Google Cloud Platform News

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  Stopping bad ads to protect users
  • sorangutan  

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  People trust Google when they’re looking for information, and we’re committed to ensuring they can trust the ads they see on our platforms, too. This commitment is especially important in times of uncertainty, such as the past few months as the world has confronted COVID-19. 

  
  

  Responding to COVID-19

  Since the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak, we’ve closely monitored advertiser behavior to protect users from ads looking to take advantage of the crisis. These often come from sophisticated actors attempting to evade our enforcement systems with advanced tactics. For example, as the situation evolved, we saw a sharp spike in fraudulent ads for in-demand products like face masks. These ads promoted products listed significantly above market price, misrepresented the product quality to trick people into making a purchase or were placed by merchants who never fulfilled the orders. 

  We have a dedicated COVID-19 task force that’s been working around the clock. They have built new detection technology and have also improved our existing enforcement systems to stop bad actors. These concerted efforts are working. We’ve blocked and removed tens of millions of coronavirus-related ads over the past few months for policy violations including price-gouging, capitalizing on global medical supply shortages, making misleading claims about cures and promoting illegitimate unemployment benefits.
  

  Simultaneously, the coronavirus has become an important and enduring topic in everyday conversation and we’re working on ways to allow advertisers across industries to share relevant updates with their audiences. Over the past several weeks, for example, we’ve specifically helped NGOs, governments, hospitals and healthcare providers run PSAs. We continue to take a measured approach to adjusting our enforcement to ensure that we are protecting users while prioritizing critical information from trusted advertisers.

  
  

  Preserving the integrity of the ecosystem

  Preserving the integrity of the ads on our platforms, as we’re doing during the COVID-19 outbreak, is a continuation of the work we do every day to minimize content that violates our policies and stop malicious actors. We have thousands of people working across our teams to make sure we’re protecting our users and enabling a safe ecosystem for advertisers and publishers, and each year we share a summary of the work we’ve done.

  In 2019, we blocked and removed 2.7 billion bad ads—that’s more than 5,000 bad ads per minute. We also suspended nearly 1 million advertiser accounts for policy violations. On the publisher side, we terminated over 1.2 million accounts and removed ads from over 21 million web pages that are part of our publisher network for violating our policies. Terminating accounts—not just removing an individual ad or page—is an especially effective enforcement tool that we use if advertisers or publishers engage in egregious policy violations or have a history of violating policy.

  

  Improving enforcement against phishing and "trick-to-click" ads 

  If we find specific categories of ads are more prone to abuse, we prioritize our resources to prevent bad actors from taking advantage of users. One of the areas that we’ve become familiar with is phishing, a common practice used by deceptive players to collect personal information from users under false pretenses. For example, in 2019 we saw more bad actors targeting people seeking to renew their passport. These ads mimicked real ads for renewal sites but their actual intent was to get users to provide sensitive information such as their social security or credit card number. Another common area of abuse is “trick-to-click” ads—which are designed to trick people into interacting with them by using prominent links (for example, “click here”) often designed to look like computer or mobile phone system warnings.

  Because we’ve come to expect certain recurring categories like phishing and “trick-to-click,” we’re able to more effectively fight them. In 2019, we assembled an internal team to track the patterns and signals of these types of fraudulent advertisers so we could identify and remove their ads faster. As a result, we saw nearly a 50 percent decrease of bad ads served in both categories from the previous year. In total, we blocked more than 35 million phishing ads and 19 million “trick-to-click” ads in 2019.

  

  Adapting our policies and technology in real time

  Certain industries are particularly susceptible to malicious behavior. For example, as more consumers turn to online financial services over brick and mortar locations, we identified an increase in personal loan ads with misleading information on lending terms. To combat this, we broadened our policy to only allow loan-related ads to run if the advertiser clearly states all fees, risks and benefits on their website or app so that users can make informed decisions. This updated policy enabled us to take down 9.6 million of these types of bad ads in 2019, doubling our number from 2018. 

  At the end of last year, we also introduced a certification program for debt management advertisers in select countries that offer to negotiate with creditors to remedy debt or credit problems. We know users looking for help with this are often at their most vulnerable and we want to create a safe experience for them. This new program ensures we’re only allowing advertisers who are registered by the local regulatory agencies to serve ads for this type of service. We’re continuing to explore ways to scale this program to more countries to match local finance regulations. 

  
  

  Looking forward

  Maintaining trust in the digital advertising ecosystem is a top priority for Google. And with global health concerns now top of mind for everyone, preparing for and responding to attempts to take advantage of our users is as important as it has ever been. We know abuse tactics will continue evolving and new societal issues will arise. We'll continue to make sure we’re protecting our users, advertisers and publishers from bad actors across our advertising platforms. 

  
  
  https://www.blog.google/products/ads/stopping-bad-ads-to-protect-users/
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  18 Asia Pacific news organizations with big ideas
  • sorangutan  

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  Last October, we invited news organizations to apply to the second round of the Google News Initiative Innovation Challenge in Asia Pacific: a call for new ideas to help journalism thrive in the digital age. Since then, the COVID-19 outbreak has affected publishers across the region and, after discussions with publishers, we made the decision to go ahead with the Challenge—alongside our broader support for journalism in this challenging time. 

