Europe Blog
Our views on the Internet and society
Four women share stories from UK computing’s early days
Thursday, September 5, 2013
So far, with
rare
exception
, the focus of our
computing history series
has been on technology—the machines that broke new ground and the people behind them.
This time we’re approaching it from a different angle, with the release of short films highlighting the stories of four women. By luck or design, all found themselves working at the forefront of the UK’s computing industry in its earliest stages, and it was fascinating to hear their diverse experiences.
In three clips from past interviews,
Joyce Wheeler
and
Margaret Marrs
talk about their time using
EDSAC
at Cambridge, and
Mary Coombs
tells of programming
LEO
, the world’s first business computer. And in a fourth brand new film,
Dame Stephanie Shirley
shares her extraordinary tale of founding
Freelance Programmers
, one of the UK’s first software startups.
Launched in 1962, Freelance Programmers wasn’t the UK’s first independent software company—that honour goes to
Vaughan Programming Services
founded by another pioneering woman,
Dina St Johnston
, in 1959.
What made Dame Stephanie’s company stand out however was its unusual business model, dedicated to employing women programmers working part-time from home. In an era when women were routinely expected to leave the workforce upon marriage, this was a bold move. Against all odds, Dame Stephanie—or “Steve” as she signed her business letters—dramatically overcame the glass ceiling by sidestepping it, bringing many others in her wake.
Few entrepreneurs have been as successful as Dame Stephanie; even fewer have done as much to champion the cause of women in computing. We’re delighted to share her inspirational story.
Posted by Lynette Webb, Senior Manager, External Relations
Fighting against a censorship machine
Wednesday, September 4, 2013
The Internet is a remarkable platform for giving each of us a voice to reach a global audience. In some cases, unfortunately, people abuse this freedom by publishing unlawful content. Europe’s E-Commerce Directive provides clear rules for dealing with this content without sacrificing the Internet’s broader free expression mission. Importantly, the law says platforms should not be forced to become Internet police, monitoring all content to prevent certain material from ever getting online.
In a Paris courtroom today, former Formula One head Max Mosley's lawyers asked a judge to upset this balance by imposing an alarming new model of automated censorship. He wants web companies to build software filters, in an attempt to automatically detect and delete certain content. Specifically, Mr. Mosley demands that Google build a filter to screen Google’s index and proactively block pages containing images from our results – without anyone, much less a judge, ever seeing it or understanding the context in which the image appears.
We sympathize with Mr. Mosley, and with anyone who believes their rights have been violated. We offer well-established tools to help people to remove specific pages from our search results when those pages have clearly been determined to violate the law. In fact, we have removed hundreds of pages for Mr. Mosley, and stand ready to remove others he identifies.
But the law does not support Mr. Mosley’s demand for the construction of an unprecedented new Internet censorship tool. In repeated rulings, Europe’s highest court has noted that filters are blunt instruments that jeopardise lawful expression and undermine users’ fundamental right to access information. A set of words or images may break the law in one context, but be lawful in another. As an example, a filter might end up censoring news reports about Mr. Mosley’s own court case.
While constituting a dangerous new censorship tool, the filter would fail to solve Mr. Mosley’s problems. Pages removed from search results remain live on the Internet, accessible to users by other means – from following links on social networks to simply navigating to the address in a browser. As an example, one page Mr. Mosley sought to remove comes from a blog, which according to public sources, receives the vast majority of its visits from sources other than web search.
This not just a case about Google, but the entire Internet industry. If Mr. Mosley’s proposal prevails, any start-up could face the same daunting and expensive obligation to build new censorship tools -- despite the harm to users’ fundamental rights and the ineffectiveness of such measures.
We don’t hold paper makers or the people who build printing presses responsible if their customers use those things to break the law. The true responsibility for unlawful content lies with the people who produce it; how web companies work to reduce this content is set out in the E-Commerce Directive. We hope that the courts of France and Germany, where Mr. Mosley has also filed suit, will reject his request for a censorship machine.
