Europe Blog
Our views on the Internet and society
Launching the Tony Sale Award for Computer Conservation
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Computers are now an everyday part of life for many, yet most people know little about their history. At Google we’re keen to help celebrate and preserve the stories of computing’s past. We’ve
blogged
, made
short films
and
partnered
with
museums
-- now it’s time to shine the spotlight on the efforts of others.
To that end, we are delighted to support this week’s launch of an international award recognising those who have made an outstanding engineering achievement in computing conservation. Named in honour of the late
Tony Sale
, acclaimed for his work
rebuilding Colossus
, the award will be managed by the UK’s
Computing Conservation Society
(CCS).
Tony Sale led the team that rebuilt the Colossus computer. He also helped start the campaign to save Bletchley Park, found The National Museum of Computing and establish the Computer Conservation Society.(Photo thanks to The National Museum of Computing)
Entries are invited from any individual or group worldwide who has made a demonstrable contribution to preserving the world’s computing heritage, and whose work is (or could be put) on public display. Nominations close at end-July. Further details and application forms can be found at the
CCS’s website
.
Posted by Lynette Webb, Senior Manager, External Relations
Launching an Internet lecture program
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
In March, Belgium’s Prime Minister
Elio Di Rupo
visited our Brussels headquarters to celebrate our
partnership
with the Mundaneum, a pioneering 1920's Belgian project that we see as, in many ways, an ancestor of Google.
This month marked the launch of our joint lecture series, with an evening exploring linguistic diversity on the Web.The Mundaneum’s headquarters in the southern Belgian city of Mons was packed for the first Google-sponsored lecture. I was privileged to introduce the main speaker
Louis Pouzin
, the inventor of the
datagram
and designer of an early
packet
communications network.
From Google’s perspective, the Net offers fantastic possibilities to promote local languages. Our
Google Translate
now serves 53 languages, from Afrikaans to Yiddish, including Basque, Gujarati, and Swahili. At the click of a computer mouse, web pages can be instantaneously translated, allowing anybody, anywhere, to understand a web page.
In other ways, too, Google is committed to reviving and promoting local culture. Our partnership with Mundaneum is part of a larger project to revive the memory of Europe’s computing pioneers. The next lecture at the Mundaneum is scheduled for this autumn.
Robert Cailliau
, a Belgian computer scientist who, together with
Sir Tim Berners-Lee
, developed the
World Wide Web
. We look forward to seeing you in Mons.
Posted by Thierry Geerts, Managing Director, Belgium
Compete in the EUhackathon
Monday, March 19, 2012
Have you ever had an amazing idea for improving the experience of children on the Internet? Or perhaps you’ve wondered why a tool or platform for harnessing the limitless creativity of young people didn’t already exist?
Then you should apply to participate in this year’s
EUhackatho
n. The Hack4Kids event will be the second
hackathon
organised with the European Union institutions in Brussels and will take place on June 20 and 21, 2012 in Brussels.
Developers are invited to apply in one of two tracks: Child Safety or Child Creativity. The Child Safety Track focuses on building or improving tools that allow children, their parents and teachers enjoy a better Internet experience. Areas for focus include improved reporting mechanisms around cyberbullying, age verification tools and facilitating responsible web surfing.
The Child Creativity Track invites coders to create a tool or platform that enables children to create new online content such as a website, game, or video to be shared. Our ultimate goal is to unlock young people’s creativity.
Last year’s event
was a major success with hackers from across Europe developing tools to help measure network speeds and to improve global transparency tracking. You can check out last year’s winners of the transparency track’s game,
Beat the Censor
and
Internet Performance Analysis
.
Applications
are open until 16 April 2012 at noon CET. Good luck!
Posted by Marco Pancini, Senior Policy Manager, Brussels
Honoring and supporting Belgian Internet pioneers
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
It’s not everyday that a Prime Minister visits your office. Today, Googlers in our Brussels office were honoured by a visit from Belgium’s
Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo
to celebrate and revive the memory of two unique Belgian inventors and pioneers.
Decades before the creation of the World Wide Web,
Paul Otlet
and
Henri La Fontaine
envisaged a paper archival system of the world’s information. They built a giant international documentation centre called
Mundaneum
, with the goal of preserving peace by assembling knowledge and making it accessible to the entire world. For us at Google, this mission sounds familiar.
