Europe Blog
Our views on the Internet and society
Launching Project Link: improving Internet access in Africa
Thursday, November 21, 2013
Africa is home to more than a billion people and is also the fastest growing continent. But only 16% of people are connected to the Internet. That leaves a huge population without access to new opportunities, such as a reliable channel to the latest news, a tool to join in worldwide commerce, or a platform to create and contribute photos, video, and more. This is true even in Africa’s bustling cities, such as Kampala, Uganda.
For the nearly 3 million people living in and around Kampala, the Internet hasn’t been as fast and available as it could be; online activity often sputters on pre-broadband speeds or unreliable connections. That’s why today, we’re announcing
Project Link
, an initiative to build a super-fast, high-capacity fiber network to enable any local mobile operator or Internet service provider (ISP) to connect more people in Kampala to a faster, more reliable Internet.
Project Link’s network is available today to connect providers to long-distance fiber lines, equipping them with near-unlimited capacity to build and expand services to Ugandans. By making this connection, we’re strengthening a crucial piece of the Internet supply chain. Some parts of the chain are already strong: undersea cables are bringing data to Africa’s shores and mobile providers are expanding services across the continent. We’ve now built quality infrastructure in between these points to deliver the speed and capacity that supports the latest and greatest of the Web.
Project Link goes beyond basic access; it enables local providers to offer new mobile data plans or high-speed Internet for office buildings and universities, and support newer technologies as they come to market. For Kampala, we hope it’s a foundation to support the needs of a new crop of entrepreneurs and innovators: the media-rich projects of a successful musician, fast connections for local hospitals, or new digital learning tools for students.
As more of Africa comes online, the Web will grow stronger and richer from the contributions of a growing population. Project Link isn’t just about connecting fiber cables. It’s about connecting the people of Kampala and giving them an opportunity to contribute to a truly global Internet.
Posted by Kai Wulff, Access Field Director
Protecting children from sexual abuse
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
Last week 348 people were arrested in Canada – and 386 young kids rescued – in one of the largest child sex investigations ever seen. It defies belief that anyone would sexually abuse children, especially teachers and doctors entrusted with their care.
But this awful case highlights the depths to which humanity can sink.
And while society will never wholly eliminate such depravity, we should do everything in our power to protect children from harm. That's why internet companies like Google and Microsoft have been working with law enforcement for years to stop paedophiles sharing illegal pictures on the web. We actively remove child sexual abuse imagery from our services and immediately report abuse to the authorities. This evidence is regularly used to prosecute and convict criminals.
But as the UK Prime Minister David Cameron said in a speech this summer, there's always more that can be done. We've listened, and in the last three months put more than 200 people to work developing new, state-of-the-art technology to tackle the problem.
Cleaning up search:
We've fine tuned Google Search to prevent links to child sexual abuse material from appearing in our results. While no algorithm is perfect – and Google cannot prevent paedophiles adding new images to the web – these changes have cleaned up the results for over 100,000 queries that might be related to the sexual abuse of kids. As important, we will soon roll out these changes in more than 150 languages, so the impact will be truly global.
Deterrence:
We're now showing warnings – from both Google and charities – at the top of our search results for more than 13,000 queries. These alerts make clear that child sexual abuse is illegal and offer advice on where to get help.
Detection and removal:
There's no quick technical fix when it comes to detecting child sexual abuse imagery. This is because computers can't reliably distinguish between innocent pictures of kids at bathtime and genuine abuse. So we always need to have a person review the images. Once that is done – and we know the pictures are illegal – each image is given a unique digital fingerprint. Microsoft deserves a lot of credit for developing and sharing its picture detection technology. But paedophiles are increasingly filming their crimes. So our engineers at YouTube have created a new technology to identify these videos. We're already testing it at Google, and in the new year we hope to make it available to other internet companies and child safety organisations.
Technical expertise:
There are many organisations working to fight the sexual exploitation of kids online – and we want to ensure they have the best technical support. So Google plans to second computer engineers to both the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) here in Britain and the US National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). We also plan to fund internships for other engineers at these organisations. This will help the IWF and NCMEC stay one step ahead.
The sexual abuse of children is a global challenge, and success depends on everyone working together – law enforcement, internet companies and charities. We welcome the lead taken by the British Government, and hope that the technologies developed (and shared) by our industry will make a real difference in the fight against this terrible crime.
