Europe Blog
Our views on the Internet and society
Luvvies & Boffins Night at the Museum
Friday, June 29, 2012
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This week saw the second gathering of Google’s
Luvvies and Boffins
-- this time with added boffinry courtesy of
London’s Science Museum
.
The idea came from Eric Schmidt’s
MacTaggart lecture
, delivered in Edinburgh last summer, in which he said Britain needs to bring art and science back together if its creative industries are to have a successful future. Guests were handed lapel badges denoting “Luvvie”, “Boffin” or the Renaissance “Luvviboff”.
Besides great cocktails and conversation, the evening featured a stellar line-up of computing-themed activities. There were guided tours of the new
Turing Exhibition
, up-close demonstrations of the
Babbage Machine
in action, and hands-on
soldering workshops to make Lumiphones
.
As an added bonus, our evening coincided with
Science Museum Lates
, a monthly night at the museum for adults only. Geek activities abounded --
punk science comedy
, a
cockroach fancy dress tour
, even an impressively silent disco.
Overall, it was a wonderful evening, as the
Storify
below attests. Thanks to the Science Museum for being such great hosts, and to everyone who came along.
Posted by Peter Barron, Director of External Relations, Google EMEA
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A tribute to Turing, the father of modern computing
Saturday, June 23, 2012
“The past is a foreign country—they do things differently there.” It’s a saying that rings especially true in the world of technology. But while innovating requires us to focus on the future, there are times when it’s important to look back. Today—the 100th anniversary of
Alan Turing
’s birth—is one such moment.
Statue of Alan Turing at Bletchley Park
Turing’s life was one of astounding highs and devastating lows. While his
wartime codebreaking
saved thousands of lives, his own life was
destroyed when he was convicted for homosexuality
. But the tragedy of his story should not overshadow his legacy. Turing’s insight
laid the foundations
of the computer age. It’s no exaggeration to say he’s a founding father of every computer and Internet company today.
Turing’s breakthrough came in 1936 with the publication of his seminal paper “
On Computable Numbers
” (PDF). This introduced two key concepts, “algorithms” and “computing machines”—commonplace terms today, but truly revolutionary in the 1930’s:
Algorithms
are, in simplest terms, step-by-step instructions for carrying out a mathematical calculation. This is where it all started for programming since, at its core, all software is a collection of algorithms.
A
computing machine
—today better known as a
Turing machine
—was the hypothetical device that Turing dreamed up to run his algorithms. In the 1930’s, a “computer” was what you called a person who did calculations—it was a profession, not an object. Turing’s paper provided the blueprint for building a machine that could do any computation that a person could, marking the first step towards the modern notion of a computer.
Considering the role computers now play in everyday life, it’s clear Turing’s inventions rank among the most important intellectual breakthroughs of the 20th century. In the evolution of computing, all paths trace back to Turing. That’s why Turing is a hero to so many Google engineers, and why we’re so proud to help commemorate and preserve his legacy.
In 2010, Google helped Bletchley Park raise funds to
purchase Turing’s papers
so they could be preserved for public display in their museum. More recently, we’ve been working closely with curators at London’s Science Museum to help put on a stunning new exhibition “
Codebreaker - Alan Turing’s Life and Legacy
.” This tells the story of Turing’s vast achievements in a profoundly moving and personal way, through an amazing collection of artifacts—including items loaned by GCHQ, the U.K. government intelligence agency, never before on public display. Topics addressed include Turing’s early years, his code-breaking at Bletchley Park, his designs for the Pilot Ace computer, his later
morphogenesis work
, as well as his sexuality and death. The exhibition opened on June 21 and is well worth a visit if you’re passing through London in the next year.
And finally, we couldn’t let such a momentous occasion pass without a doodle. We thought the most fitting way of paying tribute to Turing’s incredible life and work would be to simulate the theoretical “Turing machine” he proposed in a mathematical paper. Visit the homepage today— we invite you to try your hand at programming it. If you get it the first time, try again... it gets harder!