  The first round of the Challenge focused on diversifying revenue and saw dozens of examples of creative new approaches. Iwate Nippo, a local publisher in Japan, developed a news and lifestyle app targeting elderly subscribers, while Australia’s Crikey created a new group subscription model—steps to strengthen their business and ensure they can continue to provide vital news, analysis and information.
  

  
  This time around, applicants were asked for proposals to increase reader engagement, which ultimately leads to greater loyalty and willingness to pay for content. We received 255 strong submissions across topics like user-generated content, community management, fact-checking and the use of technologies such as machine learning to tackle business challenges. Today, we’re announcing the 18 organizations from across the region selected to take their ideas forward with GNI’s support.

  Meet the selected applicants from the second round of the GNI Innovation Challenge in Asia Pacific.

  As in the first round, what set these organizations apart was the variety and creativity of their ideas. Gaon Connection in India is building an ‘insights platform’ to capture the opinions and preferences of rural communities. Three local news providers in Korea—the Busan Daily, Maeil Daily and Gangwon Daily—are collaborating to gather real-time insights that will help them create customized experiences for their readers. Australian Community Media is developing a new platform for classified ads that will better support local newspapers and small businesses. Japan’s Nippon TV is using augmented reality technology to bring its news archives to life—and these are just some of the proposals that stood out during the application process. 

  
  

  We’re grateful to all the organizations that took the time to apply. A strong Asia Pacific news industry has never been more important, and we’re looking forward to seeing the selected applicants put their ideas into action.

  
  

  
  
  https://www.blog.google/around-the-globe/google-asia/gni-innovation-challenge-apac/
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  Helping journalists understand the power of machine learning
  • sorangutan  

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  Editor’s note: What impact can AI and machine learning have on journalism? That is a question the Google News Initiative is exploring through a partnership with Polis, the international journalism think tank at the London School of Economics and Political Science. The following post is written by Mattia Peretti, who manages the program, called JournalismAI.

  In the global survey we conducted last year about the use of artificial intelligence (AI) by news organizations, most respondents highlighted the urgent need to educate and train their newsroom on the potential offered by machine learning and other AI-powered technologies. Improving AI literacy was seen as vital to change culture and improve understanding of new tools and systems:

  AI literacy is crucial. We are looking at how to better educate our journalists on everything from rudimentary coding through to data science. The more the newsroom at large embraces the technology... for AI projects, the better the outcome. New powers, new responsibilities:
  A global survey of journalism and AI

  The message from newsrooms was loud and clear. So we decided to do something about it. That’s why we’re announcing a free training course produced by JournalismAI in collaboration with VRT News and the Google News Initiative. 

  This Introduction to Machine Learning is built by journalists, for journalists, and it will help answer questions such as: What is machine learning? How do you train a machine learning model? What can journalists and news organizations do with it and why is it important to use it responsibly?

  The course is available in 17 different languages on the Google News Initiative Training Center. By logging in, you can track your progress and get a certificate when you complete the course. The Training Center also has a variety of other courses to help you find, verify and tell news stories online.

  
  

  The Introduction to Machine Learning course is available on the Google News Initiative Training Center in 17 different languages.

  It’s a tough time for journalists and news organizations worldwide, as they try to assess the impact that COVID-19 will have on the business and editorial side of the industry. With JournalismAI, we want to play our role in helping to minimize costs and enhance opportunities for the industry through these new technologies. This course complements our recently launched collaborative experiment, as well as our effort to highlight profiles and experiments that show the transformative potential of AI and machine learning in shaping the journalist, and the journalism, of the future.

  At the end of the course, you’ll find a list of recommended resources, produced by journalism and technology experts across the world, that have been instrumental in designing our Introduction to Machine Learning and will help you dive even deeper in the world of AI and automation. 

  And we are not done. After this course, and the previous training module with strategic suggestions on AI adoption, we are planning to design more training resources on AI and machine learning for journalists later this year. Sign up for the JournalismAI newsletter to stay updated.

  
  

  
  
  https://www.blog.google/outreach-initiatives/google-news-initiative/helping-journalists-understand-power-machine-learning/
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  Maps that bring us closer, even when we're apart
  • sorangutan  

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  With much of the world physically apart right now, people are finding creative ways to use custom-built maps to maintain a shared sense of community, albeit virtually.

  
  

  In 2007, we launched a tool called My Maps to help people create their own custom maps on top of Google Maps. With a simple drag-and-drop interface you can add placemarks, draw lines and shapes, and embed text, photos and videos. You can share your map via public URL, embed it on websites or publish your map for others to see.

  
  

  Over the past four months, we’ve seen a surge in the number of people creating and viewing My Maps. From December 2019 to April 2020, we saw nearly a billion more My Maps creations, edits and views compared to the same time period last year, growing from 2 billion to nearly 3 billion. With My Maps, communities have been sharing helpful, local information in rapidly changing situations—from COVID-19 testing sites and food banks to where first responders can access childcare facilities.

  
  

  Maps can help us and our communities stay safe

  A map can be helpful in ways that a simple list of text is not: it helps us instantly see information in the context of where we are, with the locations of the resources we might need.

