Europe Blog
Our views on the Internet and society
Helping make the history of computing relevant
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
A global group of museum curators, academics and others working to preserve computing’s past recently converged on
London’s Science Museum
to discuss ways to make the history of computing relevant to a wider audience.
Google helped fund and organise
the gathering
, in partnership with the Science Museum, the
Computer Conservation Society
and the
International Federation for Information Processing
(IFIP) working group on computer history.
Discussion during the two days was lively and wide-ranging. Topics included:
Shifting emphasis away from pure technology to focus on stories of inventors and people who used the machines—explaining what happened and why it mattered in a wider, more engaging context.
Collecting personal histories of computing in the form of oral and video accounts, to glean a deeper understanding of people’s motives and interests, and the challenges they faced.
Pros and cons of maintaining and demonstrating working models of early computers in a museum setting—what is practical and when is it worth the effort?
Helping educators to inspire students by including reference to computing’s pioneers in their classes, the same as happens in other (older) fields of science.
The full programme for the conference, plus links to papers and presentations, can be
viewed here
.
While Google’s focus is firmly on the future, we also care about preserving our industry’s past. Tales of ‘machine dinosaurs’ and the people who created and used them can spark a wider interest in computer science. Showcasing the contributions of women and other minorities in computing history can overturn stereotypes. Finally, we believe it is also important to pay tribute to computing’s forgotten pioneers, many of whom—especially in Europe—have not had the recognition they deserve.
It's for these reasons that over the past several years Google has been quietly looking for ways to help preserve and promote computing heritage. We have
partnered
with
museums
and
other
organisations
, and have sought to contribute directly through our series of
short films
and
blogposts
. Our sponsorship of this conference is a natural extension of our
partnership with London’s Science Museum
and we were delighted to take part.
Posted by Lynette Webb, Senior Manager, External Relations
Hacking the newsroom at the Global Editors Network summit
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
What's the least friendly US state to live in if you're gay? Can you calculate your social class based on your taste in music? Who are the best connected families in China? We supported two initiatives at the
Global Editors Network summit
held last week in Paris's magnificent Hotel de Ville aimed at helping journalists answer such questions by making more use of data.
GEN’s Data Journalism Awards
, now in their second year, are the only international awards in this fast-growing field. The winning entries showed the power that data analysis and visualization can have in telling stories and engaging readers. You can see all the winning projects
here
, including the one the public voted best - the
Art Market for Dummies
.
In the next room - connected to the main event by Google+ Hangouts - journalists, developers and designers competed in the final of GEN’s Editors' Lab Hackathon.
The Editors' Lab has been running Google-supported hack events in newsrooms around the world over the last nine months, bringing journalists and coders closer together to explore new ways of creating and presenting the news. Eleven teams - the winners from each of the national events - came to Paris to fight it out for the top prize. Their challenge: to rebuild their news organisation’s home page in the context of user engagement.
The winner was the team from the Netherlands’
De Volkskrant
. Judges commended for the way they were able to incorporate personalization, social and mobile trends into their homepage. Take a look at the finalists’ entries
here
- they offer a vision of how news websites may look in the future.
Posted by Peter Barron, Director, External Relations, Europe, Middle East and Africa
Transparency Report: Making the web a safer place
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Two of the biggest threats online are malicious software (known as malware) that can take control of your computer, and phishing scams that try to trick you into sharing passwords or other private information.
So in 2006 we started a
Safe Browsing program
to find and flag suspect websites. This means that when you are surfing the web, we can now warn you when a site is unsafe. We're currently flagging up to 10,000 sites a day—and because we share this technology with other browsers there are about 1 billion users we can help keep safe.
But we're always looking for new ways to protect users' security. So today we're launching a new section on our
Transparency Report
that will shed more light on the sources of malware and phishing attacks. You can now learn how many people see Safe Browsing warnings each week, where malicious sites are hosted around the world, how quickly websites become reinfected after their owners clean malware from their sites, and other tidbits we’ve surfaced.
Sharing this information also aligns well with our Transparency Report, which already gives information about government requests for user data, government requests to remove content, and current disruptions to our services.
To learn more, explore the new Safe Browsing information on
this page
. Webmasters and network administrators can find recommendations for dealing with malware infections, including resources like
Google Webmaster Tools
and
Safe Browsing Alerts for Network Administrators
.
Posted by Lucas Ballard, Software Engineer
A step forward for free expression
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
This morning, the Advocate General at the EU’s Central Court of Justice issued an
important opinion
supporting freedom of expression. In a
case
between Google and the Spanish Data Protection Agency, the Advocate General agreed with us that data protection authorities cannot force search engines to block search results linking to legal content. “Requesting search engine service providers to suppress legitimate and legal information that has entered the public domain would entail an interference with the freedom of expression,” the Advocate General said. “It would amount to censorship.”
This is just an opinion. The full court still has to make a final ruling. Even so, we’re encouraged because the case is key to free expression online. Advocate General Niilo Jääskinen argues publishers are responsible for the information they put online. Search engines have no control over the information posted by others. They just point to it.
Let us be clear: we think it’s important for people to be able to control the information that they post online themselves. If you post something online about yourself, you should have the right to remove it or take it somewhere else. If someone else posts illegal defamatory content about you, we’ll remove it from our index with a legal order.
In this case we’re simply challenging the notion that information that is demonstrably legal - and that continues to be publicly available on the web - can be censored. People shouldn't be prevented from learning that a politician was convicted of taking a bribe, or that a doctor was convicted of malpractice. The Internet has allowed unprecedented access to information. In order to achieve all the social, cultural and economic benefits of the Internet, it must be kept free and open.
