Google Cloud Platform News

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  The new tool helping Asian newsrooms detect fake images
  • sorangutan  

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  Journalists and fact-checkers face huge challenges in sorting accurate information from fast-spreading misinformation. But it’s not just about the words we read. Viral images and memes flood our feeds and chats, and often they’re out-of-context or fake. In Asia, where there are eight times more social media users than in North America, these issues are magnified.  

  
  

  There are existing tools that Asian journalists can use to discover the origins and trustworthiness of news images, but they’re relatively old, inconsistent and for the most part only available on desktop. That’s a barrier for fact-checkers and journalists in countries where most people connect to the internet on their mobile. 

  
  

  For the past two years, the Google News Initiative has worked with  journalists to identify manipulated images using technology. At the 2018 Trusted Media Summit in Singapore, a group of experts from Google, Storyful and the broader news industry joined a design sprint to develop a new tool, taking advantage of artificial intelligence and optimized for mobile. With support from the Google News Initiative, the GNI Cloud Program and volunteer Google engineers, the resulting prototype has now been developed into an app called Source, powered by Storyful. 

  With the app now being used by journalists around the region, we asked Eamonn Kennedy, Storyful’s Chief Product Officer, to tell us a bit more. 

  
  

  What does Storyful see as the challenges facing journalists and fact-checkers around the world and in Asia in particular?

  [Eamonn Kennedy] Sharing on social often happens based on impulse rather than full analysis. Anybody can share a story with thousands of people before they even finish reading what is being said. Bad actors know this and bet on people’s emotions. They’re willing to exploit the free reach of social platforms and pollute conversations with false facts and narratives, including extremist content. For fact-checkers, that means any given conversation is vulnerable to lies and manipulation from anywhere in the world, at any time. 

  Can you tell us a bit about the process for developing Source, and how AI helped solve some of the problems?

  [EK] At Storyful, we see old, inaccurate or modified images being reshared to push a misleading narrative in news cycles big and small. 

  The common way of tackling this for journalists is to use reverse image search to prove that the image is old and has been re-used—but that has a couple of challenges. First, these repurposed images are frequently tampered with and the journalist needs to have the ability to identify manipulation so they get the best chance of finding the original.Second, search results are ordered by the most recent, where journalists tend to be interested in older results, so that means a lot of scrolling to find the original. 

  Source uses Google's AI technology to give instant access to an image's public history, allowing you to sort, analyze and understand its provenance, including any manipulation. That’s already useful but it goes a step further. Source helps detect and translate text in images too, which is especially useful for journalists cataloguing or analyzing memes online.

  The Source app improves journalists’ ability to verify the origins or authenticity of a particular image and source how a meme evolved. 

  How are newsrooms using Source and what are the plans for it in 2020?    

  [EK] So far, 130 people from 17 different countries have used the app to check the provenance of images on social media, messaging apps and news sites. It’s been especially good to see that 30 percent of Source users are accessing the site on their mobile, and that our largest base of users is in India, where members of the Digital News Publishers Association—a coalition of leading media companies dedicated to fighting misinformation—have provided important feedback. 

  Looking forward, we’ve been listening to fact-checkers as we think about how to build version two of the app. We know Source has been used to interrogate frames from a video, for example, which shows there’s potential to take it beyond just text and images. The ultimate aim would be to build a “toolbox” of public fact-checking resources, with Source at the center, using Google’s AI to support journalists around the world. 

  
  

  
  
  https://www.blog.google/around-the-globe/google-asia/new-tool-helping-asian-newsrooms-detect-fake-images/
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  Make the most of Leap Day with the Google Assistant
  • sorangutan  

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  How many times have you wished for an extra day or even just an extra hour to get things done or simply relax?. Lucky for us, we’re getting that extra day this year--Leap Day is this Saturday, February 29th. 

  
  

  If you’re looking for things to do, here are 11 ways the Google Assistant and Nest can help you make the most out of your bonus day:

  
  

  1. Play your favorite television game show:Just say, “Hey Google, play Jeopardy” to test your knowledge.

  2. Explore new eats nearby:Ask your Assistant, “Hey Google, find a Moroccan restaurant nearby” to discover new places to try. And you can see how long it’ll take to walk to the restaurant by saying, “Hey Google, how long will it take to walk to [restaurant] near me?”

  3. Have a killer at-home sweat session: Enjoy your favorite YouTube fitness videos on your Smart Display, like Nest Hub and Nest Hub Max. Just say, “Hey Google, show me cardio workout videos.”

  4. Finally learn to cook that new recipe: “Hey Google, show me recipes for spanakopita.” And if you need help learning a new technique, like making homemade puff pastry, ask the Assistant on your Nest Hub Max to put on a YouTube video by saying “Hey Google, show me videos for how to make puff pastry dough.”

  5. Get started on that book you’ve been meaning to read: Curl up on the couch or go for a walk and ask your Assistant to read an audiobook on Google Play. Just make sure to log into your Google Play Books account and say, “Hey Google, read [audiobook title],” and you’ll hear a free sample if you don’t already own the audiobook.

  6. Pick up a new hobby:First, learn a bit about your chosen activity by saying “Hey Google, find a podcast about painting.” Then, find the supplies you’ll need to get started. Just ask, “Hey Google, where can I buy watercolors nearby?”

  7. Enjoy story time as a family:Just ask your Nest Mini, “Hey Google, let’s read along” to access great books from Disney and Little Golden Books, powered by Family Link. 

  8. Go see a movie:Say, “Hey Google, buy movie tickets” to see what movies are playing nearby. When you select a showtime that works best, the Assistant can then help complete your purchase in only a few steps with the help of Duplex technology.  

  9. Find local events:Ask your Assistant, “Hey Google, what events are happening today near Phoenix?” for ideas on what to do.

  10. Take a mini road trip: The Assistant can help you get things done in the car whether you’re using Google Maps for Android and iOS, Waze for Android, Android Auto, or through the car accessory Anker Roav Bolt. Try asking, “Hey Google, find the nearest gas station” when you need to refuel--or send text messages with your voice so you can keep your eyes on the road. 

  11. Catch up on a little R&R … uninterrupted: Silence calls and notifications on your phone or Nest devices by asking your Assistant, “Hey Google, silence my phone,” or “Hey Google, set the kitchen display to Do Not Disturb."

  
  
  https://www.blog.google/products/assistant/make-most-leap-day-google-assistant/
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  Upholding the legacy of Black entrepreneurship in Atlanta
  • sorangutan  

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  February is Black History Month across the U.S., but here in Atlanta, Black history is everywhere, year-round. Atlanta is the number one city for Black prosperity, and the country’s fourth-largest tech hub. As more than a quarter of Atlanta's tech workers are Black, it’s clear that our city’s startup scene is just the latest iteration of a long legacy of Black entrepreneurship. There's a spirit in the city that inspired the entrepreneurs of the past, and continues to attract tech talent today.

  I was one of those entrepreneurs. When I founded my own startup, Partpic, I decided to do it not in Silicon Valley, where I had started my career, but in Atlanta. Partpic was acquired in 2016, but I opted to stay in Atlanta and continue to grow my roots in the tech and business community. It’s home now. In my new role as U.S. Head of Google for Startups, I’ll lead our continued support of Atlanta’s Black founders, beginning with a few exciting efforts:

  Russell Center for Innovation

  Along with our friends at Grow with Google, we’re partnering with the Russell Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (RCIE), an organization that helps black entrepreneurs and local business owners build, grow and create jobs. Our support will include mentorship, scholarships and funding three RCIE fellowships designed to help students learn and practice business firsthand. 

