Europe Blog
Our views on the Internet and society
Updating Google's voice in Europe
Monday, August 20, 2012
Today, this blog is making a small but significant change to its name. The Google European Public Policy Blog is becoming the Google Europe Blog.
When we first launched this blog four years ago, the idea was to focus on Brussels-based European Union policy issues. Our horizons and subject matter have since expanded. Instead of dealing just with policy we began blogging on the revival of Internet history projects, free expression, cultural and economic outreach, and other Google and YouTube activities.
We publish on average three posts weekly, with readership averaging around 60,000 a week. Initially, most of our readers came from the United States. Today we have fast-growing numbers of readers in the UK, France, Belgium and Germany.
Our goal has become become a one-shot destination of choice for Google in Europe. The new Google Europe Blog name reflects this ambition.
Posted by William Echikson, External Relations
Improving Google Patents with the European Patent Office
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Cross-posted from the
Google Research Blog
At Google, we're constantly trying to make important collections of information more useful to the world. Since 2006, we’ve let people discover, search, and read United States patents online. Starting this week, you can do the same for the millions of ideas that have been submitted to the European Patent Office, such as
this one
.
Typically, patents are granted only if an invention is new and not obvious. To explain why an invention is new, inventors will usually cite prior art such as earlier patent applications or journal articles. Determining the novelty of a patent can be difficult, requiring a laborious search through many sources, and so we’ve built a Prior Art Finder to make this process easier. With a single click, it searches multiple sources for related content that existed at the time the patent was filed.
Patent pages now feature a “Find prior art” button that instantly pulls together information relevant to the patent application.
The Prior Art Finder identifies key phrases from the text of the patent, combines them into a search query, and displays relevant results from Google Patents, Google Scholar, Google Books, and the rest of the web. You’ll start to see the blue “Find prior art” button on individual patent pages starting today.
Our hope is that this tool will give patent searchers another way to discover information relevant to a patent application, supplementing the search techniques they use today. We’ll be refining and extending the Prior Art Finder as we develop a better understanding of how to analyze patent claims and how to integrate the results into the workflow of patent searchers.
These are small steps toward making this collection of important but complex documents better understood. Sometimes language can be a barrier to understanding, which is why earlier this year we
released an update to Google Translate
that incorporates the European Patent Office’s parallel patent texts, allowing the EPO to provide translation between English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and Swedish, with more languages scheduled for the future. Details are
here
.
And with the help of the United States Patent & Trademark Office, we’ve continued to add to
our repository of USPTO bulk data
, making it easier for researchers and law firms to analyze the entire corpus of US patents. More to come!
Posted by Jon Orwant, Engineering Manager
Enjoy our summer of music on YouTube
Monday, August 13, 2012
Summer means music, particularly here in Europe, and that is especially true this summer on YouTube. Last weekend, YouTube hosted a livestream of
Sziget 2012
, winner of “Best European Major Festival award” from Budapest and this coming weekend Lowlands 2012 will be streamed live from the Netherlands, featuring acts like Bloc Party, The Black Keys and Two Door Cinema Club.
In addition to Sziget and Lowlands, music fans on YouTube have been able to watch some of the world’s best and biggest music festivals this summer, including
Tomorrowland
,
San Miguel Primavera Sound
,
Sónar
,
Rock in Rio
,
EXIT
,
INmusic
,
Heineken Open’er Festival
,
Bonnaroo
and
Lollapalooza
.
Music represents a key component of YouTube’s success. Musicians and bands are no longer restricted by the number of people they can get through the turnstiles, but can play to a global audience.
In tough economic times, many people can’t always afford to attend festivals in person. YouTube helps them experience the event - for free (and without queues or mud). We know viewers enjoy them -- festivals like Lollapalooza have seen viewers spend an average 44 minutes watching the show. Tomorrowland had over 600,000 comments posted on the channel through a custom conversation gadget, highlighting just how engaged fans were during the stream.
Much more is scheduled for the rest of the summer and beyond - so tune in and enjoy!