Posted by Daphne Keller, Associate General Counsel
Reimagining Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream
Monday, September 2, 2013
For many, visiting Shakespeare’s hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon to watch the
Royal Shakespeare Company
perform is a pilgrimage. For many others, however, the trip is too far or too expensive. In an experiment with Google’s Creative Lab, the RSC extended their stage online, to let the world watch, and even participate in a new kind of production called Midsummer Night’s Dreaming. A video summing up the production just has been released.
This groundbreaking project saw a full RSC company, directed by Artistic Director Gregory Doran, perform Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream in real time over three days. A group of commissioned artists created new characters inspired by the activity in the play. The new sub-plots were shared on Google+, allowing audiences to interact and see the story unfold through new eyes on this new online stage.
As a legacy of the experiment, the RSC has created an interactive timeline to accompany an audio recording of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Online audiences can hear the play while seeing the secondary content created by the creative team and audiences. Take a look at the
timeline
at and follow the RSC on
Google+
. We hope you will enjoy this attempt to bring Shakespeare to new audiences.
Posted by Tom Uglow, Project Director and Creative Director of Google’s Creative Lab
Highlighting MOOCs—a new way to learn
Saturday, August 24, 2013
From the abacus to the chalkboard, the biro to the desktop PC, new technology has always helped people in their quest for knowledge. So it’s no wonder that widespread use of smartphones, social networks, and faster video streaming are fuelling dramatic changes in educational opportunities.
Take MOOCs for example
—
Massively Open Online Courses, which enable an unlimited number of students to take courses spanning almost any topic, from computer science to music, taught by some of the world’s leading institutions. Over the last few months there’s been real growth in the use of MOOCs, with many based on
Course Builder
, an open source tool created by Google staff.
Some MOOCs have mass appeal, like those from the
University of Alicante in Spain
and the
Humboldt Institute in Germany
who both offer MOOCs teaching the practical aspects of starting up a business. The University of Alicante is now on its second version and has already welcomed 30,000+ attendees.
Other MOOCs are more niche, like the one coming up soon on cellular metrics offered by the
Institute Mines-Telecom
, which will also make use of simulated environments to aid learning.
MOOCs can also be creative or unique. If you’ve ever wanted to figure out just how and why footballers get paid as much as they do, then sign up for the
Valoraction de Futbolistas MOOC
offered by University of Valencia. In this programme, you’ll learn all you ever wanted about how to evaluate a footballer’s value. Watching a football match might never be the same again!
Particularly in Europe, where youth unemployment remains high, MOOCs offer a new way to boost skills and employability.
Google is committed to helping young people create businesses and find jobs
, so we’re delighted to see MOOCs strike such a chord.
Posted by Michel Benard, University Relations Manager, Google
Google Map Maker expands in Europe
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
Google Map Maker
is an editing tool that enables you, and people around the world, to contribute knowledge and expertise directly to Google Maps. By sharing information about the places you know best, you can ensure that the map accurately reflects the world around you.
Today, we’re launching Google Map Maker in Bulgaria, Italy, San Marino and the Vatican. Share the delights of Bulgaria’s Black Sea Coast by adding all of your favorite destinations in the famed resort city of Golden Sands. Lend a hand by improving driving directions through the Italian Riviera, or trace the best hiking trails across San Marino’s Apennine Mountains. Your updates will be reviewed, and once approved, will appear on
Google Maps
,
Google Earth
, and
Google Maps for Mobile
for people all over the world to see.
before after
A map view of Tuscany, Italy before and after Map Maker users added details to the map
such as local sport fields and parks
We look forward to seeing the edits you contribute to Google Maps, as we work together to create a comprehensive, accurate and useful map of the world. To get started, join other mappers on the Google Map Maker
community forum
, explore the
Help Center
for tips and tricks, or watch mapping in real-time with
Map Maker Pulse
.
Posted by Nilesh Tathawadekar, Software Engineer, Google Maps
Savoring summer holidays with a dose of tech
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
As Europe heads into high holiday season, we have been thinking about how to take the stress out of the break. Vacations are the one time of year when we’re supposed to kick back and relax, yet juggling the vacation itinerary and travel arrangements often takes away most of the pleasure.
