Europe Blog
Our views on the Internet and society
Campus Warsaw: Central and Eastern Europe’s Digital Leap
Tuesday, December 1, 2015
Last week I was in Warsaw to launch
Campus Warsaw
, a modern space for entrepreneurship, in a town that is postively pulsing with start-up talent. I am thrilled to see how Poland and the broader Central Eastern European region is making a big digital leap and I’m happy that Google can help fuel this growth.
Campus Warsaw
is a place for Poland’s and Central Eastern Europe’s entrepreneurs to gather, build companies, network, learn and share. The site provides everything necessary - from office and event space to training and mentoring programs and more - to help freshly-minted entrepreneurs thrive.
A year ago, Eric Schmidt discussed this project with Poland’s Prime Minister Tusk - as a way to strengthen Poland's and CEE region's innovation economy. Last week I was joined by political leaders and startup community leaders from Poland, thirteen European Member States and the United States, to celebrate the launch of this investment.
Campus Warsaw was opened under the Honorary Patronage of the President of Poland, Andrzej Duda. Mateusz Morawiecki, Deputy Prime Minister of Poland was joined by government officials and startup communities representatives from 15 countries at the inauguration ceremony. Everyone was excited to see how a strong focus on entrepreneurship can fuel economic growth in the CEE region.
Campus Warsaw is joining our similar investments in London, Tel Aviv, Madrid, and Seoul. Other Campus sites, like Campus London, which opened its doors just over three years ago, have been hugely successful, building a community of nearly 50,000 members. Startups there have created more than 1,800 new jobs, raising over US$110 million in funding.
Campus Warsaw is part of our Growth Engine effort for all of Europe -- Europe's entrepreneurship is growing and going global on digital -- strong entrepreneurship spirit (and a Single Digital Market) is what Europe needs the most to boost its economic growth and competitiveness.
Posted by Matt Brittin, President, Google EMEA, Business & Operations
View the “Chopin Olympics” on YouTube and the Google Cultural Institute
Friday, October 2, 2015
If you’re a piano afficionado, then you’re quite possibly also a fan of the great Polish piano virtuoso and composer Fryderyk Chopin. And if that’s you, you’re in luck: starting today, 78 of the world’s greatest pianists and new talents from 29 countries are gathering in Poland for the “Chopin Olympics”, more properly known as the
International Fryderyk Chopin Competition
.
This year, Google is the official partner of the competition, which runs throughout October. For the first time, you can
watch all the performances on YouTube
, including livestreaming of some of the concerts. And you can delve deep into the history of the competition and into Fryderyk Chopin’s history via
two new online exhibitions
on the Google Cultural Institute.
The Chopin Piano Competition started in 1927 and is one of few competitions in the world devoted entirely to the works of a single composer. Winners of the past editions became one of the greatest pianists in the world like Argentinian Martha Argerich or Polish Rafal Blechacz. Visit the Institute’s YouTube channel,
youtube.com/chopin2015
, to watch more than 120 hours of performances, interviews with pianists, behind the scenes footage, and the Grand Finale concerts held from 18th to 20th October.
And on the Google Cultural Institute you can also view two new exhibitions, curated by the
Polish National Fryderyk Chopin Institute
. The first exhibition draws on an archive of more than 200 rare documents to guide you through the
fascinating life
of the child prodigy who developed into one of the Romantic era’s truly international superstars, before meeting an untimely death at the age of 39.
The Institute’s second exhibition provides an
immersive, multimedia overview
of Chopin’s piano music and the historic competition from 1927 to the present day. It unveils hidden stories, personal letters, original manuscript compositions, and great background footage about the early competition performances and the jury’s secret decisions.