The two Mundaneum founders met in 1895 and created the modern library
universal decimal classification system
, building from John Dewey’s early work. When La Fontaine won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1913 for his work as an activist in the international peace movement, he invested his winnings into the Mundaneum project, which was already underway. La Fontaine and Otlet collected 3-by-5 inch index cards to build a vast paper database which eventually contained some 16 million entries, covering everything from the history of hunting dogs to finance. The Belgian government granted them space in a government building and Otlet established a fee-based research service that allowed anyone in the world to submit a query via mail or telegraph. Inquiries poured in from all over the world.
World War II and the deaths of La Fontaine in 1943 and Otlet in 1944 slowed the project. Although many of these archives were stored away, some of them in the Brussels subway, volunteers kept the dream alive. In 1998, Belgium’s French community government revived the Mundaneum’s memory, bringing most of the archives to a beautiful Art Deco building in the city of Mons.
That brings us to today. The Prime Minister came to our office to announce a major partnership with the Mundaneum and the University of Ghent. Google will sponsor and partner in both the upcoming exhibition at the Mundaneum headquarters in Mons and a speaker series on Internet issues at the Mundaneum and the University of Ghent. Web pioneers
Louis Pouzin
and
Robert Cailliau
are already scheduled to speak.
Mundaneum will use Google to present and promote its conferences and exhibitions. It has also constructed an
online tour
of its dazzling premises. At today’s event in the Google Brussels office, Prime Minister Di Rupo said he hopes that the Google-Mundaneum cooperation becomes a “wonderful forum for experimentation.” Di Rupo himself is passionate about the Mundaneum; as mayor of Mons, he was instrumental in preserving the archive.
If information was important a century ago, it is even more important in the 21st century. In his remarks, the Prime Minister made the connection between the past and the future, and called on Belgium to embrace the digital economy. We showed him our recently-launched Belgian version of
Street View
. In Belgium, the internet accounts for 2.5% of GDP—and its contribution is expected to grow by more than 10% a year for the next five years. “If all our companies could take better advantages of these new technologies, its sure that our exports would get a boost,” Di Rupo said.
Our partnership with Mundaneum is part of a larger project to revive the memory of Europe’s computing pioneers. Europe played a crucial role in the invention of computers and the Internet, yet all too often has forgotten its innovators. Last year marked the 60th anniversary of
LEO
, the world’s first business computer, built by
J.Lyons & Co
, a leading British food manufacturer at the time that also ran a famous chain of tea shops. This past December, we celebrated the 60th anniversary of the formal recognition of Ukraine’s
Sergey Lebedev’s pioneering MESM project
. We’ve also given our support to help restore
Bletchley Park
, the site of the U.K.’s wartime codebreaking and home of
Colossus
, the world’s first electronic programmable computer.
Now we’re moving to the heart of Europe. “This is a beautiful story between Google and us, which allows us to recognize the memory of the Mundaneum,” says the Mundaneum’s director Jean-Paul Deplus. For Google, it’s just as exciting to rediscover our own roots.
Posted by William Echikson, External Relations, Brussels
Remembering Colossus, the world’s first programmable electronic computer
Thursday, March 8, 2012
It’s no secret we have a
special fondness for Bletchley Park
. The pioneering work carried out there didn’t just crack codes—it laid the foundations for the computer age.
Today, we’d like to pay homage to a lesser-known contributor—
Tommy Flowers
. Bletchley Park’s breakthroughs were the product of theoretical mathematical brilliance combined with dazzling feats of engineering—none more so than Flowers’ creation of
Colossus
, the world’s first programmable, electronic computer.
Photo of Dr. Thomas “Tommy” Flowers. Reproduced with kind permission of the Flowers family
By 1942 the hardest task facing Bletchley Park’s wartime codebreakers was deciphering messages encrypted by
Lorenz
, used by Germany for their most top-secret communications. Initially Lorenz messages were broken by hand, using ingenious but time-consuming techniques. To speed things up, it was decided to build a machine to automate parts of the decoding process. This part-mechanical, part-electronic device was called
Heath Robinson
, but although it helped, it was unreliable and still too slow.