  

  With My Maps, anyone can be a cartographer. People can import their own data into a custom map, similar to how the San Francisco Department of Homelessness & Supportive Housing mapped downtown hand-washing and hygiene stations to support hand hygiene and reduce the spread of COVID-19. With a spreadsheet or KML you can have your own custom map in no time.

  
  

  Some maps take a bit more than hand-drawn points and polygons. For that, My Maps creators can import their own mapping data and mash it up with other sources. 

  
  For example, the online newspaper Briarcliff Daily Voice created a My Map showing the spread of coronavirus cases in the New York City metropolitan area, using data from three state healthcare agencies and the city’s health department. Pennsylvania.gov has leveraged My Maps to inform Pennsylvanians about coronavirus cases by county. And The Chicago Sun-Times has a map showing where to get tested for coronavirus in the Chicago area.

  Anyone can be a force for good with simple, easy-to-use maps

  In the past few months, we've seen how powerful this small set of relatively simple features can be. People are using My Maps to to be forces for good and coordinate relief efforts.

  
  

  Map by map, people are connecting each other to resources for caring for ourselves and others, while staying healthy and informed. We’re seeing everyone from members of Congress to local nonprofits use Google My Maps to visualize information like school lunch pick-up spots to the spread of the virus in our communities.

  
  

  Here are 10 helpful My Maps we’ve seen developed by communities around the world:

  
  

  • Massachusetts My Maps

    Massachusetts' Child Nutrition Outreach Program is using My Maps to help families find sites serving meals to children and teens during school closures.

  • Maldives My Maps

    The local Maldives police department thanked a citizen for creating a helpful map that displayed local shops, pharmacies and food businesses by zone. 

  • Ecuador My Maps

    The National Transit Agency of Ecuador is using My Maps to help truck drivers moving food across the country find disinfection points, gas stations, mechanics and other resources to help them on their journey.

  • Taiwan My Maps

    Taiwan's CDC has used My Maps to visualize the traces of confirmed patients in their contact tracing website.

  • Glasglow My Maps

    Urban Roots, a community led environmental charity in Scotland, has been collaborating with the Glasgow Community Food Network map to direct people to food banks and free meals in Glasgow.

  • Philippines My Maps

    In the Philippines, the Department of Transportation is using My Maps to map free hospital shuttle service routes for COVID-19 medical frontliners.

  • Wyoming My Maps

    The Wyoming Department of Family Services created a My Map to guide essential personnel like police officers, doctors, and nurses to childcare facilitiesfor their children whose schools have closed.
    

  • Australia Clinics My Maps

    In Australia, the New South Wales Ministry of Health has created a map of public COVID-19 clinics up and running across New South Wales.

  • Mississippi My Maps

    Librarians across Mississippi have teamed up to create a map of parking lot WiFi access points.

  • London COVID Support My Maps

    Andy Jeffrey, a freelance developer from London, has developed a map with links and contact details for coronavirus support services, charity organizations and mutual aid groups in North London

  Keeping a shared sense of community, even when you're physically apart

  As much as these maps are informative and helpful, they’re also uplifting. After a group of Brooklyn, NY moms asked neighbors to put pictures of rainbows in house windows so kids could track them down, one parent created a map showing the rainbows’ locations all over the city and suburbs. Now people worldwide are pitching in and adding their own rainbow locations to the map.

  

  If you’d like to experiment with My Maps, we’re putting together tutorials on skills like merging datasets and embedding maps online. Visit the Google Earth Medium channel in the coming weeks to learn more.

  
  
  https://www.blog.google/products/maps/my-maps-bring-us-closer/
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  Google Meet premium video conferencing—now free for everyone
  • sorangutan  

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  Technology that connects us while we're apart helps keep us safe and productive. Over the past few months, we’ve seen the power of video meetings bring us together—whether we’re working with teammates, talking to healthcare professionals, sharing with loved ones, or learning from home. 

  Today, we’re making Google Meet, our premium video conferencing product, free for everyone, with availability rolling out over the coming weeks. We’ve invested years in making Meet a secure and reliable video conferencing solution that’s trusted by schools, governments and enterprises around the world, and in recent months we’veaccelerated the release of top-requested features to make it even more helpful. Starting in early May, anyone with an email address can sign up for Meet and enjoy many of the same features available to our business and education users, such as simple scheduling and screen sharing, real-time captions, and layouts that adapt to your preference, including an expanded tiled view. 

  It’s important that everyone who uses Meet has a secure and reliable experience from the start, so beginning next week, we’ll be gradually expanding its availability to more and more people over the following weeks. This means you might not be able to create meetings at meet.google.com right away, but you can sign up to be notified when it’s available.

  

  Meet operates on a secure foundation, keeping users safe, data secure, and information private—including between patients and caregivers.

  Video meetings built on a secure foundation

  Meet is designed, built and operated to be secure at scale. Since January, we’ve seen Meet’s peak daily usage grow by 30x. As of this month, Meet is hosting 3 billion minutes of video meetings and adding roughly 3 million new users every day. And as of last week, Meet’s daily meeting participants surpassed 100 million. With this growth comes great responsibility. Privacy and security are paramount, no matter if it’s a doctor sharing confidential health information with a patient, a financial advisor hosting a client meeting, or people virtually connecting with each other for graduations, holidays and happy hours.

