Europe Blog
Our views on the Internet and society
Forget Middle Earth—Central and Eastern Europe's salt mines, ice caves, mountains and castles are now on Street View
Wednesday, July 8, 2015
Throughout history, Europe has been a hotbed of culture, imagination and natural beauty. At Google we’re keen to share these elements with the world through our maps, so over recent months we’ve been taking all manner of
Street View
technologies—Trekkers, Trolleys and tripods—to capture some incredible places across the continent, focusing this time on Central and Eastern Europe. Here are a few highlights for you to explore:
Hungary
Floating down the
Danube
river in summertime is a wonderful thing. But now you can also check out some of Hungary’s hidden gems in Google Maps. Take a look inside the
National Theatre of Pécs
and explore the beautiful
Basilica of Eger
, the second largest church in the country. In the capital, Budapest, you can walk among the trees and rose bushes in the little-known but spectacular
botanical garden
near the centre of town, or even
climb a hill
to get away from it all.
The magnificent National Theatre of Pec, Hungary
Czech Republic
If you’re lucky enough to have been to Prague, you may have seen the fairytale sight of
Prague Castle
from the medieval
Charles Bridge
. They’re too good to miss, so we added these sites and almost 30 others in Czech Republic to Street View including the
gardens of the Prague Castle
,
Prague’s historic center
, interiors of castles such as
Cesky Krumlov
and
Spilberk
, and beauty spots like
Ceske Svycarsko
and
Krkonose National Park
.
The interior of the Cesky Krumlov Castle, Czech Republic
Slovakia
In Slovakia, we’ve just released images of heritage sites like this
wooden protestant church in Kezmarok
and national parks like
Velka Fatra
and
Pieniny
. To get a feel for the history of the country, why not check out
Branc Castle
or
Draskovic Castle
in Cachtice? From the high turrets and battlements of the castles, you can then take a trip below ground and visit
Dobsinska Ice Cave
and
Ochtinska Aragonite Cave
which we added last year.
The church in Kezmarok
Romania
And finally, sink 100 meters deep into one of the most breathtaking places beneath the earth: the
Turda Salt Mine
, in Cluj County, Romania. Tourists around the world can take a tour of the mine—which is more than 200 years old—with our high-resolution imagery, from the comfort of their homes.
Turda Salt Mine, Romania
We hope you enjoy discovering some of the delights of Europe as much as we did.
Posted by Magdalena Filak, Street View team
Bringing a fresh digital vision from “New Europe” to Brussels
Monday, December 8, 2014
While Old Europe ponders its approach to the digital future, New Europe is rushing ahead to embrace the web as a motor for growth and prosperity. This past autumn, together with Financial Times, International Visegrad Fund and Res Publica, we announced the
New Europe 100 list
of innovators from Central and Eastern Europe.This past week, many of
these entrepreneurs came to Brussels
to present their ideas to the European Parliament
The event featured real-life success stories :
The European Parliament New Europe 100 event
Kamila Sidor
, CEO, Geek Girl Carrots from Poland who runs a successful social innovation movement to encourage more women into ICT careers.
Michaela Jacova
, Investment Manager, Neulogy VC from Slovakia, who supports aspiring talented entrepreneurs by awarding grants and matching with VC investors.
Paul-Andre Baran
, Director, Biblionet from Romania, who helps provides free access to computers and the internet through public libraries.
Marcin Beme
, CEO, Audioteka.pl from Poland, who founded a successful mobile platform offering digital audiobooks in Poland, Czech Republic, Hunagry , Spain, FInland, Sweden, Russia, Germany, France and Romania.
Gergana Passy
, Digital Champion of Bulgaria, who advocates for a free access to the internet, e-skills and digital transformation across the society.
MEP Boni and Google's Vint Cerf
MEP
Michal Boni
, former minister for digitization in Poland, hosted the debate, which featured a keynote address from Vint Cerf, Google’s Chief Internet Evangelist. Policymakers from around New Europe attended, including MEP
Janusz Lewandowski
, former Polish EU Commissioner; MEP
Antanas Guoga
from Lithuania, and Prof.