Tommy Flowers was an expert in the use of
relays
and
thermionic valves
for switching, thanks to his research developing telephone systems. Initially, he was summoned to Bletchley Park to help improve Heath Robinson, but his concerns with its design were so great he came up with an entirely new solution—an electronic machine, later christened Colossus.
When Flowers proposed the idea for Colossus in February 1943, Bletchley Park management feared that, with around 1,600 thermionic valves, it would be unreliable. Drawing on his pre-war research, Flowers was eventually able to persuade them otherwise, with proof that valves were reliable provided the machine they were used in was never turned off. Despite this, however, Bletchley Park’s experts were still skeptical that a new machine could be ready quickly enough and declined to pursue it further.
Fortunately Flowers was undeterred, and convinced the
U.K.’s Post Office research centre
at Dollis Hill in London to approve the project instead. Working around the clock, and partially funding it out of his own pocket, Flowers and his team completed a prototype Colossus in just 10 months.
Photo of the rebuilt Colossus which you can visit at
The National Museum of Computing
in the U.K.
Reproduced with kind permission of The National Museum of Computing.
The first Colossus came into operation at Bletchley Park in January 1944. It exceeded all expectations and was able to derive many of the Lorenz settings for each message within a few hours, compared to weeks previously. This was followed in June 1944 by a 2,400-valve Mark 2 version which was even more powerful, and which provided vital information to aid the D-Day landings. By the end of the war there were 10 Colossus computers at Bletchley Park working 24/7.
Once war was over, all mention of Colossus was forbidden by the
Official Secrets Act
. Eight of the machines were dismantled, while the remaining two were sent to London where they purportedly were used for intelligence purposes until 1960. It wasn’t until the 1970’s that Colossus could begin to claim its rightful crown at the forefront of computing history.
Tommy Flowers passed away in 1998, but we were privileged recently to catch up with some on his team who helped build and maintain Colossus.
This week heralds the opening of a
new gallery
dedicated to Colossus at the U.K.’s
National Museum of Computing
, based at Bletchley Park. The rebuilt Colossus is on show, and over the coming weeks it will be joined by interactive exhibits and displays. Bletchley Park is less than an hour from Central London, and makes a fitting pilgrimage for anyone interested in computing.
Posted by Lynette Webb, Senior Manager, External Relations
(Cross-posted from the
Official Google Blog
)
Explore the mysteries of the universe on Google+ & YouTube
Thursday, February 23, 2012
2012 is set to be a big year in particle physics, perhaps the most important for decades. At the European Organisation for Nuclear Research at
CERN
, the hunt for the famous
Higgs Boson
particle is in full swing, and experiments which create, trap and measure elusive anti-matter are reaching a dramatic stage.
To make things even more exciting, you can now follow the scientists’ progress, share in their discoveries and interact with them via the new CERN People
Google+
Page and
YouTube channel
.
CERN People is a feature-length film project by the award-winning documentary-maker
Films of Record
. The documentary will explore the motivations, hopes and fears of the particle physicists as they explore the origins of the universe. The film will be released in 2013.
But instead of having to wait until then to see it, they are using Google+ and YouTube to tell this fascinating story, and invite everyone to get involved, as they go along. Here’s a taste:
A series of short films featuring the personalities behind the experiments will be posted on the CERN People Google+ Page and YouTube every month, and anyone from professional scientists to interested amateurs will be able to interact directly with CERN’s physicists via comments and Google+ Hangouts, a live video chat with up to 10 people.
As you can see from the videos, the scientists at CERN are pretty excited about what lies ahead. We are too.
Posted by Peter Barron, Director of External Relations, EMEA
German Office of Information Security recommends Chrome
Friday, February 3, 2012
Last month, we published the
core principles
around Chrome security. This included commitments such as working with the internet community to help increase security for all web browsers, and continuing to design Chrome to offer multiple layers of defence against cyber attacks.
Today, we’re honoured that the
BSI
, Germany’s Federal Office for Information Security, has highlighted several of Chrome’s
security features
in a
best-practice guide
for Windows users. The report is part of the BSI’s ongoing efforts to improve cyber security.
According to the report, the browser is the central component for accessing any online service on the web, and a common entry point for cyber attacks. In order to reduce the risk, the BSI recommends that users install a browser with
sandbox technology
.
