Europe Blog
Our views on the Internet and society
Young and old unite for the Internet in Italy
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
Students gr0w up with the Internet, but have difficulty entering the job market. Youth unemployment now reaches 40 percent in Italy. Retired entrepreneurs were successful in the business world, but often have little experience with the Net. Only 16 percent of Italian pensioners are online, benefiting from search, chats, blogs, and social media.
For two innovative Italian associations, the
Fondazione Mondo Digitale
, and
CNA Pensionati
, these alarming figures offer an opportunity to create a mutually beneficial exchange. At the pension group’s annual conference in Rome, and with our support, 300 students from nine schools from throughout Italy heard real life testimony on how to create and manage a company. Through next April, many students will visits to these companies and benefit from a specific training in our
“Clusters on the Web”
initiative.
In exchange for the business knowledge, the students will run workshops for retirees on how to use the Internet in their everyday life, learning how to access and use public administration services online or how to stay in touch with their grandchildren studying abroad.
At the launch event, Luciano, a retired tailor (pictured above), met up with Sara, a highschool student in Rome. Luciano wants to learn how the Internet can help him keep a record of his measurements and rationalise the administration of his business, and Sara wants to help him create an Internet site to promote his hand-made suits online. The Internet can drive ahead Italy’s economy - and engage all ages.
Posted by Laura Bononcini, Public Policy Manager, Rome
Enhancing Greek democracy
Monday, October 14, 2013
The timing for the debate was ideal: Greece is fighting against an unprecedented political - as much as economic - crisis. Earlier this month, police arrested several leaders of a far-right, xenophobic, neo-fascist party Golden Dawn, charging it with a variety of serious criminal offenses including murder. At the beginning of next year, the country takes over the six month European Union presidency.
In response, we became a supporter and prime mover behind the first
“Digital Democracy” conference
, held in the original 19th-century
Old Parliament
building in Athens. Participants included the Deputy Prime Minister, the Foreign Minister, the Deputy Foreign Minister, the e-Government Minister and the Minister responsible for public television. The conference explored the ways that digital technologies and the Internet enhance democracy by changing the nature of political communication.
Speakers concluded that a democratic deficit exists in Europe which the Internet can help fill. Politicians need to leverage the web for a two-way dialogue, listening as much as talking to citizens. We need to close the digital literacy gap which leaves certain parts of the population - the less digitally savvy - out of democratic processes. Most important, the Government needs to use Internet tools to increase transparency via the use of open data and of online public consultations.
Other countries face similar challenges. No silver bullet exists. It will take sweat and perseverance for the Greece and the rest of Europe to solidify their democracies.
Posted by Dionisis Kolokotsas, Policy Manager, Athens
The cultural catwalk: 5,000+ new works in the Cultural Institute
Tuesday, October 8, 2013
The past few weeks, Fashion Week in New York, London, Paris and Milan have given us a feast for the eyes with parades of creativity, color and design. At the
Cultural
Institute
, we're putting on a fashion show of a different kind with new content from 36 partners. Many of these cultural treasures, from China, Hungary, Mexico and 16 other countries, have a strong link to fashion and design through the ages.
Fabrics are the starting point of many designs. You can see this in the wonderful costumes added by the Textile Museum of Canada to the
Google Art
Project
. Highlights include a
kimono
from Japan, a
cape
from Polynesia and an 1800s
jacket
with beautiful detail from Greece. The creation of these fabrics is highly skilled work; in an online
exhibition
, The Craft Revival Trust gives us an insight into the 5,000-year-old Indian textile tradition which creates the prints, motifs and colors that are still used today, while the
The Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg
exhibits quilts of delicate beauty.
If regalia and royal jewels are more your thing, then then be sure to see new exhibits from
La Venaria Reale
in Italy and the
Palace of Versailles
in France. Zoom in at brushstroke level to the
gigapixel
painting of Victor Amadeus II of Sardinia to appreciate the jewellery, metallics, fabrics and lace of the King’s royal mantle, scepter and crown. And accessories were as important in the 17th century as they are today: an
online exhibition
entitled “Louis XIV: the construction of a political image” curated by experts in Versailles features an amazing
wax portrait
moulded from the monarch’s face, complete with a real wig.