Posted by Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman
Launching a “human” start-up center in France
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
It rivaled the famed Parisian catwalk shows for glitz and glamor. More than 8,000 people recently crowded into and outside of a new building on Rue du Caire near the Paris Stock Exchange - not to celebrate fashion, but to to launch a 1,500 square meter large startup-incubator called NUMA.
NUMA is short for “numérique” (French for “digital”) and “humain” (French for human). We partnered to create this exciting new facility with telephone operator Orange, the Paris city government and the Ile de France regional authorities. Beyond our financial support, we will organise workshops and other learning opportunities for web entrepreneurs and traditional companies that want to go digital.
Minister Fleur Pellerin
The new center is our latest attempt to help jumpstart the web economy. Our
Campus London,
which, in its first year alone, has hosted more than
860 events
, offering more than 60,000 entrepreneurs mentorship, technical advice and training. Another
Campus opened last year in Tel Aviv
and we’re rolling out across the region our
Google for Entrepreneurs
.
In Paris, the new NUMA aims to attract up to 45,000 visitors and 600 tech start-ups each year. It will serve as a base for consolidating existing start-up projects – Le Camping and La Cantine.
At Numa’s launch party, the crowd demonstrated an optimism in sharp contrast with the ongoing stagnation and pessimism about France’s economy. “Together we open NUMA, and declare our ambition to fly the flag of French innovation even higher,” the organizers said on the
NUMA website
, predicting raft of investment and new jobs. Minister of Digital Economy, Fleur Pellerin, saluted this ambition.
The crowd was so numerous that many had to wait outside for an opportunity to enter and see the new facilities. No matter. Instead of fretting, the eager entrepreneurs turned the surrounding streets into a big party, complete with good drink, food and talk of exciting digital ventures.
Posted by Elisabeth Bargès, Public Policy Manager Innovation, Google France
Improving Internet access in Africa with White Spaces
Monday, November 18, 2013
Almost three billion people are online - but four billion remain without access, a failure that drives much political and economic frustration. TV White Spaces—the unused spectrum between TV channels—have the potential to bring wireless broadband access to underserved and rural areas. These low frequency signals can travel long distances and fill a need in places where telecommunications infrastructure is lacking.
Google, joined by a group of partners, (
CSIR Meraka Institute
,
TENET
,
e-Schools Network
,
WAPA
, and
Carlson Wireless
), wanted to help make this potential a reality. In March 2013, the
group
launched a six-month trial using White Spaces to bring broadband Internet access to 10 schools in Cape Town, South Africa. The goal of the trial was to show that White Spaces could be used to deliver broadband Internet without interfering with TV broadcast.
After six months, we can report some good news: the trial has been a success. The participating schools, which previously had slow or unreliable Internet connections, experienced high-speed broadband access for the first time. Teachers were able to use videos in their lesson plans, make Skype calls to other schools, update school websites, and send regular email updates to parents. Students could use educational videos for research. Because the service was better and faster, teachers and learners used the web to enrich the classroom experience.
At the same time, multiple sources confirmed that there was no interference with TV broadcast. Trial partner Meraka Institute performed frequent scientific studies to measure any potential interference over the six-month period. We also provided tools for people to report any interference experience while watching TV. The
final results
of the test have been published for those who wish to take a deeper dive on the trial's outcomes.
ICASA, South Africa’s communication regulator, plans to use the trial outcomes as inputs into the White Spaces regulatory process. This is a big step to bringing this technology to more of South Africa. We hope the results can be useful in encouraging others to consider White Spaces to help bring the power of the Internet to more people in more parts of the world.
Posted by Fortune Sibanda, Policy Manager, Google South Africa
Unveiling a potential Internet superpower - Ukraine
Friday, November 15, 2013
Ukraine faces big choices in coming weeks as it debates signing an Association Agreement with the European Union. A large part of the upside from improved EU commerce could come from the Internet. In order to underline this crucial point,
Google Ukraine
and market research group,
GfK Ukraine
, yesterday launched a study titled: “The impact of Internet on the Ukrainian economy.”
Ukraine should be a computer science superpower. Famed Ukrainian computer scientist Sergei Lebedev unveiled
the first Soviet compute
r -- and indeed the first in continental Europe -- on December 25, 1951. Today, Ukraine already provides the world with backend support thanks to its 50,000 computer science university graduates. It enjoys a largely free and open Internet. More than half of Ukrainians are now online and approximately 90% of Ukraine’s businesses use regular broadband or WiFi access.