“The browser that currently most consistently implements this protection is
Google Chrome
,” the report states. “Comparable mechanisms in other browsers are either weaker, or non-existent. By using Google Chrome...you can significantly reduce the risk of a successful IT attack.”
In addition to Chrome’s sandbox, the guide also points to the importance of Chrome’s auto-update feature.
“Equally positive is the auto-update functionality of Google Chrome, which includes a bundled version of the Adobe Flash Player,” the report continues. “By bundling it with Chrome, the Adobe Flash Player will also always be kept up to date.”
We hope our efforts to improve the
security
and
privacy
of our users continue to help make the web a better place.
Posted by Dr. Wieland Holfelder, Engineering Director Google Germany, and Travis McCoy, Chrome Security Team
A Computer Star Visits Zurich
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
For Google engineers,
Donald Knuth
is a true hero. The 74-year old Knuth, a professor emeritis at Stanford, is one of the pioneers of computer science, best known for his multi-volumed work “
The Art of Computer Programming
.” He is also recognized as the “father” of the field of analysis of algorithms, and of course, algorithms are central to much of what we do here at Google.
When the professor visited
our offices in Zurich
recently, more than 350 engineers packed the conference hall for a question and answer session. While many of the queries were technical, many were pertinent to all of us.
In Europe, Google has made a priority of promoting
science education
, so naturally a number of questions focused on this subject. How should a beginner programming get started? A bottom-up education is best, Knuth suggested, explaining that in his analogue era, some people became interested in science in order to build radios by themselves. In the Internet age, he said it was crucial to give aspiring programmers simple tools to learn coding from the ground up.
Another question was whether “programming is more of an art than a science?” Could programming progress in the same way as, say medieval Christians progressed the building of their soaring Gothic cathedrals from a try-and-see art to a mature engineering discipline?” It is only a matter of time that computing takes the same path, Knuth agreed. Many things start as art (even cathedral building), and systematic, scientific methods evolve. In this way, art feeds science and science nurtures art in a virtuous circle.
Knuth signed books that engineers had brought with them, inscribing each book with the message suggested by each engineer. One engineer brought their copy of “The Art of Computing Programming” in Russian to be signed. Before leaving, we presented him with a plaque showing a fragment of the code describing the Google Search page including “I’m feeling lucky!” We felt the same way about his visit.
Posted by David Harper, Head University Relations, Europe, Middle East and Africa
Ask your question in the 2012 Google Science Fair
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Are human beings born curious, or can curiosity be nurtured through environment, competition or a good teacher? Everyone’s got a question—that’s ours. But we’re sure you’ve got tons of questions, too. Today, we’re inviting students around the world to pose their most pressing questions about the world around them and answer those questions through scientific inquiry.
Along with our partners CERN, The LEGO Group, National Geographic and Scientific American, today we’re launching the second annual
Google Science Fair
, the largest online science competition in the world, open globally to students ages 13-18. Either individually or in teams of up to three people, students pose a question, develop a hypothesis and conduct science experiments to test it. The entire process is detailed and submitted online, via a website template participants fill out themselves, so all you need to participate is curiosity, an Internet connection and a browser.
Last year, we received entries that strove to solve a wide variety of needs, from
“How can I cure cancer?”
to
“Can I teach a robot to learn English?”
to
“Can I build a faster sailboat?”
The breadth and depth of these projects was incredibly impressive, and this year we hope to see even more entries from the next generation of brilliant young scientists.
This year’s fair will be even more global than the last: We’re now accepting submissions in 13 languages (Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, English, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Spanish and Russia). We will also be recognizing 90 regional finalists (30 from the Americas, 30 from the Asia Pacific and 30 from Europe/Middle East/Africa). From these 90, to be announced in May, our judges will select the top 15 finalists, who will be flown to Google headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. for our live Google Science Fair final event on July 23, 2012. At the finals, a panel of distinguished international
judges
(like Vint Cerf, Sylvia Earle and Nobel Laureates David Gross and Ada Yonath) will select top winners in each age category (13-14, 15-16, 17-18).
