Europe Blog
Our views on the Internet and society
Campaigning for Innovation in Central and Eastern Europe
Friday, June 28, 2013
Two decades ago, Central and Eastern Europe threw off the shackles of communism. Today, the region is among Europe’s most dynamic, and we recently held our first Big Tent in the region to investigate how Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary could play a leadership role in driving forward innovation on the web.
This newfound freedom encourages the region to embrace the Internet, Polish ministers said. “We prefer freedom,”
Michal Boni
, the digitisation minister, repeated twice in the keynote address.
Deputy Foreign Minister Henryka Mościcka-Dendys
argued that new technologies helping “civic initiatives gain wider ground for their actions.” A concrete example is opening up public data. By examining online license plate records Zuzana Wienk, a Slovak anti-corruption campaigner, demonstrated the bidding for street cleanup services was rigged.
The Internet already is driving economic progress. At the Big Tent, we showcased successful Internet startups and social innovators. They ranged from Polands’ game startup
Dice+
and audio books pioneer
Audioteka
to Hungarys’ to
K-Monitor
transparency project and presentation tools developer
Prezi
. From Slovakia, traditional
Ultra Plast
plastic maker showed how to leverage its net presence to boost exports.
At the same time, the region needs to improve its education and regulation. While universities produce excellent engineers, they rank low in equipping graduates with needed business skills. Too few offerings exist for adult education. “If there is no lifelong learning, there is no lifelong earning,” quipped
Jan Figel
, Deputy Speaker of the Slovak Parliament. Other panelists wanted to see government change regulations to make it easier for companies to take risks, to start new businesses and to wind them down if and when they fail.
Our Big Tent took place in the wake of revelations that the U.S. intelligence agencies had conducted an online surveillance campaign. Google’s chief legal officer
David Drummond
stressed that the threats to the open web are not always from autocratic regimes and that any limitations to freedom online should be set narrowly. He acknowledged the dangers of online radical and racist speech. But he said that the Internet offers the best vehicle for dealing with the issue - “counter-speech” denouncing the hate.
Most of the debate had an optimistic tone, with faith in future innovation. The audience appreciated a demonstration of
Google Glass
. Slovakia’s Figel, who previously served as a European Commissioner, tried on a pair and checked the weather in the European Union’s capital Brussels. It was sunny outside in Warsaw - and grey and overcast in Brussels.
Posted by Agata Wacławik-Wejman, Head of Public Policy, Central and Eastern Europe
Celebrating the heights of modern and ancient Arab culture
Thursday, June 27, 2013
What does it feel like to stand on top of the tallest building in the world? Or to visit virtually one of the the world’s most historic sites? We took
Street View
to the Burj Khalifa in Dubai and Spain’s Alhambra, our first-ever collection in the Arab World. Described as a “vertical city,” the
Burj Khalifa
is the world’s tallest manmade structure, towering over the Dubai skyline at 828 meters (2,716.5 ft).
View Larger Map
This is the first time we’ve captured a skyscraper on Street View—making Google Maps even more comprehensive and useful for you. The imagery was collected over three days using the Street View Trekker and Trolley, capturing high-resolution 360-degree panoramic imagery of several indoor and outdoor locations of the building.
Visit the highest occupied floor in the world on the 163rd floor, experience being in the fastest-moving elevators in the world (at 22 mph) and check out the highest swimming pool in the world on the 76th floor. In addition to the breathtaking views from the world’s tallest observation deck on the 124th floor, you can also see what it feels like to hang off one of the building’s maintenance units on the 80th floor, normally used for cleaning windows!
Explore more at the
Burj Khalifa Street View collection
.
The Arab world long has produced awe-inspiring monuments.
La Alhambra
, a World Heritage Site since 1984, is one of them. We recently brought the Google Trekker into Spain to start taking pictures in Granada. Pictures will be published in coming months. The trekker is a backpack of about 15 kg which has a camera system based on Android with 15 lenses and it’s specially used for reaching inaccessible places or those ones which are protected.
Even if you’re afraid of heights, or bored by most palaces, we hope you enjoy the view from the top or Dubai and the beauty of the Alhambra!
Posted by Tarek Abdalla, Head of Marketing - Middle East & North Africa, Google and Daniele Rizzetto, Operations Manager, Street View EMEA.
Our commitment to growth and jobs in Europe
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Europe faces historically high unemployment, and we’re keen to help. We’ve just joined the European Commission’s
Grand Coalition for Digital Jobs
, and we are committing to a range of initiatives that will help Europeans - particularly young Europeans - to create businesses and find jobs.
Our first commitment is to support 20,000 European entrepreneurs this year. Entrepreneurs account for a high proportion of job creation - according to an OECD survey of 11 European countries, companies less than two years old account for 5% of total private-sector employment. Our
Google for Entrepreneurs programme
funds start-up hubs in London (
Campus London
), Krakow (
Google for Entrepreneurs, Krakow
), Berlin (
The Factory
) and Paris (
Silicon Sentier
). Through these centers, we’ll provide entrepreneurs with training programmes, mentorship, and improved access to capital and talent. We’ll also run additional start-up events with our partners,
Startup Weekend
and
Startup Grind
.
