Europe Blog
Our views on the Internet and society
YouTube music hits the right note
Thursday, November 13, 2014
You watched the Belgian singer Stromae perform
Papaoutai
200+ million times on YouTube, helping propel the song about his father to the top of the charts in France and into a global success. And that’s all just for one song.
This week, we’re making it easier to find new music on YouTube and rock out to old favorites by launching a new paid subscription service called
Music Key
. It
lets you watch and listen to music without ads, in the background or offline and is available already in the United Kingdom, Finland, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain, with more countries to come soon.
If you’re interested in getting more info on the beta, you can let us know at
youtube.com/musickey
.
Music Key represents a big step forward in our blossoming partnership with the music industry. We've struck new deals with the major producers, thousands of independent record labels, collecting societies and music publishers.
Thanks to your music videos, remixes, covers, and more, you’ve made YouTube the place to go for the music fan.
YouTube benefits both the established musicians as well as newcomers, sending them more
than
$1 billion
.
Of course, YouTube is much more than music. Other types of content creators - from educational to comedy shows - also are finding an audience earning money in our partnership programs. More
-one million channels today earn revenue through the YouTube Partner Program. Thousands of channels make six figures annually. We look forward to continuing to develop new online opportunities for Europe's creators.
Posted by the YouTube Music team, which recently watched
“Michael Jackson - Wanna Be Startin' Somethin' - YouTube Mix.”
Teaming up with Oxford University on Artificial Intelligence
Thursday, October 23, 2014
It is a really exciting time for Artificial Intelligence research these days, and progress is being made on many fronts including image recognition and natural language understanding. Today we are delighted to announce a partnership with Oxford University to accelerate Google’s research efforts in these areas.
The Oxford skyline. Credit
Oxford University Images
Google DeepMind
will be working with two of Oxford’s cutting edge Artificial Intelligence research teams. Prof Nando de Freitas, Prof Phil Blunsom, Dr Edward Grefenstette and Dr Karl Moritz Hermann, who teamed up earlier this year to co-found
Dark Blue Labs
, are four world leading experts in the use of deep learning for natural language understanding. They will be spearheading efforts to enable machines to better understand what users are saying to them.
Also joining the DeepMind team will be Dr Karen Simonyan, Max Jaderberg and Prof Andrew Zisserman, one of the world’s foremost experts on computer vision systems, a Fellow of the Royal Society, and the only person to have been awarded the prestigious
Marr Prize
three times. As co-founders of
Vision Factory
, their aim was to improve visual recognition systems using deep learning. Dr Simonyan and Prof Zisserman developed one of the winning systems at the recent 2014 ImageNet competition, which is regarded as the most competitive and prestigious image recognition contest in the world.
Google DeepMind has hired all seven founders of these startups with the three professors holding joint appointments at Oxford University where they will continue to spend part of their time. These exciting partnerships underline how committed Google DeepMind is to supporting the development of UK academia and the growth of strong scientific research labs.
As a part of the collaboration, Google DeepMind will be making a substantial contribution to establish a research partnership with the Computer Science Department and the Engineering Department at Oxford University, which will include a program of student internships and a series of joint lectures and workshops to share knowledge and expertise.
We are thrilled to welcome these extremely talented machine learning researchers to the Google DeepMind team and are excited about the potential impact of the advances their research will bring.
Posted by Demis Hassabis, co-founder of DeepMind and Vice President of Engineering at Google
Promoting social mobility through the Internet
Monday, October 20, 2014
Policymakers often worry that the Internet creates a small number of winners and too many losers in the economy. At the same time, we have heard stories about the rise of self-employment and the creation of fast-growing companies in garages (like Google). In order to investigate the Internet’s impact on social mobility and equality, we asked British economist and former Chief Secretary to the Treasury,
Kitty Ussher
, to investigate.
Her
new research
, published this month, analyzed government data and Google Apps customers, and reached a surprising conclusion. Rather than worsening inequality, the Internet is improving the lot of economically vulnerable people across the United Kingdom. One example: the report shows that parents of young children are more likely to engage in online selling from home than singles. In other words, the Internet allow potentially vulnerable families convenient alternatives to traditional employment.