Ziga Turk
of University of Ljubljana and Former Minister for Growth in Slovenia.
All listened to the entrepreneurs offering important lessons on technology-driven innovation. Apart from sharing personal passion for ICT-driven innovation, the New Europe called on the politicians to create a positive environment for innovation. Their proposed ingredients include accepting business failures, attracting more women in ICT careers, increasing access to the Internet across the society, and simplifying rules for trading across the borders. Together, these measures represent a positive recipe for creating a true European digital single market.
Posted by Sylwia Giepmans-Stepien Public Policy and Government Relations Senior Analyst, Brussels
Throwing off the shackles of communism
Friday, November 14, 2014
A quarter century ago, the people of Central Europe liberated themselves, bringing down the Iron Curtain, choosing capitalism over communism, and democracy over dictatorship. This week, at an event in Prague, we unveiled ten online Google Cultural Institute exhibitions recounting the amazing and thrilling events from Poland in the north to Hungary in the south.
Communism represented an artificial transplant in Central Europe. Throughout history, the region enjoyed strong religious, economic and political ties with the West. The
Museum Masaryk T.G. Lany
brings its readers back to the founding ideas of democracy and freedom on which the Czechoslovak Republic was built through the legacy of the first Czechoslovak president.
All through the 1980s, pressure for change mounted. An independent free trade union called Solidarity swept through Poland at the beginning of the decade. Even though the government declared martial law to crush it, the light of freedom would only be dimmed temporarily. Dissidents appeared. Priests protested. Musicians revolted. The Czech Republic’s
Vaclav Havel Library’s exhibition of black and white photographs
captures not only the period of mass demonstrations in 1989 and the subsequent revolution, but also the visits and performances of cultural icons such as
Frank Zappa
and the US alternative troupe
The Bread and Puppet Theater
. For the citizens of Czechoslovakia, these first tastes of the Western world represented “the first free steps of a society.”
Starting in the spring of 1989, East Germans began fleeing to other Soviet bloc countries. The Hungarian government opened its border with Austria in May and the rush to escape was on. The Vaclav Havel Library exhibit captures the
wave of citizens of the German Democratic Republic
in September who inundated the surroundings of the embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Prague, waiting in anticipation for longed permission to travel to the West.
In June, the Polish government legalized Solidarity and held partially free elections. Solidarity won a landslide and formed the Soviet bloc’s first non-communist led government. The
Polish History Museum
has created an exhibit called "Tearing the Iron Curtain apart.” It includes a photo of the symbolic meeting between Poland's first non-communist Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki and the German Federal Chancellor Helmut Kohl. Another exhibition from the Julian Antonisz Foundation shows experimental art from the communist era.
In November, the Berlin Wall crumbled and millions of Czechs crowded the streets.
The Muzeum umění Olomouc
has prepared a selection of images from photographer Petr Zatloukal, showing a behind-the-scenes look at the November events. The
Muzeum policie České republiky
showcases photographs of the uniforms of the riot police on 17th November 1989, as they watched, powerless, while millions of Czechs marched for their freedom. Dissident playwright Vaclav Havel emerged from prison to become president. The photographs from the Nadace Dagmar a Václava Havlových VIZE 97 exhibit maps Havel’s extraordinary journey from 1989 to 2011.
Slovakia also won its freedom and soon broke away from Prague to achieve full independence. Its
the Museum of Crimes and Victims of Communism
illustrates the path to freedom through photographs of unknown heroes who participated in country's Candle Demonstration.
The sweep of the events accelerated and the shackles of communism were gone by the end of 1989, not only throughout Central Europe, but also in the Balkan countries of Romania and Bulgaria. The Balts, within the Soviet Union itself, soon would form a human chain hundreds of miles long and win back their freedom. In Hungary, the
Open Society Archives
, is bringing online one of the world's largest archives from the Cold War, including propaganda films and surveillance documents, samizdat and opposition activist videos, publications and posters.