  Our approach to security is simple: make products safe by default. We designed Meet to operate on a secure foundation, providing the protections needed to keep our users safe, their data secure, and their information private. Here are just a few of our default-on safety measures:
  
  

  • We provide a strong set of host controls such as the ability to admit or deny entry to a meeting, and mute or remove participants, if needed. 

  • We do not allow anonymous users (i.e., without a Google Account) to join meetings created by individual accounts. 

  • Meet meeting codes are complex by default and therefore resilient to brute-force “guessing.”

  • Meet video meetings are encrypted in transit, and all recordings stored in Google Drive are encrypted in transit and at rest.

  • We don’t require plugins to use Meet on the web. It works entirely in Chrome and other modern browsers, so  it’s less vulnerable to security threats.

  • On mobile, we have dedicated Google Meet apps in the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. 

  • Meet users can enroll their account in Google’s Advanced Protection Program—our strongest protections available against phishing and account hijacking.

  • Google Cloud undergoes regular rigorous security and privacy audits for all its services. Our global compliance certifications can help support regulatory requirements such as GDPR and HIPAA, as well as COPPA and FERPA for education. 

  • Your Meet data is not used for advertising, and we don't sell your data to third parties.

  We operate a highly secure and resilient private network that encircles the globe and connects our data centers to each other—ensuring that your data stays safe. Trust is built on transparency and we publish the locations of all our data centers. You can learn more about how Meet keeps your video meetings safe in this post.

  Free Google Meet accounts for individuals

  You can use Meet to schedule, join or start secure video meetings with anyone—for a virtual yoga class, weekly book club, neighborhood meeting, or happy hour with friends. Until now, Meet has only been available as part of G Suite, our collaboration and productivity solution for businesses, organizations and schools. Going forward, Meet will be available to anyone for free on the web at meet.google.com and via mobile apps for iOS or Android. And if you use Google Calendar, you’ll be able to easily start or join from there, too.

  Use your existing Google Account to start a secure meeting in Google Meet

  If you have an existing Google Account (for example, if you’re a @gmail.com user), sign in at meet.google.com to get started. If you don’t have a free Google Account, it only takes a minute to create one using your work or personal email address of choice (we require this step as a security measure, and you’ll only need to do this once).

  Meetings are limited to 60 minutes for the free product, though we won’t enforce this time limit until after Sept. 30. Creating a trusted meeting space is important, and being mindful when sharing meeting links in public forums can help create a safe experience for all attendees. For more tips on how to use Meet securely and effectively, visit our Help Center. 

  Google Meet for groups and teams

  Groups within an organization can also use Meet to create video meetings that help coworkers connect one-on-one, collaborate as a team, and more. For organizations that aren’t already G Suite customers, today we’re announcing G Suite Essentials. G Suite Essentials is perfect for teams that need access to Meet’s more advanced features, such as dial-in phone numbers, larger meetings, and meeting recording. G Suite Essentials also includes Google Drive for easy and secure access to all of a team’s content, and Docs, Sheets and Slides for content creation and real-time collaboration. 

  Through Sept. 30, we’re providing G Suite Essentials and all of these advanced features free of charge. If you’re interested in G Suite Essentials, complete this form to get in touch with our sales team. 

  Google Meet for businesses and organizations

  Whether it’s hospitals supporting patients via telehealth, banks working with loan applicants, retailers assisting customers remotely, or manufacturers interacting safely with warehouse technicians, businesses across every industry are using Meet to stay connected. If you’re one of the 6 million companies and organizations that use G Suite to power remote productivity, you already have access to Meet. Admins simply need to enable Meet by following instructions outlined on our Help Center. In the spirit of being helpful during this time, we’re providing three ways for new and current enterprise customers to access Meet through Sept. 30: 
  
  

  • Free access to Meet’s advanced features for all G Suite customers, such as the ability to live stream for up to 100,000 viewers within your domain.

  • Free additional Meet licenses for existing G Suite customers without any amendments to their current contract.

  • Free G Suite Essentials for enterprise customers. Enterprises can get in touch with our sales team to learn more.

  

  Google Meet includes live captions powered by Google’s speech recognition technology

  Google Meet in schools and higher-ed institutions

  Many schools and colleges today use Meet to power secure virtual classes, PTA meetings, parent-teacher conferences, tutoring, and even school socials. Meet is included in G Suite for Education, which serves more than 120 million students and teachers globally. If your school already uses G Suite for Education, your administrator can enable Meet at no additional cost. If your school doesn’t use G Suite for Education, you can sign up here. To access resources for distance learning, visit Teach from Home.

  Our hope is that by making Meet and G Suite more readily available for all, it will be easier to securely stay connected and productive—now and in the future.

  
  
  https://www.blog.google/products/meet/bringing-google-meet-to-more-people/
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  Get insights and take action on changing customer behavior
  • sorangutan  

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  With free measurement tools from Google, you can get insights into how customer behavior has changed due to COVID-19 and then take action to update your marketing strategy. Read more to learn about how to get started, and for specific tips to help your business navigate the coming months.

