Europe Blog
Our views on the Internet and society
The real Mountain View: on the piste with Street View
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
As the ski season approaches and you’re busy digging out your thermal underwear and snow boots, we hope to make your holiday preparations a little more enjoyable by adding some of the world’s favourite ski runs and resorts to Google Maps. Whether you’re looking to discover a piste you’ve never tried before, or just want to take in some of the breathtaking scenery to get in the mood for your trip, we hope you have fun exploring locations across Europe (including runs in Switzerland, Austria, Norway, Sweden, Italy and Spain), Canada (including runs at Blue Mountain, Lake Louise and Fernie) and the US (including runs in Utah and Michigan).
For example, take a look at
Sölden
, a popular ski resort in the Ötztal valley of Tyrol, Austria. It’s not just tourists who flock there every year, but fans of professional skiing - Sölden regularly hosts the giant slalom competition as part of the Alpine World Cup in late October.
View Larger Map
Or virtually visit one of the iconic resorts in Switzerland like St. Moritz or Zermatt.
View Larger Map
Whenever we launch new imagery, our users start to develop creative and inspiring uses for the images. For example,
Skiline.cc
has integrated our snowy pictures into their web app which lets skiers virtually
recap their day
on the slopes.
Street View travels further north
Continuing the wintery theme, we’re introducing our first ever imagery in Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago that lies about 400 miles north of mainland Europe - and the most northerly territory we’ve ever had on Street View. Svalbard was allegedly first discovered by Viking explorers in the 12th century, and now you can discover the beautiful tundras and harsh landscapes of the sparsely populated islands for yourself.
Svalbard is important today, hosting the
Svalbard Satellite station
, used by organisations like NASA and the ESA and the
Global Seed Vault
, a facility that provides spare samples of seeds found in gene banks all over the world.
View Larger Map
View Larger Map
The ice roads
Finally, we’re also delighted to introduce some brand new imagery of the ice roads in Estonia, fashioned from the frozen waters of the Baltic Sea. Although these roads are only open when the weather permits and the ice is thick enough, we were lucky enough to capture the 10km ice road from Rohuküla to Sviby and the 3km stretch from Haapsalu to Noarootsi, among others.
View Larger Map
View Larger Map
Posted by Ulf Spitzer, Street View Program Manager
Defending the open Web in Germany
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
For years now, you’ve been able to type a few words into your computer and get answers from an ever-growing sea of websites. Soon, however, this could change. The German Parliament this week begins debating a proposal for a new law which threatens to change the web as we’ve known for the last two decades - and make finding online information much more difficult in future.
That’s why today we’re launching an information campaign,
Dein Netz
, to give the facts about the proposed law and to invite you to contribute to the debate, in person and online.
German news publishers are seeking to extend dramatically the reach of copyright law. Today it prevents copying of articles, but the proposals would place restrictions on even a ‘snippet’ of an article, such as is common found in search engine results. Snippets help people understand, compare and evaluate which websites to visit. If enacted, the law would force search engines, news aggregators and many other online services that help people locate information online to contract with publishers in order to show a snippet of what is available.
That would be complete reversal of the legal situation today where the display of snippets is permitted. The European Journalism Centre recently compared this to asking “your
local newsstand
... to pay royalties for exhibiting the papers and magazines” it has on display. From then on, the simple act of linking or displaying snippets would become fraught with legal risk.
It would also be a reversal of the practices we see on the web today. When Google’s web crawler requests copies of pages from a publisher’s website, it is clear from where the request comes, and it is for the publisher to decide whether their server responds. In fact, virtually all publishers welcome crawlers and many voluntarily provide specific additional information to help crawlers find pages (in the form of a
sitemap
). A further set of highly refined controls is also available to publishers through the robots exclusion protocol that we have
blogged
in the past.
The end result is that, as one of many ways people find news content, Google News and Google search sends around four billion clicks through to publishers each month. That’s significant for us because there is no advertising on
Google News
in Europe. But Google is frequently one of the advertising service providers for the major news publishers (even of our most vocal critics in this debate), so our opportunity to make money is when users click on a link and go to the site of of one of our partners in the news industry. Looked at globally and across all web publishing businesses, Google shared $7 billion of advertising revenue last year.
We want to build win-win ways to partner with publishers. What we want to avoid is a system that puts the brakes on the open Internet, limits choice for people looking for information, and dramatically raises the cost of online innovation.