The fashion world has long taken inspiration from tribal traditions. In a new photographic archive named "
African ceremonies
,” the diversity and beauty of 100+ unique African cultures is on full display—the work of two world-class artists who spent 30 years criss-crossing the continent. From the
painted Karo Dancers of Ethiopia
to
The Hands of the Ashanti King
, you'd be hard-pressed to find more elaborate body art and ceremonial dress.
You can also browse the interiors of the
first two museums in China
to open their doors to Street View; enjoy our first
collection of children’s art
from Norway;
learn about Sumatra’s Pustaha book of spells
reflecting the wisdom of nine generations of magicians; or simply sit back and let yourself be
taken on a tour by a museum director
through one of the 12 new galleries they’ve created.
With 5,400 new items to explore, there’s some style inspiration for all of us!
Posted by Piotr Adamczyk, Program Manager, Google Cultural Institute
Music spreads across Europe with Google Play
Friday, October 4, 2013
Your music is supposed to be fun, but in reality it can be the exact opposite: a chore - moving files between computers, syncing across your phone and tablet, and lots and lots of wires.
Google Play Music,
an easier way to manage your music, offers a solution. It just has launched so you can listen to any song you want, whenever you want, on all of your devices. has just come to Czech Republic, Finland, Hungary, Liechtenstein, Netherlands, Russia and Switzerland.
All Access coverage is now spread pretty much across the entire continent. A first group of
nine European countries
last month received the service.
All Access is the first service of its kind that lets you store 20,000 songs from your personal music collection in the cloud for free; purchase new music from all the major record labels and thousands of indies to grow your collection; or get an unlimited pass to a huge library of music on all your devices with All Access, our monthly music subscription service. It’s all stored in the cloud so you never have to worry about losing songs or moving them again. You can add a new favorite track to your collection while you’re on your computer, and it will be instantly available on your phone and tablet. And you can “pin” all of this content to make it available on your phone or tablet when you’re offline without a connection.
All Access lets you search for and listen to any song from our library of millions of tracks, wherever and whenever you want. You can create an ad-free, interactive radio station from any song or artist you love. Or you can browse recommendations from our expert music team and explore songs by genre. The “Listen Now” tab puts artists and radio stations we think you’ll like front and center so you can start listening the minute you open your library. You can try All Access for free for the first month and pay only a modest subscription service each month after that.
With this launch, Google Play moves one step closer to being your ultimate digital entertainment destination, where you can find, enjoy and share your favourite apps, games, books, movies, magazines and music on your Android phone or tablet. Good listening.
Posted by Posted by Sami Valkonen, Head of International Music Partnerships, Google Play
An Austrian star of European computing
Tuesday, October 1, 2013
Google started as a
graduate school project
. So it’s apt that the next film in our
computing heritage series
pays homage to the work of another student team, nearly 60 years ago in Austria.
In the mid 1950’s, computer design was in the midst of a major transition, going from
vacuum tubes
to
transistors
. Transistors
performed a similar function
electronically, but generated less heat and were a fraction of the size, allowing machines to be made that were both smaller and more powerful.
Heinz
Zemanek
, then an assistant professor at the
Vienna University of Technology
, had long been interested in computers. In 1956, he enlisted a team of students to build one based on this new transistor technology.
Zemanek’s project didn’t have university backing, so the team relied on donations. One student’s work was sponsored by
Konrad Zuse
, the German computer pioneer, on the understanding he would join Zuse’s company after completing his doctorate. Additional money came from an Austrian bankers association, thanks to connections Zemanek had made through his role leading
Austria’s Boy Scouts
. Overall more than 35 companies contributed materials, in particular
Philips
, who donated all the transistors and diodes. The only drawback was the transistors were relatively slow, originally designed for hearing aids.
At the time, leading U.S. machines were named after types of wind, such as MIT’s
Whirlwind
and RCA Laboratory’s
Typhoon
. In a gentle nod to this, Zemanek nicknamed his computer
Mailüfterl
, meaning “May Breeze.”