Take time to browse and learn. We believe putting historical material on the Internet and organizing it in a way that allows visitors to read and understand what it felt like to be in the midst of events not only gives more people access to important material but also preserves these perspectives for future generations. Today, memories of the Cold War may be fading and it is our duty to keep them alive as a reminder of the tremendous achievements of the courageous people of Central Europe.
Poste
Posted by William Echikson, Head of Free Expression, Europe
Supporting New Europe’s digital advances
Wednesday, October 29, 2014
They threw off the shackles of communism. Now they are grabbing the reigns of the technology revolution. Together with Financial Times, International Visegrad Fund and Res Publica, we announced the
New Europe 100
list of innovators from Central and Eastern Europe who are leveraging new technologies to transform the region in business, media, culture, science and politics.
In announcing the project, the Financial Times noted: “central and eastern Europe say the combination of a high level of mathematical education, low overheads and a globalised, westernised young generation makes for a heady and successful mix.” We agree. The New Europe 100 winners show that this former communist region is fast moving away from its old traditional manufacturing industries. They range from “a Hungarian doctor who has created a medical advice website driven by social media, a team of Polish students who have built an award-winning robot that could operate on Mars, and a Slovak inventor of a flying car. “
Check out the whole list at
http://ne100.org/
and read more about the project and its laureates in the newest
Visegrad Insight.
Follow it on Twitter
@NewEurope100
and tag as #NE100 elsewhere.
The FT correctly notes that the the region still must overcome obstacles. Research and development activities is about one per cent of the region’s gross domestic product, according to McKinsey, the consultancy - half the rate in the western EU, and even behind 1.5 per cent in the Bric economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China.
Our hope that the New Europe 100 project will help raise the profile of the region’s innovators. Recognition from being included on the list will, we believe, bring the initiatives attention, investor interest - and perhaps even potential business partnerships.
Posted by Agata Waclawaik-Wejman, Head of Public Policy, Central Europe
Showcasing tolerance From Berlin to Budapest
Thursday, July 17, 2014
At a time when racism is on the
rise in Europe
, reportedly reaching its worst level since the 1980s, it is more more important than ever to stand up against scapegoating of migrants and minorities. Two initiatives highlight our commitment to tolerance.
In Germany, we kicked off a new edition this month of the
YouTube 361 Grad Respekt
combating social exclusion and (cyber-)bullying. This YouTube youth competition runs five video camps across the country, helping students script and shoot videos. You can also participate from home using a webcam or make a video with your smartphone or tablet. Tell us all what makes you strong, talk about your experiences, give others courage, and inspire and motivate them to submit their own statement about showing more respect. Share the video and upload
here
.
Submissions from the five video camps will be presented one by one on
www.youtube.de/361grad
until September. Keep checking the channel. After only two days live, the site had received more than 500,000 views!
In Hungary, we’re well into our second year of an exciting program called
WeAreOpen
. It’s rallying cry is: "Being open is not only the right thing to do, but it's also worth it." To date, more than
750 companies, communities and organisations
, big and small, have signed up in support. This year’s version launched in March with a social media campaign to counter hate speech. Musicians, actors, celebrities, and Internet users (including students, doctors and teachers) shared their own experiences, taking a stand against prejudice, showing support for Roma, lesbians, gays, Jews and handicapped. Their videos have received more than 200,000 views on YouTube.
At July’s
Budapest Pride
march, WeAreOpen supplied an
army of colorful balloons
and invited everyone to join. The march was live streamed the on YouTube and more than 20,000 watched it live.
This year's WeAreOpen 2014 features
research
from the
Gemius consulting firm
about diversity and tolerance at the workplace. It found that more than half of Hungarian employees have already encountered negative discrimination.
The virus of hatred, unfortunately, will not vanish. 361 Grad Respekt, WeAreOpen and many more initiatives promoting tolerance are urgently needed.
Posted by Richard Schuster and Mounira Latrache, Communications managers
Music spreads across Europe with Google Play
Friday, October 4, 2013
Your music is supposed to be fun, but in reality it can be the exact opposite: a chore - moving files between computers, syncing across your phone and tablet, and lots and lots of wires.
