his exhibition
The Fall of the Wall: Revelation, not Revolution
.
Some of the other exhibitions include:
Solidarity & the fall of The Iron Curtain
- the creation and evolution of the Solidarity trade union leading to Lech Walesa's election as President of Poland in 1990
Visions of Division
- Professor Patrick Major, a specialist in Cold War history, gives an account of life in a divided Germany and the everyday human cost of the Wall
Years of change
- diary of a fictitious author documenting events in Berlin such as the staged elections, the first protests and David Hasselhoff's concert at the wall
The Berlin Job
- a personal account of life in East Berlin made by independent curator Peter Millar, one of the only non-German correspondents in East Berlin in the 1980s
Romanian Revolution
- a series of four exhibitions containing more than 50 videos documenting the live TV transmission of the overthrow of Romanian dictator Ceausescu
The Fall of the Iron Curtain
is the latest chapter in the work of the Google Cultural Institute, following the launch last month of
42 online historical exhibitions
telling the stories behind major events of the last century. You can explore all the exhibitions on
www.google.com/culturalinstitute
and follow us on
our Google+ page
.
If you’re a partner interested in working with the Google Cultural Institute to turn your archives into online exhibitions, we’d love to hear from you—please fill out this
form
.
Posted by Mark Yoshitake, Google Cultural Institute
Bringing the US election to Berlin
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
Last night, the US election came to Berlin in a big way. More than 2000 people from the worlds of politics, media and business convened in Deutsche Telekom’s historic Telegraph Building to follow the action and debate the election live - in person, on air, and
online
.
German public broadcaster
ZDF
anchored its election reporting from the event - one of the largest held anywhere outside the US. For our part, we teamed up with ZDF and the
American Academy
in Berlin, who used Google+ technology to host two live “Transatlantic Election Hangouts”.
The Hangouts featured Bundestag President
Norbert Lammert
, Die Zeit editor
Josef Joffe
, former German Ambassador to the US
Wolfgang Ischinger
and President of the Brookings Institution,
Strobe Talbott
. The discussions were broadcast live to the web as "Hangouts on Air" for politically interested European citizens and people around the world on Google+ and YouTube. ZDF also integrated Hangouts on Air with bloggers in the US into their live programming.
Alongside ZDF, Deutsche Telekom, Google and the American Academy, the event was co-hosted by organisations including the US Embassy in Berlin, the American Chamber of Commerce, Tagesspiegel and the German Newspaper Association (VDZ) among others - each of whom welcomed guests to their own booths.
On the Google stand, guests were able to access a wide range of information via the
Google elections
page, including results displayed state by state on a Google Map in real time, live reporting on YouTube by US broadcasters and newspapers, and the volume of search queries by state for each candidate. Prominent guests including US-ambassador Philip D. Murphy and the Head of the SPD fraction in the German Bundestag
Frank-Walter Steinmeier
dropped by to take a look. Every two hours our guests were able to chat with Google’s election team in Washington DC via Hangout to get the freshest insights into how the race was playing out online.
When the event kicked off at 7pm last night, we knew it was going to be an exciting night. Thanks to the Internet, we - and citizens across Germany and around the world - were able to follow the action in real time, see the results come in and discuss and debate with people on the ground in the US. When we left the building at 7am, bleary-eyed and exhausted, we knew just how close a race it had been.
Posted by Ralf Bremer, Senior Manager Communications and Public Affairs, Google Germany
Supporting bottom-up, multi-stakeholder Internet governance
Monday, November 5, 2012
UPDATE:
A highlight video of the Big Tent Baku is now available. Please take a look.
The Internet has been built from the bottom up. From its origins as a US Government research project, private business, public authorities, civil society, academia and 2.3 billion users have built it over the past three decades into a global information network. Today, we stand at a crossroads as more than a thousand representatives of Internet businesses, NGOs, and governments assemble in Azerbaijan at the
United Nations Seventh Intergovernmental Forum.
While the Net has grown to embrace and enhance almost every human activity, more and more governments, unnerved by its revolutionary freedoms, are seeking to constrain its use. According to the Open Net Initiative, some 42 countries censor, filter or block content on the web. Google is going to Azerbaijan to stand up for freedom and openness of the Internet. At the Internet Governance Forum, all of us can make contributions. All our voices are heard. The Net's value is found in its generalized nature, its abilities to allow all shades of colour to be displayed.
Many of the same governments that restrict Net freedom in their home countries want to interfere with this success story. Some are proposing to impose a new United Nations agency to govern the Net. Others want to use the already established, Geneva-based International Telecommunication Union, as a ‘stalking horse,’ slipping dangerous provisions into a soon-to-be-negotiated telecommunications treaty.
This evening in Azerbaijan, we are hosting a
Big Tent
to discuss these crucial Internet governance issues. Our featured guest is
Vint Cerf,
famed for the role he played in developing the Net’s early technology - and his tireless support for the multi-stakeholder Internet Governance Forum.
At the Big Tent, Baku, we're going to look at this battle for freedom, first hand and up close in Azerbaijan. Our host country is going through a momentous transformation in the two decades since it won independence. It has made huge strides developing its economy. It international profile is rising fast. Yet a strong debate is now underway about freedom of speech. Some bloggers have been imprisoned. Others face restrictions on what they can say online. At the Big Tent, we will show an excerpt from a
film
about
Internet freedom in Azerbaijan.
Under the UN's own convention, each and every one of us enjoys the right to express ourselves freely. We recognize that the limits of free speech are open for debate - different cultural norms allow different levels of expression. We ourselves do not accept certain types of content on Google platforms - for example, videos that incite violence, or child pornography. Wherever we operate locally, we respect local law, even if that means pulling down content that's legal elsewhere. But our bottom line remains a strong preference for keeping the Net as open and free as possible.
Posted by William Echikson, Head of Free Expression, Europe, Middle East and Africa
German senior citizens show "the beautiful side of the Net"
Friday, November 2, 2012
Earlier this year, we launched a program in Germany to encourage senior citizens to go online. After spending quality time
talking individually with over 800 senior citizens
about how older people like to use the Internet, we ran a competition called
“We’ll show you! The beautiful sides of the Internet”
, together with our partners
Deutschland sicher im Netz
(Germany Safe Online) and
BAGSO
(the Federal Association of Senior Citizens’ Organisations).
This week, at an awards ceremony at Google’s Berlin office, more than 90 guests from government, civil society and industry celebrated the achievements of the winners. A jury chose
the best entrants in three categories
- Experience Report, Video and Website - and also gave a special award to three friends who meet online to share presentations and research via online video chat.
We also conducted a survey with our partners, which showed some positive developments - for example, that in the age range 51-85, more than 80% of men and women already use email to communicate with friends and family - and more than 75% use search engines to find information.
In many areas, however, the survey suggested that German senior citizens were not being well served online. Little information exists online on leisure offerings for older generations such as holidays, sport, and fashion. And
like senior citizens in the UK
, they wanted to see more attention paid to developing online services that enhance social inclusion and improve care for the elderly.
Older people - a long overlooked audience on the Net - are catching on to the possibilities of the online world. We’re committed to helping improve things for them.
Posted by Sabine Frank, Media Literacy Policy Counsel, Berlin
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