Interestingly, Internet success no longer requires PhDs. Nearly half of Google Apps customers surveyed whose highest qualification is a GSCE high school diploma, secured incomes of over £45,000. Another 20 percent earned between £30,000 and £45,000. These people achieved above average incomes through online selling, impossible before the Internet.
Success on the Internet can be achieved anywhere, with businesses from more remote parts of the UK taking advantage. As Ms Ussher concludes, “It is not just the uber-professional elite that is exploiting the commercial opportunities that the Internet has to offer.”
The Internet is a leveler. It offers new options to make a living regardless of one’s background or education. This new opportunity is paying dividends for families across the UK.
Posted by Jon Steinberg, Europe Policy Manager, London
Sharing spectrum at the ZSL London Zoo
Friday, October 10, 2014
Live video of meerkats, Asian otters and giant Galapagos tortoises from the world’s oldest zoo are coming to
YouTube
. The world loves to watch cute
animal videos
. This time, it’s also worth looking at the technology behind the videos.
Today, Google and
ZSL London Zoo
, opened on April 28, 1827, are launching a trial to test an innovative way of sharing spectrum to power these live video feeds. MediaTek and 6Harmonics are supplying the Wi-Fi equipment and devices being using during the trial.
Radio spectrum is a scarce resource. It is required every time we make a mobile phone call, use Wi-Fi, or listen to the radio. Spectrum is divided into different frequency bands to avoid interference between, say, a radio station and a mobile phone call. As more people go online and the number of wireless devices grows, so does the demand for spectrum.
Within the spectrum used for broadcast TV, there are unused parts which are commonly known as
‘TV White Spaces’
(or TVWS for short). This spectrum is helpful because it can travel longer distances and through physical barriers, providing wireless connectivity in places where other technology can’t — including the centre of one of the busiest cities in the world, in spots where the zoo would have normally needed a wired connection.
Because spectrum is scarce, policymakers and technology companies have been working on guidelines to help allow the shared use of White Spaces. Sharing spectrum in this way could open up many new opportunities for wireless innovation.
The UK is quickly becoming a pioneer of spectrum sharing, thanks to favorable regulation from Ofcom, which is responsible for managing spectrum. This is the first time that Google’s spectrum database is being used in the UK after being certified last year in the US. The database ensures that TVWS can be shared by multiple users without interference — one of the top goals of this trial. These contributions, in addition to the use of new devices that use standard Wi-Fi protocols, show that TVWS technology is gaining momentum around the world.
After testing the technology, the London Zoo is exploring other ways it can use TVWS to help monitor and protect endangered animals in the wild. Last year, the zoo won a
Google Global Impact Award
to help develop the
Instant Wild system,
which uses satellite cameras to provide instant alerts to rangers to help tackle the poaching of rhinos and elephants. We’re delighted that this trial can help power such innovations, bringing wireless connectivity to places where other options won’t work.
Posted by Theo Bertram, European Policy Strategy Team
Creating value from data
Thursday, September 18, 2014
At Google, we like to experiment. Today we are experimenting with a guest blogpost from the UK innovation charity Nesta. Although we had no involvement in this study of how companies best can benefit from the information age, we think it offers a valuable contribution on Europe’s skills debate and wanted to share the conclusions.
We are living in the middle of a data explosion – a rich opportunity, but also a much
misunderstood one. In previous
research
, we showed that businesses which analyse their data intensively become 10% more productive than their average competitor. By contrast, collecting data on its own has little impact on performance.
Our newly published research,
ModelWorkers
, the first report in a project in collaboration with Creative Skillset and The Royal Statistical Society, looks at the data skills that businesses need to produce these impacts.
Model Workers
Interviews with 45 experts in UK data-driven companies reveal that all types of companies are converging into the ‘big data’ space. from pharmaceutical giants to small retailers and manufacturers. All are all experimenting with bigger, messier and faster data, and catching up with leading players in software, advertising, games and finance.
