Europe Blog
Our views on the Internet and society
The Power of Beautiful Data
Thursday, November 15, 2012
Some 90% of the data in the world today has been created in just the last two years, according to the web site
Visualizing.org.
We are producing more data than ever before — 2.5 quintillion bytes every day — and we're generating entirely new types of data from sources like social media, sensor networks, electronic trading, and smart grids.
This past weekend, more than 1000 computer science and design students, from Bangalore to Beirut, and Sydney to Santiago, attempted to make sense of some of this vast sea of data. The
Visualizing Global Marathon
encouraged students to display data in useful and beautiful ways. In addition to working together via an online dashboard, the students received inspiring sessions from data experts via
Google hangouts
.
Contestants are competing in three categories: building
early warning disease tools
,
improving transportation networks
, and offering insights into the
US election
from social media.
For a taste of the entries, take a look below. The first graph visualises diseases in countries located around the Equator.
This graph breaks down the spread of disease by country.
Winners will be announced on December 5. Some $15,000 worth of prizes will be distributed.
Posted by Laura Scott, EMEA External Relations
Indoor Google Maps launches in Belgium
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
We’ve all been there: your online map has delivered you safely to your destination but once you enter the building itself, you get lost in an unfamiliar world. Whether you’re trying to find an exhibit within the tangled passages of a museum, looking for your gate at the airport, or seeking a place to grab a coffee before your train leaves the station, you often have to rely on a freestanding map with a ‘You Are Here’ sign, or a friendly employee to guide you.
But at Google we’re trying to fix this. Starting today, Google Maps users in Belgium can enjoy a fast and convenient way to navigate indoors in places such as retail stores, museums, galleries and train stations as we introduce accurate floor plans of many locations.
We’ve initially got indoor maps for over 60 locations such as
BOZAR
,
The Centre for Fine Arts
, the
National Basilica of the Sacred Heart
and the Universities of
Louvain-la-Neuve
,
Ghent
and
Brussels
and also included are a number of churches and university campuses (see here for a selected
list
).
For Android users who have updated to the latest version of Google Maps, detailed floor plans will automatically appear when you’re viewing the map and zoomed in on a building where indoor maps are available. In many locations the familiar blue dot indicates your location within several meters, and when you move up or down a level in a building with multiple floors, the interface will automatically update to display which floor you’re on.
This launch is part of our focus on our European users - our indoor maps are available in many locations across the
UK,
France,
Switzerland,
Denmark
and
Sweden
and we’re continuing to expand our coverage quickly.
Posted by Cedric Dupont, Product Manager, Google Maps
Transparency Report: government requests on the rise
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Cross-posted with the
Official Google Blog
We think it’s important to shine a light on how government actions could affect our users. When we first launched the
Transparency Report
in early 2010, there wasn’t much data out there about how governments sometimes hamper the free flow of information on the web. So we took our first step toward greater transparency by disclosing the number of government requests we received. At the time, we weren’t sure how things would look beyond that first snapshot, so we pledged to release numbers twice a year. Today we’re updating the Transparency Report with data about government requests from January to June 2012.
This is the sixth time we’ve released this data, and one trend has become clear: Government surveillance is on the rise. As you can see from the graph below, government demands for user data have increased steadily since we first launched the Transparency Report. In the first half of 2012, there were 20,938 inquiries from government entities around the world. Those requests were for information about 34,614 accounts.
The number of government requests to remove content from our services was largely flat from 2009 to 2011. But it’s spiked in this reporting period. In the first half of 2012, there were 1,791 requests from government officials around the world to remove 17,746 pieces of content.
You can see the country-by-country trends for requests to hand over
user data
and to
remove content
from our services in the Transparency Report itself, but in aggregate around the world, the numbers continue to go up.
As always, we continue to improve the Transparency Report with each data release. Like before, we’re including
annotations
for this time period with interesting facts. We’re also
showing new bar graphs
with data in addition to tables to better display content removal trends over time. We’ve now translated the entire Transparency Report into 40 languages, and we’ve expanded our FAQ—including one that explains how we sometimes
receive falsified court orders
asking us to remove content. We do our best to verify the legitimacy of the documents we receive, and if we determine that any are fake, we don’t comply.
The information we disclose is only an isolated sliver showing how governments interact with the Internet, since for the most part we don’t know what requests are made of other technology or telecommunications companies. But we’re heartened that in the past year, more companies like
Dropbox
,
LinkedIn
,
Sonic.net
and
Twitter
have begun to share their statistics too. Our hope is that over time, more data will bolster public debate about how we can best keep the Internet free and open.
Posted by Dorothy Chou, Senior Policy Analyst
Google Play music arrives in Europe
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Music lovers rejoice! There’s now an even easier way to manage and listen to your music. Today
music on Google Play
is live in the UK, Germany, France, Spain and Italy.
Google Play lets you store 20,000 songs from your existing music collection in a personal library in the cloud, so you can access it from all your devices. In addition, our new matching feature streamlines the process of uploading your music, so it will be added to your library even more quickly. Both of these we offer free of charge.