  Collab Studio

  Collab Studio—a resource center providing Black founders a safe space to learn and forge community in Atlanta—has joined the Google for Startups partner network. Our funding will help Collab Studio facilitate connections and technical resources so that 20 Black founders can prepare their businesses for the next stage of growth.

  Atlanta Founders Academy

  The Atlanta Founders Academy, modeled off last year's pop-up at our Atlanta offices, is coming this spring. Throughout the year, we’ll host a series of hands-on programs from Googlers, experts, and investors to support underrepresented Atlanta startup founders on topics such as sales, strategy, hiring and fundraising. Spearheading these efforts will be Googler and newly-minted Atlanta Advisor-in-Residence, Michelle Green, who has been helping Fortune 500 companies grow their business for more than a decade. Learn more about how to get involved in the Atlanta Founders Academy in this form.

  As a Black woman, entrepreneur and Googler, I'm proud to be a part of the living, breathing history of Atlanta. Google’s focus on providing equitable access to information, networks, and capital for underrepresented startups speaks to a larger theme in tech and innovation today: Great ideas and startups can come from anywhere and anyone, and you don’t have to be based in Silicon Valley to be successful. We have an opportunity to highlight the work of startups here in Atlanta and in other regions that have been under-resourced for too long—and the great privilege of supporting Black founders and future history-makers.

  
  
  https://www.blog.google/outreach-initiatives/entrepreneurs/upholding-legacy-black-entrepreneurship-atlanta/
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  Working from home? Use these 6 tips for better video calls
  • sorangutan  

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  In the life of a working mom, flexibility is key. And in the life of a sometimes-work-from-home working mom, technology is the reason I can be flexible. Sometimes my kid gets sick, or I need a plumber to come fix the toilet. I’m lucky to have a job that lets me work remotely, in an age where videoconferencing is an acceptable way of staying on track with the day’s meetings. 

  But videoconferencing isn’t always easy. The kids climb on you, the dog barks, there’s background noise … you get the idea. I’ve had some embarrassing moments and made plenty of mistakes, but I’ve learned a few things along the way. Here are my tips for successful videoconferencing from home. (Got more tips? Mention @gsuite on Twitter.) 

  Tip #1: Choose the right environment
  When I want to talk through a complex issue or brainstorm ideas, video calls are more efficient than chat or email. They also help me get to know teammates in different time zones. But when you're on a call, give some thought to what’s around you, such as the backdrop (choose a plain wall, and avoid windows that will provide too much backlight), and if you have a laptop, put it somewhere steady. I once did an entire video call with my laptop on my … well, lap—and at the end the other participant told me that the subtle wobbling of the screen was extremely distracting.

  Tip #2: Invite anyone, anytime
  Videoconferencing doesn’t have to be scheduled; if you’re in the middle of a too-long email conversation, you can instantly set up a meeting and invite people within or outside of your organization to join. Hangouts Meet automatically creates international dial-in codes so people can call on the phone from anywhere, and you can invite people via a Calendar event, by email, or by phone. Check out our help center to get started.

  Tip #3: Can’t hear? Turn on captions
  If you’re in a loud place and don’t have super-fancy headphones, you can use Meet’s live caption feature to display captions in real time (just like closed captions on TV). Start here.

  Tip #4: Presenting? Only share what you mean to share
  Don’t you love that moment when you’re sharing your screen and then, suddenly, everyone on the call is reading your email? To make sure you only share what you mean to share, present one window (rather than your entire screen). Check it out.

  Tip #5: Want to read the room? Change the screen layout
  One of my favorite features in Meet is changing the layout of the video call. If someone’s showing slides, but there’s a lively discussion happening in the office, you can switch your layout to focus on the people in the office, rather than the presentation. Learn how.

  

  Tip #6: Be real
  Everyone has a life outside of work. Depending on the culture of your workplace, it can be OK (even good) to show a little bit of the “real” life around you—like letting your kid wave to the camera or eating your lunch if you’ve been on nonstop calls all day. Showing a little bit of your life can foster deeper connections with coworkers and even create empathy for whatever you’re dealing with outside of work.

  Got video tips of your own? We’d love to hear them—tweet us @gsuite.

  
  
  https://www.blog.google/products/g-suite/6-tips-for-better-video-calls-when-working-from-home/
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  How one Googler creates more than music at Carnival
  • sorangutan  

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  While many Brazilians grow up celebrating Carnival, this wasn’t true for Christiane Silva Pinto. It wasn’t until college when she joined her first bateria that it became an incredibly important tradition to her. “When I was playing in college, I loved the music and practicing with the band, but I also loved that I got to know more about that culture I hadn’t been in touch with when I was a kid,” says Christiane, who played the drums in her college bateria, which is a Brazilian percussion band. 

  “Some of the people who played with us had experience playing in the Carnival parades, and those stories were contagious.” Today, in addition to working as an Associate Product Marketing Manager for Google helping small and medium-sized businesses in Brazil, Christiane is part of a band that plays every year during the iconic Carnival in Sao Paulo, Brazil, where a sea of spectators gather every year. 

  Carnival lasts for four days, and much of the celebration happens in the streets. While there are different traditions in different cities in Brazil, people in Sao Paulo enjoy parades, food and most importantly, music. Bands called blocos or bloquinhos (which include the traditional baterias along with other instruments as well as singing and dancing) set up temporary stages or hire trucks and offer free, wandering concerts.

  In 2013, Christiane and her friends founded their first Carnival bloquinho and she was excited to see 30 people had turned up for their show. She would’ve never imagined that her band would become so popular that around 10,000 people would gather to watch them play, like they did for last year’s Carnival. In her bloco, where Christiane plays a kind of tambourine called tamborim and the snare drum; they play traditional Carnival songs, original pieces they’ve written and even reinterpret contemporary songs with Carnival rhythms from bands like Pink Floyd or Rage Against The Machine.

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  Aside from making music, Christiane sees carnival as an opportunity to unite Brazilians  and generate equality awareness, as well as connect with her African heritage. “We have a lot of inequality in Brazil. Most people are poor, and most of the poor people are Black. Race is very related to economy, and unfortunately you will probably see that during Carnival the white people are having fun and the Black people are working,” she says. 

  In fact, in her bloquinho there are only two Black women, including Christiane. While the majority of Brazilians are Black, they’re hugely underrepresented, and she’s proud to bring her perspective to the celebration and give visibility to her culture and ancestors. 

  Christiane also wants to empower women through Carnival. She recently joined a second bloquinho dedicated to empowering women through music and body positiveness. This bloco is exclusively for women, which is unusual; it was formed in 2015 by one of her friends after she was harassed during Carnival. “We founded a feminist bloco where women could come together to celebrate freedom, to be safe and to be able to express their bodies.” She’s also helping campaign local government to pass initiatives that protect women against harassment.   

  Christiane’s dedication to Carnival began with her love of music, but through it she’s found a way to make underrepresented voices heard. “Many people say that things are so bad that they don’t understand how some people can still enjoy Carnival and forget about the country’s problems. But that’s the way people who don’t live Carnival think, because they don’t understand its culture. For me, it’s a way of cultural resistance.” she says. 