Google Play Music,
an easier way to manage your music, offers a solution. It just has launched so you can listen to any song you want, whenever you want, on all of your devices. has just come to Czech Republic, Finland, Hungary, Liechtenstein, Netherlands, Russia and Switzerland.
All Access coverage is now spread pretty much across the entire continent. A first group of
nine European countries
last month received the service.
All Access is the first service of its kind that lets you store 20,000 songs from your personal music collection in the cloud for free; purchase new music from all the major record labels and thousands of indies to grow your collection; or get an unlimited pass to a huge library of music on all your devices with All Access, our monthly music subscription service. It’s all stored in the cloud so you never have to worry about losing songs or moving them again. You can add a new favorite track to your collection while you’re on your computer, and it will be instantly available on your phone and tablet. And you can “pin” all of this content to make it available on your phone or tablet when you’re offline without a connection.
All Access lets you search for and listen to any song from our library of millions of tracks, wherever and whenever you want. You can create an ad-free, interactive radio station from any song or artist you love. Or you can browse recommendations from our expert music team and explore songs by genre. The “Listen Now” tab puts artists and radio stations we think you’ll like front and center so you can start listening the minute you open your library. You can try All Access for free for the first month and pay only a modest subscription service each month after that.
With this launch, Google Play moves one step closer to being your ultimate digital entertainment destination, where you can find, enjoy and share your favourite apps, games, books, movies, magazines and music on your Android phone or tablet. Good listening.
Posted by Posted by Sami Valkonen, Head of International Music Partnerships, Google Play
WeAreOpen brightens Budapest
Friday, July 26, 2013
Throughout much of Europe, intolerance towards minorities is on the
rise
. The
European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights
published data last year showing ethnic minorities face a high level of hate crime. More established politicians, not just the far-right, are increasingly scapegoating migrants and minorities.
We think that it's important to remind ourselves and others - even in trying times - that diversity and tolerance are core to every community's success. As a part of our efforts, we have joined with two Hungarian companies,
Prezi
and
Espell
, to launch
'WeAreOpen'
, a diversity initiative in Hungary with a simple message: "Being open is not only the right thing to do, but it's also worth it."
The WeAreOpen website encourages other companies, organizations and other communities to stand up in support for inclusion and diversity by putting their logos on the site. At this month’s
Budapest Pride
march, we supplied an
army of colorful balloons and oversized sunglasses
and invited everyone to join. The march was live streamed the march via Hangouts on Air.
The initiative caught the public imagination. Record numbers of people turned up for the Pride march, three times more than in previous years. More than 17,000 viewers watched our Budapest Pride Hangouts on Air.
Since the 'WeAreOpen' website went live, more than 500 companies, organizations and other communities have joined. As well as local Hungarian companies, multinationals ranging from Morgan Stanley to Vodafone, signed up. Whether you are Hungarian or not, please go ahead and speak up in favor of tolerance.
Posted by Richard Schuster, Communications Manager, Budapest
Growing our Map Maker community in Europe
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
Exploration is at the heart of the summer season, and what better way to take part than sharing your knowledge on the places you love on Google Maps? Today,
Google Map Maker
is diving into summertime by welcoming mappers of Czech Republic, Hungary, Sweden, and Bosnia and Herzegovina to our ever-growing team of citizen cartographers in our quest to map the world.
With Google Map Maker, you can contribute your local knowledge to make a more useful and comprehensive map of the changing world around us. Begin in your neighborhood and try adding the building footprints for local shops and restaurants. Then, embrace your inner traveler and enrich the maps of national parks and historic landmarks. If you’ve got the itch for adventure, try adding campgrounds, beaches or your favorite hiking trails.
View Larger Map
Jajići, Bosnia and Herzegovina was a blank space on the map
before citizen cartographers put it on the map.
Whether it’s a cycling route through Budapest or a cafe alongside Prague’s Vltava River, each improvement to the map will help locals and tourists alike as they navigate your neighborhood this summer. Once approved, your contributions will appear on
Google Maps
,
Google Earth
and
Google Maps for Mobile
.