As a result, everyone is looking for the same ‘perfect data analyst’, or ‘data scientist’: a creative worker with analytical, coding and business skills, team working and charisma. These people are hard to find. Four out of five of the companies we interviewed say they struggle to find data scientists.
In Model Workers we identify interventions to remove these shortages. They include up-skilling established professionals such as statisticians, programmers and social scientists, developing vocational training in universities and encouraging more crossover between computer science, statistics and business disciplines. We also need to build up communities of data practice, and develop training and professional standards. Policymakers should make it easier for foreign students to work in Europe after completing data analysis courses.
In the longer term we need to improve the teaching of maths at schools, and change false perceptions of data work as boring and dull. Some of the most exciting and creative jobs across the economy today – from developing new games to discovering new drugs – are based on data, and we need to make sure everyone is aware of this crucial trend.
Posted by Hasan Bakhshi and Juan Mateos-Garcia, Nesta
Change the world: the 2014 Google Science Fair Global Finalists
Friday, August 8, 2014
Samuel Burrow, 16,from the U.K., wants to improve the environment by reducing pollution. Taking inspiration from the chemical used in sunscreen, Samuel created a
special coating
that reduces waste chemicals in the air when subjected to ambient light. Guillaume Rolland,17, from France, aims to revolutionize mornings by creating a scent which will wake you up with maximum energy at a prescribed time.
These are just a few of the European examples of the 15 incredible projects we’ve named as the global finalists for 2014 Google Science Fair. This is our fourth time hosting the competition as a way to encourage the next generation of scientists and engineers. From Russia to Australia, India to Canada, this year’s finalists (ages 13-18) are already well on their way to greatness. Europe accounts for a full third of the finalists. Read about them - and about all 15 finalist projects - on the
Google Science Fair website
.
What’s next for our young scientists? Well, next month, they’ll be California-bound to compete at Google HQ for the three
Age Category Awards
(ages 13-14, 15-16, 17-18) and of course, the overall Google
Science Fair Grand Prize Award
. The competition will end in style with an awards ceremony, which will be live streamed on the
Science Fair YouTube channel
and on our website. Tune in to be one of the first to find out this year’s winners!
But first, you get to have your say! We need you to pick your favorite project for the 2014 Voter’s Choice Award. Show your support for the finalists and cast a vote on the Google Science Fair website beginning September 1. Every year, we are blown away by the projects and ideas these young people come up with, and you will be too.
Posted by Clare Conway, Google Science Fair Team
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
Bletchley Park’s rebirth and why it matters
Tuesday, July 22, 2014
Twenty five years ago, the historic World War II codebreaking center
Bletchley Park
faced demolition. We have supported its restoration, culminating in
last month’s opening
of Block C by the Duchess of Cambridge. Her grandmother Valerie Glassborow worked as a duty officer and managed the interception of enemy signals for decryption at Bletchley.
Photos copyright
Shaun Armstrong
Now reborn as one of England’s most evocative museums, Bletchley Park is a fitting place of pilgrimage for both history and technology fans alike. The extraordinary code-breaking feats that took place in its spartan wooden huts were crucial to the Allied victory, and helped lay the foundations for the computer age. We were honoured to have been invited to create this new film for the visitors centre:
Bletchley Park is where Alan Turing’s theories were first put into practice, in the Bombe machines used to break Enigma, operated by women like 93 year old veteran and grandmother of one of our colleagues in Google London,
Jean Valentine
. It was also home to
Colossus
, the world’s first electronic programmable computer.
As important as what was achieved at Bletchley Park are the lessons we can learn from the way it was done.
Bletchley Park was a melting pot of brilliant minds set free by an atmosphere of tolerance. Societal norms were swept aside because of extreme need and circumstances. What mattered was what a person could do — not their gender, sexual orientation, religion, national origin or any supposed eccentricity. By removing these artificial constraints, Bletchley Park brought out the best in the fullest range of talent.