The cherry on the cake for serious music lovers is a unique gigapixel image of a rare original composition penned by Chopin in 1833, entitled
Fantasy-Impromptu in C sharp minor
. The imagery is so sharp that you can examine every handwritten note, annotation and correction in minute detail:
Detail of gigapixel image of Fantaisie-Impromptu cis-moll [Opus 66] (1833 - 1834), Fryderyk Chopin’s autograph composition dated 1835 (collection: Narodowy Instytut Fryderyka Chopina)
We hope you’ll tune in to the Chopin Institute YouTube channel for some awe-inspiring performances - and that you’ll be inspired by the exhibits. Oh, and… best of luck to all the competitors!
Posted by Agata Wacławik-Wejman, Head of Public Policy, Central & Eastern Europe
Remembering 70 years since Auschwitz's liberation
Tuesday, January 27, 2015
It was the end of one of the worst chapters in human history - the Soviet Army’s liberation 70 years ago of the notorious Nazi death camp Auschwitz on January 27, 1945. Today, starting at 15:30 CET, the Auschwitz Museum is live streaming on
YouTube
the ceremony marking the liberation, held in front of the Death Gate, together with survivors of the camp:
Throughout the world, various anniversary ceremonies, conferences, exhibitions and meetings are scheduled. The Auschwitz Museum and the United Nations have built a
Map of Remembrance
with the goal to bring together the various memorial activities taking place.
For the past three years, the
Google Cultural Institute
has been working with institutions and associations to preserve and share online thousands of archives, images and videos telling the
stories from the Holocaust
. The Auschwitz Museum participated in this project from the beginning, adding hundreds of
documents
and inviting you to discover individual stories like the love of
Edek Galinski
and
Mala Zimetbaum
or the unique collection of
family photographs
found in the ruins of the camp. Learn more on the “Evacuation and Liberation of the Auschwitz camp" and the “Sonderkommando" through these new online exhibitions.
For this anniversary, the
USC Shoah Foundation
, who shared with the world poignant testimonials of survivors through another exhibition, “70 Stories of Auschwitz”, inviting you to listen to the survivors as they recall their experiences in short and moving personal videos.
We encourage everyone to (re)discover these stories from the Holocaust - and remember, never again.
Posted by Agata Wacławik-Wejman, Head of Public Policy, Central and Eastern Europe
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
Supporting a new home for Poland’s rich Jewish history
Tuesday, October 28, 2014
For 1000 years, Poland was home to the world’s largest Jewish population and the centre of Jewish religious, cultural and political thought. The
POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews
, whose core exhibition opens in Warsaw on October 28, highlights this rich history.
We took our StreetView technology inside the museum, which is housed in an award-winning new building directly opposite the memorial to the 1943 Warsaw ghetto uprising. We are happy to invite you to the first Museum View launch in Poland, available all around the world on the Google Cultural Institute. Enjoy a walk through the corridors.
View Larger Map
The online exhibit "
How to make a museum
" published by POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews invites you to discover the story of the creation of the museum, from the original idea in 1993 to the inauguration in 2014. You will go behind the scenes of this monumental project and learn about the process of gathering support in Poland and abroad, raising funds, organizing an international architectural competition, preparing the Core Exhibition, and developing the educational and cultural program.
The evening opening event will be live-streamed on YouTube from 7 to 9 p.m. on October 28. Watch it on the
museum’s channel
. The event, open to the public, will feature concerts by clarinetist David Krakauer and trumpeter Tomasz Stańko as well as a play directed by Andrzej Strzelecki based on Julian Tuwim’s poem „My Żydzi polscy” (“Us Polish Jews”).
The new museum represents an important step in reviving the memory of Poland’s rich, millenium long Jewish history. Developed by an international team of historians, museum experts and Jewish Studies scholars, it shows how Jews both prospered and suffered. As the Economist recently wrote, the exhibit “restores some balance” to the often one-sided debate that often focuses on the community’s destruction in World War II. We’re glad that Google tools can help get across this important message.