Last year, Ukraine’s economy expanded by a mere 0.2 percent. If Ukraine’s businesses could increase their Internet use intensity from 25 to 35 percentage points, the GfK study calculated that it could have grown GDP by 1.2%. At the study’s launch event, Vice Prime Minister
Alexandr Vilkul
highlighted the importance of Internet for Ukrainian business and confirmed his and the Ukrainian government’s support for the digital economy.
Individual Ukrainian companies gain by going online, the study show. Businesses with more active Internet navigated turbulent economic conditions in 2012. Their profits decreased only by 0.7% while companies with a weak Internet presence suffered a 7.3% drop.
Amid Ukraine's tough economic climate, the online sector still is seeing tremendous growth. Hopefully, the report will alert Ukrainians - government officials, business leaders and technology leaders - that the Internet could do even more to drive forward a transformation from its agricultural and traditional industrial past to a shining digital future.
Posted by Oleg Yakymchuk, Policy Manager, Ukraine
Government requests for user information double since 2010
Thursday, November 14, 2013
In a year in which government surveillance has dominated the headlines, today we’re
updating our Transparency Report
for the eighth time. Since we began sharing these figures with you
in 2010
, requests from governments for user information have increased by more than 100 percent. This comes as usage of our services continues to grow, but also as more governments have made requests than ever before. And these numbers only include the requests we’re allowed to publish.
Over the past three years, we’ve continued to add more details to the report, and we’re doing so again today. We’re including additional information about legal process for U.S. criminal requests: breaking out emergency disclosures, wiretap orders,
pen register
orders and other court orders.
We want to go even further. We believe it’s your right to know what kinds of requests and how many each government is making of us and other companies. However, the U.S. Department of Justice contends that U.S. law does not allow us to share information about some national security requests that we might receive. Specifically, the U.S. government argues that we cannot share information about the requests we receive (if any) under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. But you deserve to know.
Earlier this year, we brought a federal case to assert that we do indeed have the right to shine more light on the FISA process. In addition, we recently wrote
a letter of support
(PDF) for two pieces of legislation currently proposed in the U.S. Congress. And we’re asking governments around the world to uphold international legal agreements that respect the laws of different countries and guarantee standards for due process are met.
Our promise to you is to continue to make this report robust, to defend your information from overly broad government requests, and to push for greater transparency around the world.
Posted by Richard Salgado, Legal Director, Law Enforcement and Information Security
Street View floats into Venice
Thursday, November 14, 2013
Venice was once described as “undoubtedly the most beautiful city built by man,” and from these pictures it’s hard to disagree. You can now explore panoramic imagery of one of the most romantic spots in the world, captured with our Street View
Trekker
technology.
It was impossible for us to collect images of Venice with a Street View car or trike—blame the picturesque canals and narrow cobbled walkways—but our team of backpackers took to the streets to give Google Maps a truly
Shakespearean
backdrop. And not just the streets—we also loaded the Trekker onto a boat and floated by the famous gondolas to give you the best experience of Venice short of being there.
Our Trekker operator taking a well-earned rest while the gondolier does the hard work
The beautiful
Piazza San Marco
, where you can discover Doge's Palace, St. Marks' Cathedral, the bell tower, the Marciana National Library and the clocktower
We covered a lot of ground—about 265 miles on foot and 114 miles by boat—capturing not only iconic landmarks but several hidden gems, such as the
Synagogue
of the first Jewish
Ghetto
, the Devil’s Bridge in Torcello island, a
mask
to scare the same Devil off the church of Santa Maria Formosa and the
place
where the typographer
Manutius
created the Italics font. Unfortunately, Street View can’t serve you a
cicchetto
(local appetizer) in a classic
bacaro
(a typical Venetian bar), though we can show you how to get there.
The
Devil’s Bridge
in Torcello Island
Once you’ve explored the city streets of today, you can immerse yourself in the beauty of Venice’s past by diving deep in to the artworks of the
Museo Correr
, which has joined the
Google Cultural Institute
along with
Museo del Vetro
and
Ca’ Pesaro - International Gallery of Modern Art
.
Compare the modern streets with paintings of the same spots by artists such as Carpaccio and Cesare Vecellio
Or delve into historical maps of Venice, like this one showing the Frari Church, built in 1396
Finally, take a look
behind the scenes
showing how we captured our Street View imagery in Venice.
The Floating City is steeped in culture; it’s easy to see why it’s retained a unique fascination and romance for artists, filmmakers, musicians, playwrights and pilgrims through the centuries—and now, we hope, for Street View tourists too.
Posted by Daniele Rizzetto, Street View Operations Manager (and proud Venetian!)
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