Turing was born into a world that was very different, culturally and technologically, from ours—but his contribution has never been more significant. I hope you’ll join me today in paying tribute to Alan Turing, the forefather of modern computing.
Posted by Andrew Eland, Engineering Director, Google U.K.
Hack4Kids winners pick up prizes in Parliament
Friday, June 22, 2012
After 30 hours of intense coding - and personal visits from
Vice President Neelie Kroes
and journalist and blogger
Cory Doctorow
- it was time for the 37 hackers of 11 nationalities who took part in
Hack4Kids
to find out who would win the 5000 euro first prize awards.
In the Child Safety Track, the jury awarded:
First Prize: to
Team Bodoques
(Spain/Italy) with their eyeTime Tool informing kids and parents about the duration of their online session.
Second Prize: to
Team Soe
(Germany/Sweden/Cambodja) with their SecondFriend chat app allowing kids to chat with counselors from helplines in an easy, intuitive and privacy-friendly manner.
Third Prize: to
Team Milktooth
(Italy), with their Milktooth filter activated by the presence of the parents’ phone (by bluetooth) and filters of content that are picture/ad specific so that kids and parents watching the same website see customised pages.
In the Child Creativity track, the jury awarded:
First Prize: to
Team Water
(Finland), with their Waterbear tool to make coding for kids easier, so that they not only use digital products and services - but also understand them and learn how make them!
Second Prize: to
Gianluca Cancelmi
(Italy), with his semantic WikiQuiz including social media aspects.
Third Prize: to
Team LeGarage
(France), with their Kwizzle space invader quiz.
MEPs
Sabine Verheyen
,
Róża Maria Gräfin von Thun und Hohenstein
,
Sean Kelly
and
Petru Luhan
awarded the prizes at a special ceremony in the European Parliament.
The next step for all the sponsors (Google, Orange, Vodafone, Facebook) is to work with the coders to see if we can turn their ideas into real tools that can be used to make the web a better - and more creative - place for children and families.
Posted by Marco Pancini, Senior Policy Counsel
Big Tent braves the beach in Cannes
Friday, June 22, 2012
When the advertising world convened this week in the South of France for the
Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity
, we pitched up our
Big Tent
to debate innovations in social media and the marriage of technology and creativity.
Our first session featured Noelle Jouglet from
Kony 2012
sharing how their documentary
video
garnered 100 million hits in 6 days and mobilised thousands of young people around the world to take part in advocacy work against the
Lord’s Resistance Army
.
Bradley Horowitz
from the Google+ team shared his insights into how the social web is providing new ways for everyone from Barack Obama to Cadbury to interact with their supporters in meaningful ways. Both speakers shared important lessons about how to empower audiences for the marketers in the audience.
In the second of our Big Tents in Cannes,
Arianna Huffington
and Iain Tait from Google’s
Creative Lab
took part in perhaps a counterintuitive conversation for a technology company: how to best disconnect from technology in order to recharge your creative juices. After sharing how long each speaker slept the night before, Arianna and Iain’s conversation explored issues as diverse as breaking our obsession with being ‘always on’, the Tetris challenge of your inbox and making time for your soul.
After this busy week of
Big Tents
we’ll be recharging our batteries ahead of our next event in Sendai, Japan on the role of technology in preparing and responding to crises.
Posted by Jon Steinberg, External Relations
Commemorating Alan Turing at London’s Science Museum
Thursday, June 21, 2012
As Steven Pinker, the Harvard professor and popular science author,
recently wrote
:
“It would be an exaggeration to say that the British mathematician Alan Turing explained the nature of logical and mathematical reasoning, invented the digital computer, solved the mind-body problem, and saved Western civilization. But it would not be much of an exaggeration”.
For proof, look no further than the stunning new exhibition “
Codebreaker - Alan Turing’s Life and Legac
y” which opens to the public today at London’s Science Museum. This tells the story of Turing’s vast achievements in a profoundly moving way, through an amazing collection of artifacts -- including items never before on display.