Please take a few minutes to look through our campaign site. Please get involved. You only have a limited amount of time to defend your Internet!
Posted by Simon Hampton, Director, Public Policy, Europe
Partnering with GEN and Le Nouvel Observateur
Monday, November 26, 2012
Publishers are making the transition to the digital age and we’re working in France to make this happen to benefit readers. On November 28 and 29th, we’re supporting a workshop titled
"Journalistic Tools for News Photos"
with key French newspapers.
Le Nouvel Observateur
is hosting. The
Global Editors Network
, a non-profit media association that promotes innovation in journalism, is producing the content.
Representatives from Le Nouvel Observateur,
Libération
,
Le Parisien
/ASK Media,
France 24
,
Play Bac/Mon Quotidien
,
OWNI
and
Citizenside
, are entering teams. During the workshop, the teams will be challenged to incorporate digital photography, animated GIF, slideshows, pictures, 3D, and augmented reality into their news coverage. Three masterclasses will be offered. Christian Witt, Strategic Partner Development Manager, Google TV, will speak about the opportunities around connected TVs and Google TV.
On the evening of November 29, the teams will present their final projects. Google’s consultant for editorial innovation
Daniel Sieberg
, Emmy-nominated and award-winning science and technology TV correspondent and author, will give a keynote speech about the future of journalism. A jury of experts will select the best project, and the team will be invited to the Editors' Lab final stage – the International News Hackathon during the 2013
GEN News Summit
in June 2013 at the Paris City Hall. Last year’s event attracted several hundred entires from around the world.
This workshop represents only the latest initiative to partner with the French press. Over the past year, we have worked with
Le Monde to bring Tunisian journalists
into their newsroom. We worked with
Liberation on their Forum de Lyon
. And we have sponsored digital
news awards
for students studying at Institut de Science Politique’s Journalism School.
For more information regarding the Editors’ Lab - Paris, contact GEN Deputy Director
Antoine Laurent
or Le Nouvel Observateur Online Editor
Aurelien Viers
.
Posted by Anne-Gabrielle Dauba-Pantanacce, Head of Communications, France
Small businesses: Europe's economic engine
Friday, November 23, 2012
If Europe is to power its way to economic recovery, small and medium enterprises, which
create two out of three private sector jobs
, are likely to provide the necessary acceleration.
In recent months, we’ve been working to highlight how these same SMEs are taking advantage of the Internet to attract new customers, grow market share and go global. The
euronews Business Awards
competition asked SMEs to explain how they “shine online”, and attracted video entries from seven countries.
The winners - chosen by a jury and public vote - will receive their prizes at a reception at Google’s Brussels office on Thursday 29th November between 18:00 and 20:00.
If you’d like to join us in raising a glass to their success, please register here
.
Centercourt
, from Germany, started in a bedroom and is now one of the biggest online tennis shops.
MyDestination
, started in the UK, now provides local insider knowledge about hundreds of destinations around the world. And
Orientalmente
, a Spanish language school specialised in teaching Chinese, has just started out - and is growing fast online.
In Cyprus recently, our Greek country manager Stefanos Loukakos spoke at the European Commission’s first
SME Assembly
. He highlighted how the Internet is helping small Greek businesses in straightened times. As a company that started only 14 years ago in a garage, we know how small companies can become big ones. “The Internet enables the SMEs of today to become the multinationals of tomorrow,” Loukakos argued in his speech. The Commission highlighted the comment as one of its
top quotes of the day
.
Posted by Angela Steen, Senior Policy Analyst, Google Brussels
Join the Arabic Web Days movement
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
Cross-posted with the
Official Google Blog
Arabic content on the web represents just 3 percent of the total digital content online—yet Arabic speakers make up more than 5 percent of the global population. To help build a vibrant Arabic web, we’ve created Arabic Web Days, an initiative in the Middle East and North Africa focused on boosting the amount of Arabic content online. (
Note
: the video below is in Arabic only.)