In this sense, Bletchley’s codebreaking success came not in spite of people’s differences, but because of them. It’s a compelling role model for the power of diversity that resonates still today.
Overall, at Bletchley Park thousands of talented people, more than half women, made heroic contributions that were kept secret until the 1970s. To borrow Keira Knightley’s line playing code breaker
Joan Clarke
in
upcoming movie “The Imitation Game”
:
“Sometimes it’s the people who no one imagines anything of, who do the things no one can imagine.”
Google has long championed saving Bletchley Park together with Dr. Sue Black, Stephen Fry, Sir John Scarlett and many others. We’ve donated money, hosted events, created videos to help preserve and promote its story, including this . But nothing beats the experience of visiting this hallowed place in person — it’s just 45 minutes
by train from London Euston
— do go if you can. We promise you will be inspired by these technical heroes and early founders of our industry.
Posted by Lynette Webb and Megan Smith, Google
Commemorating World War I
Friday, June 27, 2014
A century ago, a Serb nationalist assassinated Austrian Archduke
Franz Ferdinand
, sparking World War I. Today, we are launching a new
channel
dedicated to commemorate the war’s centenary. It brings together World War I content, paintings, photographs, letters, documents, soldiers’ poems and more, from a range of Museum partners, ranging from the German Federal Archives to the Belgian Mundaneum to the Imperial War Museum.
A search for Franz Ferdinand brings up
photos
relating to the Archeduke’s assassination. They show the Franz and his wife Sophie arriving in Sarajevo. Outfitted in regal dress, treated with the pomp and circumstance of royalty, they stroll through the streets. A final image shows police arresting Serb assassin
Gavrilo Princip
.
Other exhibits explore the art around the conflict and personal impact of the conflict. Belgium’s Mundaneum has collected postcards sent from POW camps. The Imperial War Museum’s features
Christopher Nevinson's bleak landscapes
. The British authorities censored some of the paintings for being too “negative.” At the same time, the museum also features
John Nash’s patriotic paintings
.
The German side of the war is well represented, with more than
200 new items in 13 new exhibits
. Items include photographs, newspapers, letters, army documents, ration cards, and unusual items like the anti war poem written by a German soldier which lead to his detention. Exhibits range from German policy around the Sarajevo assassination to the rise of German airships to problems of nutrition due to the conflict.
The exhibits are designed for for a wide audience and full of exciting details for specialists. More content will be added over the coming months and years as commemorations around the Great War continue.
Posted by James Davis, Google Culture Institute, Paris
Commemorating D-Day’s 70th anniversary
Tuesday, June 3, 2014
On the 70th day of the momentous
D-Day Normandy landings
, our Cultural Institute is launching two initiatives to commemorate: a
G+ Hangout on Air
with veterans and five new online exhibitions.
The Hangout with D-Day veterans will allow anybody, anywhere to hear direct from veterans on their D-Day experiences. It takes place live from the
Caen War Memorial
at 6 p.m. Central Europe time. French television journalist Gilles Bouleau will host and Caen Memorial historian Christophe Prime will lend his expertise. American, French and British veterans will participate. High school students from both the U.S. and France will join the discussion.
At the same time, we’re publishing online
Normandy landings exhibitions
from the Caen War Memorial and other Cultural Institute partners, including the U.K’s Imperial War Museum and Bletchley Park code breakers center, the George C Marshall Research Foundation and the US National Archives. The exhibitions include exciting, previously unshown
video footage
of the landing,
letters
from soldiers and the original
assault plan
. All told, 470 new documents and images are included.
Take some time to browse - and reflect on the sacrifices made to secure Europe’s freedom.
Posted by Sixtine Fabre, Associate Program Manager, Google Cultural Institute
Combating online hate speech
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
From homophobia and racism to political and religious extremism, “hate speech” on the Internet is raising concern. YouTube and other Google products such as G+ have strong
Community Guidelines
and offer effective tools, featured in the below video, to flag inappropriate content. Yet a recent event with the UK Parliament’s Home Affairs Select Committee in London’s YouTube Space demonstrated that perhaps the best way to fight hate is through positive counterspeech.