We’re also introducing a new category for this year’s competition—the Scientific American Science in Action award. We were so inspired by 2011 finalist Harine Ravichandran’s
project
, which attempted to solve energy surges in rural villages, that we decided to recognize an outstanding project that addresses a social, environmental or health need to make a difference in the lives of a group or community, as Harine’s project did for her grandparents’ village in India. The winner will also be flown to Mountain View for the finalist event in July.
The Google Science Fair opens today, January 12, worldwide, and we’ll accept submissions until Sunday, April 1 at 11:59pm GMT (or 6:59pm ET/3:59pm PT). In addition to satisfying your curious mind, your brilliant project can also help to win you some pretty cool
prizes
, like a $50,000 college scholarship from Google, a 10-day trip to the Galapagos Islands with a National Geographic Explorer or an internship at Google or any one of our partners. Our Scientific American Science in Action award winner will earn $50,000 and year-long mentorship to make their project goal a reality.
The winners of last year’s inaugural Google Science Fair became something like scientific rock stars. Shree Bose, Naomi Shah and Lauren Hodge met with
President Obama
, were invited to speak at big events like
TEDx Women
and were
featured
in Wired magazine. Shree, our grand prize winner, was named one of Glamour magazine’s
21 Amazing Young Women
of the Year. White House visits and Glamour aside, every student in the Google Science Fair has the chance to do hands-on research that can truly change the world.
Visit
google.com/sciencefair
and ask your most burning questions at the top of your voice for the world to hear. Google itself was founded through experimentation and with the Google Science Fair, we hope to inspire scientific exploration among the next generation of scientists and engineers, celebrate scientific talent, create scientific role models and unite students around the world in the quest for learning.
Posted by Cristin Frodella, Google Education Team
Remembering a remarkable Soviet computing pioneer
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Cross-posted with the
Official Google Blog
In many parts of the world, today is Christmas—but in Russia and Eastern Europe, which use the
Orthodox calendar
, December 25 is just an ordinary day. Little known to most, however, it’s also a day that marks the anniversary of a key development in European computer history.
Sixty years ago today, in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, the Soviet Academy of Sciences finally granted formal recognition to
Sergey Lebedev
’s pioneering
MESM project
. MESM, a Russian abbreviation for “Small Electronic Calculating Machine,” is regarded as the earliest, fully operational electronic computer in the Soviet Union—and indeed continental Europe.
Recently we were privileged to get a first-hand account of Lebedev’s achievements from Boris Malinovsky, who worked on MESM and is now a leading expert on Soviet-era computing.
Turn on captions for the English translation.
Described by some as the “Soviet
Alan Turing
,” Sergey Lebedev had been thinking about computing as far back as the 1930’s, until interrupted by war. In 1946 he was made director of Kyiv’s Institute of Electrical Engineering. Soon after, stories of “electronic brains” in the West began to circulate and his interest in computing revived.
Sergey Lebedev*
Initially, Lebedev’s superiors were skeptical, and some in his team felt working on a “calculator”—how they thought of a computer—was a step backward compared to electrical and space systems research. Lebedev pressed on regardless, eventually finding funding from the Rocketry department and space to work in a derelict former monastery in
Feofania
, on the outskirts of Kyiv.
Work on MESM got going properly at the end of 1948 and, considering the challenges, the rate of progress was remarkable. Ukraine was still struggling to recover from the devastation of its occupation during WWII, and many of Kyiv’s buildings lay in ruins. The monastery in Feofania was among the buildings destroyed during the war, so the MESM team had to build their working quarters from scratch—the laboratory, metalworking shop, even the power station that would provide electricity. Although small—
just 20 people
—the team was extraordinarily committed. They worked in shifts 24 hours a day, and many lived in rooms above the laboratory. (You can listen to a lively account of this time in programme 3 of the
BBC’s ”Electronic brains”
series.)
MESM and team members in 1951. From left to right: Lev Dashevsky, Zoya Zorina-Rapota, Lidiya Abalyshnikova, Tamara Petsukh, Evgeniy Dedeshko
MESM ran its first program on November 6, 1950, and went into full-time operation in 1951. In 1952, MESM was used for top-secret calculations relating to rocketry and nuclear bombs, and continued to aid the Institute’s research right up to 1957. By then, Lebedev had moved to Moscow to lead the construction of the next generation of Soviet supercomputers, cementing his place as a giant of European computing. As for MESM, it met a more prosaic fate—broken into parts and studied by engineering students in the labs at Kyiv’s Polytechnic Institute.