Photos from last night’s gala opening
This exhibition is especially close to our hearts at Google, since not only is Turing a founding father of computing, in a way he is also the father of our collaboration with the Science Museum.
A few years ago one of Google’s senior engineers heard there was an idea to stage an exhibition about Turing. He got in touch and volunteered to help; and from that small seed, Google’s association with the Science Museum has now blossomed into a fully-fledged partnership.
In this, the centenary of Turing’s birth,
we’re proud to sponsor
such a fitting tribute to one of computing’s true heroes. The exhibition will be open until the end of June 2013, and entry is free, so do visit if you can.
Posted by Lynette Webb, Senior Manager, External Relations
Big Tent - from Ireland to Israel
Thursday, June 21, 2012
Our second Big Tent of the week took place in Tel Aviv, where we delved into the impact of the Internet on democracy, civil society and education. Large public protests, sparked by online social networks and similar in some ways to the protests sweeping the Arab world, have swept over Israel.
By enabling each of us to express ourselves, and reach a national and global audience, participants agreed that the Internet allows new voices to influence the political process. Israel’s Education Minister
Gideon Sa’ar
invoked the philosopher
John Stuart Mill
to describe how the net is providing the means for a move from representative to direct democracy. This bottom-up revolution, he said, poses a challenge for politicians and the media who were previously the gatekeepers of information.
Our Big Tents aim to voice diverse views, and we certainly heard a wide range of opinions in Israel. Representatives from politics, traditional and new media posed powerful questions. Do extreme and violent voices dominate the online debate? Is traditional media more scared than leading in the face of the online challenge? Why did the Arab Spring not deliver a single new democracy?
Journalist
Ilana Dayan
put those points and more to our Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt, who was making his first visit to Israel following a trip to Afghanistan and Pakistan. While he accepted it’s impossible to predict exactly the impact the internet will have on society, he described villages he had visited which - with the advent of smart mobile devices - have gone from having access to no information to all the world’s information. That, he said, must mean a better future.
The Big Tent rolls on, next stop is a beach on the south of France where we’ll be debating innovation and creativity at the
Cannes Lions Festival
. You can view all previous debates on our
Big Tent YouTube channel
.
Posted by Doron Avni, Head of Policy and Government Relations
Hacking for child safety online
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Fri June 22, 16:00, correction made in final paragraph, names of MEPs added.
The
EUhackathon
is back in Brussels - and this time, it’s about online child safety.
A year ago, we hosted an inaugural EU
Hack4Transparency
, bringing together crack coders from all over the world with the goal increasing transparency on the Internet. Today and tomorrow, programmers are at the Google Brussels office for 30 hours of continuous coding.
Entries
this year come from 11 countries: France, the UK, Romania, Poland, Finland, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Germany, Sweden and even Cambodia.
The new hackathon is part of the European Commission’s
Better Internet for Kids
initiative. Five civil society organisations: eSkills, Family Online Safety Institute, European Schoolnet, eNACSO and Missing Children Europe, are lending their support. Corporate contributors include Facebook, Orange and Vodafone, all of whom have dispatched engineers are to assist.
The coder’s task is to develop the best tools, websites or applications that will enhance children’s safety and creativity online. Our goal is to raise awareness of child safety and online creativity - and generate innovative ideas and solutions. European Commission Vice President Neelie Kroes is a keen supporter.
Children are central to this latest EUhackathon and are being given the opportunity to participate in the competition. Our youngest hacker is 13 years old! A total of 25 teenagers from the European schools in Brussels, aged between 12 and 15, will assist, participate and get first hand experience of computer coding.
These children and their teachers - ultimately, the people who will use the tools created during the hackathon - will get to vote for their favourite entries, and their opinions will be taken into account by the
jury
in their deliberations. On 16:15 on 21st June, MEPs Sabine Verheyen, Róża Maria Gräfin von Thun und Hohenstein, Sean Kelly and Petru Luhan will hand out EUR 5,000 prizes to the first prize-winning teams at an award ceremony in the European Parliament.
Posted by Marco Pancini, Senior Policy Manager, Google Brussels
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