Here are some
suggestions
for using technology to make the most from your time off:
Download Google Now
-- Google’s ‘personal assistant’ software aims to provide you with just the right information at just the right time. When traveling abroad,
Google Now
will show you the time back home, provide one-touch access to translation between more than 60 languages, and a handy currency converter. If you've got an Android phone, such as a Nexus 4, HTC One or Samsung Galaxy S3, you can activate Google Now by swiping up from the home screen. If you have an iOS device, download the
Google Search App
and switch on Google Now.
Enjoy a digital guidebook
: Unlike printed books, digital guidebooks and dedicated travel apps can be updated on a daily basis to reflect the latest hot hangout or place to see and be seen. And, thanks to the latest generation of smartphones and tablets, it’s easier than ever to arm yourself with a ton of useful digital travel apps and guides that you can dip into when abroad. Feel free to buy books from Amazon’s Kindle store and read them on your Android device or take a look
here
at the travel section on Google Play.
Bring a tablet
: smartphones and tablets are modern day Swiss army knives for the savvy traveller -- providing everything from destination guides to local maps, from translations and currency conversions at the touch of a button to all the entertainment you could ever need for a long haul flight. Google’s Nexus 7 tablet is small enough to slip in a handbag. Load it up with all your favourite music, download a selection of holiday reading from the Google Play store, and rent a couple of movies for the journey.
Capture your road trip journey
: Make your home videos pop with the YouTube Capture App. Shoot, enhance, and share. Who knows? You may discover a hidden talent.
Try out voice search
: Want to know how tall the Eiffel Tower is, or when the Coliseum was built? No need to type in a query. Just hit the microphone icon on the Google search bar, speak your query into the phone, and Google will read back the answer (324 meters and 70 AD, in case you’re wondering). You can ask Google to find the nearest petrol station, tell you how far you are from a popular tourist attraction, find good nearby restaurants or have phrase translated and read aloud.
Indoor Maps
: Google Maps are a great resource for travelers. We now even have indoor maps for museums, airports and other places of interest.
What next for the ‘digital tourist’? Virtual wallets would eliminate the need to grapple with tricky foreign currency when holidaying abroad. Imagine walking around the Louvre in Paris your own personal tour guide providing snippets of additional information as you stop beside a photo, or allowing you to ‘manipulate’ a virtual rendering of a painting to really see the brushstrokes up close.
The possibilities look endless. Surely, we are just at the beginning of a true digital travel revolution.
Posted by Gareth Evans, Communications and Public Affairs Manager, London
Searching in Summer
Friday, August 9, 2013
For much of Europe, August is synonymous with holidays and we’ve been trolling through
Google Trends’s new Hot Searches
tool to see what is amusing, fascinating or titillating Europeans during the summer.
The clear winner - football.
Even before the Premier League kicked off, UK searchers went looking for game scores as lower Championship League swung back into action. Liverpool's Luis Suarez and Manchester United Wayne Rooney’s
transfer sagas
scored high and
Charlotte Green’s appointment
as the first woman announcer of the BBC’s Saturday Football topped the ranking of the August 7 Hot Searches.
In Germany, results of the first round of the DFB Cup, particularly Bayern Munich’s crushing 5-0 victory, led the August 6 results. Russians searched for the fortunes of the
Anzhi team’s
financial issues and St. Petersburg’s Zenit’s
purchase
of two players, full-back "Rubin" and Argentinian Cristian Ansaldi.
Admittedly, some serious issues received serious attention. When Bavarian judges ordered the immediate release of 57-year old
Gustl Mollath
, from an institution for the criminally insane, the legal scandal surrounding the case soared to the top of Germany’s searches.
Severe storms
affecting German train traffic received wide attention, as did Amazon founder
Jeff Bezos’s purchase
of the Washington Post. Russians searched for news about government’s decision to accept American leaker
Edward Snowden’s asylum request
and the
mass protest
against a new Internet anti-piracy law.
Take a look yourself at Google Trends and see for yourself what people, places and issues are making waves.
Posted by William Echikson, External Relations, Europe, Middle East and Africa
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