*All photos thanks to
ukrainiancomputing.org
.
Posted by Marina Tarasova, Communications Associate, Ukraine
New exhibitions at London’s Science Museum
Thursday, December 15, 2011
At Google, we’re passionate about finding ways to inspire the next generation of technologists and engineers, and we think museums are a great way to do it.
Earlier this year
, and again
this week
we announced how we are supporting science museums internationally through charitable gifts.
Today, one of those museums, the
Science Museum
in London, gave details of two forthcoming exhibitions supported by their Google grants.
A new temporary exhibition celebrating the centenary of the birth of English mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst, and computer scientist
Alan Turing
will open in June 2012. Turing formalized the concepts of "algorithm" and "computation" with the Turing machine. The Science Museum’s biographical exhibition will examine Turing’s inspirational (and tragic) story, using objects (including some which have never been on public display), archive material, interactive exhibits, photographs and quotations.
The second is a new permanent exhibition which opens in summer 2014. Situated at the heart of the Museum, Making Modern Communications will explore the history of information and communication technologies. It will tell powerful stories about how these technologies have shaped our world over the last 200 years, showcasing never-before-seen objects and the most advanced multimedia and interpretive techniques.
We’re delighted to be able to support these new exhibitions which will help explain both the birth of modern computing and how that revolution touches all our lives today.
And we’re thrilled that Alan Turing, widely regarded as the father of modern computing and a hero to many of the engineers who work at Google, is finally getting the recognition that his work deserves. This week we also announced support for educational activities at
Bletchley Park
, where Turing’s code-breaking genius helped shorten the second World War and saved thousands of lives.
We look forward to seeing how these exhibitions will inspire tomorrow’s technologists.
Posted by Peter Barron, Director, External Relations, EMEA
Luvvies and Boffins embrace in London
Thursday, December 1, 2011
When Eric Schmidt delivered his
MacTaggart lecture
at the
Edinburgh TV Festival
this summer he spoke of the importance of bringing the worlds of art and science back together if Britain’s creative industries are to succeed in the digital era. Luvvies and boffins, he said, need to work together.
That call seems to have struck a chord with industry, the arts and government, so this week we gathered a group of more than a hundred prominent figures from both worlds at our London offices for our first Luvvies and Boffins event.
The
Rambert Dance company
’s artistic director Mark Baldwin and resident scientist Professor Nicola Clayton explained how they worked together to create
Comedy of Change
, a ballet based on Darwin’s theory of evolution.
Ian Livingstone, founder of the video game pioneers
Eidos
and author of
Next Gen
, a new report on the future of our creative industries, made a passionate plea to the Government to include computer science in the schools curriculum.
The Science and Universities Minister
David Willetts
dropped in and showed he’s listening. This week the
government responded positively
to Ian Livingstone’s report, Prime Minister
David Cameron
agreeing that “we're not doing enough to teach the next generation of programmers.”
It was an evening of intense conversation, inspiring demonstrations and scientifically prepared cocktails. We plan to continue to meet as a group to promote the aims of what’s now being called STEAM education - Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Maths.
Posted by Peter Barron, Director, External Relations, Europe Middle East and Africa
Restoring Bletchley Park, birthplace of modern computing
Monday, August 8, 2011
Cross-posted from the
Official Google Blog
Late last year Google
backed the bid
to buy the papers of the British computer scientist and wartime codebreaker
Alan Turing
and return them to their rightful home at
Bletchley Park
. We were thrilled when this was finally
achieved in February
.
Now we’ve joined forces with the Bletchley Park Trust to help raise funds to rebuild Block C, the original wartime building that once housed the vast punched card index—in essence, the “search engine” at the heart of Bletchley Park’s decryption activity.
Block C at Bletchley Park, awaiting restoration
Bletchley Park played a pivotal role in computing history. For decades the extraordinary achievements of its veterans were hidden by order of the UK’s Official Secrets Act. It was not until the 1980s that the full secret of
Colossus
— the world’s first electronic programmable computer—was revealed. Housed at Bletchley Park, Colossus and other custom-built machines were crucial aids in the code-breaking, reputed to have
shortened World War II
by two years.