Posted by Patrick Walker, Senior Director, YouTube Music Partnerships
RISE to the computer science education challenge
Friday, August 3, 2012
Our business at Google is rooted in STEM education - science, technology, engineering and math - so we’re passionate about encouraging organizations that are expanding access to these fields. The annual Google
Roots in Science and Engineering
(RISE) program supports organizations running innovative STEM and computer science enrichment programs for K-12 and university students around the world.
Applications for the 2013 Awards are now open.
RISE promotes primary and secondary school education initiatives. Winners receive grants ranging from $5,000 to $25,000 USD. When we say around the world, we mean it. RISE Awards are open to applicants in six continents and 243 countries. All eligible nations are listed
here
. This year’s honorees include a
Danish IT camp
for girls, a
UK student team
producing a robot, to after-school programs that have students configuring cluster computers in the United States.
We believe it is our duty to support students who have the uncanny ability to create the technology they consume. Last
August
, our executive chairman Eric Schmidt lamented the sorry state of computer science education in UK schools. In a recent follow-up
speech
at London’s Science Museum, he explained, “Put simply, technology breakthroughs can’t happen without the scientists and engineers to make them. The challenge that society faces is to equip enough people, with the right skills and mindset and to get them to work on the most important problems.”
Show us what you can do to get students excited about STEM and computer science.
Submit your application
before September 30th, 2012. Winners will be announced by January 2013.
Posted by Niall Byrne, Pre-university Education Outreach Specialist
Stimulating “garage-style” innovation in Germany
Thursday, August 2, 2012
Germany has been home to many groundbreaking innovators --
Gottlieb Daimler
,
Werner von Siemens
, and
Heinz Nixdorf
to name but a few. But those great entrepreneurs launched their business long before the Internet. As the Economist recently
reported
, Germany and the rest of Europe are struggling to breed digital entrepreneurs. “Most sources of capital will shun them,” the magazine wrote. “Regulations will shackle them. And when they fail, as most are sure to do, they will not be allowed just to dust themselves off and start all over again.”
Because we believe the Internet must help overcome these obstacles, we are launching a new competition for digital entrepreneurs. Its called the “Gruender-Garage.” Unlike many startup contests which focus exclusively on tech,
Gruender Garage
is aimed at early-stage entrepreneurs in any field. Having a great idea you can 'release early and iterate' will count for more than a polished business model when it comes to judging. Winners will be named in October, and Google will match successfully fundraised competition ideas until a prize pot of EUR 150,000 is depleted.
Our partners in this unique project include the
Entrepreneurship Foundation
and
Indiegogo
.
Berlin-based Entrepreneurship Foundation will run the contest’s initial learning phase. provide the online training materials. Its founder Professor Guenter Faltin is the author of the best-selling book “Head beats Capital” (
Kopf schlägt Kapital
), that gives advice to early-stage founders. He and his team organize an annual entrepreneurship summit in Berlin, where the winners of the Garage-contest will be announced.
After the learning phase, the contest will focus on funding. Candidates will seek their own capital through Indiegogo, the world's largest platform and pioneer in crowdfunding. Gruender-Garage represents Indiegogo's first localised platform developed for the European market.
Recession and the euro crisis means Germany and the rest of Europe need to encourage new business creation. As many big European companies shed staff, startups - born in a garage or somewhere else - can pick up much of the slack.
Posted by Max Senges and Ralf Bremer, Google Berlin
Journey to Venice: finalists named for YouTube contest
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
Today, we are one step closer to finding the world’s next great storyteller. Ten finalists remain from more than 15,000 filmmakers who entered
Your Film Festival
. Each hopes to win $500,000 to produce new content with actor
Michael Fassbender
and director
Ridley Scott
.
During the past month, three million people watched, shared and voted for their favorite film on Your Film Festival. Among the ten finalists is Spain's David Victori Blaya for his short "The Guilt."
Two finalists come from the Middle East, Ramy El-Gabry's "The Time" and Lebanon's Niam's Itani's "Super.Full."