You can also buy new music from your favourite artists and build out your collection. We’ll automatically sync your entire music library—both purchases and uploads— so you can listen across all your devices. No need to worry about cables, file transfers or running out of storage space. Even listen when you’re offline - simply “pin” the playlists and albums you want and they’ll be available on your Android device. And for any song you’ve purchased on Google Play, you can share a free full listen with your friends on Google+.
We’ve partnered with all the major record labels and thousands of indie labels to sell their music in Google Play. And if you’re a talented, unsigned or independent musician looking for your big break, check out the
Google Play artist hub
, a great way to sell your music directly to fans.
Check out Google Play today. It will be music to your ears.
Posted by Paul Joyce, product manager for Google Play
Inspiring the next generation of Spanish innovators
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
When highlighting Spain's heritage, it is common to focus on the great artists like Picasso, Dali, and Gaudi. Less often heralded are their
scientific counterparts
, the talented Spanish inventors and researchers who didn't just dream of the future, they helped create it. One such oft-overlooked contributor is
Leonardo Torres Quevedo
. His inventions range from cable cars to the world’s first chess playing computer.
In this, the hundredth anniversary year of his chess machine, Google was delighted to partner with the
Technical University of Madrid
to help resurrect Torres Quevedo’s memory. Together, we celebrated the opening of an exhibition in the main hall of the Telecommunication Engineering department featuring a number of his machines, as well as a
formal lecture programme
exploring his influence across many engineering fields.
It was a great day. Dr Alberto Rodriguez Raposa, the Director General of Telecommunications and IT from the Ministry of Industry opened the exhibitions. Speakers in the seminar included senior representatives from different engineering departments across the university, as well as Dr Francisco González de Posada, Professor of Applied Physics at the University of Madrid and a renowned expert in Torres-Quevedo’s achievements.
In parallel, a chess tournament for 14-17 year olds from regional chess clubs was staged in the hall alongside the exhibition, with the winner playing a simulation of the original chess machine.
It’s important to remember scientific pioneers like Leonardo Torres Quevedo, not only to pay rightful tribute to their achievements, but to inspire others to follow in their footsteps.
This is an appropriate time for reflection. Innovation when combined with an entrepreneurial streak, as demonstrated by Torres Quevedo, can be a powerful catalyst for economic growth, and a vital determinant of a country’s competitiveness on the world stage. In the current context, through these type of partnerships, we seek to inspire the next generation of Torres Quevedo’s to help get countries back on the fast lane to the future.
Posted by Barbara Navarro, Director of Public Policy and Corporate Affairs for Spain, Italy, Portugal and Greece
Encouraging the Next Generation of Female Engineers
Monday, November 12, 2012
A 3D printing lab. A digital music master class. A class explaining how to build robots. The third annual
Greenlight@Brussels Day
brought 250 teenage girls from around Belgium for a day of workshops designed to encourage them to become engineers. We helped finance the event and a Google software engineer Emily Soldal came from Sweden to provide mentoring.
Too few women study science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Less than one fifth of engineers in the European Union are women, according to
Engineering UK
. This represents a giant waste of talent, particularly in this period of high youth unemployment. The EU estimates in its
Forsight Report
that there will be 700,000 unfilled tech jobs by 2015.
We support a number of
educational initiatives
to bring more women into computer science.
Greenlight for Girls
is an international non-profit organization. At its annual Brussels event, experts, volunteers and role models from all over Europe contributed to the day’s learnings. European Commission Vice President Neelie Kroes contributed a video message, encouraging the young women “to remember they can be anything they want to be”.
Take a look and consider a career in computer science. Events like Greenlight@Brussels showcase how computer science can be combined with other fields - and provide students a competitive advantage in a tight job market.
Posted by Angela Steen, Senior Policy Analyst, Google
NextUp Europe: meet the next generation of YouTube stars
Thursday, November 8, 2012
Over the last couple of months some of Europe’s most exciting creative talents have sent us their entries for
NextUp Europe
, a video contest that aims to unearth the YouTube stars of tomorrow across the UK, France, Netherlands, Germany, Russia, Poland, Italy and Spain.
NextUp is a development program designed exclusively for YouTube partners with bags of potential. Many talented creators are already using the platform to reach a worldwide audience and make money from their videos by allowing YouTube to run ads alongside them and sharing the revenue. Thousands of partner channels are now making
six-figure sums
annually.
We’d love to see even more partners using the site as a launchpad to career success, so we’re supporting them through training, education and promotions via NextUp. By helping them invest in new equipment and training, our NextUp winners are going to develop whole new genres and online experiences for audiences around the world -
ironing skydiving
anyone?
We’ve been busy watching all the entry videos and we’ve selected a list of
25 winners
from across the continent. Winners included UK creator RageNineteen and Spain’s Iker Plan, and you can see their entries below.
Things You Should Know, by RageNineteen
Next Up 2012, by Iker Plan
Each winning creator will receive an all-expenses-paid to trip to London, where they’ll attend a week of hands-on training and mentorship in our brand new creator space. In addition, winners will get a €4,000 video equipment package and €3,000 in cash to help boost the quality of their content.
We’re delighted that we received so many high-quality entries that highlight the passion and talent of the YouTube community. Check out some of the above entries and click ‘Subscribe’ to get regular updates from their channels.
Posted by Kinzie Kramer, YouTube Partner Marketing
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