Free speech is vital to democracy. Drowning out ideology with reason represents a powerful weapon. It is only on open platforms like YouTube—not in jihadist chat rooms or the extremist echo chambers of the ‘dark internet’—that susceptible or curious minds will find countervailing points of view.
In 2010, columnist
Dan Savage
and his partner Terry Miller set out to combat discrimination against young gays and lesbians. They started small. Savage filmed a homemade YouTube video called
“It Gets Better.”
It soon swelled into a global phenomenon. In Britain, “It Gets Better… Today,” led to a hit single that climbed the UK independent charts - garnering more than 50 million views.
Our London event aimed to achieve something similar with online extremism. We explored how two British YouTube creators,
Ben Cook
and
Jack Howard
,
partnered
with
Oxfam
on an online campaign to help refugees. Michael Stevens of
Vsauce
proved that YouTube can educate and inform, as well as entertain. And a community worker who helps people that are vulnerable to radicalisation, launched his
YouTube channel,
Abdullah X
, to fight online recruitment of foreign fighters and terrorists.
The internet can be a tool of radicalisation, so it is vital to seize it as a force of good. Though the removal of the really bad stuff, like violence, continues to be essential, too little focus so far has been placed on the importance of counter-messages. As one participant in London said, “We must embrace new technology and make the right messages more digestible so we can flood the internet with positivity.” Building a community around counterspeech is difficult. It may take time. In the end, though, it wins.
Posted by Verity Harding, Public Policy Manager, London
Defending digital freedom with Index On Censorship
Friday, March 21, 2014
It’s not always that a private corporation and a civil rights NGO see eye to eye on key issues. But this is the case for Google and
Index on Censorship.
For the fourth year in a row, we worked with Index on its
annual awards event
, which took place last evening at London's Barbican Centre. This ongoing relationship reflects our common concerns about the ongoing and increasing government crackdown against the free and open Internet. Index has made a strong move to invest in the defense not just of print, radio and tv freedom - but also with us in defence of online freedom.
When we first learned about Digital Freedom Award, we were immediately impressed with its motto - celebrating the fundamental right to "write, blog, tweet, speak out, protest and create art and literature and music." Google aims to provide a platform to promote just such a fundamental right.
The Digital Freedom Award
recognizes the original use of new technology to foster debate, argument or dissent.
Google Digital Journalism Award winner Shubhranshu Choudhary
Let’s be clear: Total editorial control remains with Index. Index, not us, chooses the nominees. Until now, distinguished juries have selected winners. But this year, we worked with Index on an innovation - asking the public to vote by filling in an online form.
This year’s nominees came from China, India, the U.S., and appropriately enough, cyberspace! There was whistleblower
Edward Snowden
, whose actions are well-known.
There was the Chinese microblogging
Weibo
, an uncensored version of China’s biggest social network, SinaWeibo. Free Weibo keeps track of and publishes everything which has been censored and deleted by the government, providing a fascinating insight into the regime’s priorities and fears.
There was
TAILS
- the Incognoto Amnesiac Live Operating System. Its open-source encryption tool helps protect the free online communication of journalists and sources in any country, regardless of official limits on free expression.
The winner came from India, journalist
Shubhranshu Choudhary
. He’s the brains behind CGNet Swara (Voice of Chhattisgarh) a mobile-phone (no smartphone required) service that allows citizens to upload and listen to local reports in their own dialect.
Please join us in congratulating Shubhranshu - and all the free-expression champions who shines a light on their ongoing struggle against censorship around the world.
Posted by William Echikson, Head of Free Expression, Europe
2014 RISE Awards: Supporting computer science education
Tuesday, February 4, 2014
"We need more kids falling in love with science and math.” Our CEO Larry Page said this at last year's
Google Developers I/O event
, and it's a feeling shared by all of us. We want to inspire young people around the world, and so five years ago we created the
Google RISE (Roots in Science and Engineering) Awards
, which provides funding to organisations around the world that engage girls and underrepresented students in extracurricular computer science programs.