As he joked
(PDF): "We are not going to produce… any of those big American storms, but we will have a very nice little Viennese spring breeze!”
On May 27, 1958 the Mailüfterl ran its first calculation and became mainland Europe’s first fully transistorized computer—and
one of the earliest in the world
. It remained at the university for its first few years, financed in part by the European Research Office of the American Army. In 1960 Zemanek signed a contract with IBM, and in September 1961 the Mailüfterl was moved to a new research laboratory in Vienna that IBM created for Zemanek and his team.
Today the Mailüfterl is on display at the
Technical Museum in Vienna
—a fitting reminder of Austria’s time at the vanguard of European computing.
Posted by Wolfgang Fasching-Kapfenberger, Communications & Public Affairs Manager, Austria
EUhackathon 2013: Coding for Transparency
Monday, September 30, 2013
The challenge at this year’s
EUhackathon
was to
shine a light
on government surveillance during a 24-hour coding marathon - a particularly pertinent subject given recent headlines. European Commission Vice-President Viviane Reding saluted the coders at the Awards Ceremony, saying “you’re hacking for your rights.”
A total of 29 coders from 13 countries participated. Team Frontwise from the Netherlands won the first prize with its
BIGSIS – Privacy Ranking app
. Reding gave them a EUR 5,000 award. BIGSIS is a Chrome plugin which “visualises your exposure to web services while you’re browsing the internet. It displays with which governments this data can be shared.”
All the competing projects can be found at the
Visualizing.org
website. Take a look at the coders in action.
[Youtube link to official movie
As well as from these technical achievements, the EUhackathon hosted a
series of discussions
on government surveillance, bringing together academics represented by Professors Milton Mueller and Pompeu Casanovas, civil society leaders including Trevor Timm from the Freedom of the Press Foundation and Joe McNamee from the European Digital Rights initiative (EDRi), and international officials such as UNICRI’s Francesca Bosco.
Google’s been at the forefront of calls for transparency about government surveillance for many years. Every six months, we publish detailed statistics on the number of requests we get from governments to access user data – and we’ve done that since 2009. We’ve supported the EUhackathon for the last three years because data visualisation is a great way of making statistics more meaningful, and of raising awareness of an issue that has serious implications for democratic societies.
Posted by Marco Pancini, Senior Counsel, Brussels
Street View arrives at CERN
Thursday, September 26, 2013
At
CERN
, the European particle physics laboratory based in the suburbs of Geneva, some of the world’s best physicists and engineers are using advanced particle accelerators to help solve age old questions about the universe — What is it made of? How did it start?
We’re delighted that CERN opened its doors to Google Maps Street View allowing anyone, anywhere in the world to take a peek into its laboratories, control centers and its myriad underground tunnels housing cutting-edge experiments. Street View also lets scientists working on the experiments, who may be on the other side of the world, explore the equipment they're using.
This is the Large Hadron Collider. The LHC beauty experiment will shed light on why we live in a universe that appears to be composed almost entirely of matter, but no antimatter. Learn more
here
.
This is the the 7000-tonne ATLAS detector. From a cavern 100 metres below a small Swiss village, it’s probing for fundamental particles including the
Higgs Boson
.
ALICE is a heavy-ion detector on the Large Hadron Collider ring. It's designed to study the physics of strongly interacting matter at extreme energy densities, where a phase of matter called
quark-gluon plasma
forms.
The
Compact Muon Solenoid
(CMS) is a general-purpose detector at the Large Hadron Collider. It's designed to investigate a wide range of physics, including the search for the Higgs boson, extra dimensions, and particles that could make up dark matter.
For two full weeks back in 2011, members of our Street View team from Google’s Zurich office worked with our CERN partners to capture this incredible imagery. You can check out the above experiments, like
ATLAS
,
ALICE
,
CMS
,
LHCb
and the
Large Hadron Collider
tunnel in Google Maps, as well as collections of other Street View imagery from amazing sites around the world, on our
Views
site.
You can also learn more about CERN by following its
Google+
page.
Posted by Pascale Milite, Google Street View operations
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