  Understand the impact of your Google media 

  If you’re running marketing campaigns to drive visits to your website or app, it’s important for these visits to turn into sales. Attribution in Google Ads helps you understand the paths people take to complete a conversion, and then award credit for that conversion to different ads, clicks, and factors along the way.

  We recently launched a new look for attribution reports in Google Ads that helps you quickly see how customers interact with your marketing throughout the purchase cycle. This makes it easier for you to then take action in the areas that are driving results.

  
  

  

  Revamped overview page that displays simplified and intuitive set of attribution reports.

  Attribution models give you a deeper understanding of how your ads perform to help you decide where to allocate your marketing investment. One model, data-driven attribution, uses machine learning to determine how much credit to assign to each click on the customer journey, helping it better account for changes in customer behavior during turbulent times. For example, if you're working on behalf of a grocery store experiencing an increase in online orders from mobile devices, data-driven attribution may indicate that your mobile ads are having a greater impact on driving conversions than you realized, giving you the insight you need to optimize your campaign performance. If you’d like to learn which attribution model is right for your business, check out our official guide to attribution modeling.

  Measure the online customer journey

  The way that your customers interact with you may have changed dramatically in the past few months. Google Analytics can help you measure how those changes have impacted your business through your website or app.

  We’ve put together a guide that lists a few reporting shortcuts in Analytics that can help you easily get useful insights. For example, if your business has shifted to online only, you need to make sure you’re converting as many site or app visits into sales as possible. You can use a shortcut to see your weekly conversion rate for the last 60 days and identify areas you might be able to improve upon – without digging through multiple reports in your account.
  

  Visualize trends about your business

  With so much changing so rapidly, you’ll want to understand how your business has been impacted. You can use Google Data Studio to help you create a report and visualize the changes that have happened over the past few months. Data Studio is easy to use, anyone on your team can quickly start using it.

  If you’ve connected Data Studio to your marketing campaigns, you can use these curated marketing templates to monitor the performance of those campaigns. Let’s say you need to create a report that shows daily online sales from each of your Google Ads campaigns over the last 60 days. You can use one of those templates to quickly build the report and then identify which campaigns are performing best so you can re-allocate your marketing budget to those campaigns.

  Keep your website updated 

  During this time, you might have different business hours or shipping policies. Instead of having to invest in an additional resource to update your website, you can do it for free with Google Optimize. When you log into your account, you can use a new feature to easily add a message for your customers to the top of your homepage. Either use our templated banner or customize the message by editing the color, size or text.

  Use our template to post a banner at the top of your website with an important message.

  And if you need to make other changes throughout your site, you can still continue to use Optimize to create site personalizations. Optimize users would normally be limited to running 10 site personalizations at once, but we’ve removed that restriction for the next 90 days, until July 31.

  All of these products and features are available for free today. We hope they are helpful as you navigate your business through changing times.

  
  
  https://www.blog.google/products/marketingplatform/analytics/get-insights-and-take-action-on-changing-customer-behavior/
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  Alphabet’s Q1 2020 earnings call
  • sorangutan  

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  Note: These are Sundar Pichai's full remarks from today's Alphabet Q1 2020 earnings call. See below for an email to employees Sundar sent following the call. 

  When I last spoke with you in early February, no one could have imagined how much the world would change, and how suddenly.

  Our thoughts are with everyone who has been impacted by COVID-19, especially those who’ve lost loved ones or their livelihoods. It’s a challenging moment for the world. 

  Through it all, we’re incredibly grateful for all of the essential workers on the front lines of this crisis... from health care workers and first responders... to the grocery store clerks and delivery workers...to teachers grappling with new technology to help children learn remotely...to all of the scientists and researchers working hard to develop vaccines and treatments...and many others who are leading through these difficult times. Thank you.

  These people fill us with hope and show us the power of human resilience. We’ll need that energy and resolve in the months and years ahead. 

  Today, there is still a great deal of uncertainty regarding the path to recovery. But there are some things that we can understand better with the patterns we are seeing.
  
  

  • For example, it’s clear from data that people are being more cautious and are seeking authoritative advice and guidance to protect their families’ health and safety. A return to normal economic activity depends on how effectively societies manage the spread of the virus. There’s no one size fits all and the timing and pace of recovery will vary from location to location. This is a long-term effort.
    

  • It’s also clear that this is the first major pandemic taking place in a digital world.Many parts of the economy are also able to continue with some semblance of normalcy, thanks to advances in remote work, online shopping, delivery options, home entertainment and telemedicine. At the same time, newer technologies like AI, Bluetooth exposure notifications and 3D printing are being used to help fight the disease head on. 

  • It’s now clear that once the emergency has passed, the world will not look the same.Some social norms will change, and many businesses are speaking to us, looking to reinvent their operations. We have seen that the most pressing concern of small and large businesses right now is business continuity, solving for issues like employee safety, dramatic falls or surges in demand, supply chains and managing a remote workforce. Ultimately, we’ll see a long-term acceleration of movement from businesses to digital services, including increased online work, education, medicine, shopping and entertainment. These changes will be significant, and lasting.