For the next 30 days, we’re holding a series of online and offline events along with our partners Vinelab, Wamda, Yamli and Taghreedat, as well as Twitter, Wikipedia, TED, Soundcloud, and regional organizations Al Arabiya, TwoFour54 and Qatar Foundation’s Qatari Computing Research Institute. Here’s how you can get involved:
Participate in a series of
Hangouts on Google+
to get tips and tricks from industry experts on contributing Arabic content to the web—through online journalism, YouTube videos, Wikipedia editing, translation of English content, SEO and more
Join the
YouTube Tweet Up
in Doha, Qatar on December 15 to learn how to create viral Arabic videos and make money through YouTube
Participate in the region's
first Arabic infographics competition
with Tajseed
Volunteer to be part of a
TED initiative to create quality Arabic digital content
via Arabic subtitling during a kick-off event with TED, twofour54 and Taghreedat in Abu Dhabi on December 4
Sign up for
developer training at g|days
in Jordan on December 5-6 and Egypt on December 9-10 to learn about Arabic localization, webmaster tools, SEO and YouTube for Business
Learn about the Egyptian Ministry of Education’s
educational channels on YouTube
which include different curricula from first to twelfth grade, as well as e-Lessons via video and Google+ Hangouts.
Celebrate 12/12/12 as
National Arabic Web Day
Connect
with us: add the Arabic Web Days
badge
to your site, upload a video to
youtube.com/arabicwebdays
, visit our website:
www.arabicwebdays.com
and follow us on
Google+
and
Twitter
(in Arabic)
To get more details and to sign up for any of the above events, visit Arabic Web Days on
Google+
or see the
Arabia Blog
. Until then, let’s go Arabic!
Posted by Maha Abouelenein, Head of Communications, Middle East and North Africa
Rebuilding an illustrious ancestor to modern computing
Friday, November 16, 2012
As any traveller knows, photos are no match for the vividness of a physical encounter. The same is true for historians of computing. It’s only once you’ve seen something in reality -- be it the great
computing Colossus
, or the
Great Pyramid
-- that you fully appreciate the mastery of its creators. Unfortunately, few relics remain from the early days of computing, which is why we are so happy to support those striving to bring them back to operational life.
One such worthy project is the EDSAC rebuild, currently being championed by the
Computer Conservation Society
. Earlier this year Google provided funding to support the reconstruction work. Since then much progress has been made, which you can learn about on the
project’s new website
.
EDSAC holds an important place in computing history. While not the world’s first stored program computer (beaten by the prototype
Manchester Baby
), EDSAC heralded a cultural shift in computing.
From the moment it became operational
in May 1949, EDSAC was put to work by Cambridge University researchers, helping solve problems in many scientific fields -- far beyond the military and code-breaking tasks to which computing had previously been dedicated.
EDSAC was the world’s first computer to
use subroutines
(originally charmingly called “Wheeler jumps” after their creator), which remain a key part of modern programming. EDSAC also served as the prototype for
LEO, the world’s first business computer
, and was the foundation for the
world’s first computer science diploma course
at Cambridge University.
EDSAC is
remembered fondly
by those who worked with it. We look forward to its reincarnation providing fresh insight into a remarkable period of British computing history.
Posted by Lynette Webb, Senior Manager, External Relations
Explore the stellar neighborhood with your browser
Friday, November 16, 2012
Visualising the exact location of every star in the galaxy is a problem of, well, galactic proportions. With over 200 billion stars, capturing every detail of the Milky Way currently defies scientists and laptops alike. However, using imagery and data from publicly available datasets, including from NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA), we were recently able to take one small step in that direction by plotting the location of the stars closest to our sun.
The result is a new Chrome Experiment called
100,000 Stars
that visualises the stellar neighborhood. Using your mouse or trackpad, you can zoom in and out to explore our galaxy. Zooming in reveals the names of the most prominent stars close to our sun – click each name to learn more about it and see a digital rendition.
Zooming in further shows the relative location of the Oort cloud, the planetary orbits, and finally the Sun. Zooming out gives you some context for where we are in the Milky Way, although please keep in mind this view is an artist’s rendition. Click the tour button in the upper left for a quick trip to some of the coolest perspectives in the galaxy.
The experiment makes use of Google Chrome’s support for
WebGL
,
CSS3D
, and
Web Audio
. Music was generously provided by
Sam Hulick
, who video game fans may recognize as a composer for the popular space adventure series, Mass Effect.
As you explore this experiment, we hope you share our wonder for how large the galaxy really is. It’s incredible to think that this mist of 100,000 measurable stars is a tiny fraction of the sextillions of stars in the broader universe.
Posted by Aaron Koblin, Creative Lab
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