Another priority is developing digital skills among Europe’s youth. Our
RISE programme
, will work with six computer science and STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) education organisations in Europe to reach 100,000 young people by the end of the year, up from the current 32,000.
These programmes nurture coding skills, use robotics to teach engineering and maths, and help teachers with STEM education tools. Our partners in RISE range from the UK’s
Code Club
to Romania’s
Uniristii Association
, to Croatia’s
Science and Society Synergy Institute
, and Germany’s
Technik Begeistert
.
Not everyone wants to a computer scientist. Even so, the Internet can help all types of job seekers develop new skills. By the end of 2013, we’ll have partnered with universities across Europe to launch 25 Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). These MOOCs will cover subjects including entrepreneurship, digital marketing and law - with the aim of reaching tens of thousands of people across Europe.
The courses will employ
Course Builder
, an open source tool created by Google staff that has already been used by more than a dozen universities in Italy, France, Germany, Spain, Switzerland and the UK to create online courses. In Spain, more than 20,000 people have already participated in a
free business skills MOOC
created last year by the University of Alicante, with our support.
The European Commission deserves credit for demanding concrete action, not platitudes, in dealing with Europe’s job crisis. We’re determined to help make her initiative a success - and contribute to getting the continent back to work.
Posted by Angela Steen, Government Relations Manager
Helping make the history of computing relevant
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
A global group of museum curators, academics and others working to preserve computing’s past recently converged on
London’s Science Museum
to discuss ways to make the history of computing relevant to a wider audience.
Google helped fund and organise
the gathering
, in partnership with the Science Museum, the
Computer Conservation Society
and the
International Federation for Information Processing
(IFIP) working group on computer history.
Discussion during the two days was lively and wide-ranging. Topics included:
Shifting emphasis away from pure technology to focus on stories of inventors and people who used the machines—explaining what happened and why it mattered in a wider, more engaging context.
Collecting personal histories of computing in the form of oral and video accounts, to glean a deeper understanding of people’s motives and interests, and the challenges they faced.
Pros and cons of maintaining and demonstrating working models of early computers in a museum setting—what is practical and when is it worth the effort?
Helping educators to inspire students by including reference to computing’s pioneers in their classes, the same as happens in other (older) fields of science.
The full programme for the conference, plus links to papers and presentations, can be
viewed here
.
While Google’s focus is firmly on the future, we also care about preserving our industry’s past. Tales of ‘machine dinosaurs’ and the people who created and used them can spark a wider interest in computer science. Showcasing the contributions of women and other minorities in computing history can overturn stereotypes. Finally, we believe it is also important to pay tribute to computing’s forgotten pioneers, many of whom—especially in Europe—have not had the recognition they deserve.
It's for these reasons that over the past several years Google has been quietly looking for ways to help preserve and promote computing heritage. We have
partnered
with
museums
and
other
organisations
, and have sought to contribute directly through our series of
short films
and
blogposts
. Our sponsorship of this conference is a natural extension of our
partnership with London’s Science Museum
and we were delighted to take part.
Posted by Lynette Webb, Senior Manager, External Relations
Hacking the newsroom at the Global Editors Network summit
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
What's the least friendly US state to live in if you're gay? Can you calculate your social class based on your taste in music? Who are the best connected families in China? We supported two initiatives at the
Global Editors Network summit
held last week in Paris's magnificent Hotel de Ville aimed at helping journalists answer such questions by making more use of data.
GEN’s Data Journalism Awards
, now in their second year, are the only international awards in this fast-growing field. The winning entries showed the power that data analysis and visualization can have in telling stories and engaging readers. You can see all the winning projects
here
, including the one the public voted best - the
Art Market for Dummies
.
In the next room - connected to the main event by Google+ Hangouts - journalists, developers and designers competed in the final of GEN’s Editors' Lab Hackathon.
The Editors' Lab has been running Google-supported hack events in newsrooms around the world over the last nine months, bringing journalists and coders closer together to explore new ways of creating and presenting the news. Eleven teams - the winners from each of the national events - came to Paris to fight it out for the top prize. Their challenge: to rebuild their news organisation’s home page in the context of user engagement.
The winner was the team from the Netherlands’
De Volkskrant
. Judges commended for the way they were able to incorporate personalization, social and mobile trends into their homepage. Take a look at the finalists’ entries
here
- they offer a vision of how news websites may look in the future.
Posted by Peter Barron, Director, External Relations, Europe, Middle East and Africa
Transparency Report: Making the web a safer place
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Two of the biggest threats online are malicious software (known as malware) that can take control of your computer, and phishing scams that try to trick you into sharing passwords or other private information.
So in 2006 we started a
Safe Browsing program
to find and flag suspect websites. This means that when you are surfing the web, we can now warn you when a site is unsafe. We're currently flagging up to 10,000 sites a day—and because we share this technology with other browsers there are about 1 billion users we can help keep safe.
But we're always looking for new ways to protect users' security. So today we're launching a new section on our
Transparency Report
that will shed more light on the sources of malware and phishing attacks. You can now learn how many people see Safe Browsing warnings each week, where malicious sites are hosted around the world, how quickly websites become reinfected after their owners clean malware from their sites, and other tidbits we’ve surfaced.