  “Music is a powerful way to express your ideas and your values. Being able to create music is very beautiful and powerful. And for me, it’s priceless to keep my culture and my ancestors alive through Carnival.” 

  
  
  https://www.blog.google/inside-google/googlers/googler-brazil-carnival/
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  Alalaô! Keep up with Carnaval 2020 on Google News
  • sorangutan  

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  Break out your costumes and strike a pose: Brazil’s Carnaval starts today and lasts through February 26th. The five-day festival, which traces its roots back to the early 1700s, is now one of the largest festivals in the world with thousands of parties and millions of people celebrating across Brazil’s biggest cities. Google News is here to help you keep up with the parades and stay safe.

  
  

  When you search for Carnaval on desktop and mobile devices, you’ll see an interactive topic, which will keep you updated on breaking news, help plan your schedule with parade routes and lineups, and let you rock your best look with DIY videos for costumes and make-up. You can also follow Carnaval by tapping it’s star icon on the top right corner for quick access and to receive updates directly in your For You page. 

  
  

  

  
  

  With all the excitement also comes your safety, which is why we’ve partnered with the non-profit Think Olga to provide you with information about public safety resources and the contact information for theAssistance Center for Women in Situations of Violence and the military police. 

  
  

  These features will be available across desktop, iOS and Android platforms in Brazilian Portuguese but accessible to you from anywhere in the world. 

  
  

  Don’t miss a beat of the party with Google News, e se jogue na folia!

  
  
  https://www.blog.google/products/news/alalao-keep-carnaval-2020-google-news/
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  Improved frequency management for Programmatic Guaranteed
  • sorangutan  

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  Frequency management helps marketers and agency partners deliver a better user experience and reduce budget waste by controlling the number of times people see their ads. That’s why, when we introduced Programmatic Guaranteed in Display & Video 360 a few years ago, we gave you a way to manage ad frequency across these deals and your open auction buys together. Once you reached your frequency goal for a specific user across both buys, the open auction portion of the campaign would stop showing ads to that user. However, Programmatic Guaranteed would continue to serve ads to a user beyond your frequency goal until you reached the total number of impressions secured in the deal, consistent with a traditional reservation deal.

  Now we’re improving how frequency management works for Programmatic Guaranteed deals in Display & Video 360. Once your overall campaign frequency goal has been reached for a user, whether via open auction, Programmatic Guaranteed, or a combination of the two, Display & Video 360 will attempt to stop showing more ads to that user from your Programmatic Guaranteed deals while still prioritizing and ensuring that they deliver the agreed number of impressions. This will further reduce overexposure, resulting in an even better experience for users and less waste for advertisers.

  

  With a frequency goal of five at the campaign level, both the open auction and Programmatic Guaranteed deal stopped showing ads to a user that had already seen the ad five times.

  Keep your campaigns running longer

  Managing frequency for your campaigns is especially important when you want to stay visible over an extended period of time. This was the case for Samsung when they launched the new Galaxy A6 in Indonesia. For new mobile phone launches, there may be a lot of initial interest, but it's hard to predict exactly when consumers will be ready to buy, so Samsung needed to stay top of mind for several weeks after launch. With traditional reservation campaigns, they could deliver the booked impressions very quickly, but were reaching some consumers too often, up to eight times per day, wasting budget and potentially harming their brand. When Samsung tested Programmatic Guaranteed with the improved frequency management, they were impressed with the results as they reduced the per-user daily exposure, their ads stayed visible for longer, and their total reach improved significantly.

  With Programmatic Guaranteed with frequency management we were able to reach four times more unique consumers than traditional reservations Ratna Kemuning
  Media Manager at Samsung Electronics Indonesia

  Monitor efficiency gains in real-time

  We're also introducing a new dashboard that shows you how many wasted impressions you are avoiding - and budget you are reinvesting to reach new users - for each Programmatic Guaranteed deal using Display & Video 360's frequency management tools. Having a real-time view of budget savings gives marketers and agency partners more control and precision in evaluating their campaign performance.

  
  

  The new dashboard shows the increased effectiveness of consolidating deals in Display & Video 360. This creates a great opportunity to deliver better user experiences at scale and thus a solid basis for further investments in Programmatic Guaranteed. Sascha Dolling
  Managing Partner Data Driven Marketing OMD Hamburg

  

  Display & Video 360’s new dashboard in the My Inventory tab shows budget savings reinvested and impressions passed due to frequency for each Programmatic Guaranteed deal.

  You can also access the same information aggregated across multiple deals, by creating an offline report with the Programmatic Guaranteed savings template in the standard Display & Video 360 reporting.

  If you want to get more control over ad frequency, set a frequency goal at the campaign level and all of the campaign’s insertion orders, including the ones with Programmatic Guaranteed deals, will take that goal into account. And once the campaign is running, you can easily see how the new feature is making the most of your budget with the new dashboard.

  
  
  https://www.blog.google/products/marketingplatform/360/improved-frequency-management-programmatic-guaranteed/
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  Protecting the mobile app ecosystem
  • sorangutan  

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  Mobile apps have transformed the way people engage with the world. From gaming, to ride sharing, to messaging, apps enrich the lives of billions — and are often funded by ads. Ads help make content available to everyone, creating a more diverse ecosystem of apps for people to enjoy. But one of the biggest threats to ad-supported content is ad fraud, a pervasive issue for users, developers, and advertisers alike. 

  For over 20 years, Google has been heavily investing in creating a healthier ads ecosystem that generates value fairly, for everyone involved. In 2019, we delivered on key initiatives to protect advertisers, publishers, and users. 

  • Protected advertiser spend by reducing ad fraud:Google blacklisted numerous bad actors that were found to be committing large scale invalid traffic and ad fraud, which violates Google policies. In 2019 Google removed tens of thousands of apps and developers that were found to be in violation of our policies, from both AdMob and Play. Taking corrective action was an imperative step in protecting advertiser dollars, leveling the playing field for legitimate publishers, and removing bad app experiences for users.
  • Protected publisher revenue from app spoofing: Bad actors may attempt to disguise their inventory as a high value app to unfairly claim associated ad revenue. To help publishers publicly declare authorized inventory to combat this issue, we launched our app ads.txt solution in August 2019 and in just four months, the majority of Google’s app ad inventory is now ads.txt-protected.
    
  • Improved safety of family-friendly content for users: In addition to fighting ad fraud, the Google Play and Ads teams both announced new steps to help ensure that ad content served in apps for children is appropriate for their intended users. The Play team updated its Families Policies and the requirements for inclusion in its Designed for Families (DFF) program to better ensure that apps for children are appropriate. AdMob now offers a maximum ad content rating to give publishers more control over the ad content shown to their users. 
    

  We know that ensuring a safe and high quality app experience has never been more important to the success of your business. That’s why multiple teams across Google are coming together to further secure and protect the ads ecosystem for our most important audiences. As a preview, here are three key areas where we are focused and you can expect to hear more from us in the months ahead:
  

  • Double down on safeguarding advertiser spend from invalid traffic: One area of focus for the Ads team is developing new ways to detect disruptive ads shown outside of the app — for example, out-of-context ads from an app not currently in use. This behavior violates Google policies, so Google removes these apps from both AdMob and Play — in fact, a recent enforcement sweep resulted in the joint removal of nearly 600 apps. Our investigations are ongoing and when we find violations we will continue to take action.
  • Help app publishers towards compliance with industry regulations:As industry regulations evolve, Google is providing tools for app publishers to manage their compliance strategy, maintain user trust, and minimize the risk of losing revenue.
    