To get started, join other mappers on the Google Map Maker
community forum
, explore the
Help Centre
for tips and tricks, or watch mapping in real-time with
Map Maker Pulse
. Now, from the
Heart Shaped Land
, through Central Europe, to Swedish Lapland, you can help Google Maps to embody the rich culture and spirit unique to your homeland -
starting today
!
Posted by Kaushik Sridharan, Software Engineer
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 50th country on Street View
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Whether you're planning a summer vacation to visit
the Colosseum
or exploring potential neighborhoods for your next move, Street View gives you instant access to the places you want to see -- even before you leave the house. We launched Street View
in 2007 in five U.S. cities
to give you what we called a “feet on the ground” experience and have since been growing the program to make it more comprehensive, accurate and useful for everyone.
Today, we’ve reached 50 countries with the launch of Street View in Hungary and Lesotho and are significantly expanding our coverage in Poland and Romania, among other locations around the world. This is also the
largest single update
of Street View imagery we’ve ever pushed, including new and updated imagery for nearly 350,000 miles of roads across 14 countries.
Now you can take a virtual stroll through the historic center of Budapest, right along the Danube (the river that carves the city in two). See the
Hungarian Parliament building
or the famous
Chain bridge
.
View Larger Map
Budapest, Lánchíd (Chain bridge)
Other Hungarian treasures to be discovered include the
Széchenyi thermal bath
, the largest medicinal bath in Europe, as well as the wonders of
Buda castle
.
Lesotho, an enclave surrounded by South Africa, is the only independent state that sits entirely 1,000m or more above sea level. Explore some of the mountainous imagery captured by our Street View cars, including
the winding roads
and
lakes
.
View Larger Map
Leribe District, Lesotho
Other sights include the
Lesotho Evangelical Church
, which is one of Africa's oldest Protestant churches, founded in 1833 by missionaries from Paris, and the
traditional architecture
in Nkesi, Maseru.
We’re also refreshing and expanding existing Street View coverage in France, Italy, Poland, Romania, Russia, Singapore and Thailand. And, we’ve added new special collections of a host of picturesque spots—using our
Street View Trike
technology -- that include Portugal’s
Pena National Palace
, or the
Sha Tin Che Kung Temple
in Hong Kong or the
Kilkenny Castle in Irelan
d.
View Larger Map
Kilkenny Castle, Ireland
From the first handful of
U.S. cities
, to the now thousands of cities and villages worldwide, we’ve spent the past six years updating Google Maps for you. From
Antarctica
to
Australia
, from
South Korea
to
South Africa
, from the
snow-capped peaks of Everest
to the
Great Barrier Reef
, you can navigate more than 5 million miles of the world, without ever leaving home. So spin the globe and take a walk through any one of the 50 countries now on Street View.
Posted by Ulf Spitzer, Program Manager, Google Street View
Urban art, zoomorphic whistles and Hungarian poetry
Thursday, March 21, 2013
There are few places (if any) in the world where you could find urban art, zoomorphic whistles* and Hungarian poetry in a single place—except, of course, on the Internet.
Today 30 new partners are joining the
Google Art Project
, contributing nearly 2,000 diverse works including contemporary art from
Latin America
, ancient art from
China
, rare
Japanese
paintings and Palaeolithic flint heads from
Spain
.
One highlight of the new collection is a
project
to capture the growing trend of urban art and graffiti in Brazil. More than 100 works from walls, doors and galleries in São Paulo have been photographed and will be included in the Art Project. The pieces were chosen by a group of journalists, artists and graffiti experts and include artists such as
Speto
,
Kobra
and
Space Invader
, as well as images of São Paulo’s most famous building-size murals. You can see the contrast in styles in the
Compare
tool and image below.
Photography features strongly in the works our partners are bringing online this time around. The
Fundacion MAPFRE
in Spain showcases one of the largest collections with more than 300 photos from a number of renowned photographers. For example, you can explore Mexican photographer Graciela Iturbide’s black and white
images
of indigenous Mexican culture inspired by themes of ritual, death and feminism.
The Art Project is also becoming a home to rare and precious items which move beyond paintings.