Tony Sale, leader of the Colossus rebuild project, demos it at the National Museum of Computing
Today, Block C is derelict. We hope to help restore it to serve as a visitor and learning centre for both
Bletchley Park
and the UK’s
National Museum of Computing
. The fund-raising campaign kicked off this week with a Google-supported
garden party
in the Bletchley Park grounds, at which over £10,000 was raised. We still have a long way to go, though, so if you’d like to contribute,
please donate
at the Bletchley Park website.
If you’re in London, Bletchley Park is less than an hour away by train, and well worth an afternoon’s visit. You can see a working replica of Colossus, along with many other exhibits highlighting wartime work at Bletchley Park and the UK’s rich computing heritage.
Posted by Peter Barron, Director of External Relations for Europe, Middle East and Africa
Giving young mathematicians the chance to shine
Friday, January 21, 2011
Maths is very important to Google. It’s the basis of everything we do: from the
algorithms
that deliver answers to your search queries, to the way in which your Gmails are grouped in
conversations
, to the technology advances which are enabling us to develop
driverless cars
. It’s so important to us, that our founders named the company after a very large number - a
Googol
.
Maths is given a lot of importance by policy makers too - its contribution to
creativity and innovation
was celebrated in some of the events organised by the European Union back in 2009. And in December last year, the latest
OECD PISA report
and
league tables
highlighted how well (or not) Europe’s various national education systems are performing in the core educational fields of reading, mathematics and science.
Over the last few months, our attention’s been drawn to another mathematical league table - the one that tracks the
winners of the International Mathematical Olympiad
, first held in Romania in 1959. The IMO is the world championship of secondary school mathematics, designed to test ingenuity and insight and tax the sharpest minds in the world.
Google has always encouraged and supported excellence in the sciences, whether in its own staff, or in its work with academics around the world. And so yesterday, together with the Advisory Board of the International Mathematical Olympiad, we were proud to announce that we are
making a gift of one million euros
to the organisation to help cover the costs of the next five global events (2011-15).
From left to right: Peter Barron (Google), Robbert Dijkgraaf (Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, Chair of the IMO 2011 Foundation) and Geoff Smith (University of Bath, UK and member of the IMO Advisory Board)
We’re delighted that we can help the IMO bring young mathematicians from around the world together to celebrate a shared passion, to push themselves and to compete to be the best in the world.
This year’s event
takes place in Amsterdam in July and we’ll be watching out for the results with particular interest.
And I don’t doubt that quite a few Googlers will also spend some time in coming months trying solve
the sort of mathematical challenges
that will be put to the world’s young Maths Olympians.
Posted by Simon Hampton, Director of Public Policy, Google (BSc Maths)
Supporting research and innovation in Europe’s universities
Thursday, December 16, 2010
As a company that
started out in academia
, we’ve always known that a lot of the world’s best computer scientists don’t work in the private sector (or in Silicon Valley, for that matter!) but in universities and research centres around the world.
Over the years, Google has invested in a large network of research and development centres around the globe, including 11 centres across Europe, Russia and Israel - and our
newly announced centre
in Paris. This diversity of engineering locations means that we’re able to create culturally diverse teams - and
fun working environments
. But they also enable us to stay closely in touch - and collaborate - with academics undertaking cutting-edge research at universities across Europe.
This week - building on an initiative we blogged about
earlier this year
- we announced nearly €3.7 million in research funding via our
Focused Research Awards
scheme. The grants are going to 14 universities and research centres in Switzerland, Germany, France, Italy and the United Kingdom.
The
Focused Research Awards
are unrestricted gifts that provide support for one to three years, and have been awarded to researchers in disciplines including software engineering, mathematical optimisation, information extraction and integration - and policy areas such as privacy. Recipients also get access to Google tools, technologies and expertise.