Posted by Piotr Zalewski, Communications and Public Affairs Manager, Warsaw
Seeking advice on the Right to be Forgotten
Thursday, July 31, 2014
Earlier this summer we announced the formation of an
Advisory Council
on the Right to be Forgotten. As the Council begins its work, it is seeking
comment
from experts on the issues raised by the CJEU ruling. Experts will be considered for selection to present to the Council in-person during public consultations held this fall, in the following cities:
September 9 in Madrid, Spain
September 10 in Rome, Italy
September 25 in Paris, France
September 30 in Warsaw, Poland
October 14 in Berlin, Germany
October 16 in London, UK
November 4 in Brussels, Belgium
The Council welcomes position papers, research, and surveys in addition to other comments. We accept submissions in any official EU language. Though the Council will review comments on a rolling basis throughout the fall, it may not be possible to invite authors who submit after August 11 to present evidence at the public consultations.
Stay tuned for details on the Council’s activity.
Posted by Betsy Masiello, Google Secretariat to the Council
Campus for entrepreneurs opens in Warsaw
Wednesday, June 4, 2014
Campus is coming to Warsaw! Across Poland and Central Eastern Europe, innovators and entrepreneurs are building exciting new businesses, making the Polish capital a natural choice to launch our next Campus. We currently operate Campuses in
London
and
Tel Aviv
.
Campuses are Google's spaces for entrepreneurs to learn, connect, and build companies that will change the world. In them, entrepreneurs get unparalleled access to mentorship and training from their local startup community, experienced entrepreneurs, and Google teams. Campus Warsaw will join the
Google for Entrepreneurs
network. Appropriately, the announcement came on the 25th anniversary of Poland's first partially free democratic elections, illustrated in this
Google Cultural Institute exhibition
, which led to the collapse of the Iron Curtain.
Our Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt met with
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk
for today's inauguration. “Google started as a startup in garage, so supporting startups is part of our DNA," Eric said. "Our hope is that Campus Warsaw will supercharge tech entrepreneurs, strengthen the startup ecosystem and encourage even more innovation in Poland.”
The new Campus represents only part of our ongoing investment throughout the region. In Krakow, we have opened the
Google for Entrepreneurs Krakow
program. Along with Warsaw University, we have launched the
Digital Economy Lab
, with the goal of spreading knowledge about the crucial role digital technology plays in powering the economy and about what policies are required to generate maximum digital acceleration. Along with the Visegrad Fund, ResPublica and the Financial Times, we have started New Europe Challengers campaign to identify the next generation of innovators.
We’ll have more news about the details of Campus Warsaw soon, and look forward to filling it with startups in 2015!
Posted by Eze Vidra, Head of Google for Entrepreneurs Europe
Promoting transparency around Europe
Monday, December 30, 2013
When eight technology companies presented a plan this month to reform government surveillance, a key request concerned transparency. At Google, we were the first company to publish a
transparency report
detailing the requests we receive from governments around the world to bring down content or hand over information on users.
But Google’s report represents only a narrow snapshot. It is limited to a single company. Imagine instead if all the requests for information on Internet users and for takedowns of web content in a country could be published. This would give a much more effective picture of the state of Internet freedom. As the year draws to a close, we’re happy to report that
Panoptykon
, a Polish NGO, published this month a preliminary
Internet transparency report
for Poland and
Fores
, a Stockholm-based think tank, issued a
stud
y in Sweden.
In Poland and Sweden, we helped initiate these transparency efforts and supported them financially. NGOs in six other European countries are working on national transparency reports. Our Estonian-supported transparency coalition already published a
report
last spring. In addition, university researchers in Hong Kong moved ahead over the summer with their own
report
. In Strasbourg, the
Council of Europe
recently held an important conference on the subject and hopefully will move ahead to present a series of recommendations on transparency for its 47 members.
Each transparency campaign takes a different approach - we hope this process of experimentation will help all of us learn. The Estonian effort, titled Project 451, focuses on content removals, not government surveillance, because the authors believe this is the most important issue in their country. The name of Project “451″ refers to HTTP Status Code 451, defined as “unavailable for legal reasons” and the report found that many web platforms were taking legal content down due to fears of legal liability.