Sharing this information also aligns well with our Transparency Report, which already gives information about government requests for user data, government requests to remove content, and current disruptions to our services.
To learn more, explore the new Safe Browsing information on
this page
. Webmasters and network administrators can find recommendations for dealing with malware infections, including resources like
Google Webmaster Tools
and
Safe Browsing Alerts for Network Administrators
.
Posted by Lucas Ballard, Software Engineer
A step forward for free expression
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
This morning, the Advocate General at the EU’s Central Court of Justice issued an
important opinion
supporting freedom of expression. In a
case
between Google and the Spanish Data Protection Agency, the Advocate General agreed with us that data protection authorities cannot force search engines to block search results linking to legal content. “Requesting search engine service providers to suppress legitimate and legal information that has entered the public domain would entail an interference with the freedom of expression,” the Advocate General said. “It would amount to censorship.”
This is just an opinion. The full court still has to make a final ruling. Even so, we’re encouraged because the case is key to free expression online. Advocate General Niilo Jääskinen argues publishers are responsible for the information they put online. Search engines have no control over the information posted by others. They just point to it.
Let us be clear: we think it’s important for people to be able to control the information that they post online themselves. If you post something online about yourself, you should have the right to remove it or take it somewhere else. If someone else posts illegal defamatory content about you, we’ll remove it from our index with a legal order.
In this case we’re simply challenging the notion that information that is demonstrably legal - and that continues to be publicly available on the web - can be censored. People shouldn't be prevented from learning that a politician was convicted of taking a bribe, or that a doctor was convicted of malpractice. The Internet has allowed unprecedented access to information. In order to achieve all the social, cultural and economic benefits of the Internet, it must be kept free and open.
Posted by William Echikson, Head of Free Expression, Europe, Middle East and Africa
From Sutton Hoo to the soccer pitch: culture with a click
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Museums, libraries and galleries are a tourist staple of the summer holiday season. Often they’re the first place we head to when visiting a new city or town in order to learn about the heritage of that country. Though only a lucky few have the chance to travel to see these treasures first-hand, the Internet is helping to bring access to culture even when you can’t visit in person.
At the
Google Cultural Institute
, we’ve been busy working with our
partners
to add a range of new online exhibitions to our existing collection. With more than 6 million photos, videos and documents, the diversity and range of subject matter is large—a reflection of the fact that culture means different things to different people. What the exhibitions have in common is that they tell stories; objects are one thing but it’s the people and places they link to that make them fascinating.
The British Museum
is the U.K.’s most popular visitor attraction and the 4th most visited museum in the world. It’s well known for housing one of the most spectacular archaeological discoveries ever made—the 1,400 year old Anglo-Saxon burial from Sutton Hoo, untouched until its discovery in 1939. Their online exhibition “
Sutton Hoo: Anglo-Saxon ship burial
” explores the discovery of the ship, featuring videos of the excavation and photos of the
iconic helmet
and a solid gold
belt buckle
. All this tells the story of how the burial and its contents changed our understanding of what Anglo-Saxon society was like.
From archaeology we take you to sport, which is integral to the culture of many nations, including Brazil. In the lead-up to Brazil's hosting of the 2014 World Cup, the
Museu do Futebol
has told the story of how the “beautiful game” came to Brazil. The photos, videos and posters in “
The Game and the People
” track the social impact of the sport and its transition from a past time for the wealthy (with their pleated pants and satin belts) to the modern game.
Science remains a perennially fascinating topic and the
Museo Galileo
in Italy has put together a series of three exhibitions looking at the link between art and science.
The Medici Collections
,
the Lorraine Collections
and the
Library Collections
examine the beginnings of science and technology 500 years ago and chart developments from the discovery of the sun dial to the Google Maps of today. As well as being informative, the exhibitions include beautiful objects such as the
Jovilabe
, which was used to calculate the periods of Jupiter’s moons.
So if broadening your cultural horizons through travel isn’t in the cards this summer, settle down in your armchair and browse through through some of the world’s heritage and history online. Keep up to date with new material on the
Cultural Institute Google+ page
.
Posted by James Davis, program manager, Google Cultural Institute
Answers people want
Monday, June 24, 2013
You expect Google to give you the very best search results. Just the right information, at just the right time, without hassle or cost. We started out by showing you ten blue links. Advances in computer science now let us provide richer and better answers, saving a lot of time and effort. If you search for the “height of the Eiffel Tower”, that’s probably what you want - right there on your screen or mobile phone, not several clicks away. So that’s what we give you. Ask Google for places to eat in New York and we aim to show pictures of restaurants, plus reviews, prices, hours, location, directions, and more. All right there, with no extra effort required.
We’ve been discussing these innovations with the European Commission as they have reviewed our search and advertising business. We know that scrutiny comes along with success, and we have worked hard to answer their questions thoroughly and thoughtfully. When the Commission outlined
four areas
of "preliminary" concern last summer, we submitted
proposals
to address each point in a constructive way. Our proposals are meaningful and comprehensive, providing additional choice and information while also leaving room for future innovation. As we’ve always said, we build Google for users, not websites. And we don’t want to hamper the very innovations that people like best about Google’s services. That’s why we focused on addressing the Commission’s specific concerns, and we think we did a pretty good job.