  • Give users more control over their app experiences:Android is making fundamental platform changes to minimize interruptions in app experiences and keep the user more in control of what's shown on their screen. 
    

  We’re excited to build on this momentum in app ad safety as well as peace of mind. Stay tuned for more updates over the next year on how Google is protecting its ad systems and improving ad traffic quality. 

  
  
  https://www.blog.google/products/admob/protecting-mobile-app-ecosystem/
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  Enhancing work profile privacy on company-owned devices
  • sorangutan  

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  Just because people use their phones at work, doesn’t mean they should have to sacrifice their privacy. Since Android 5.0, the work profile has helped ensure personal data remains private from IT even when employees bring their device to work, while giving IT the tools they need to secure corporate data. 

  But when given a phone by their company, employees don’t always know what IT can and can’t see. That’s a challenge for employees who want to keep their personal data private; in a recent survey of workers by ESG Research last year, 71% said they expect any personal information to remain private on work devices.

  What’s coming in Android 11

  In Android 11, enhancements to the work profile mean IT can confidently extend the same privacy protections to a company-owned device that people have come to expect from the work profile on a personally-owned device. 

  For IT professionals, new asset management and device-level controls for the work profile can manage and restrict personal use to ensure company assets are compliant with corporate policies. Now in Android 11, IT will have additional control over what the employee can do on the personal side of the device, while not having visibility into how they choose to use the device within those admin-defined restrictions. 

  For example, IT can ensure employees can’t install video streaming apps that would consume large amounts of company-subsidized cellular data. On the other hand, IT will not have visibility into which of the permitted applications employees choose to install and use. 

  For employees, this means they can get the full privacy protections from the work profile on company-owned devices, restricting IT visibility into their personal apps and data.

  All of this is accomplished without compromise to the integrity of company data. The strong boundary between work and personal data established by the work profile’s architecture, combined with Android’s extensive set of management and security features, ensures that IT has full control and visibility over where their work data can go. 

  Upgrading user privacy

  To enable this functionality as quickly and easily as possible, Android will automatically migrate work profile on fully managed devices to the improved work profile experience when devices upgrade to Android 11. Work profiles on fully managed devices will not be supported for either existing devices that upgrade to, or new activations on, Android 11. Other devices currently configured with work profiles are unaffected by these changes.

  If you currently deploy Android Enterprise and have questions about how your Android 10 devices may be affected, please contact your EMM partner for more information.

  Want to learn more?

  Learn more about this and other new Android 11 features on the Developer Preview 1 site, and download a system image for Pixel 2, 3, 3a, and 4 now.
  

  
  
  https://www.blog.google/products/android-enterprise/work-profile-privacy/
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  Google Maps 101: how contributed content makes a more helpful map
  • sorangutan  

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  Recently, we gave you a behind-the-scenes look at how we map the world and use imagery to capture the meaningful details around us. Now we’re diving into how content contributed by our user community makes Google Maps a more helpful tool for everyday decision making, whether you’re looking for the best burrito in a new city or trying to find a local car mechanic in your neighborhood. 

  Contributions create a more helpful map

  When we look at the places around us, it’s clear that not all the information we see is online. Store hours get updated, new businesses open and menus rotate.

  To ensure that our map reflects the real world, we enable anyone with a Google account to contribute their local knowledge to approximately 200 million points of interest in Google Maps. In fact, everyday people submit more than 20 million contributions to Google Maps, from reviews and ratings to photos, answers to other users' questions, address updates and more. Ultimately, this helps people everywhere make better decisions about where to eat and shop, or things to do and see.

  At a new restaurant and don’t know what to order? We can show you the most popular dishes for more than a million restaurants worldwide, made possible by photos and reviews other diners have added to the map. Looking for things to do nearby? In the “Explore” tab you can find recommended lists created by local experts and trusted publishers. 

  Hundreds of millions of people each year contribute information that helps keep Google Maps up to date. We recently added a new “Contribute” tab to the app so people can more easily share their local knowledge. Each contribution goes a long way in helping others learn about new places and decide what to do.

  

  Use the new Contribute tab to easily share your local knowledge on Google Maps

  It’s not just personal recommendations people are adding to the map. Each month, community contributions help us update factual information for businesses, roads and addresses around the planet. And thanks to contributions from the global Google Maps community, we’ve been able to add accessibility information, like wheelchair-friendly entrances and restrooms, for more than 50 million places around the planet, helping people with disabilities better navigate and explore their cities.

  One of our most passionate groups of contributors is the 120 million Local Guides across 24,000 cities and towns who are committed to making information about their communities on Google Maps more helpful and accurate. See how one of these Local Guides, Adriano Anjos in São Paulo, is making a difference in people's lives by sharing information about blood donation centers on Google Maps:

  

  Ensuring the content you see is reliable

  Like any platform that welcomes user-generated content, we have to remain vigilant against inappropriate content—the vast majority of which is removed before anyone actually sees it. And as more people contribute to Google Maps, we continue to crack down on the bad actors who violate our policies, using a combination of people and technology to tackle unwelcome content. 

  For example, we use automated detection systems, including machine learning models, that scan the millions of contributions we receive each day to detect and remove policy-violating content. In the case of fake reviews, our systems check every single review before it gets published to Google Maps, looking for signs of fake content. Our machine learning models watch out for specific words and phrases, examine patterns in the types of content an account has contributed in the past, and can detect suspicious review patterns. 

  While we’re constantly improving our automated systems, we know they’re not perfect as fake reviews can slip through from time to time. So we also deploy teams of trained operators and analysts who audit reviews, photos, business profiles and other types of content both individually and in bulk. And we provide a way for anyone to flag reviews, inappropriate content and misleading places for removal. 

  Sorting through the 20 million contributions we receive each day (that’s more than 7 billion contributions a year), in 2019 alone, our technologies and teams:

  • Removed more than 75 million policy-violating reviews and 4 million fake business profiles thanks to refinements in our machine learning models and automated detection systems which are getting better at blocking policy-violating content and detecting anomalies for our operators to review
  • Took down more than 580,000 reviews and 258,000 business profiles that were reported directly to us, as we make it easier for people flag inappropriate content 
  • Reviewed and removed more than 10 million photos and 3 million videos that violated our content policies, as our operators and automated systems get better at catching policy-violating content, such as off-topic photos
  • Disabled more than 475,000 user accounts as we improve our machine learning detection capabilities and develop expanded policies and training for our operators

  The vast majority of contributions made to Google Maps are authentic, with policy-violating content seen less than one percent of the time. And we’ll continue to develop new tools and techniques to fight against bad actors. 

  Contributed content is an indispensable part of how we’re making Google Maps richer and more helpful for everyone. With people’s contributions, we’ve been building a truly helpful map that not only gets you from A to B, but also helps you find the places and experiences that are right for you, whether you need to tackle last-minute gift shopping or have a craving for pizza.