Posted by William Echikson, Head of Free Expression, Europe, Middle East and Africa
From Sutton Hoo to the soccer pitch: culture with a click
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Museums, libraries and galleries are a tourist staple of the summer holiday season. Often they’re the first place we head to when visiting a new city or town in order to learn about the heritage of that country. Though only a lucky few have the chance to travel to see these treasures first-hand, the Internet is helping to bring access to culture even when you can’t visit in person.
At the
Google Cultural Institute
, we’ve been busy working with our
partners
to add a range of new online exhibitions to our existing collection. With more than 6 million photos, videos and documents, the diversity and range of subject matter is large—a reflection of the fact that culture means different things to different people. What the exhibitions have in common is that they tell stories; objects are one thing but it’s the people and places they link to that make them fascinating.
The British Museum
is the U.K.’s most popular visitor attraction and the 4th most visited museum in the world. It’s well known for housing one of the most spectacular archaeological discoveries ever made—the 1,400 year old Anglo-Saxon burial from Sutton Hoo, untouched until its discovery in 1939. Their online exhibition “
Sutton Hoo: Anglo-Saxon ship burial
” explores the discovery of the ship, featuring videos of the excavation and photos of the
iconic helmet
and a solid gold
belt buckle
. All this tells the story of how the burial and its contents changed our understanding of what Anglo-Saxon society was like.
From archaeology we take you to sport, which is integral to the culture of many nations, including Brazil. In the lead-up to Brazil's hosting of the 2014 World Cup, the
Museu do Futebol
has told the story of how the “beautiful game” came to Brazil. The photos, videos and posters in “
The Game and the People
” track the social impact of the sport and its transition from a past time for the wealthy (with their pleated pants and satin belts) to the modern game.
Science remains a perennially fascinating topic and the
Museo Galileo
in Italy has put together a series of three exhibitions looking at the link between art and science.
The Medici Collections
,
the Lorraine Collections
and the
Library Collections
examine the beginnings of science and technology 500 years ago and chart developments from the discovery of the sun dial to the Google Maps of today. As well as being informative, the exhibitions include beautiful objects such as the
Jovilabe
, which was used to calculate the periods of Jupiter’s moons.
So if broadening your cultural horizons through travel isn’t in the cards this summer, settle down in your armchair and browse through through some of the world’s heritage and history online. Keep up to date with new material on the
Cultural Institute Google+ page
.
Posted by James Davis, program manager, Google Cultural Institute
Answers people want
Monday, June 24, 2013
You expect Google to give you the very best search results. Just the right information, at just the right time, without hassle or cost. We started out by showing you ten blue links. Advances in computer science now let us provide richer and better answers, saving a lot of time and effort. If you search for the “height of the Eiffel Tower”, that’s probably what you want - right there on your screen or mobile phone, not several clicks away. So that’s what we give you. Ask Google for places to eat in New York and we aim to show pictures of restaurants, plus reviews, prices, hours, location, directions, and more. All right there, with no extra effort required.
We’ve been discussing these innovations with the European Commission as they have reviewed our search and advertising business. We know that scrutiny comes along with success, and we have worked hard to answer their questions thoroughly and thoughtfully. When the Commission outlined
four areas
of "preliminary" concern last summer, we submitted
proposals
to address each point in a constructive way. Our proposals are meaningful and comprehensive, providing additional choice and information while also leaving room for future innovation. As we’ve always said, we build Google for users, not websites. And we don’t want to hamper the very innovations that people like best about Google’s services. That’s why we focused on addressing the Commission’s specific concerns, and we think we did a pretty good job.
The Internet is the greatest level playing field ever. More and more, people are voting with their feet (or at least their cursors), getting information from apps, general and specialised search engines, social networks, and a multitude of websites. That free flow of information means that millions of websites (including ours) now compete directly for business, bringing you more information, lower prices, and more choice. We very much appreciate the Commission’s professionalism and integrity throughout this process, and look forward to reaching a sensible solution.
Posted by Kent Walker, Senior Vice President and General Counsel
The Internet and news: disruption or opportunity?
Friday, June 21, 2013
A great deal of debate has erupted about the Internet’s impact on news journalism - will it destroy quality journalism or will new business models emerge to save the industry? We long have argued that experimentation and innovation will help news thrive in the Internet era.
A
report
published this week by the
Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism
shows that consumers are increasingly engaging with news across a range of formats; and that the growth of tablet and mobile devices are having a positive effect on both news consumption and revenues. Google part funded the research.
The report surveyed consumption of news across nine countries. Points of interest include:
The growth of devices. The number of people using tablets to access news has doubled in the last 10 months in the countries covered in both last year’s and this year’s report. As people acquire more devices, they are spending more total time consuming news and accessing news more often throughout the day.
Consumer willingness to pay. In most countries, willingness to pay for news is increasing. In the U.S., smartphone and tablet users are more likely to pay than other online news users. Across countries, 25–34 year olds are the most willing to pay for online news.
The strength of trusted news brands. While behaviour is not uniform across countries, there is strong indication that in the online world, consumers are moving towards brands they trust.
The rise of social media. For younger people, the survey found that social media had become the most prominent method of discovering news content.
The results provide welcome insight into the way access to and consumption of news is changing in the digital era. Google supports the industry’s efforts to experiment and innovate. Through products like
Google Currents
,
Editors’ Picks
, and our range of
advertising tools
, we are working with publishers to increase traffic, engagement and monetization on their sites. We look forward to doing even more to enable the digital transition.
Posted by Simon Morrison, Public Policy and Government Relations Manager, London
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