The Internet is the greatest level playing field ever. More and more, people are voting with their feet (or at least their cursors), getting information from apps, general and specialised search engines, social networks, and a multitude of websites. That free flow of information means that millions of websites (including ours) now compete directly for business, bringing you more information, lower prices, and more choice. We very much appreciate the Commission’s professionalism and integrity throughout this process, and look forward to reaching a sensible solution.
Posted by Kent Walker, Senior Vice President and General Counsel
The Internet and news: disruption or opportunity?
Friday, June 21, 2013
A great deal of debate has erupted about the Internet’s impact on news journalism - will it destroy quality journalism or will new business models emerge to save the industry? We long have argued that experimentation and innovation will help news thrive in the Internet era.
A
report
published this week by the
Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism
shows that consumers are increasingly engaging with news across a range of formats; and that the growth of tablet and mobile devices are having a positive effect on both news consumption and revenues. Google part funded the research.
The report surveyed consumption of news across nine countries. Points of interest include:
The growth of devices. The number of people using tablets to access news has doubled in the last 10 months in the countries covered in both last year’s and this year’s report. As people acquire more devices, they are spending more total time consuming news and accessing news more often throughout the day.
Consumer willingness to pay. In most countries, willingness to pay for news is increasing. In the U.S., smartphone and tablet users are more likely to pay than other online news users. Across countries, 25–34 year olds are the most willing to pay for online news.
The strength of trusted news brands. While behaviour is not uniform across countries, there is strong indication that in the online world, consumers are moving towards brands they trust.
The rise of social media. For younger people, the survey found that social media had become the most prominent method of discovering news content.
The results provide welcome insight into the way access to and consumption of news is changing in the digital era. Google supports the industry’s efforts to experiment and innovate. Through products like
Google Currents
,
Editors’ Picks
, and our range of
advertising tools
, we are working with publishers to increase traffic, engagement and monetization on their sites. We look forward to doing even more to enable the digital transition.
Posted by Simon Morrison, Public Policy and Government Relations Manager, London
“You’ve come a long way, Baby”: recalling a special computer
Friday, June 21, 2013
Sixty-five years ago today, the
Manchester Small Scale Experimental Machine
—nicknamed “Baby”—became the earliest computer in the world to run a program electronically stored in its memory. This was a flagship moment: the first implementation of the
stored program concept
that underpins modern computing.
Earlier computers had their instructions hardwired into their physical design or held externally on
punched paper tape
or
cards
. Reprogramming them to do a different task entailed internal rewiring or altering the physical storage media. The Baby marked a new computing era, described by some as the “
birth of software
,” in which swapping programs was far simpler—requiring only an update to the electronic memory. Both instructions and data were held in the Baby’s memory and the contents could be altered automatically at electronic speeds during the course of computation.
Developed at Manchester University by
“Freddie” Williams
,
Tom Kilburn
and
Geoff Tootill
, in size the Baby was anything but:
more than 5m long and weighing a tonne
(PDF). Its moniker was due to its role as a testbed for the experimental
Williams-Kilburn tube
, a means of storing binary digits (“bits”) using a cathode ray tube. This was a big deal because up until this point, computers had no cost-effective means of storing and flexibly accessing information in electronic form.
In technical terms, the Williams-Kilburn tube was the earliest form of
random access memory
, or RAM. The Baby’s memory consisted of one of these tubes, able to store up to
1,024 bits
—equivalent to just 128 bytes. In contrast, the average computer today has RAM in multiples of gigabytes, more than a billion times bigger.
The Baby was only ever intended to be a proof-of-concept rather than to serve as a useful calculation tool. So once it had shown the new memory was reliable, attention shifted to building a more powerful and practical machine using the same concepts. This resulted in the
Manchester Mark 1
, which in turn was the model for the Ferranti Mark 1, the world’s
first computer to be sold commercially
, in February 1951.
While today nothing remains of the original Baby, a
working replica is on display
at the Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI) in Manchester. It’s well worth a visit to reflect on just how far computing has come.
Posted by Lynette Webb, Senior Manager, External Relations
Boosting Africa’s small businesses
Thursday, June 20, 2013
When Naa Oyoo Quartey used to go to Accra Central Market to get her fill of handmade craft jewellery, she was upset to see the stalls stacked with cheap imported items. She started
Roots by Naa
, a Ghanaian company creating fashion products such as headbands, brooches, and necklaces from handworked African fashion textiles.
What began as a side business is now a successful company supporting local crafts and promoting Ghanaian culture to the world - thanks to the Internet. Naa uses online dashboards to track visitors to the website and gain insight into the number of people and countries visiting, including clients from the US, UK, and France. She now plans to expand and train immigrant porter girls in Ghana - kayayee - to make handmade accessories, giving them a better standard of living and equipping them with an income-generating skill.
As one of the
world’s fastest growing economies
, with an entrepreneurial culture, diverse resources and political stability, Ghana aims to continue on its upward path by leveraging the Internet to reach regional and international markets. Google Ghana has partnered with the
Ministry of Trade and Industry
to launch
Innovation Ghana
, an initiative celebrating Naa and other
Innovation Heroes
.