  
  
  https://www.blog.google/products/maps/google-maps-101-how-contributed-content-makes-maps-helpful/
• 

  How does a 140-year-old newspaper reinvent itself?
  • sorangutan  

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  Editor’s note: This week, members of the GNI Subscriptions Lab will lead sessions at the Mega-Conference in Fort Worth, TX to share best practices and opportunities to grow digital subscriptions in line with reader preference. Here’s an inside look of those lessons from The Buffalo News.

  Six years ago, we launched our first paywall at The Buffalo News. We had exactly one tool for growing digital subscriptions: tighten the wall. Of course, this approach was doomed to fail. We needed to do the hard work of building digital capabilities we didn’t have, while setting aside other priorities.

  First, that meant getting everyone on board with digital subscriptions as the organizational focus. Through the Google News Initiative Subscriptions Lab, a program developed for the North American market by Google, Local Media Association and FTI Consulting, we came to see how digital subscriptions could be the foundation of a sustainable business model, not just a new revenue stream. As a longtime Buffalo News publisher used to say when trying to keep his team on track, “the main thing is the main thing.” A simple financial modeling exercise during our first Lab meeting revealed the revenue opportunities and left us with one conclusion: Digital subscriptions needed to become our “main thing.”

  This was no small change for our 140-year-old company. We were a print-focused, advertising-driven newspaper. We’re becoming a consumer-focused, digital publishing business. Transformation has meant saying no to worthy ideas and asking everyone to sacrifice their own priorities for the common goal. That focus has helped reduce friction and make decision-making much crisper.

  We created a team charged with growing our digital-subscription business and invested in e-commerce and data expertise. Existing departments that could impact consumer revenue, from customer service to promotions, were realigned to support consumer revenue growth. Cross-functional initiatives across editorial, tech and sales became the norm in support of digital subscriptions.

  The foundation for a new business was being built, but much remained unclear. What metrics should we monitor? What additional digital tools did we need? How do we set our priorities? Are we headed in the right direction?

  In the Lab, we immediately learned what metrics matter to convert readers into digital subscribers, and how we stack up against our publishing peers. We embraced the program’s push to experiment – and have been rewarded with meaningful results. With each success, we become more confident that we are on the right path.

  The Lab encouraged us, for example, to launch a prompt on our homepage that asks readers to sign-up for our flagship newsletter, “Good Morning, Buffalo.” Through that modal, we’ve added more than 60,000 newsletter subscribers over the past six months. 

  Our percentage of readers with an associated email address is six times larger now than before we began the Lab. We’ve learned that this metric is important, as known readers are not only more loyal, but also 10 times more likely to convert to digital subscribers than anonymous visitors. We’ve since leveraged this audience to drive subscriber conversions and boost engagement. More than 14% of our new digital subscribers since the Lab began have come from a newsletter subscriber. 

  We previously weren’t tracking many of these data points; now, we’re making decisions based on how they’ll move these numbers. Most importantly, we’ve increased our number of digital subscribers by 49% since starting the Lab. Monthly digital subscription revenue is up 23%, while average revenue per user is up 14% during that same period. That growth has allowed us to invest more in consumer revenue expertise and technology.

  All of this puts us on the path toward our ultimate goal: Preserving in-depth journalism in Western New York.

  
  

  
  
  https://www.blog.google/outreach-initiatives/google-news-initiative/how-does-140-year-old-newspaper-reinvent-itself/
• 

  "Parasite" searches ride an Oscars wave
  • sorangutan  

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  It’s been over a week since “Parasite” made history, becoming the first non-English language film to win Best Picture. And people are still talking about (and searching for) it.

  
  

  Surge in search interest

  There was already global interest in “Parasite” before the Oscars (turns out a lot of people could find something to relate to in a dark, funny story about two very different Korean families). Parasite was the third-most-searched Best Picture nominee in the week before the awards ceremony, behind “1917” and “Jojo Rabbit.” 

  
  

  

  But on the day of the Oscars, there was an 857 percent jump in the number of people searching for “Parasite” around the world, and that interest has continued since. In the week after the awards, it became the most-searched searched film worldwide—117 percent more searched than “1917” and 132 percent more searched than "Jojo Rabbit".
  

  

  Focus on Bong Joon Ho (and his translator)

  After being awarded Best Director, Bong Joon Ho won fans around the world with his gracious acceptance speech and promise to “drink until next morning.” Search interest for Bong increased by more than 2,000 percent on the day of the awards, while Korean-language searches for Martin Scorcese surged, too, after Bong quoted one of his lines (“the most personal is the most creative”).

  
  

  Most queries were about Bong himself, but the fifth-most asked question was “who is Bong Joon Ho’s translator?” (The answer is Sharon Choi, a Korean-American and fellow filmmaker who gained her own following during awards season.)

  
  

  A boost for Korean cinema

  Interest in Korean cinema has been growing steadily over thepast decade—but the success of “Parasite” has sent people scrambling to find out more. Related searches for “Korea” and “film”  have increased by more than 47 percent in the past month and reached their highest peak for 12 months in the week after the Oscars.  

  
  

  Ram-don fandom

  We’ve also seen growing appetite for the Korean noodle dish ram-don (aka Jjapa Guri) which features in “Parasite”. Since the Oscars, searches for “ram-don recipe” have soared by more than 400 percent globally and searches for “Asian supermarket” are up more than 350 percent. Denmark, the United States, Canada, Singapore and Australia are the countries searching the most—suggesting there could be opportunities for enterprising Korean restaurateurs in places from Copenhagen to Canberra.
  
  https://www.blog.google/around-the-globe/google-asia/parasite-searches-ride-oscars-wave/
• 

  New skills for Indonesia’s next generation
  • sorangutan  

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  As a teacher, Nur Ernawati believes in the value of lifelong learning—including for herself. Ernawati was one of 140 Indonesian teachers who signed up for a Bebras Indonesia course on computational thinking: a way of learning that stresses critical thinking and problem-solving rather than learning by rote. She’s since passed those lessons on to more than 400 of her students. Now she wants to see the program rolled out across Indonesia—and we’re ready to help make it happen. 

  At an event in Jakarta today, we announced a $1 million Google.org grant that that will enable Bebras—a global education nonprofit—to launch Gerakan Pandai: a new program designed to train another 22,000 Indonesian teachers in computational thinking over the next two years. 
  

  Why is this so important? With 64 million students, Indonesia has the fourth-largest education system in the world. But to give those students the best possible future, we need to make sure they have the skills and knowledge to handle changes in technology and solve the challenges they’re likely to face in the workplace. Bebras’ programs train teachers to help students break problems into smaller parts, assess data, prioritise information, and create solutions to complex issues: skills that are relevant to every career path, not just in the technology industry.

  

  Announcing our $1 million Google.org grant with Awaluddin Tjalla from the Ministry of Education and Culture, Ibu Inge and Ibu Nur from Bebras Indonesia, and Scott Beaumont, Google’s APAC President.

  So far, teachers trained by Bebras have taught computational thinking to more than 5,000 students—including 14-year old Nasha Rainy, one of Nur Ernawati’s students. ”Initially, I found the class very challenging, but Mrs. Erna was always there to support and inspire me to do my best,” Nasha said. “This experience has increased my self-confidence.” 

