Europe Blog
Our views on the Internet and society
Lighting up Google Maps with the aurora borealis
Thursday, January 15, 2015
Nature’s greatest light show has come to Google Maps for the first time. Starting today, armchair arctic explorers, science lovers and curious observers will be able to explore the Northern Lights in Finland right from Google Maps.
Northern Lights, Finland
Also known as the aurora borealis (after Aurora, the Roman goddess of the dawn, and Boreas, the Greek name for north wind), these dazzling lights are the effect of charged particles interacting with one another in earth’s atmosphere. These light displays have long been a source of wonder for poets and travelers gazing up at the otherworldly colors in stark contrast with the austere, arctic terrain. However, they can only be seen in person at certain latitudes and times of year, making this breathtaking sight a rare experience for most of us.
To see more views of the Northern Lights, explore the
Google Maps gallery
. Click across the frozen lake in Finland where these shots were captured, and take in the awe-inspiring views above.
Posted by Magdalena Filak, Google Maps Street View Associate Program Manager
Hallo, hola, olá to a new powerful Google Translate app
Wednesday, January 14, 2015
Often the hardest part of traveling is navigating the local language. If you've ever asked for "pain" in Paris and gotten funny looks, confused "embarazada" with "embarrassed" in Mexico, or stumbled over pronunciation pretty much anywhere, you know the feeling. We’ve now updated the
Translate app
on
Android
and
iOS
to transform your mobile device into an even more powerful translation tool.
Instant translation with Word Lens
The Translate app already lets you use camera mode to snap a photo of text and get a translation for it in 36 languages. From today, you can instantly translate text. While using the Translate app, just point your camera at a sign or text and the translated text will overlaid on your screen—even if you don't have an Internet or data connection.
This instant translation currently works for translation from English to and from French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish, and we’re working to expand to more languages.
Have an easier conversation using the Translate app
When talking with someone in an unfamiliar language, conversations can... get... sloowwww. While we’ve had real-time conversation mode on Android since 2013, our new update makes the conversation flow faster and more naturally.
Starting today, simply tap the mic to start speaking in a selected language, then tap the mic again, and the Google Translate app will recognize which of the two languages are being spoken, letting you have a more fluid conversation. For the rest of the conversation, you won’t need to tap the mic again—it'll be ready as you need it. Asking for directions to the Rive Gauche, ordering bacalhau in Lisbon, or chatting with your grandmother in her native Spanish just got a lot faster.
These updates will be coming to both Android and iOS, rolling out over the next few days. This is the first time some of these advanced features, like camera translations and conversation mode, will be available for iOS users.
More than 500 million people use Google Translate every month, making more than 1 billion translations a day to more easily communicate and access information across languages. Today’s updates take us one step closer to turning your phone into a universal translator and to a world where language is no longer a barrier to discovering information or connecting with each other.
Posted by Barak Turovsky, Product Lead, Google Translate
Hacking against Ebola
Tuesday, January 13, 2015
Like other epidemics, Ebola creates panic, dangerous rumors and unverified facts. Journalists must be prepared, yet unfortunately they often lack the necessary resources and tools that match the responsibility to inform local communities.
To help fill the gap, we’re supporting the
Global Editors Networks's
#HackAgainstEbola on January 14 and 15. Other supporters include
Open Society Initiative for West Africa
(OSIWA),
Union for Francophone Press (UPF)
, and
Code for Africa
. Follow the two-day event through GEN's
live blog
and the hashtag #HackAgainstEbola.
Our goal is to help develop the best tools needed to explain the Ebola epidemic. In Dakar, a dozen teams, composed of one journalist, one designer, and one developer, who will work to build a prototype online product in 48 hours.
This is only the final of a
three part series
. Nigeria's
Pan-Atlantic University
, Ghana's
PenPlusBytes
and
South Africa's 24.com
hosted previous Ebola hack days.
The Editors' Lab has been running
Google-supported hack events
in newsrooms around the world for the past few years, bringing journalists and coders closer together to explore new ways of creating and presenting the news. World-renowned media organizations including The New York Times, The Guardian, El Pais and Le Parisien have hosted hack days on different themes.
The winning team in Dakar will compete against the other winning Editors Lab teams at the GEN Summit 2015 in Barcelona next June.
Posted by Simon Morrison, Public Policy and Government Affairs Manager, London
Promoting sportsmanship on the field - and on the net
Sunday, January 11, 2015
In football, a red card means expulsion from the game. On the Internet, what would a red card resemble? This week, we launched a contest here in Belgium with the Mons Football Club youth clubs to help find out.
Why Belgium and why Mons? One of our two largest European data centers is located just outside the city. We’ve invested hundreds of millions in it and that means we are going to be involved in the local community for a long time to come. Belgium’s football reputation has been growing recently with an excellent showing at the recent Brazil World Cup - its top players are found sprinkled on many of the world’s top team - and the Mons youth academy is known as one of the country’s best.
Launching the contest in Belgium
The idea came from our strong partnership with the local
Mundaneum
institution and a
partnership
forged last year with one of the world’s biggest football clubs - Real Madrid. It held a contest called
"First Prize for the Promotion of Internet Values.”
As in football, the Net bans violence towards others. When you play sports, you are obliged to help all who are injured or have a disability. On the Internet, too, you need to help others.
The Belgian contest will be open to 11-17 olds, the teenagers who are growing up on the net. From this month through April, the club’s teenage players will attend workshops and create projects - drawings, videos, or essays - that marry their passion for football, fair play and the Internet.