Innovation Ghana highlights the recommendations of the
Dalberg study
, which equips African policy makers with data about the socio-economic benefits of the Internet, and how to capitalize on this potential. At the recent
launch
, Ghana's Minister of Trade and Industry,
Honourable Haruna Iddrisu
, stressed the importance of the Internet for Ghana’s economy and job creation.
As part of this effort, Google Ghana also supported the
Ghana Google Developer Group
and
Accra Google Business Group
to bring together over 300 developers and businesses to connect, inform and inspire them around the theme of the internet and its potential to unleash innovation. Leading Ghanaian developers shared their knowledge of Javascript, HTML5, Google Drive API and Android. The business sessions featured stories of how SMEs have successfully used the internet to market their products and services, manage customers, and build their brands - all of which are key common challenges in Ghana.
Another initiative is called Social Day for the creative industry. The country’s leading bloggers discussed how the blogging community can further promote the use of internet tools. The grand finale hosted over 60 Ghanaian personalities who were thrilled with a songwriting collaboration between award winning musicians
M.anifest
and
E.L,
MC’d by
Sister Deborah
. The evening showcased how Google+, Hangouts and YouTube are being used, both internationally and locally, to reach new audiences, create new content and strengthen an existing creative culture.
We look forward to supporting the country’s growing online entrepreneurial spirit.
Posted Estelle Akofio-Sowah, Country Manager, Ghana
Big Tent Tunisia: Free Expression in the Arab World
Friday, June 14, 2013
The Internet has spawned an explosion of online communication, allowing those who were silenced to finally speak up. During the Arab Spring, the Web became as a tool for expressing dissent and organizing demonstrations. Signs of a backlash are now emerging and the
Big Tent Tunis
will explore the threat of growing government censorship
Our event is taking place in Tunis as the Freedom Online coalition gathers there for the first time in an Arab country. The coalition was launched in The Hague in November, 2011 when Former
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
launched the coalition at our
Big Tent
. Fourteen countries including Canada, Estonia, Sweden and the USA joined to promote Internet freedom.
Since the launch, Freedom Online has grown into a promising project. It has expanded into Latin America, to include Costa Rica as well as Mexico, and to Africa, to include Kenya and Ghana. Google has continued to support Freedom Online including at its second conference in Nairobi in 2012. Tunisia is not only the first Arab country to join the coalition but it is also the first to in the region to host its members. We thought it only fitting that we hold our first-ever Big Tent in the region at the same time.
Google’s Global Head for Free Expression
Ross LaJeunesse
will outline our goal to discuss the limits of free expression online around the globe, and in particular, in the Arab world. We’ll host a debate on the state of free expression in Tunisia with
Ahmed Gaaloul,
member of the Shoura Council of the Ennahdha Party and
Slim Amamou,
a Tunisian blogger and the former Secretary of State for Sport and Youth. We’ll also hear about the perspective from other parts of the region from Reem Al-Masri, Digital Education Director of 7iber inc, which develops training material for teachers to encourage the use of digital storytelling and social networking. The event will culminate in a debate between filmmaker
Nadim Lahoud
and feminist writer
Joumana Haddad
about art, feminism and censorship in the Arab world.
Although we at Google are biased towards people’s right to free expression, we also realize that this freedom has limits. Our goal in Tunis is encourage the Freedom Online coalition to continue fighting for online freedom - and to jump-start a debate about the state of online freedom in the Arab world.
Posted by William Echikson, Head of Free Expression, Europe, Middle East and Africa
Iranian phishing on the rise as elections approach
Thursday, June 13, 2013
For almost three weeks, we have detected and disrupted multiple email-based phishing campaigns aimed at compromising the accounts owned by tens of thousands of Iranian users. These campaigns, which originate from within Iran, represent a significant jump in the overall volume of phishing activity in the region. The timing and targeting of the campaigns suggest that the attacks are politically motivated in connection with the Iranian presidential election on Friday.
Our Chrome browser previously helped detect what appears to be the same group using SSL certificates to conduct attacks that
targeted users within Iran
. In this case, the phishing technique we detected is more routine: users receive an email containing a link to a web page that purports to provide a way to perform account maintenance. If the user clicks the link, they see a fake Google sign-in page that will steal their username and password.
Protecting our users’ accounts is one of our top priorities, so we notify targets of
state-sponsored attacks
and other
suspicious activity
, and we take other appropriate actions to limit the impact of these attacks on our users. Especially if you are in Iran, we encourage you to
take extra steps to protect your account
. Watching out for phishing, using a modern browser like Chrome and
enabling 2-step verification
can make you significantly more secure against these and many other types of attacks. Also, before typing your Google password, always verify that the URL in the address bar of your browser begins with https://accounts.google.com/. If the website's address does not match this text, please don’t enter your Google password.
Posted by Eric Grosse, VP Security Engineering
Thirty ideas to change the world: EMEA Science Fair finalists
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
UPDATE, September 24, 2013:
Three winners were
named
yesterday in Mountain View, California. Unfortunately, none of the EMEA finalists was picked. Better luck next year.
Many
great scientists
developed their curiosity for science at an early age and in January we called on the brightest young minds from around the world to send us
their ideas to change the world
. Our
2013 Google Science Fair
attracted an exciting and diverse range of entries, with thousands of submissions from more than 120 countries.