  By 2023, with Google.org’s support, Bebras-trained teachers will have reached two million more students across 22 locations in Indonesia, reaching underprivileged communities which might not have had these kinds of opportunities in the past.  

  Not only will Gerakan Pandai help young Indonesians shape their future with confidence, it will also contribute to closing Indonesia’s digital skills gap—one of our country’s most urgent priorities for the 2020s. 

  The Google.org grant was one of several steps we announced today, at the launch of our Grow with Google skills program in Indonesia, as we work to help millions more people succeed in Indonesia’s $40 billion internet economy.  
  

  Our skills training programs range from helping entrepreneurs use digital tools to supporting Indonesia’s most promising developers with courses in artificial intelligence and machine learning. But it all starts with education: what we teach our children and how well we prepare them for the opportunities that technology creates. With the support of Bebras—and brilliant teachers like Nur Ernawati—I’m confident the next generation will be ready to lead Indonesia forward.

  
  
  https://www.blog.google/around-the-globe/google-asia/new-skills-for-indonesias-next-generation/
• 

  Funding 21 news projects in the Middle East, Africa and Turkey
  • sorangutan  

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  Finding new and meaningful ways to engage readers is a hot topic for news organizations of any size, and the first Google News Initiative (GNI) Innovation Challenge for the Middle East, Turkey and Africa prompted a myriad of different approaches. The GNI Innovation Challenges,  part of Google’s $300 million commitment to help journalism thrive in the digital age, saw news innovators step forward with new thinking. In South Africa, Daily Maverick proposed a “relevancy engine” that would aggregate data feeds about reader behavior for small and medium publishers. In Jordan, podcast startup Sowt looked to tackle the challenge with a new hosting platform for news podcasts.

  
  

  We launched the Middle East, Turkey and Africa Innovation Challenge last June, and received 527 applications from 35 countries. After a rigorous review, a round of interviews and a final jury selection process, we selected 21 projects from 13 countries to receive $1.93 million in funding.

  
  

  The call for applications listed four criteria: impact, feasibility, innovation and inspiration, and the successful projects clearly demonstrated all four. Here are just a few of the awardees (you can find the full list on our website):

  
  

  • Demirören Teknoloji Anonim Şirketi in Turkey wants to solve the tagging process for the Turkish language to help with the news discovery distribution process. Currently this work requires cumbersome manual work from their journalists, taking a precious share of their time. 

  • Daily news publisher Israel Hayom will be creating a loyalty scheme where online users get real-life rewards in the form of tickets or money-saving offers. 

  • Nas News wants to engage Iraq’s citizens in video debates for positive change with a mobile-first social and news platform that allows users to read and debate on local and national topics.

  • L'Orient le Jour in Lebanon wants to build a new loyalty plan to offer special and personalized privileges to subscribers via an interactive platform.

  • The National in the UAE will develop a service that converts quality text news into audio in real time, in both English and Arabic.

  • Ringier Africa Digital Publishing in Nigeria will be increasing personalization across their platform using a blend of prediction, recommendation and local information pages to increase user engagement.

  A second round of theMiddle East, Turkey and Africa Innovation Challenge will open for applications later in the year: Watch for details on our website.
  
  https://www.blog.google/outreach-initiatives/google-news-initiative/funding-21-news-projects-middle-east-africa-and-turkey/
• 

  Addressing equity in CS curriculum with Kapor Center
  • sorangutan  

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  Editor’s note: This post is authored by Dr. Allison Scott, Chief Research Officer at the Kapor Center for Social Impact. The Kapor Center received a Google.org grant, as part of Code with Google’s $25 million commitment to increasing Black and Latinx students’ access to computer science education.

  In our increasingly technology-driven world, computer science is critical for all students to learn. Computing is shaping the future of fields as diverse as medicine, entertainment, transportation, manufacturing and agriculture, and our students must be prepared with the technical skills to succeed in the fastest-growing and highest-paying occupations in our future.

  However, not all students have the opportunity to learn computing concepts. Large access gaps exist, especially for low-income students and students of color. And even when computing courses are available, classrooms are not always inclusive and engaging for students from all backgrounds.

  When developed intentionally, curriculum is a powerful tool for creating inclusivity. It’s the playbook that teachers build from, and provides an opportunity to incorporate students’ backgrounds, interests, and passions, with the knowledge and skills needed in their futures, regardless of what they choose to pursue. In computer science classrooms, students can assess air quality, predict performance of athletes or political candidates, consider the ethical implications of autonomous vehicles and facial recognition software, and understand how data can diagnose and treat cancer. 

  Today the Kapor Center received a $3 million Google.org grant to establish the Equitable Computer Science Curriculum initiative. This effort will bring together leaders in education equity, inclusive teaching practices, and computer science education, along with teachers and students to improve K-12 CS curriculum and resources. Alongside a diverse advisory board, we'll develop guidelines for creating culturally-relevant learning materials and support curriculum providers to implement those best practices. Through this initiative, thousands of teachers will access CS curricula that counteracts stereotypes, builds CS interest, and affirms the diverse identities of the millions of students across the country.

  It will take more than one organization or one intervention to improve computing education and we look forward to working with many experts across many disciplines to improve inclusion, participation, and equity in CS classrooms. Join us in this exciting initiative.

  
  
  https://www.blog.google/outreach-initiatives/code-with-google/curriculum-equity/
• 

  A home-grown news site for Peterborough
  • sorangutan  

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  Editor’s note: Today’s guest post comes from John Baker, Chief Reporter, Peterborough Matters. 

  I’ve worked in local news for 15 years and experienced how meaningful it is to a community. As I’ve walked through the city from my home in Woodston and visited local people in Cathedral Square, Bretton, Werrington and elsewhere, I’m reminded of what makes our city so vibrant and draws my friends to visit often. 

  We love Cathedral Square with the iconic 17th century Guildhall, shops, and eateries, plus the Cathedral itself which is one of England’s finest Norman cathedrals. We love the many events that take place in Peterborough, like the Beer Festival, Heritage Festival, Queensgate, and the annual Perkins Great Eastern Run half marathon, to name a few. This strong sense of pride is why I’m proud to announce today’s launch of a digital news site for Peterborough. 

  Peterborough Matters is the first of three local news sites launched by Archant’s Project Neon in partnership with the Google News Initiative’s Local News Experiments Project. The projects first partnered with American publisher McClatchy and launched Mahoning Matters in Youngstown, Ohio last year. These sites will test and build different editorial and business models as we work toward the goal of financial sustainability. 

  Our team is proud of our Peterborough roots and eager to serve the community. I have lived in the Fens for 40 years and in Peterborough for a decade. Our reporter Shariqua Ahmed, who worked in newspapers in India before three years at BBC Radio Cambridgeshire, will bring her broadcasting skills and knowledge of the city's diverse cultural heritage and communities into our newsroom. We’re also excited to introduce our other local reporter Carly Beech who grew up in Peterborough, attending Thomas Deacon Academy before studying journalism at university, followed by a stint at the Daily Star. Our content assistant Charlotte Moore was born and raised in Peterborough and worked as a library assistant for Vivacity for three years. She has a keen passion for the heritage of the city and its environmental issues. 

  We will use our talents to make sure you know about important news like crime, road accidents, council meetings, and weather. We’ll also help connect the community more with compelling in-depth stories about the people, places, and events that make up the fabric of our community. You'll learn about people you don't know, stories you've not heard, and ideas you might not have considered.