More than 120 young players from RAEC Mons attended the
contest launch
. Dressed in their team uniforms, most said they spent as much or more time surfing on the Net as on the playing field. They will now compete for prizes ranging from a Chromebook to a tablet. Winners will be announced on April 19 at the club’s final home match this season.
Posted by William Echikson, Head of Community Relations, Europe
Ho Ho Ho! Track Santa around the world with Santa Tracker
Wednesday, December 24, 2014
After 23 days of preparation, the elves are finally ready for Santa’s annual journey around the globe. They’ve taught each other how to say
"Santa Claus" in Swedish
, guided their friends through mazes
with code
, brushed up on
their geography
, and learned about
organizations making a difference worldwide
. It’s been a busy month, but Santa’s sleigh is now ready for lift-off!
The elves brushed up on coding fundamentals with blockly maze games
The elves decorated their trees with ornaments about organizations making a difference
Each stop on Santa’s journey offers more to explore—discover 360-degree imagery, Wikipedia snippets, geography facts, and updates on how far Santa’s current location is from yours (take note—Santa’s path is not a direct one!). Come back and visit
google.com/santatracker
throughout the night for more surprises, like sleigh selfies or a
latitude and longitude game
to deliver presents.
Follow Santa on any screen—desktop, phone, tablet, or TV
If you’re on the ho-ho-go, download the
Santa Tracker App for Android
to keep track of Santa on your phone or tablet. With the Android app, watch Santa’s journey on your TV using Chromecast, or on your wrist with Android Wear (especially handy when wrapping last-minute gifts). And, you can always search for Santa on
www.google.com
or on
Google Maps
, and get real-time location updates with Google Now in the Google App.
Santa’s available at the flick of the wrist with Android Wear
Santa’s got a long and exciting night ahead of him before heading back to the North Pole. Grab some eggnog, set out the cookies, and join Google Maps on
Google+
,
Facebook
and
Twitter
to
#tracksanta
!
Posted by Brendan Kenny, Reindeer Platform Engineer
New numbers and a new look for our Transparency Report
Monday, December 22, 2014
We
launched
the
Transparency Report
in 2010 to show how laws and policies affect access to information online, including law enforcement orders for user data and government requests to remove information. Since then, many other companies have
launched their own transparency reports
, and we’ve been excited to see our industry come together around transparency.
After doing things the same way for nearly five years, we thought it was time to give the Transparency Report an update. So today, as we release data about
requests from governments to remove content
from our services for the ninth time, we’re doing it with a new look and some new features that we hope will make the information more meaningful, and continue to push the envelope on the story we can tell with this kind of information.
More about that shortly—first, the data highlights. From June to December 2013, we received 3,105 government requests to remove 14,637 pieces of content. You may notice that this total decreased slightly from the first half of 2013; this is due to a spike in requests from Turkey during that period, which has since returned to lower levels. Meanwhile, the number of requests from Russia increased by 25 percent compared to the last reporting period. Requests from Thailand and Italy are on the rise as well. In the second half of 2013, the top three products for which governments requested removals were Blogger (1,066 requests), Search (841 requests) and YouTube (765 requests). In the second half of 2013, 38 percent of government removal requests cited defamation as a reason for removal, 16 percent cited obscenity or nudity, and 11 percent cited privacy or security.
As for the redesign, we’ve worked with our friends at Blue State Digital on a more interactive Transparency Report that lets us include additional information—like explanations of our process—and highlight stats. We’ve also added examples of nearly 30 actual requests we’ve received from governments around the world. For example, we have an annotation that gives a bit of descriptive information about our first government request from Kosovo, when law enforcement requested the removal of two YouTube videos showing minors fighting. If you’re looking for details on the content types and reasons for removal, use the Country explorer to dig into those details for each of the listed countries.*
Our Transparency Report is certainly not a comprehensive view of censorship online. However, it does provide a lens on the things that governments and courts ask us to remove, underscoring the importance of transparency around the processes governing such requests. We hope that you’ll take the time to explore the new report to learn more about government removals across Google.
*Update
Jan 16
: We updated the 'Country Explorer' section of the Transparency Report on January 16, 2015 to correct inaccuracies in the initially reported Government Requests figures.
Posted by Trevor Callaghan, Director, Legal
Life in the fast lane: lane guidance for drivers in Google Maps
Friday, December 12, 2014
Over the holiday season, if you’re driving back home to see family, or meeting up with friends, you can get where you want to go quickly and easily using voice-guided navigation in Google Maps — now with helpful lane guidance for highways in Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the UK and Ireland.
When you’re in the turn-by-turn navigation mode, we can now make sure you don’t miss your next turn or exit by showing you which lane to stay in or move to so you’ll never find yourself darting across traffic at the last minute -- or worse, driving for miles down the wrong road. When you approach a junction or exit with multiple lanes, voice guidance will suggest which lanes are best for your route. You’ll also have easy access to alternate routes while you’re navigating, so you can choose the best drive for you.
To access turn-by-turn Navigation, open the Google Maps app on Android or iPhone and get directions to a location. Then simply touch the Navigation icon to hear voice-guided directions, complete with lane guidance. (Of course, don’t forget to enable GPS on your device to use Navigation.) For more information on navigation and lane guidance, see our help page.
Safe travels!
Posted by Darren Baker, product manager, Google Maps
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