After a busy few months for
the judges
, we’re ready to reveal our
90 regional finalists
for the 2013 Google Science Fair. It was no easy task selecting these projects, but in the end their creativity, scientific merit and global relevance shined through.
Thirty of the finalists come from 15 countries in Europe, Middle East and Africa, from Belarus to the United Kingdom. They range from Aya Hazem, age 15, from Egypt who is working on a
SOS Phone to prevent domestic violence
to three Kenyan 14 year olds who are pursuing a project titled
Can heat and tomatoes produce electricity?
. In the UK, 13 year old Isabel McNulty is one of the youngest finalists; her project is called:
Natural Electricity Production Using The Dynamo Effect
.
The 90 Regional Finalists come from all over the world.
For the second year, we’ll also be recognizing the
Scientific American Science in Action Award
. This award honors a project that makes a practical difference by addressing an environmental, health or resources challenge. From the 90 finalists’ projects, 15 were nominated for this year’s award.
On June 27 we’ll announce the 15 global finalists and the winner of the Science in Action Award. These young scientists will then be flown to Google’s California headquarters for the last round of judging and a celebratory event on September 23.
Thank you to everyone who submitted a project—we really appreciate all your hard work. Congratulations to our 90 regional finalists!
Posted by Sam Peter, Google Science Fair team
How green is the Internet?
Tuesday, June 11, 2013
More than ever, people are using the Internet to shop, read, listen to music and learn. And businesses rely on Internet-based tools to operate and deliver their services efficiently. The Internet has created all kinds of new opportunities for society and the economy—but what does it mean for the environment?
Last week we hosted a summit called “
How Green is the Internet?
” to explore that very question. At the summit, experts presented data on how the growth of Internet infrastructure, including devices like phones and tablets, can impact the environment. We also saw great excitement about the potential for entirely new Internet tools to deliver huge energy and carbon savings in areas like transportation, e-commerce and digital content. We’ve
posted the videos
from those sessions online and invite you to take a look.
We also enlisted the help of
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
(Berkeley Lab) to gather more data.
Their study
, released today, shows that migrating all U.S. office workers to the cloud could save up to 87 percent of IT energy use—about 23 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity annually, or enough to power the city of Los Angeles for a year. The savings are associated with shifting people in the workforce to Internet-based applications like email, word processing and customer relationship software.
These results indicate that the Internet offers huge potential for energy savings. We’re especially excited that Berkeley Lab has made its
model
publicly available so other researchers and experts can plug in their own assumptions and help refine and improve the results. Berkeley Lab is working a European version of the study, to be released later this year.
One of our goals in hosting the summit and supporting the Berkeley Lab study was to identify and encourage new research on this topic. We’ll continue to work to answer some of these questions, and we hope others will too.
Posted by Michael Terrell, Senior Policy Counsel, Energy & Sustainability
Remembering WEIZAC: the beginning of computing in Israel
Sunday, June 9, 2013
Israel is now one of the world’s tech powerhouses,
second only to Silicon Valley as a hub for startups
, but it wasn’t always this way. Today, in honour of the 84th birthday of Professor
Aviezri Fraenkel
, we’re delighted to share a short film sharing his story of working on
the WEIZAC
, Israel’s first computer.
Short film produced with support from Google as part of our
ongoing computing heritage series
The impetus to build a computer in Israel came from Professor
Chaim Pekeris
, an MIT-trained geophysicist and mathematician, who made it a condition of accepting a job at the
then-fledgling Weizmann Institute
. An illustrious committee was set up to consider Pekeris’s request and initially opinion was divided. In particular,
Albert Einstein was skeptical
a computer in Israel would receive sufficient use and queried whether the skilled resources to build it were available. It took much convincing by another committee member, mathematician and computing luminary
John Von Neumann
, before the project got the go-ahead.
Construction of the WEIZAC (“Weizmann Automatic Calculator”) got underway in late 1953 under the leadership of Professor Pekeris and
Jerry Estrin
. A protege of Von Neumann, Estrin arrived in Israel armed with
design drawings based on the computer at the Institute of Advanced Study
in Princeton. After advertising for recruits, a small team of engineers and technicians was assembled, among them Aviezri Fraenkel.
It took the team a lot of
ingenuity to source the necessary materials
. Some were imported, but others were clever adaptations, such as the thin copper strips that came from a small local bicycle-part shop! Despite such hurdles,
progress was steady
, and the major components were in place by the time Estrin returned to the U.S. 15 months later.
The WEIZAC
performed its first calculation in October 1955
and was soon much in demand by Israeli scientists. It remained operational until the end of 1963—50 years ago this year. Nowadays it resides in the Weizmann Institute’s Ziskind Building as a fitting memorial to where computing in Israel began.
I have fond memories of passing by the WEIZAC every day when I studied at the Weizmann Institute, where I also had the privilege to attend a class by Professor Fraenkel. With the release of this short film, I’m delighted to be learning more from him about such an important chapter in Israel’s tech history.
Posted by Yossi Matias, Senior Engineering Director, Head of Israel R&D Centre
What the...?
