Europe Blog
Our views on the Internet and society
Ramadan traditions with a digital twist
Saturday, July 21, 2012
More a billion Muslims around the world today begin to observe the holy month of
Today, more a billion Muslims around the world begin to observe the holy month of
Ramadan
, fasting from dawn to sunset. This year, we’re bringing some of the most venerable Ramadan traditions online.
We’re sharing the Islamic prayers live from Mecca on a dedicated
YouTube channel
. Millions of people from around the world will be able to experience and comment on the event by tuning in via video.
Ramadan is about more than just prayer; it is also a special moment to gather with friends and family. Muslims gather to watch special television shows produced for the holiday and shown only during Ramadan. Often the shows overlap in scheduling. This year, for the first time, YouTube is enabling people to watch their favorite shows anytime, anywhere. A new
YouTube Ramadan channel
lets viewers see more than 50 premium Ramadan shows the same day they air. In the clip below, famed Syrian actor
Jamal Suliman
appears in a drama:
Ramadan’s tastiest tradition is the food. After fasting through the day, families gather for evening break-the-fast meals called
Iftar
. Through Google+ Hangouts, we’re hosting 30 virtual get-togethers in the 30 days of Ramadan, in which celebrity chefs will share their favorite recipes and
doctors
will give tips on eating healthy.
The hangouts will engage people in subjects far beyond eating.
Actors
will talk about their favorite Ramadan shows. Poets will discuss literature inspired by the holiday. Religious
figures
will answer questions. Stay tuned to the
Google Arabia
page on Google+ for more details and and join in.
We hope you enjoy experiencing your favorite Ramadan traditions with a digital twist this year. Ramadan Kareem!
Posted by Maha Abouelenein, Head of Communications Middle East and North Africa
Explore Chrome's “Exquisite Forest” at London’s Tate Modern
Friday, July 20, 2012
Cross-posted from the
Official Google Blog
This week, in partnership with the
Tate Modern
in London, we released an online art experiment called
This Exquisite Forest
, which lets you collaborate with others to create animations and stories using a web-based drawing tool.
Seven renowned artists from Tate’s collection, including
Bill Woodrow
,
Dryden Goodwin
,
Julian Opie
,
Mark Titchner
,
Miroslaw Balka
,
Olafur Eliasson
and
Raqib Shaw
, have created short “seed” animations. From these seeds, anyone can add new animations that extend the story or branch it in a new direction. Or you can start a tree of your own with some friends. As more sequences are added, the animations grow into trees, creating a potentially infinite number of possible endings to each animation.
In addition to the website, an interactive installation will open on July 23 in the Level 3 gallery of Tate Modern. Trees seeded by Tate artists—and the contributions from the public—will be on display as large-scale projections. Gallery visitors may also contribute using digital drawing stations.
This Exquisite Forest
uses several of Google Chrome’s advanced
HTML5 and JavaScript features
to produce a unique content creation and exploration experience. For example, the Web Audio API makes it possible for contributors to generate music to accompany their submissions. The project also runs on
Google App Engine
and
Google Cloud Storage
.
Please try it out at
ExquisiteForest.com
and contribute your own animation to help the forest grow.
Posted by Aaron Koblin, Google Creative Lab, Data Arts Team
Web Lab brings Internet magic to London Science Museum
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Cross-posted from the
Official Google Blog
Inspiration comes in many forms and can influence you in unexpected ways. I can trace my own interest in programming to
Babbage’s Analytical Engine
, which fascinated me on my childhood visits to the
Science Museum
in London. This idea that science and technology can inspire people is one that we hold close to our hearts.
It’s also the thought behind a new exhibition we’re launching today online and at the Science Museum in London. We hope to inspire people around the world by showcasing the magic that the Internet makes possible.
Launching in beta,
Web Lab
is a set of five physical installations housed in the Science Museum in London. You can interact with them in person at the museum, or from anywhere in the world at
chromeweblab.com
.
By opening up the museum experience to the world online, Web Lab doesn’t play by the usual rules—a visitor’s location and museum opening hours no longer matter. Each of the five experiments—Universal Orchestra, Data Tracer, Sketchbots, Teleporter and Lab Tag Explorer—showcases a modern web technology found in Chrome to explore a particular theme in computer science.
For example, the Universal Orchestra experiment uses
WebSockets
to demonstrate real time collaboration as people from around the world make music together on custom-built robotic instruments housed in the Science Museum. Please join us online or at the Science Museum in London (entry is free), and let us know what you think. True to its name, the year-long exhibition is a working lab, and we’ll continue to tinker with it based on your feedback. Here’s to the next wave of Internet invention!
Posted by Jayme Goldstein, Product Marketing Manager, Chrome, on behalf of the Web Lab team
Face blurring: when footage requires anonymity
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
YouTube is proud to be a place where citizens and activists come to tell their stories -- stories that may otherwise go unnoticed. A
study
released this week by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism found that YouTube is a top destination for news and that “citizens play a substantial role in supplying and producing footage.”
But this level of exposure can mean risk to the citizens shooting the footage and the people who appear in their videos.
Today, we announced a new face blurring tool
that represents a first step toward providing visual anonymity within
our video enhancement tool
.
Of course, anonymity is never a guarantee, and people who capture sensitive video footage should consider taking other precautions to keep themselves and their subjects safe. Here are three suggestions:
Assess your risk. You and the people you film may face risk in every step of filming an advocacy video. You may face risks to your own safety and that of your subjects while filming sensitive footage, during the editing process after you have captured the film, and when you distribute your film online. After assessing the risks you and your subjects face you can make more informed decisions about when to film, whether to distribute your footage, and how widely you want to share it.