  Given the depth of the challenges so many are facing, it’s been a huge privilege to be able to help people and businesses at this moment. In today’s call, I’ll cover four areas:
  
  

  • First, I’ll mention some of the ways we have marshalled our resources and product development to help.

  • Second, I’ll talk about how people are using our products at this unprecedented moment. 

  • Third, I’ll talk about our business—especially our advertising business which was significantly impacted in the last few weeks of the quarter.

  • And I’ll close with our investment plans and focus for the rest of the year. 

  In the early days of the crisis, we were able to put in motion a number of efforts quickly. This is a testament to strategic areas where we have invested over recent years: products that people trust; our technical leadership and innovation; deep partnerships; a highly skilled workforce; and the scale and resilience of our operations. 

  I’ve been proud of all of these efforts and what they say about our company. I’ll give just a few examples.
  

  First, we’ve been working with healthcare providers, researchers, authorities and communities to help combat the virus.
  
  

  • Our community mobility reports help authorities see, in aggregate, how social distancing requirements are working. 

  • Verily has tested thousands of people in California and has partnered with Rite Aid to bring free testing to eight additional states.

  • Google Cloud is forming deep partnerships, such as with leading health care provider HCA Healthcare, to understand data around ICU bed availability, ventilator supplies and test results. 

  • And you may have read about our exposure notification partnership with Apple, designed specifically and carefully to protect users’ privacy while helping public health authorities and governments manage countries’ re-opening.

  Second, we are working hard to provide accurate and authoritative information to people using our services. 
  
  

  • In Search, we've launched a number of features such as up-to-date answers from health authorities, and remote medical care options. 

  • On YouTube, we are quickly removing content that violates policy, and raising authoritative content from news organizations and experts. Up to last week, our COVID-19 info panels have had 20 billion impressions.
    

  Third, we’re playing a role in supporting businesses and workers that are hurting because of the downturn. 
  
  

  • In March, we made a commitment upwards of $800 million to support small businesses and crisis response efforts, through a combination of grants, small business loans and ad credits. 

  • And the Google News Initiative is offering financial support to thousands of small, medium and local news publishers through a Journalism Emergency Relief Fund. We’ve also waived ad serving fees for news publishers globally on Ad Manager for the next five months.

  Turning to the way people are using our products... 
  
  

  People are relying on Google’s services more than ever. This is a strong recognition of the value of our products, particularly in important and urgent moments. As a few examples: 
  
  

  • We’ve seen a significant rise in search activity. To put it into perspective, in the U.S., coronavirus-related search activity at its peak was four times greater than during the peak of the Super Bowl. 

  • People are spending significantly more time on their Android apps, with downloads of apps from Google Play rising 30 percent from February to March.

  • YouTube watchtime has also significantly increased. One area in particular is livestreams. I hope you saw Andrea Bocelli on YouTube Live on Easter, which has had over 39 million views. It was truly beautiful.

  • 100 million students and educators are using Google Classroom, double the number from the beginning of March. 

  • We've seen a massive increase in demand for Chromebooks; analysts have reported a 400 percent increase during the week of March 21 year over year. 

  • And schools and businesses in particular are using our secure video conferencing platform Meet. Last week, we surpassed a significant milestone and are now adding roughly 3 million new users each day, and have seen a 30-fold increase in usage since January. There are now over 100 million daily Meet meeting participants. Stay tuned for much more!

  Turning to our business, let me touch on our performance this quarter.

  Q1 was in many ways the tale of two quarters. For our advertising business, the first two months of the quarter were strong. 

  In March, we experienced a significant and sudden slowdown in ad revenues. The timing of the slowdown correlated to the locations and sectors impacted by the virus and related shutdown orders. 

  As the impact of COVID-19 came into view, we delayed some ad launches and prioritized supporting our customers as many adjusted their strategies. 

  We're focused on products where we can help most advertisers and merchants during the crisis. For example, under our new leader of Commerce, Bill Ready, last week we announced that merchants can list products in Google Shopping for free. It’s been widely rolled out in the U.S., with more countries to come, and the response has been positive. 

  Overall, recovery in ad spend will depend on a return to economic activity. 

  There are two key aspects of our business that give us confidence about the future:
  
  

  • First, as we saw after 2008, one of the strongest features of Search is that it can be adjusted quickly, so it’s relatively easier to turn off and then back on, and marketers see it as highly cost-effective and ROI based. 

  • Second, our business is more diversified than it was in 2008. 

  For example, Cloud:
  
  

  • In the public sector, we are helping governments deliver critical health and social services. We’re supporting the State of New York’s new online unemployment application system as it deals with a significant increase in demand. 

  • In retail, we’ve helped Loblaw, one of Canada’s largest food retailers, and Wayfair scale to support exponential traffic increases. 

  • We are helping communication companies adapt to new behavior patterns. Vodafone is using Google Cloud Platform to help it analyze network traffic flows to keep everyone connected and we are helping Unity Technologies keep real-time online games stay up and running. 

  • Institutions like Lloyd's Bank are digitally transforming their businesses and we are helping even more businesses do the same through new partnerships with Accenture, AT&T, and T-Systems.