This year, the RISE Awards are providing $1.5 million to 42 organizations in 19 countries that provide students with the resources they need to succeed in the field. Ten winners come from Europe. They range from
Generating Genius
in the U.K. which provides after-school computer science programs and mentoring to prepare high-achieving students from disadvantaged communities for admission into top universities to
Mezon
in Russia, which operates a learning center for educational robotics, developing curriculum for senior school teachers. Visit
our site
for a full list of our RISE Award recipients.
Created in 2007, the Children’s University Foundation has been carrying out educational programs for more than 20,000 children aged 6-13. Click on the photo to learn more about this and other RISE Awardees.
This year we’re also expanding the program with the RISE Partnership Awards. These awards aim to encourage collaboration across organizations in pursuit of a shared goal of increasing global participation in computer science. For example, more than 5,000 girls in sub-Saharan Africa will learn computer science as a result of a partnership between the Harlem based program
ELITE
and the
WAAW Foundation
in Nigeria.
We’re proud to help these organisations inspire the next generation of computer scientists.
Posted by Hai Hong, RISE Program Manager
Vote for Digital Defender of the Year
Thursday, January 30, 2014
For the past 14 years the
Index on Censorship Awards
have honoured some of the most remarkable fighters for free expression from around the world - from assassinated Russian journalist
Anna Politkovskaya
to Israeli conductor
Daniel Barenboim
and Syrian cartoonist
Ali Farzat
to education activist
Malala Yousafzai
. Until now, distinguished juries have selected all the winners. But this year, we’re working with Index on an innovation - asking the public to vote for the digital activist award, which honours the person who has done the most to defend online freedom.
Take a look at the nominees and vote here. Voting finishes next Monday, February 3, so please do act fast.
This is the fourth year Google has worked with Index on its annual awards event. Total editorial control remains with Index; they choose the nominees. We are just delighted to support this important organization’s new and important work in defence of online freedom. For a taste of the excitement surrounding the ceremony, watch last year’s highlight video below.
This year’s awards ceremony take place on Thursday March 20, 6.30pm, at the
Barbican Centre
in London. In addition to the digital defender award, three other awards will be given out, one for journalism, one for advocacy and one for arts. Tickets are available, so please do join us to celebrate free-expression champions and shine a light on their ongoing struggle against censorship around the world.
Posted by William Echikson, Head of Free Expression, Europe, Middle East and Africa
Life in the fast lane: Street View on the Top Gear test track
Thursday, January 23, 2014
Thanks to Street View, you might have already traversed the elegant
plains
of Botswana, or discovered the serene
fjords
of Norway. But now for something completely different.
One of our brave Street View drivers has been to a
remote airfield
in Surrey, England — filming location of the BBC’s automotive TV show,
Top Gear
. He went to take on the fearless petrolhead that reigns supreme on the iconic show —
The Stig
. While the Stig raced around in a Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG Black, we took a tour with our own vehicle. Take a look at the results in this behind the scenes video.
View Larger Map
Crossing the chequered line. The track plays host to regular Top Gear features like the Power Lap and Star in a Reasonably Priced Car.
The Top Gear test track is the latest in a line of special Street View collects designed to delight motorsport fans. Previously, we’ve put online the
Laguna Seca
raceway in California and the
Monza
Formula 1 circuit, host to the Italian Grand Prix, among others. Get behind the “wheel” and enjoy!
Posted by Ulf Spitzer, Street View Program Manager, Google
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
Modernising Amnesty International letter writing marathons
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
For many years,
Amnesty International
and its 3.2 million members have stood up for human rights by organizing
Write for Rights
- an annual global letter-writing marathon. People from over 80 countries come together to support individuals and communities suffering human rights abuses. Today, with our support,
Amnesty
will mark the
International Human Rights Da
y by building a
new digital platform
for this year’s Write for Rights Marathon.