Find all the finalists below:
88:88
, Joey Ciccoline & Sean Wilson (USA)
Bat Eyes
, Damien Power (Australia)
Cine Rincao
, Fernando Grostein Andrade & Fernanda Fernandes (Brazil)
The Drought
, Kevin Slack (USA)
El General
, Diego Pino Zamora (Bolivia)
The Guilt
, David Victori Blaya (Spain)
North Atlantic
, Bernardo Nascimento (United Kingdom)
Super.Full
., Niam Itani (Lebanon)
Scruples
, Adrian Powers (Australia)
This Time
, Ramy EL-Gabry (Egypt)
The finalists will soon travel to Italy where to screen their short films at the historic
Venice Film Festival
. A jury led by director Scott and actor Fassbinder will pick the grand prize winner at a special ceremony on September 2. He or she will be able to pitch a new project idea to Scott’s production team. As part of their journey to Venice, Emirates has invited the filmmakers to stopover in Dubai for a series of events celebrating their achievement.
Join these filmmakers as they travel to Venice and stay tuned to the
Your Film Festival channel
where we’ll take you behind the scenes, tell you more about the finalists, provide special edition
movie posters
, and of course, unveil the winner.
Posted by Gareth Evans, YouTube, Europe, Middle East and Africa
Experience the London 2012 Games with Google
Thursday, July 26, 2012
The Olympic Games begin tomorrow in my home town, London, and more than half of the planet—some 4.8 billion people—will tune in to watch the London 2012 Games. To help you join in the excitement and glory of the Games, we’ve put together
google.co.uk/olympics
. Here’s a quick look at the updates, results and other content we’re bringing you from London 2012.
Discover and learn more
Want to know what your team’s next medal prospect is, or if you’ve missed Oscar Pistorius make history in the 400m? Here are a few ways we’re helping you get all the hottest news in a flash:
Search from your desktop, phone or tablet for [
london 2012
], a country team like [
Team GB
], or a sport like archery], and you’ll see up-to-the-minute detailed information such as the schedule, medal count, and Olympic records in your search results.
In the Hot Searches section of the site, we show you which topics, athletes or events are being searched for by fans around the world. The analysis is updated hourly, and you can click on any search to read associated news articles.
On Google Play, find a collection of useful apps, from results trackers
to games
, for download on your Android device.
Connect with your teams and favourite athletes
I’ll be cheering on both the stars and the underdogs, and closely following the updates from the Games:
Get the latest posts from
+The Olympics Games
and the competing teams on Google+. (I’ll be rooting for my home country, +Team GB
Show who you’re supporting by customising your cover photo on Google+ (or other social network)
Explore London like you’re there
Living in London, I’ve been lucky enough to see the transformation of the East End of the city over the past few years, but for those of you who live outside the city, you can still see the sights online..
Fly around the Olympic Park, explore the cycling and marathon courses or take a virtual tour of London landmarks in Google Earth
Compare aerial imagery of the London of 1948 (the last time London hosted the Games) to the London of today.
Watch the action as it happens—and see highlights from past Games
For the hundreds of millions of people unable to make it to London, YouTube is helping bring the games to you in a number of markets around the world.
For the first time, U.S. viewers can watch any event on
NBCOlympics.com
; 3,500 hours will be streamed in all. YouTube will power NBC’s online video experience on NBCOlympics.com. You can also access pre-game clips on the
NBC Olympics YouTube channel
.
If you’re in one of
64 markets across Africa and Asia
, including India, Indonesia, Kenya and Nigeria, the IOC will be streaming the Olympics live on YouTube
For those of you who can’t wait for the games to begin or want to relive great moments from some of the previous 29 Olympiads, explore an archive on
YouTube
—some of my favourites are
Derek Redmond’s inspirational finish of the 400m semi-final in Barcelona 1992
,
Cathy Freeman’s gold medal in the 400m at Sydney 2000
and
Afghanistan's first-ever Olympic medal at Beijing 2008
.
Find it all at
www.google.co.uk/olympics
.
Posted by Richard Keelty, Product Marketing Manager, Google U.K.
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