The new Polish and Swedish reports attempt to shed light on government requests for information on users. Fores contacted
339 Swedish authorities
and found that more than a third had requested data about users or takedowns of user-uploaded content. Panoptykon uncovered that Polish telcos received 1.76 million requests for user information in 2012, while Internet companies polled received approximately 7,500. In addition, Panoptykon discovered that many Polish government requests for information on users were based on a flawed or unclear legal basis.
Admittedly, both the Swedish and Polish reports remain incomplete. Not all Internet companies participated. Much relevant data must be missing. Like with our own Google report, we hope to continue filling in the holes in the future. Our aim is to see this campaign gather momentum because the bottom line is transparency is essential to a debate over government surveillance powers.
Posted by William Echikson, Head of Free Expression, Europe, Middle East and Africa
Inspiring students about Poland’s great computing heritage
Wednesday, December 18, 2013
Behind every computing breakthrough, there’s a story of the people who made it happen. Earlier this month, the spotlight shone on Poland’s computer pioneers with the launch of the educational project
“XYZ — The history of computing in Poland”
.
Led by the Center for Citizenship Education in collaboration with Google, the project seeks to raise awareness of Poland’s computing heroes among young people, as well as use them to illustrate the value of virtues such as ingenuity, curiosity and cooperation.
Materials produced so far include a timline,
online videos
, and
posters
highlighting key Poles and their achievements — from
Abraham Stern’s mechanical calculators
in the early 19th century, to
Leon Lukaszewicz’s XYZ computer
in 1958, to the team who built the
K-202, Poland’s first computer with integrated circuits
, in the 1970s. Coming soon are lesson plans and contests to make it easier for Polish educators to use these stories of local innovators to inspire their students.
The project was launched in fitting style at the University of Warsaw, where young innovators showcased their own work surrounded by posters of Polish computing heroes to dignitaries including
Vint Cerf
, one of the “fathers” of the Internet.
Students meet "Father of the Internet" Vint Cerf
We’re proud to support this initiative and hope it helps inspire the next generation of Polish computer scientists to similarly great heights.
Posted by Marta Poslad, Senior Policy Analyst, Central and Eastern Europe
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
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
Expanding Google Business Photos in Europe
Friday, May 31, 2013
Want to show off appealing images of your business? We've just expanded Google Maps
Business Photos program
to six new European countries including:
Belgium
,
Czech Republic
,
Germany
,
Poland
,
Russia
, and
Switzerland
.
The Business Photos program enables merchants to create 360-degree, interactive tours of their establishments. This imagery allows potential customers to look inside and explore businesses before they go.
Bohema restaurant in Szczecin, Poland
Are you a business owner?
If you are a business owner in any of these locations, joining the program is easy.
Simply hire a Trusted Photographer or Agency
to take pictures. Using Street View technology, the photographer will create panoramic images from the photo shoot and upload them. These images will be available automatically to anyone who searches for your business on Google.com, Google Maps, Google Maps for Mobile and on your Google+ page or Places for Business listing. If a local photographer isn’t yet available in your neighborhood,
let us know
and we’ll do our best to find a photographer for you.
Fat Cow Restaurant in Singapore
Photographers can sign up...
Whether you’re a professional photographer or photography agency we’d love to have you on board! We are recruiting more Trusted Photographers and Agencies. Please visit our website for
Trusted Photographers
and
Trusted Agencies
to learn more and sign up.
Posted by Deborah Schenker, Program Manager, Google Business Photos
Bringing bike directions to more of Europe
Monday, May 27, 2013
Back in 2012, we added
biking directions
to our maps for a number of countries in Europe. It proved to be a popular feature among cycling amateurs and enthusiasts. We're now delighted to announce that we are now enabling biking directions in Google Maps for Germany, France, Poland, Ireland, Luxembourg and Liechtenstein.
Like in other countries, we've added information about bike trails, lanes and recommended roads directly to the map. In some countries we’ve worked with partner organisations. In others users have added hundreds of kilometers of biking paths through Google Mapmaker.