Amnesty’s marathon website will focus on three cases: that of a community leader imprisoned because he tried to stop clashes between religious groups, that of a community that is living in makeshift shelters after their houses were demolished and that of a man brutally attacked by the police. The new website will link to YouTube to show videos of individuals and communities suffering human rights abuses.
This launch represents what we hope is just a beginning. Over the coming months, we will support Amnesty to build a platform that will help Amnesty to respond in a rapid and reactive way to human rights violations.
Amnesty has a unique way of humanising the often abstract issues around free expression. This new website represents not just a modernisation of its letter writing techniques; it also demonstrates an acknowledgement that the future of free expression depends much on the future of the open and free Internet, which anyone with a connection, anywhere in the world, can use to reach a global audience.
For the individual cases featured in Amnesty’s appeal, the impact of letter writing is often life changing, restoring their freedom. As
Julio de Peña Valdez
, a released prisoner of conscience from the Dominican Republic said after his release, “The letters kept coming and coming: three thousand of them. The president was informed. The letters still kept arriving, and the president called the prison and told them to let me go. After I was released, the president called me to his office. He said: 'How is it that a trade union leader like you has so many friends from all over the world?' He showed me an enormous box full of letters he had received and, when we parted, he gave them to me.”
We have always believed in the liberating power of technology: more information means more discussion, better choices and eventually more freedom. Our goal with Amnesty is to raise awareness of the critical human rights issues around the world, including free expression, creating international pressure for their resolution.
Posted by William Echikson, Head of Free Expression, Europe, Middle East and Africa.
Culture on the web: the surprising rise of the new voices
Thursday, December 5, 2013
Like many industries, the Internet has upended the world of news and culture. While it has undermined some traditional business models, media consultancy
Oliver & Ohlbaum
published two new studies that we commissioned this week showing that the net is powering the rise of exciting new voices and small players. YouTube stars are building fame online before securing a record deal or a film contract. Newshounds now discover, share, and comment on stories on platforms like Twitter and Facebook.
In the first study,
Different media, different roles, different expectations: the nature of news consumption in the digital age
, Oliver & Ohlbaum set out to answer the question of how the Internet affects access to and consumption of news. Are readers consuming more news than they did in the age of ink? From more or fewer sources? After surveying data from the UK and Germany, the researchers found:
A new generation of news junkies is emerging:
On average, all UK adults consulted an average of 2.7 news sources per week, while online readers visit almost twice as many - 5.2 news websites.
Readers are expanding their horizons, consulting a wide array of sources:
In both the UK and Germany, readers now spend only 5-20% of their news-time on their favorite newspaper. Instead, they consume news from, on average, eight other sources.
Readers are encountering a broad range of views:
Even where consuming user generated ‘less trustworthy’ sources, 47% say this is to encounter views different from their own.
Established media retain significant influence:
Television remains considered the most authoritative media source and big brands continue to earn greater trust, audience attention, and influence on consumer opinion than other sources.
A second study,
The Internet and the creative industries: measuring growth within a changing sector ecology
, examines current approaches to measuring the ‘creative sector’; and the impact of the internet on the role of independent artists and small businesses in the business of culture. Drawing on case studies from the UK, France and Sweden, the research finds that the Internet has increased the numbers of creative sector SMEs and 'sole traders.'
In the music industry of twenty years ago, for example, a single record label hired lawyers, accountants, cafeteria workers. Today, many of these roles are distributed among small businesses and independent players. A band might be discovered on YouTube, hire professionals on an hourly basis to handle contracts, self-publish and self-market.
Until now, most research has failed to take into account this structural shift toward ‘unorganized content producers,’ suggesting that they fail to capture a great deal of activity. See below.
What is needed, the researchers conclude, is a new way of measuring the culture industry. Specifically, this new measurement must identify and measure the contribution of SMEs and sole traders. Only when we have reliable statistics can we truly understand the Internet’s impact on the business of news and culture.