Saturday, June 8, 2013
Cross-posted from the
Official Google Blog
Dear Google users
You may be aware of press reports alleging that Internet companies have joined a secret U.S. government program called PRISM to give the National Security Agency direct access to our servers. As Google’s CEO and Chief Legal Officer, we wanted you to have the facts.
First, we have not joined any program that would give the U.S. government—or any other government—direct access to our servers. Indeed, the U.S. government does not have direct access or a “back door” to the information stored in our data centers. We had not heard of a program called PRISM until yesterday.
Second, we provide user data to governments only in accordance with the law. Our legal team reviews each and every request, and frequently pushes back when requests are overly broad or don’t follow the correct process. Press reports that suggest that Google is providing open-ended access to our users’ data are false, period. Until this week’s reports, we had never heard of the broad type of order that Verizon received—an order that appears to have required them to hand over millions of users’ call records. We were very surprised to learn that such broad orders exist. Any suggestion that Google is disclosing information about our users’ Internet activity on such a scale is completely false.
Finally, this episode confirms what we have long believed—there needs to be a more transparent approach. Google has worked hard, within the confines of the current laws, to be open about the data requests we receive. We post this information on our
Transparency Report
whenever possible. We were the first company to do this. And, of course, we understand that the U.S. and other governments need to take action to protect their citizens’ safety—including sometimes by using surveillance. But the level of secrecy around the current legal procedures undermines the freedoms we all cherish.
Posted by Larry Page, CEO and David Drummond, Chief Legal Officer
Creating jobs in Europe’s industrial heartland
Friday, June 7, 2013
It was a standing room only crowd. More than 400 Belgians, including
Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo
, small business owners, teachers and students, recently jammed into the Mundaneum museum’s headquarters in Mons near our St. Ghislain data center. They had come to hear a full day series of Google-supported lectures and presentations at the region’s first ever
Web Jobs Fair
.
As demand for our products grows, we’re investing hundreds of millions of Euros in expanding our data centres Europe. Many of our data centres are located in traditional industrial areas where one might not immediately think of being the home for a Google facility. Our St. Ghislain facility in southern Belgium sits in the heart of a traditional coal mining region. In Finland, the region around our Hamina data centre was a military capital for the country and the heart of the now struggling paper industry.
In St. Ghislain, we announced a EUR300 million additional investment this spring, and we get excited about expansions because our investment in a data center is about more than just bricks, mortar and servers. At the peak of construction, for example, the expansion will provide employment for around 350 engineering and construction workers. In Hamina, we’re investing an additional EUR150 million, providing work for (at peak) approximately 500 engineering and construction workers.
Further, the data center provides full time jobs for people who come from diverse backgrounds and skills. Already, more than 180 work at our data center in St. Ghislain, both direct Google employees and full-time contractors, and 125 at our Hamina facility. And the jobs at our data centers are not just for computer scientists. While some positions require backgrounds in hardware operations, many are for electricians, plumbers as well some some non-technical administrative roles.
With this new expansion we are back in hiring mode for all of these types of jobs. While we are fortunate to get applications from around the globe for these positions, we love to hire locally and many of our current data center employees are from the immediate region. Since we work in English, we require all candidates to be to carry out tasks in English, but if you have a passion for working in a fast moving environment with people who are dedicated to making a large operation hum and have skills in any of these areas, we’d love to hear from you. All of our open positions can be found on
Google Jobs page
here
for positions in Finland and
here
for positions in Belgium.
Data centers are critical to our ability to provide all of our services. We are so delighted to have found wonderful homes in
Hamina
and
St. Ghislain
, and many more exciting years ahead. For more info on these two data centers please visit our site for and google.com/
Posted by William Echikson, External Relations, Brussels
Promoting a Safe Web in Brussels - and throughout Europe
Thursday, June 6, 2013
As a mum of two energetic and curious kids, I love to see how the Internet helps them learn, share and be entertained. Like any parent, I also understand how the Internet can become an overwhelming place and that, as in real life, includes bad actors.
That’s why I work at Google to help parents and children surf safely. My job is to mobilize support for parents, teachers, and non-profit organizations to promote child safety through fun and innovative ways - from theater performances in Greece to animation contests in Germany.
The projects, I’m happy to say, are attracting attention at the highest levels of the European Union. This week, I participated in a meeting of the
Better Internet for Kids Coalition in Brussels
, an initiative launched by
European Commission Vice President Neelie Kroes
. Our Senior Vice President Rachel Whetstone explained, via video, how we build safety tools such as
SafeSearch
and
YouTube Safety Mode
.
I’m always on the lookout for creative ways to spread the safety message. In Greece, the local
Saferinternet.gr
coalition has produced a play called “The Internet Farm.” After the performances, children, teachers and parents participate in safety workshops. Take a look:
In Germany, we have partnered with the biggest festival of German-language children’s media
Golden Sparrow
, supporting a new online prize promoting child safety. This year’s winner, recently announced is
Kindernetz
. Our
YouTube 361° Respect
campaign against racism, discrimination and bullying recently had its grand finale featuring the pop band “Glasperlenspiel.”
We look forward to continuing our work with Vice President Neelie Kroes in Brussels - and parents and children throughout the European Union.