  This is an experiment and we will aim to earn your trust each day with each story. Our partnership with the Google News Initiative enables us to meld the best of our editorial minds with Google’s expertise in best product practices. We will work together in a transparent and experimental way and share our learnings publicly. 

  Your feedback is of critical importance and we hope you will share more of what's important to you and why. We will have open-house events to engage with you where you can hear from those making the city tick.

  Thank you to all of you who have helped us as we’ve prepared for this launch. Your support means a lot and we will work to be worthy of it. Join the conversation, contact us onFacebook, Twitter,or e-mail. Peterborough Matters to us and we look forward to building this together.

  
  
  https://www.blog.google/outreach-initiatives/google-news-initiative/home-grown-news-site-peterborough/
• 

  Get the reach of TV and the relevance of digital with Display & Video 360
  • sorangutan  

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  Connected TV combines the reach and familiarity of traditional TV with the relevance and measurability of digital. For marketers to get the best of both worlds, we’re investing in connected TV advertising solutions designed to reach households at scale with messages that are relevant to users and respectful of their privacy. 

  The reach of TV 

  
  

  Brands have historically turned to traditional TV to connect at an emotional level with a wide range of people as they watch premium content. But as the media landscape becomes increasingly fragmented, advertisers have been left searching for new ways to engage with viewers at scale and build their brands. Good news - with more and more premium TV content available via streaming and accessible with programmatic technology, achieving reach through connected TV in a high-quality, brand safe environment has never been easier.

  To help marketers quantify this opportunity, we retained Comscore to evaluate the reach of Display & Video 360’s connected TV advertising solutions in the US. Comscore’s analysis found that with Display & Video 360 marketers can now reach 76 percent of all connected TV households in the US and 89 percent of ad-supported connected TV households.¹ This accounts for more than half of all US Wi-Fi households and this number is expected to increase as connected TV penetration grows. In addition to YouTube, Display & Video 360 provides access to 9 of the top 10 most watched ad supported connected TV apps from cable and broadcast channels in the US.

  

  Just as connected TVs are becoming mainstream devices in US homes, buying connected TV ads programmatically is also becoming a mainstream way to engage with all sorts of audience groups ranging from cable subscribers to cord-cutters, and from Gen X to more senior viewers. To test this assumption, we looked at the reach of Display & Video 360 across different household types. As it turns out, while Display & Video 360 connected TV ads remain a must-have if you’re after cord-nevers and younger viewers, they are now relevant to your strategy no matter the age and TV subscription status of your core audience.

  

  The relevance and measurability of digital 

  
  

  What makes connected TV advertising especially powerful is its ability to apply best practices from the digital world. For example, frequency management helps you spend money efficiently and avoid ad fatigue with users.

  Last year, we announced that Display & Video 360 was supporting the IAB Tech Lab guidelines and using the Identifier for Advertising (IFA) to effectively manage ad frequency for connected TV. IFA is a standardized identifier that can be disabled or reset by the user. Since then, the industry has widely adopted IFA. In fact, last year alone, Display & Video 360 saw an 88 percent increase in connected TV IFA adoption by publishers on our top five video exchange partners.² Today, to further extend your frequency management capabilities, we’re working with inventory providers to support IFAs at the exchange and publisher levels. For example, we recently integrated with Telaria’s video management platform, enabling you to control frequency in a user-first way on publishers such as Hulu, Pluto TV or Lifetime.
  

  To help you deliver a more pleasant and personalized viewing experience on connected TV, we have also integrated with audience and measurement partners investing in the IFA standard. Display & Video 360 now supports Comscore’s IFA-based audience segments across connected TV devices.

  If you want to explore connected TV ads as a way to recreate your TV reach in 2020, Display & Video 360 will help you connect with a large number of streaming households. And to harness the digital capabilities of connected TV advertising, make sure you use IFA to manage how often viewers should see your spot and what is the most appropriate ad message.

  ---

  _{1. Source: Comscore Total Home Panel Custom Report, Sept. 2019, U.S.}

  _{2. Internal data, IFA coverage for top exchanges, US, Jan 2020}

  
  
  https://www.blog.google/products/marketingplatform/360/get-reach-tv-and-relevance-digital-display-video-360/
• 

  The Suite Life: 4 tips to a better Gmail inbox
  • sorangutan  

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  The average person receives 120 emails a day, which means  keeping your inbox under control can feel like an impossible task. Fortunately, G Suite gives you the tools you need to stay focused and organized. Welcome to the Gmail edition of The Suite Life, a series that brings you tips and tricks to get the most out of G Suite. In this post, we’ll provide advice to help you save time and get more done—right from your Gmail inbox.
  
  

  Tip 1: Write now, send later with Schedule send

  Whether you’re firing off a reply outside of normal work hours, collaborating with teammates across time zones, or want to send your future self a reminder, there are lots of reasons to schedule an email instead of hitting send right away. With Schedule send, you can plan exactly when your email will be sent in Gmail. This means your emails can reach teammates at a time that's convenient for them.

  

  Here’s how:

  1. When you’re done writing your email, click the arrow to the right of the Send button in Gmail.

  2. Select “Schedule send.”

  3. Choose a date and time that works for you.

  4. Once you’ve scheduled at least one email, you’ll see a new box called Scheduled where you can view emails set to be sent, change times, or cancel the send.

  ---

  Pro-tip: Curious to know how Googlers stay on top of things? Try out these tips.

  ---

  Tip 2: Turn emails into Tasks in one step

  A lot of emails require some sort of follow-up. With Google Tasks, you can quickly turn that email into an item on your to-do list without ever leaving your inbox.
  

  

  Here’s how:

  1. Click and drag your email into the Tasks list located in the Gmail companion bar. 

  2. Type the text that describes your task, and a link to the email is attached to the bottom. You can also press SHIFT + K when you’re in an email to automatically add it to your Tasks list.

  If you’re new to Tasks, check out this article to help you get started. Or if you’re used to using Google Keep, try out some of these tricks of the trade.
  
  

  Tip 3: Send and archive emails at the same time

  The secret to a tidy inbox is archiving emails when they’re no longer needed. Gmail gives you the option to reply to an email and archive it in the same step, which means you can get to Inbox Zero faster than ever.

  

  Here’s how: 

  1. In Gmail settings, click the General tab, then click the “Show ‘Send & Archive’” button.

  2. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Save Changes. Now, when you write an email, you’ll see the “Send & Archive” button at the bottom of the page; clicking on it will complete both actions at the same time.

  Tip 4: Create a Google Calendar event in one click

  Ever find yourself thinking “I should set up a meeting about this” after reading an email? Schedule it right from Gmail—no need to open Calendar separately.

  

  Here’s how to create Calendar events from emails in one single step:

  1. When you’re in an email, navigate to the three dots and click Create Event. This will open a new Calendar tab. The subject of the email becomes the event title, anyone in the “To” or “Cc” line is added as a guest to the event, and the most recent reply to the thread is embedded in the description. 

  2. Click “Save,” and you’re done! 

  We’ve got plenty more tips to help you better use G Suite tools like Gmail, Docs, Calendar, and more. Check out all the videos from The Suite Life.