Petőfi Literary Museum
in Hungary has contributed the Nemzeti Dal or “
National Song
,” a Hungarian poem which is said to have been the inspiration for the Hungarian Revolution of 1848. The original document has rarely been seen in public to prevent humidity and light fading the script further. Online now for the first time, it can be explored by anyone in the world.
With 40,000+ artworks to explore from more than 200 museums in more than 40 countries, we look forward to seeing these new works feature in hundreds of thousands of user galleries you have created to date. Keep an eye on our
Google+ page
for more details about the new collections.
*ceramic whistles in the shape of animals!
Posted by Shahina Rahman, Google Art Project
Sharpening Hungary’s strong math talents
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
As a 15 year old, I entered a math contest run by the math journal
KöMaL
. One problem kept me working through the night, even prompting me to dream about it. Unfortunately, I dreamed up the wrong solution. But the challenge excited me so much that I kept on studying math. Now, I work on search quality for Google, optimizing the functions and algorithms that make our search results as fresh as possible.
My own experience makes me happy to announce that Google is supporting this year’s KöMaL contest. Over the next nine months, students will be tested to solve tough mathematical problems. Winners of the different age categories and difficulty levels will be crowned towards September 2013.
For more than a century, KöMaL has been exciting Hungary’s aspiring mathematicians. A high school teacher called
Dániel Arany
, founded the mathematical journal, aiming aimed to educate high school students by challenging them to solve a series of complex mathematical problems. Almost all most eminent Hungarian mathematicians and physicists were participants in the competition as youngsters, including Pál Erdős, Pál Turán, László Lovász, János Pintz, Imre Bárány, and Vilmos Totik.
I’m looking forward to seeing whose name might be up there next and will report back next year to announce the winner! In the meantime, why not have a go at October’s problem:
Prove that the sum of the squares of seven consecutive integers cannot be a perfect square.*
Find the solution to this and other month’s mathematical problems
here.
Posted by Gábor Fehér, Search Quality Engineer
Enjoy our summer of music on YouTube
Monday, August 13, 2012
Summer means music, particularly here in Europe, and that is especially true this summer on YouTube. Last weekend, YouTube hosted a livestream of
Sziget 2012
, winner of “Best European Major Festival award” from Budapest and this coming weekend Lowlands 2012 will be streamed live from the Netherlands, featuring acts like Bloc Party, The Black Keys and Two Door Cinema Club.
In addition to Sziget and Lowlands, music fans on YouTube have been able to watch some of the world’s best and biggest music festivals this summer, including
Tomorrowland
,
San Miguel Primavera Sound
,
Sónar
,
Rock in Rio
,
EXIT
,
INmusic
,
Heineken Open’er Festival
,
Bonnaroo
and
Lollapalooza
.
Music represents a key component of YouTube’s success. Musicians and bands are no longer restricted by the number of people they can get through the turnstiles, but can play to a global audience.
In tough economic times, many people can’t always afford to attend festivals in person. YouTube helps them experience the event - for free (and without queues or mud). We know viewers enjoy them -- festivals like Lollapalooza have seen viewers spend an average 44 minutes watching the show. Tomorrowland had over 600,000 comments posted on the channel through a custom conversation gadget, highlighting just how engaged fans were during the stream.
Much more is scheduled for the rest of the summer and beyond - so tune in and enjoy!
Posted by Patrick Walker, Senior Director, YouTube Music Partnerships
A different Olympics comes to Hungary
Monday, July 16, 2012
As London gears up to host Olympic athletes, Hungary recently attracted some of the world’s most promising computer scientists for its own cerebral Games - the
Central European Olympiad in Informatics
. A total of 52 competitors, aged 15 to 17, came from 12 countries to the town of
Tata
. They worked for two days coding. All shared a common goal: to build the best algorithm and to solve complex problems of everyday life with the power of technology.
This computer Olympiad, launched in 1994, is held annually, in a different country each year. The
John von Neumann Computer Society
organises the 2012 Games, in Hungary and Google joined as a sponsor.