How does it work?
I am a big tennis fan, so lets say I live in Hamburg and want to head over from my house in the suburbs to a tournament. I am able to grab my Android phone and ask Google Maps for the directions to the stadium. Google Maps will return a route that avoids busy streets and uses suitable bike paths. Time estimates for the route will be based on a complex set of variables accounting for the type of road, terrain and turns over the course of my ride. I also am able to turn by turn Navigation for my bike. I just plug earphones into my phone, switch over to Navigation and let Google Maps guide me through the city - just as from the car.
Of course, you can also use biking directions for a more challenging trip. As the season of big bike races in Europe has started, why not check what route Google suggests for a historical stage of the Tour de France? Our bicycle route for the classic stage from Biarritz to Bordeaux navigates on 206 beautiful, often car-free kilometers close to the Atlantic Ocean, compared to the rather boring 206 kilometers on the N10/A63 which is suggested for cars.
Regardless of the scope of your trip, roads and paths suitable for a bicycle are available by switching on the
biking directions legend
. This is designed to make it easy to find nearby trails for a recreational ride. Click on the widget at the top right of the map to turn on the "Bicycling” layer.
Suitable roads for riding your bicycle in Dublin, Ireland
One group of people who know where the best cycle paths are cyclists themselves! If you know about a new bike trail, please tell us. Either use the “Report a problem” link at the bottom right of the maps screen or jump into Google MapMaker and add the information to our maps.
A bike path on Google Mapmaker in Poland
We know that many avid cyclists have been awaiting this feature y, so head over to Google Maps and click ‘Get directions’ to try it. Then hop on your bike!
Posted by Kai Hansen, Product Manager, Geo, Zurich
Discussing creative, constructive copyright reforms in Warsaw
Friday, November 30, 2012
Almost a year ago, massive street demonstrations forced the Polish government to reject an international treaty
ACTA
aimed at criminalizing copyright infringement. Today, we are moving away from this disarray and acrimony and launching a new constructive dialogue.
This week, 300 producers, distributors and consumers of creative content gathered in Warsaw’s
Kino Kultura
for the first ever
CopyCamp
. They shared their experience and perspectives on copyright, stories about how copyright works in practice, and setting the direction for the future of copyright in the digital world. The
Modern Poland Foundation
organized the event, under the honorary patronage of the
Digitization Ministry
. We partnered to make this possible, along with the
Polish Filmmakers Association
, the
ZAiKS Collecting Society
,
Trust for Central and Eastern Europe
.
Nina Paley
opened the event. She is the author of a cartoon film titled “Sita sings the blues” which tells the story of Ramayana using popular songs as soundtrack. Behind the entertaining presentation was a serious message: she started to make money on her films only after she started to apply open licensing to her art.
Paley presented another amusing film.
More than 30 other speakers, among them creators and creators’ organizations, collecting societies, members of the European Parliament, social activists, journalists, lawyers, academics and students, gave fast-paced short presentations. They ranged from a filmmaker’s and musician’s perspective on fair use and creativity, through discussions on the role of collecting societies, copyright education, internet platforms, the complex copyright stories of key icons of Polish culture and the way news publishers work with new internet business models. I talked about how the new technologies and creativity work together for the benefit of the authors and users and how copyright impacts this synergy.
After anti-ACTA protests started the Polish debate on copyright, the speakers agreed that contemporary Polish copyright framework is antiquated. By getting traditional content industries and Internet advocates to sit down together, the CopyCamp represents a hopeful first step in what we will hope becomes a constructive partnership.
Posted by Agata Wacławik-Wejman, Senior Policy Counsel, Warsaw
Blogging in Solidarity's shadow
Sunday, October 28, 2012
Three decades ago in Gdansk, Poles rose up and created a marvel - an independent trade union Solidarity that, after a decade of non-violent struggle, threw off the shackles of communism. Today, the country is part of the European Union and has created a vibrant free market democracy - making it a potential leader in pushing Internet freedom. I travelled to Solidarity's birthplace, to give the keynote speech at the largest conference of Polish bloggers,
Blog Forum Gdansk
.