  • We now have more than 6 million paying G Suite customers. G Suite is helping Netflix and German manufacturer, KAESER Compressors transition quickly to remote work, while Twitter, Shopify, retailer Schnuks and Italian bank Credem are using Meet for things like all hands and customer meetings. 

  Elsewhere across the business...
  
  

  • YouTube subscriptions continue to grow. The team has launched YouTube Kids in 15 new countries around the world since the beginning of the year, and rolled out new features to make kids-focused channels safer. 

  • Android previewed Android 11, which includes seamless 5G connectivity and a smarter keyboard with a faster messaging experience. And as I mentioned, we’ve seen significant growth in Play. There are now over 2.5 billion monthly active Play devices worldwide. 

  • And in hardware, we saw a decline in device activations in the quarter, due to falling consumer demand globally. But I am excited about the product roadmap ahead for the year—including yesterday’s launch of Pixel Buds 2. 

  Finally, moving on to our focus for the rest of the year...

  We’re taking a long view and continuing to invest in our long-term priorities, but are being thoughtful in the short term. So we made the decision to slow down the pace of hiring for the remainder of 2020, while maintaining momentum in a small number of strategic areas. We’re also recalibrating the focus and pace of our investments in areas like data centers and machines, and non-business essential marketing and travel. 

  We’ll also continue to thoughtfully manage our Other Bets portfolio. Waymo raised $2.25 billion in its first external investment round, a terrific validation of their technology and long-term business model. Wing saw a surge in deliveries and new users, increasing its daily volume fivefold, with great momentum in test programs in Australia and Virginia.

  At Google, we’ll continue to be focused on the four key areas that I outlined in the last earnings call. 
  
  

  • First, creating the most helpful products for everyone, particularly at a time where people rely on us for information, work, education and entertainment. 

  • Second, providing the most trusted experiences for our users. This includes our efforts to tackle misinformation and digital threats, as well as our work to safeguard consumer privacy.

  • Third, executing at scale. I’ve been proud of how we continue to work so cohesively and productively, even with a distributed workforce. We will continue to build on the internal tools, support systems and infrastructure we have built over the years. 

  • And finally, creating sustainable value. We’ll be optimizing the way our data centers work, and prioritizing strategic areas of investment where we need to support our users and partners. 

  Let me express my thanks to our employees for their herculean efforts under these difficult circumstances. While the road ahead for everyone is uncertain, we’ll continue to support our users, communities and partners, and we’ll all emerge, together, from this moment.

  Thank you, and please take care, everyone.

  ---

  The following is an email to employees that Sundar sent today.

  Hi everyone, 

  
  

  Earlier today, Ruth and I wrapped our 2020 Q1 earnings call with investors. I was proud to share some of the ways we’ve come together as a company to help people and businesses during this time—thank you all for your efforts. 

  
  

  I’ve included my opening remarks from the call below. The TL;DR is that Alphabet’s Q1 was a tale of two quarters. On the one hand, we’ve seen people turning to some of our products for help more than ever. This is reflected in the rise in Search activity, engagement on YouTube, downloads on Google Play and usage of G Suite.

  
  

  The first two months of the quarter were strong for our Search, network and YouTube businesses. Then, in March, we experienced a significant and sudden slowdown in our advertising revenues, correlated to the locations and sectors impacted by the virus and related shutdown orders. 

  
  

  As I mentioned on the call, recovery in ad spend will depend on a return to economic activity. That said, there are two key aspects of our business that give us confidence about the future: First, as we saw after 2008, one of the strongest features of Search Ads is they are cost-effective and can be adjusted quickly, so it’s comparatively easy to turn them off and then back on. Second, our business is more diversified than it was in 2008, and we are excited about the momentum in areas like YouTube, Cloud, Google Play and our computing efforts. We’re equally excited about the growth we’re seeing across Chromebooks and G Suite, particularly in Meet and Classroom, as more businesses and schools transition to remote work and learning. All of this will help us emerge from this period in a strong position.

  
  

  I also spent some time on the call sharing observations about the patterns we’re seeing from the first pandemic of the digital era. While technology has allowed certain types of businesses to continue working as before, we can’t expect the world to snap back into place in a single day—this is a long-term effort. And when the crisis does pass, the world won’t look exactly as it did before the pandemic. This provides an opportunity for all of us to help people reimagine everything, from online work to education, to medicine and entertainment.

  
  

  Overall, we made some good progress this quarter in spite of all the challenges. None of it would be possible without the herculean efforts from Googlers around the world. Thank you for everything you do to continue to support our users, customers, partners, and communities. We will get through this together. 

  
  

  -Sundar

  
  

  
  
  https://www.blog.google/inside-google/alphabet/alphabets-q1-2020-earnings-call/
• 

  The new Google Pixel Buds are available today for your listening pleasure
  • sorangutan  

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  In October, we introduced the all-new Google Pixel Buds—with high-quality sound, an unobtrusive design that fits securely and comfortably in your ear and helpful AI features. We wanted to make sure whether you're streaming content while working out or sitting in a noisy room talking on a conference call, you have the best possible audio experience. Today, Pixel Buds are available for $179 in Clearly White in the U.S. 

  
  

  We sat down with some of the team behind Pixel Buds to learn more about what’s new, and also to hear how they’ve been using them. 