Competitors were given practical problems to solve by building efficient algorithms. The faster the program, the higher the score. One task - inspired by the scenic view from the venue - was to design a program that can calculate the longest possible path a sightseeing cruise can travel on a lake, touching multiple stops in a restricted order, while only crossing its own path once. Romanian and Bulgarian teams won the Gold Medal in this contest and the highest number of overall gold medals. A full listing of medal winners is found
here
.
During the Olympiad, contestants took part in an hour long conversation via Google Hangout with Google engineer Mihai Stroe, who leads a team of Google Maps engineers in Zurich, He and his team write algorithms which every day help millions of people and help them find the quickest way from A to B whether they are travelling by foot, by car or public transport.
More than a decade ago, Mihai competed in student programming competitions. He even took part in an Olympiad as a member of the scientific committee. The experience helped shaped his career at Google. “Algorithms, like the ones these talented students built today, are at the very heart of what Google does. Google is making the world better with the power of technology, and these guys are our future too. I’m happy to share my experiences with them,” he said.
Posted by Richard Schuster, Communications Manager, Budapest
Breaking Borders for free expression
Monday, July 2, 2012
Today in Nairobi, at the biannual Global Voices Citizen Media summit, Google and the group
Global Voices
announced the winners of the 2nd Breaking Borders Award. The award honors people who, in the view of Global Voices, are making a difference in the push for a free and open Internet.
The 2012 winners were selected by the board of Global Voices, and come from two regions in the world where free speech is often threatened — North Africa and Central Europe.
In Morocco,
Mamfakinch
has become far and away the most popular Moroccan citizen media portal. The name means "we don't give up" in that nation's Arabic dialect. Mamfakinch uses volunteer editors to aggregate and curate
materials from its contributors. In less than a year, the site grew from a "crazy idea" to a site with more than one million unique visitors.
The other award winner was Budapest-based Atlatszo.hu. Global Voices cited its work in supporting press freedom in Hungary in the wake of the passage of a new, controversial media law.
Atlatszo.hu
has worked to maintain standards of journalistic integrity and quality investigative journalism. The group, led by Marietta Le, recently fought and won an important fight for the
protection of sources
in Hungary.
We are proud to support Global Voices and the work they do to recognize and empower
citizens’ media around the world.
Posted by Bob Boorstin, Director, Global Policy
Championing Free Expression - The Hay Festival in Hungary
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Her father was tortured and her mother was made to kneel on broken glass. Jung Chang, the author of the global sensation
Wild Swans
, which at the last count has sold 13 million copies, talked with passion and humanity about human rights during the Cultural Revolution in China at the first ever
Budapest Hay Festival
this past weekend.
Google has been working with the
Hay Literary Festival
for more than a year, helping it grow from its origins in Wales into an international organisation that now hosts festivals around the globe. This was the first festival ever held in Central Europe.
In Budapest, Chang described how she cornered the late Zairean dictator,
Mobutu Sese Sosuku
, under a hairdryer at a salon in Hong Kong, to persuade him to give details of his friendship with
Mao Tse-tung
. She also revealed how
Imelda Marcos
had a soft spot for
Richard Nixon
.
Another who tackled issues of free speech and technology was rock star turned global activist,
Bob Geldof
. He pointed to strong growth rates in Africa and warned policy makers in Europe and the United States that they ignored the economic potential of Africa, driven in large part by the opening up of the Internet. Other speakers at the two festival included
Tibor Fischer
, the Hungarian-born writer whose parents, both basketball players, fled the country after the Soviet suppression of the 1956 uprising, and Nigerian author
Ben Okri
.
One of the attractions of the Hay festival is the quality of speakers and the diversity of subject matter. Taking its name from a picturesque village on the border of England and Wales, made famous by its bookshops, the Hay Festival has been described as the "Woodstock of the mind.” It attracts tens of thousands of people per day during the 10 days of readings, speeches and interviews. We will unveil our
Big Tent
concept to a Hay audience at this year’s
event
, opening on May 31.
Later in the year, we will participate in four Hay gatherings that come within the Europe, Middle East and Africa region. Beirut takes place in early July, while the autumn will see festivals in Istanbul, Nairobi and Segovia, Spain.
Posted by Richard Schuster, Communications Manager, Google, Hungary
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