More than 200 young, energetic bloggers (and 120,000 online viewers) assembled in the conference room of the sparkling new
Gdansk Stadium
, constructed for the
Euro 2012 tournament
. In a keynote speech, we outlined the promise and perils of Internet freedom. For me, it was a moving moment - I remember covering the Solidarity revolution in the 1980s as a journalist and I compared how I took notes almost in secret and only could publish my stories after I left the country. Now Tweets and blogs were published direct from the conference room, in real time.
In many ways, Poland should be ripe for Internet freedom to flourish. More than any other Central European country under Soviet rule, Poland resisted and kept the spirit of free discourse alive with a vibrant
samizdat
press. Estonia recently captured first place in
Freedom House's rankings
and has become the poster-child for post-communist freedom fighters. Despite some initiatives supporting an open internet, Poland remains ranked at a distant 17th place.
Why? Our meetings with bloggers and NGOs in both Warsaw and Gdansk illustrated how the power of the Internet to revolutionise free expression is not yet full understood. Many complain about a worrying rise of hate speech. Many politicians are angry about comments posted on the free Internet, and libel and defamation suits proliferate. Some Polish court rulings seem to interpret liability laws in a restrictive way detrimental to Internet platforms, threatening to limit freedom of expression for users.
Our appearance at the Blog Forum Gdansk is just a first step in an effort to encourage change. Over the coming months, we will continue our activities to demonstrate how the Internet provides positive new possibilities for Poles to express themselves.
Posted by William Echikson, Head of Free Expression, Europe, Middle East and Africa
Bringing history to life
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Today you can discover 42
new online historical exhibitions
telling the stories behind major events of the last century, including Apartheid, D-Day and the Holocaust. The stories have been put together by 17 partners including museums and cultural foundations who have drawn on their archives of letters, manuscripts, first-hand video testimonials and much more. Much of the material is very moving—and some is on the Internet for the first time.
Each exhibition features a narrative which links the archive material together to unlock the different perspectives, nuances and tales behind these events. Among others you’ll see:
Tragic love at Auschwitz
- the story of Edek & Mala, a couple in love who try to escape Auschwitz
Jan Karski, Humanity’s hero
- first-hand video testimony from the man who attempted to inform the world about the existence of the Holocaust
Faith in the Human Spirit is not Lost
- tracing the history of Yad Vashem’s efforts to honor courageous individuals who attempted to rescue Jews during the Holocaust
Steve Biko
- a 15-year-old’s political awakening in the midst of the Apartheid movement featuring nine documents never released in the public domain before
D-Day
- details of the famous landings including colour photographs, personal letters and the D-Day order itself from Admiral Ramsay
The Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II
- an account of the 1953 Coronation including colour photographs
Years of the Dolce Vita
- a look at the era of the “good life” in Italy including the fashion, food, cars and culture
As with the other archives that we’ve helped bring onto the Internet, including the
Dead Sea Scrolls
, you can zoom in to see photos in great detail and search through millions of items for a specific country, person, event or date. Watch our
video
for some guidance about how to find your way around the exhibitions.
The historical collections are the latest chapter in the work of the Google Cultural Institute, following the
Art Project
,
World Wonders
and the
Nelson Mandela archives
. We’re working closely with museums, foundations and other archives around the world to make more cultural and historical material accessible online and by doing so preserve it for future generations.
You can explore the many exhibitions at
www.google.com/culturalinstitute
. You can also follow us on our
Google+ page
. What you see today is just the start, so if you’re a partner interested in contributing your own exhibitions, please fill out this
form
.
Posted by Mark Yoshitake, Product Manager, Google Cultural Institute
Saluting Europe’s eTowns
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
It’s often assumed that big cities benefit the most from the Internet, but we believe the net offers giant opportunities to everyone from urbanites to small town residents, farmers and nature lovers in the far-flung countryside. We recently tested this thesis in our first-ever European
Google eTown awards
, which recognize those areas that had most embraced the web’s potential over the last year.