  
  
  https://www.blog.google/products/g-suite/gmail-tips-that-help-you-save-time-and-get-more-done/
• 

  One man's mission to add civil rights history to Google Maps
  • sorangutan  

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  “I think in another life, I would have been a private investigator,” says Paul Kang. The Nashville resident is a paralegal for an immigration law firm, but it’s his hobby as a Local Guide on Google Maps that’s brought out his inner detective, turning him into something of a historian.

  Paul and his family moved to Tennessee in 2012, and it was out of necessity that he was first introduced to Google Maps and soon after Local Guides, the community of everyday people who are passionate about sharing their experiences on Google Maps with reviews, photos, videos and more. Their efforts end up making Maps better for everyone. “My wife wanted to know where the post office near her work was, so I looked it up and sent her the map listing,” he says. “And when she went there, she told me it was all closed up.” The post office wasn’t open for business anymore. This sort of thing happened a few more times, and after becoming slightly frustrated, Paul realized he could use Google Maps to edit information. “I started closing things down, replacing duplicate listings,” he says. Eventually, Paul was doing much more than correcting listings. In 2017, the 1955 murder of Emmett Till resurfaced in the news when an interview with the woman who’d accused Till of harassing her—which led her husband and an accomplice to murder Till—admitted it wasn’t true. The tragic, senseless killing of the 14-year-old boy had been a catalyst in the civil rights movement, and the confession reignited interest in the story for Americans everywhere. 

  Paul first learned about what happened to Emmett Till when he was a young adult. “I think one of the things I still remember is that the jury acquitted Till’s murderers in 59 minutes, but that they would have [done it] faster if they hadn’t all gone together to get a bottle of pop before rendering the verdict.” 

  When he used Google Maps to try and find the site where Till’s body was found, a listing appeared—but didn’t seem like it was in the right spot according to what Paul had read. After using historical resources to learn more about the location, he was able to find it himself on Google Maps—and he decided that everyone else should be able to as well, so he loaded up his wife and kids and started the two-hour road trip south. 

  “I just thought, you know what, I’m going to do this, I’m doing to drive my whole family down there,” Paul says. When they got there, he says they discovered a museum dedicated to Emmett Till, but it was only open by appointment--information that hadn’t been listed in Google Maps. Fortunately, the museum was holding an event, and Paul’s family was able to go in. What Paul didn’t realize is how important the experience was for his wife, who was learning about Emmett Till for the first time. “We talked about it as she was going through it. It was shocking to her. It was a big download of information for her, and I know it’s stuck with her and informs her when she’s reading the news today, too.”

  • Courthouse 1.JPG

    Paul's family stands outside the courthouse where Emmett Till was convicted. 

  • Courthouse family.png

    Paul and his family. 

  • River Marker Site.JPG

    A missing sign here marks the site where Emmett Till's body was recovered. It was taken down due to vandalism and has since been replaced. 

  • 360.jpg

    One of the images Paul captured with his 360-degree camera for Street View.

  Using a 360-degree camera, Paul also took Street View photos of the site where Till’s body was found, and updated the Google Maps data so others can find it. He was even able to find the barn where Till was tortured and added that information to Maps.

  Paul's gone on to add more historical information to Google Maps; he thinks he’s added some 50 historic landmarks, give or take. In 2018, for the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination, various sites and memorials in Memphis were being constructed. “I waited to see if the city or some nonprofit maybe was going to add them to Google Maps, but I didn’t see anything,” he says. “So I just started adding them.” 

  He also made a point to update information about other memorials to Dr. King, including “I Have Been to the Mountaintop,” a sculpture unveiled in 1976 that was moved to a more prominent part of downtown Memphis. I AM A MAN plaza, an open air installation that opened in 2018 and dedicated to the sanitation workers’ strike of 1968, also wasn’t on Google Maps; Paul made sure both of these sites would surface, complete with historic information. Once when he went to take photos for Street View with his 360-degree camera, a few police officers acting as security at a site asked what he was doing. “I was like, ‘I’m making sure this gets on Google Maps, so people can find it!’” 
  

  News archives and web research power Paul’s exploration of the history of his new state and  he says there’s work to be done to make sure this information remains accessible for future generations. “A lot of the websites cataloging information about these kinds of places with descriptions and photos are volunteer-led,” he says. “What if they decide not to or forget to renew their domain? Those websites could go away.”
  

  Fortunately, Paul’s work won’t be going anywhere. “Even if all these websites go away, Google Maps will still be here.”

  
  
  https://www.blog.google/products/maps/one-mans-mission-add-civil-rights-history-google-maps/
• 

  GameSnacks brings quick, casual games to any device
  • sorangutan  

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  Look around on the bus, in line at a coffee shop, or even at the doctor’s office. You’ll likely see people playing games on their phones—and they’re a few of the two billion people around the world who are doing it. Unfortunately, many games (especially web games) don’t load well on low memory devices and 2G or 3G networks that hundreds of millions of people rely on.

  Today, we’re announcing GameSnacks to help address this problem. Part of Area 120,Google’s lab for experimental projects, our goal is to make HTML5 games more accessible for phones on any network in the world. GameSnacks games are fast, easy to play, and available on any device that lets you connect to the internet. 

  

  Additionally, people in Indonesia can soon access GameSnacks games though Gojek, a leading super app in southeast Asia. Let’s explore how GameSnacks works for users and developers.
  

  Web games are slow for many people

  Take a look at how a typical web game loads on a 1 GB RAM phone on a 3G network, which is what hundreds of millions of people around the world use: 

  

  Over half of mobile site visitors leave a page if it takes more than 3 seconds to load, but this game took 12 seconds. 

  GameSnacks games are easy to play and fast loading

  Fortunately for many users, GameSnacks games can load within a few seconds in network conditions slower than 1 Mbps, which tens of millions of people worldwide experience. For instance, Tower, a popular GameSnacks game, is quickly ready to play on the same 1 GB RAM device connected to 3G from earlier:

  

  Our Area 120 team works with developers to achieve fast performance by reducing the size of the initially-loaded HTML page, compressing additional assets such as scripts, images, and sounds, and waiting to load them until necessary.

  
  

  Next, let’s look at the design of the games. GameSnacks games are simple, fun and ideal for casual gamers. Games only last for a few minutes, and have straightforward rules that can be learned without instructions. GameSnacks games are accessible on any web-capable device. Each game supports touch, keyboard, and mouse controls and can be played on Android, iOS, and desktop devices.

  GameSnacks games will be in Gojek
  

  We’ve also partnered with Gojek to bring GameSnacks games into the Gojek ecosystem through GoGames. Gojek is a leading technology platform in Southeast Asia focused on removing life’s daily frictions. Through this partnership, we’ll deliver more accessible gaming experiences to Southeast Asian users, starting in Indonesia.
  

  

  Our team is always looking to add more high quality games to the GameSnacks game catalog. If you’re an HTML5 game developer interested in building fast-loading games for people around the world, please contact us. 

  Additionally, if you develop an app that could embed GameSnacks games, please reach out. GameSnacks games can help entertain your users and increase the likelihood that they come back to your app. The presentation of the games can also be customized to feel native to your app.

  When it comes to gaming, fast is better than slow. We’re excited to bring GameSnacks games to more users around the world and make gaming more accessible.
  
  https://www.blog.google/technology/area-120/gamesnacks-brings-quick-casual-games-any-device/