Consider other information which may give away identity. Video footage of your face is not the only way someone can detect your identity. Other factors that may be caught on video can also identify you or your subjects. Watch out for vocal identifiers, like the sound of your voice or saying someone’s name on camera. Other visual footage can give away identity like a license plate, a name tag, or even the background scenery. Make sure that the imagery in your videos does not give away information about your location or identity.
Understand local laws. Given the global scope of YouTube, we comply with different sets of laws in the various countries in which we're launched (to see where we're launched, go to the YouTube.com footer and click "Worldwide"). If the content in your video is illegal in one of these countries, we must comply with the local formal legal processes. For instance, that means that in Germany we don't stream videos that are sympathetic to Nazism. Know your local laws before you upload.
Over the past seven years, YouTube has evolved into a destination for citizen reporting. Along with efforts like the
Human Rights Channel
and
Citizentube
that curate these voices, we hope that the new technologies we’re rolling out will facilitate the sharing of even more stories on our platform.
Posted by Amanda Conway, YouTube Policy Associate
Books on Google Play arrives in France
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Earlier this year, we introduced
Google Play
, a digital entertainment hub where you can find, enjoy and share your favorite apps and movies on your Android phone or tablet. Today we’re adding books to
Google Play
for people in France.
Books on Google Play offers millions of books, including hundreds of thousands of French titles, from new releases to bestsellers and classics. It's easy to find great French authors such as Antonin Varenne, Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt, Fred Vargas and Dominique Sylvain, plus international bestsellers, in the country’s largest ebookstore. With the launch of ebooks, Google Play becomes a one-stop-shop for the very best digital content available on the web.
France is the fifth European country to launch books on Play, following in the footsteps of Germany, Spain, Italy and the UK. This follows on our recent
announcement
of a settlement of all outstanding litigation between us and French publishers.
Books on Google Play is all about choice: we’re offering many titles and many ways to access and read them, so that your library is literally at your fingertips no matter where you are. You can choose from great titles from hundreds of award-winning and diverse publishing houses at launch, not to mention the telethousands of international publishers Google works with around the world.
With Google Play you can read on the device of your choice. And with your books in the cloud you can read on the web, a phone, or a tablet and pick up right where you left off. You can discover, purchase and read books on:
Android phones and tablets - you can purchase books in the Google Play Store and begin reading them instantly in the Google Play Books app;
your computer - you can purchase and read books on the Google Play store and read in your web browser; and
iPhones and iPads -- you can read books in the Google Play Books app
We’re happy to make it even easier for all French book lovers to discover and buy whatever they want to read, whether that’s the next bestseller, a new release from their favourite author or a well-loved classic. Whether you’re a bookworm or casual reader, we hope you find something great to read on Google Play.
Posted by Philippe Colombet, Google Books France
Exploring the Higgs Boson particle with CERN
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Update:
Watch the exciting hangout with CERN.
Has the recent discovery of the Higgs boson particle left you scratching your head trying to master the basics of the standard model and particle physics? Are these
useful explanations
sufficient?
If you are still confused - or just curious, then you’re in luck. This Thursday, the team behind CERN People, a documentary film
project
chronicling the cutting edge work being done to better understand our universe, will take part in a Google Hangout with the Guardian’s Ian Sample, author of "Massive: The Hunt for the God Particle". They’ll discuss their most recent findings, what’s next for the researchers at the Large Hadron Collider and answer your questions.
CERN People is a feature-length film project by the award-winning documentary-maker
Films of Record
. They’ll be releasing a full length film on the Higgs boson next year but you don’t have to wait to see their work. Their
YouTube channel
and
Google+
page are full of interviews and explanations from CERN scientists.
The Hangout will be live at 5pm BST and available at on the
CERN People G+ Page
. Tune in and catch up on the exciting news about the origins of our universe and other head-scratching insights into our world.
Posted by Jon Steinberg, External Relations
A different Olympics comes to Hungary
Monday, July 16, 2012
As London gears up to host Olympic athletes, Hungary recently attracted some of the world’s most promising computer scientists for its own cerebral Games - the
Central European Olympiad in Informatics
. A total of 52 competitors, aged 15 to 17, came from 12 countries to the town of
Tata
. They worked for two days coding. All shared a common goal: to build the best algorithm and to solve complex problems of everyday life with the power of technology.
This computer Olympiad, launched in 1994, is held annually, in a different country each year. The
John von Neumann Computer Society
organises the 2012 Games, in Hungary and Google joined as a sponsor.
Competitors were given practical problems to solve by building efficient algorithms. The faster the program, the higher the score. One task - inspired by the scenic view from the venue - was to design a program that can calculate the longest possible path a sightseeing cruise can travel on a lake, touching multiple stops in a restricted order, while only crossing its own path once. Romanian and Bulgarian teams won the Gold Medal in this contest and the highest number of overall gold medals. A full listing of medal winners is found
here
.
During the Olympiad, contestants took part in an hour long conversation via Google Hangout with Google engineer Mihai Stroe, who leads a team of Google Maps engineers in Zurich, He and his team write algorithms which every day help millions of people and help them find the quickest way from A to B whether they are travelling by foot, by car or public transport.
More than a decade ago, Mihai competed in student programming competitions. He even took part in an Olympiad as a member of the scientific committee. The experience helped shaped his career at Google. “Algorithms, like the ones these talented students built today, are at the very heart of what Google does. Google is making the world better with the power of technology, and these guys are our future too. I’m happy to share my experiences with them,” he said.
Posted by Richard Schuster, Communications Manager, Budapest
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