Posted by Sabine Frank, Public Policy & Gov't Relations Counsel, Media Literacy, Berlin
Honoring Czech and Slovak digital journalism
Wednesday, June 5, 2013
Throughout Europe, we’re working with journalists to encourage the transition from paper to digital distribution. In the Czech Republic and Slovakia, we support the
digital journalism awards
to honor the best quality digital articles, and we’re encouraged to see how the digital news movement is gaining momentum.
A total of 351 entries were received in the Czech Republic and 685 in Slovakia, a jump of about 10 percent from the previous year. The public chose online the article that had the biggest social impact. More than 15,000 readers cast ballots. The results are visible
here
Jindrich Ginter, editor of the daily
Pravo
, won for a series an
article
about financial fraud.
Winners of the Czech and Slovak digital journalism awards.
We also supported the special category - Google Digital Innovation Award for journalists who use online technologies to investigate social issues. The winners include:
Google Digital Innovation: Professional Journalism
Czech: Hospodarske Noviny's online
iHNED
work on data journalism
Slovak: Daily SME's online
video
report titled "The Handbook of the Brain."
Google Digital Innovation: Citizen Journalism
Czech: Volunteer website
Demagog's
reports on politicians embellishing the truth.
Take a look above at
photos
of the award event. The journalism initiative was part of our
Google For Czech Society
campaign. Stay tuned for more activities.
Posted by Janka Zichova, Communications and Public Affairs Manager, Prague
Powering our Finnish data center with Swedish wind energy
Tuesday, June 4, 2013
What do a Swedish wind farm developer, a German insurance company and Google’s Finnish data center have in common? As of today, a lot. We’ve just inked agreements with
O2
and
Allianz
to supply our Finnish data center with renewable energy for the next 10 years—our fourth long-term agreement to power our data centers with renewable energy worldwide, and our first in Europe.
Here’s how it works: O2, the wind farm developer, has obtained planning approval to build a new 72MW wind farm at
Maevaara
, in Övertorneå and Pajala municipality in northern Sweden, using highly efficient 3MW wind turbines. We’ve committed to buying the entire output of that wind farm for 10 years so that we can power our Finnish data center with renewable energy. That agreement has helped O2 to secure 100% financing for the construction of the wind farm from the investment arm of German insurance company Allianz, which will assume ownership when the wind farm becomes operational in early 2015.
This arrangement is possible thanks to Scandinavia’s integrated electricity market and grid system, Nord Pool. It enables us to buy the wind farm’s output in Sweden with Guarantee of Origin certification and consume an equivalent amount of power at our data center in Finland. We then “retire” the Guarantee of Origin certificates to show that we’ve actually used the energy.
As a carbon neutral company, our goal is to use as much renewable energy as possible—and by doing so, stimulate further production. The Maevaara wind farm not only allows us to make our already
highly energy-efficient
Finnish data center even more sustainable, it also meets our goal of adding new renewable energy generation capacity to the grid.
Of course, using renewable energy is good for the environment, but it also makes long term financial sense. That’s why, in addition to protecting ourselves against future increases in power prices through long-term purchasing for our operations, we also invest in new renewable energy projects that will deliver a return for our money. In recent years we’ve committed more than $1 billion to such projects in the
U.S.
,
Germany
and, just last week,
South Africa
. We’ll continue to look for similar opportunities around the globe.
Posted by Francois Sterin, Senior Manager, Global Infrastructure Team
Debating Internet Freedom in Warsaw
Monday, June 3, 2013
It was a scintillating debate in a pivotal country for Internet Freedom. In the auditorium of Poland’s prestigious newspaper
Gazeta Wyborcza
, renowned Oxford professor and writer
Timothy Garton Ash
hosted Digitisation Minister
Michal Boni
, Gazeta journalist
Wojciech Orlinski
, and another journalist
Andrzej Grajewiski
from
Gosc Niedzielny
, a newspaper linked to Roman Catholic Church.
Poland was the first in the former Soviet Bloc to bring down communist rule and install a free, democratic government. Thanks to this courageous history, Poles cherish Internet freedom. Huge
demonstrations
last year in the country’s main cities against the anti-piracy ACTA treaty helped lead to the treaty’s rejection in the European parliament – and meant that Poland was one of the most fervent advocates of the European Union rejecting last December a proposed United Nations treaty that could give governments too much control over the Net.
Timothy Garton Ash moderated the debate.
Left to right: Michal Boni, Wojciech Orlinski andAndrzej Garjewski
At the same time, much concern exists in the country about a worrying rise in hate speech and Polish judges have handed down surprisingly expansive rulings on intermediary liability.
Gazeta's main conference room was almost full.
Many of Poland’s most illustrious intellectuals filled Gazeta's main conference room. The newspaper’s founder, the former dissident,
Adam Michnik
, was supposed to show up only for a few minutes to say hello. Instead, he ended up staying for the full two and a half hours, and for the ensuing cocktail. Afterward, he said it was the first time an official associated with the Church (Gazeta is staunchly secular) had come to the newspaper headquarters.
Suffice it say that the debate was vigorous, discussing the frequent collision between privacy and freedom, the church’s concern about hate speech, and the need for Poland to become more aware of the issues around free expression on the Internet. We will be working hard in Poland to continue raising the importance of this issue.
Posted by William Echikson, Head of Free Expression, Europe, Middle East and Africa
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