The list of research projects that have received focused research awards in Europe includes:
German Academy of Science and Technology (Acatech)
:
User-centred Online Privacy
, Henning Kagermann
M
ax Planck Institut Informatik, Germany
:
Robust and Scalable Fact Discovery from Web Sources
, Gerhard Weikum, Martin Theobald, Rainer Gemulla
Saarland University, Germany
:
Test Amplification
, Andreas Zeller, Gordon Fraser
EPFL, Switzerland
:
Automated Software Reliability Services
, George Candea
CNRS, France and nine universities in France, Germany and Italy
:
Mathematical Optimization
: Thorsten Koch (Zuse Institute of Berlin), Stefan Nickel (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology), Leena Suhl (University of Paderborn), Narendra Jussien (Ecole des Mines de Nantes), Pierre Bonami (CNRS/Université d’Aix/Marseille), Pierre Lopez (CNRS/LAAS in Toulouse), Denis Trystram (INP Grenoble), Safia Kedad-Sidhoum (LIP6 in Paris), Andrea Lodi (University of Bologna).
University of Cambridge, UK
:
Security-Oriented Analysis of Application Programs
, Steven Hand, Robert Watson
Alongside our Focused Research Awards programme, we provide grants for more than 200 smaller research projects every year, with recent awards highlighted in our
research blog
. These awards typically provide partial funding for PhD students. Google also supports 40 computer science PhDs worldwide through our
PhD Fellowship Programmes
, and currently supports 14 students in Europe. We also host over 20
faculty members on sabbatical
each year world-wide, enabling them to work with Google engineering and policy teams on special projects.
Our hope is that building close connections with universities and researchers will support innovation in Europe - and extend the research capabilities of both Google’s engineers and our colleagues in academia. You can find more information about all of our research programs on our
University Relations site
.
Posted by Maggie Johnson, Director of Education & University Relations and David Harper, Head of University Relations (EMEA)
Labels
Academics
18
Advertising
10
Africa
26
Austria
7
Belgium
25
Big Tent
11
Bosnia and Herzegovina
2
Browsers
1
Brussels Tech Talk
7
Bulgaria
5
Campus
2
Child Safety
24
Cloud computing
17
Competition
16
Computer Science
35
Computing Heritage
37
Consumers
11
controversial content
2
COP21
1
copyright
34
Crisis Response
2
Culture
116
Czech Republic
16
Data Centre
15
Denmark
4
Digital News Initiative
6
Digital Single Market
1
Diversity
7
Economic Impact of the Internet
57
Economy
24
Elections
7
Energy + Environment
16
Engineering
6
Environment
5
Estonia
6
European Commission
21
European Parliament
14
European Union
104
exhibitions
1
Finland
13
France
77
Free Expression
88
Free flow of information
47
German
1
Germany
65
Google for Entrepreneurs
9
Google in Europe Blog
846
Google Play
1
Google TechTalk
2
Google Translate
1
Google Trends
3
Google+
4
Greece
16
Growth Engine
3
Hackathon
3
Hungary
16
Innovation
70
Internet Governance
7
IP
10
Ireland
16
Israel
17
Italy
42
Journalism
34
Latvia
1
Lithuania
1
Luxembourg
3
Maps
17
Middle East
18
Netherlands
6
News
2
News Lab
1
North Africa
6
Norway
3
online
1
Online Safety
2
Open data
8
Open Government
7
Open source
2
Poland
24
Portugal
6
Power of Data
25
privacy
49
Publishing
30
Right to be Forgotten
9
Rio+20
1
Romania
3
Russia
18
Safer Internet Day
4
San Marino
1
Science
5
Security
7
Single Market
7
Slovakia
16
Slovenia
2
SMEs
24
Spain
39
Startups
6
State of the Union
2
STEM Education
36
Street View
38
Surveillance
1
Sweden
13
Switzerland
11
Telecoms
11
The Netherlands
4
Tourism
1
Transparency
12
Tunisia
4
Turkey
3
Ukraine
3
United Kingdom
94
Vatican
2
Youth
2
YouTube
42
Archive
2016
Sep
Introducing YouTube Creators for Change
Announcing a Google.org grant for XperiBIRD.be, a ...
Bringing education to refugees in Lebanon with the...
Juncker embraces creators -- and their concerns
Tour 10 Downing Street with Google Arts and Culture
European copyright: there's a better way
Digital News Initiative: Introducing the YouTube P...
#AskJuncker: YouTube creators to interview the Eur...
An extinct world brought back to life with Google ...
Project Muze: Fashion inspired by you, designed by...
Come Play with us
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2015
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2014
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2013
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2012
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2011
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2010
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2009
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Feed
Give us feedback in our
Product Forums
.