Posted by Simon Morrison, Public Policy and Government Relations Manager
Campus London powers UK tech boom
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
It’s been 20 short months since
Campus London
opened its doors to East London’s entrepreneur community, time enough to report some initial results, and time enough to realize that our biggest expectations have been surpassed. In a new report released yesterday, we reported that Campus has more than 22,000 members, hailing from more than 60 countries. Campus has hosted over 1,100 events for more than 70,000 visitors in 2013, including 1,000 mentoring sessions, in which Google employees volunteer their time to advise early-stage companies, through the
Google office hours programme
.
Full details of the survey can be found at
www.campuslondon.com/research
. Highlights include:
Campus is creating job
s: We estimate that at least 576 jobs have been created within the Campus community.
Campus startups are raising serious funding
: Campus members have raised at least £34m in the 12 months to October 2013.
Campus is promoting gender equality
: Campus is helping to address the gender imbalance in the tech startup industry. The presence of women at Campus continues to grow, now at 22% of residents and 20% of the overall member base - compared to the 9% industry average. Campus for Mums
and
Women at Campus
are moving the needle.
Campus continues to attract new entrepreneurs:
Campus is increasingly popular as a place to interact with the local startup community. 78% of survey respondents have been working at Campus for less than 6 months. Campus membership has grown almost 300% since January 2013 (8,000 to 22,500).
Campus members are upbeat:
The outlook of startups at Campus remains very positive with 84% reporting a positive outlook.
We're proud of the role Campus is playing in building this ecosystem, and eager to continue to grow London as one of the world's most exciting technology centres.
Posted by Eze Vidra, Head of Campus London and Google For Entrepreneurs Europe.
Google learns to speak French and German
Friday, November 29, 2013
“How many calories are there in a banana?”
From now on, you can speak such queries into a phone or tablet and receive a quick response — eighty-nine calories in English,
quatre-vingt-neuf
if you ask in French, or
neunundachtzig kalorien
in German. We’ve been on tour in recent weeks throughout Europe, from London to Paris and Hamburg, with our Google House, demonstrating our vision of the connected present. The star of the show was our most advanced
Voice Search
, which just has arrived in the UK, France and Germany.
In the kitchen, Voice Search can help you find just the right recipe — even if your hands are covered in flour. By talking to their smart device, our chefs in the Google House searched for recipes, asked for weight and temperature conversions, which we will speak right back, and even set a countdown timer on their device to remind them to take their lemon madeleines out of the oven.
Jamie and Ben from
Sorted Food
, YouTube’s largest cooking channel in Europe, showed us how Voice Search can help around the kitchen
We can also provide smart reminders, where you can asked to be notified when you're near the location for that particular task, such as
“Remind me to pick up sugar next time I’m at Sainsburys.”
In the living room, voice can help you discover music, videos, photos, movies and other services, while the teen’s bedroom we showed how school kids could use use Voice Search to help with homework tasks —
“Show me paintings by Picasso”
pulls up a carousel of
Pablo Picasso’s
works right on the search page which can easily be scrolled through.
Google can help kids and adults alike with quick and easy answers
What makes the Voice Search extra-special is its ability to understand the context of a question. For example:
Ask
“How old is David Beckham?”
and then follow up with the question
“And who is his wife?”
, and Google knows you mean
David Beckham’s wife
.
Ask “
What is the weather like in Liverpool?,”
you can follow-up with “
How long does it take to drive there?”
This makes searching by voice like a real-life conversation. Fast and accurate voice recognition technology — available on Android and on the Google Search app on iPhone — enables us to understand exactly what you’re saying and provide speedy responses by tapping the microphone icon. For example,
“Is British Airways flight 248 on time?”
The words appear as you speak, you get your answer immediately and—if it’s short and quick, like the status and departure time of your flight—we tell you the answer aloud.
By the time a guest was ready to leave Google House, he or she was encouraged to ask a simple question:
“How do I get home?”
We came up with the answer — and could even tell you when you need to leave depending on the traffic on your route.
Posted by Michael Valvo, Head of Product Communications, London
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