The results were fascinating—and surprising. Smaller, quirky and plucky towns came out ahead.
Scunthorpe
, a steel town in the north of England, topped the U.K.’s list.
Caen
, a town in rural Normandy not far from the D-Day beaches and famed as the home of camembert cheese, came first in France.
Salerno
, nestled between the Amalfi and the Cilento Coast led the way in Italy and
Elbląg
, a remote northern town located in the region of 1,000 lakes won in Poland. In all four participating countries, eTown lists included towns of all sizes.
How did we determine our eTown awards? We broke down the U.K., France, Italy and Poland into all of their thousands of towns and then ranked local areas according to the growth in small businesses using AdWords over the last year. The top towns in each country won Google eTown awards.
The results back up recent research identifying the Internet as a main force driving growth throughout Europe. For example, a recent McKinsey report
Internet Matters
states that 2.6 Internet jobs are created globally for every job destroyed. Separately, the Boston Consulting Group estimates that by 2015 the web will account for 7.3 percent of Denmark’s GDP, 10 percent of the U.K.’s GDP and 5.5 percent of France’s GDP. The net drives growth of both big and small businesses—indeed another BCG report called “
Turning Local
” (PDF) makes clear that small businesses with a website grow faster than businesses without a web presence.
We’ve seen this ourselves, in the businesses of all shapes and sizes that we encountered as part of our eTown awards. An entrepreneur in
Hartlepool
in the U.K. sells golf balls online. A Polish programmer runs a data recovery business from
Piaseczno
. An plumber directs a
heating systems
company from Vicenza, Italy and a French retailer has reached new scooter customers online in
Reims
. Online advertising has helped them grow and reach more customers than ever before. When it comes to the Internet, our eTown awards show that anybody, almost anywhere, can boost a business by going online.
Posted by Ben Novick, European Communications Manager
A new YouTube melody for European musicians
Thursday, November 17, 2011
If you are of my generation and love Jacques Brel, it's a great day. For my kids, who adore
Selah Sue
and fantasy character
Mega Mindy
, it's also a great day. From now on, videos of these Belgian artists will become easier to find on YouTube. For the first time, these Belgian artists and their estates will receive payments for allowing music lovers to listen to their music on YouTube.
This breakthrough stems from the licensing agreement signed today between collecting society
SABAM
and YouTube. SABAM was founded in 1922; it represents 36,000 composers, lyricists, publishers, and music video makers.
Throughout Europe over the past two years, YouTube has secured similar agreements with associations representing artists and authors in countries shown in blue: the
UK
, France (
SACEM
,
SACD
,
SCAM
,
ADAGP
),
Netherlands
,
Spain
,
Italy
,
Ireland
, the
Czech Republic
, and
Poland
.
These agreements end old arguments about copyright, replacing them with win-win arrangements. For Europe’s musicians, YouTube has become an indispensable tool in reaching audiences. Artists are compensated when advertisements are displayed against YouTube partner’s videos.
The deals demonstrate our commitment to to promoting local European cultural creation. YouTube is innovating to help artists protect and manage their rights. Our state-of-the-art
Content ID
technologies let rights owners identify user-uploaded videos that contain their work and choose, in advance, what they want to happen when those videos are found. They can block them from YouTube altogether, or keep them up. The vast majority of right owners agree to keep their material online - and share in the revenue generated by advertising displayed against it.
Until now, when Belgians visited YouTube, they were taken to our global site. The launch of YouTube in Belgium means Belgians will see a home page featuring a wealth of content from their home country. Partners are welcome to join us and we’re happy to learn that large Belgian media companies such as broadcaster
RTBF
are interested in having parts of their archives appear. For my part, I plan to catch up on Jacques Brel videos.
Posted by Julien Blanchez, Marketing Manager, Belgium
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