  
  

  Get started easily with Fast Pair

  “I always used to use wired headphones because I had concerns about the reliability of Bluetooth® connectivity, as lots of other earbuds have pairing problems, including the original Pixel Buds. With the new Pixel Buds, we focused on improving Fast Pair to eliminate these pain points and easily connect to your phone.”

  - Ethan Grabau, Product Manager

  

  Clear calls with special mics and sensor

  “To give you clear calls, even in noisy and windy environments, Pixel Buds combine signals from beamforming mics and a special sensor that detects when your jaw is moving. This helps so you don't have to look for a quiet place to take a call. It’s come in particularly handy these past few weeks for me working from home with two young daughters.”

  - Jae Lee, Audio Systems Engineer

  
  

  Adaptive Sound for better audio  

  “Adaptive Sound is perfect for those moments like when you’re steaming milk for a latte, or when you're washing your hands or the dishes. Those noises can eclipse your audio experience for a bit, until the latte, or your dishes are done.” 

  - Basheer Tome, Senior Hardware Interface Designer
  

  
  

  “To help, Adaptive Sound temporarily and subtly adjusts your volume to accommodate for the new noise in your environment, and goes back to normal after it’s dissipated. It works kind of like auto-brightness on your phone screen: It momentarily adjusts to the world around you to make the experience of using your device a little simpler.”  

  - Frank Li, UX Engineer  
  
  

  Hands-free help with Google Assistant

  "When I’m working in the yard and wearing gloves, I can use  ’Hey, Google’ on my Pixel Buds and easily control my music. I can also hear my notifications, and reply to a text message with just my voice and Google Assistant. 

  
  

  And when I'm taking my dog on our daily walk and using my Pixel Buds, I use Google Assistant to navigate and check my fitness progress hands-free while juggling a leash and bag of dog treats. The Pixel Buds are slim enough they fit snag-free under a hat or hoodie, too." 

  - Max Ohlendorf, Technology Manager 

  

  Real-time translations with conversation mode 

  “We set out to see how we could use Google Translate on Pixel Buds to reduce language barriers. Making the conversation as natural as possible even with the use of the phone was important, so we decided to create the split screen UI to show exactly what was being said, and translating it in real time on the screen with conversation mode. Any exposure to a different language is also an opportunity to learn, so we wanted to make the feature is not only as helpful as possible for things like being in a different country, but also as simple as being able to help bilingual households across generations connect through language.” 

  - Tricia Fu, Product Manager

  
  

  Peace of mind with Find My Device

  “The fear of losing expensive wireless earbuds is real, and in many cases a reason why people are afraid of trying them. We tried to reduce that fear a bit with Find My Device. If an earbud falls out when you’re walking or running, you know right away. But you may be less aware when you return home and absentmindedly put them down somewhere. So we built the ability to let you ring your earbuds from your phone. We also wanted to make sure we were thoughtful in what that experience is like. You can ring one earbud at a time, to focus on finding either the left or right earbud. The moment your hands touch the lost earbud, the ringing will stop. We hope people won’t need to use this feature often, but if they do, they can find misplaced earbuds more easily.”

  - Alex Yee, Interaction Designer

  

  Like Pixel phones and other Google devices, Pixel Buds will get better over time with new features, including an update to Find My Device which will show the last known location of your earbuds. Check out more cool features on Pixel Buds and see which features will work with your device.

  
  

  Pixel Buds are available through the Google Store and retailers including AT&T, Best Buy, Target (coming early May), T-Mobile, U.S. Cellular, Verizon and Walmart. Other colors—Almost Black, Quite Mint and Oh So Orange—will be available in the coming months. Pixel Buds will come to more countries in the coming months as well. 

  
  

  
  
  https://www.blog.google/products/pixel-buds/pixel-buds-now-available/
• 

  Fast Pair makes it easier to use your Bluetooth headphones
  • sorangutan  

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  Bluetooth headphones help us take calls, listen to music while working out, and use our phones anywhere without getting tangled up in wires. And though pairing Bluetooth accessories is an increasingly common activity, it can be a frustrating process for many people.

  Fast Pair makes Bluetooth pairing easier on Android 6.0+ phones (learn how to check your Android version). When you turn on your Fast Pair-enabled accessory, it automatically detects and pairs with your Android phone in a single tap. So far, there have been over three million Fast pairings between Bluetooth accessories, like speakers and earbuds, and Android phones. Here are some new capabilities to make Fast Pair experience even easier.

  Easily find your lost accessory

  It can be frustrating when you put your Bluetooth headphones down and immediately forget where you placed them. If they’re connected to your phone, you can locate your headphones by ringing them. If you have true wireless earbuds (earbuds that aren’t attached by cables or wires), you can choose to ring only the left or right bud. And, when you misplace your headphones, in the coming months, you can check their last known location in the Find My Device app if you have Location History turned on.
  

  

  Know when to charge your true wireless earbuds

  Upon opening the case of your true wireless earbuds, you’ll receive a phone notification about the battery level of each component (right bud, left bud, and the case itself if supported). You’ll also receive a notification when your earbuds and the case battery is running low, so you know when to charge them.
  

  

  Manage and personalize your accessory easily

  To personalize your headset or speakers, your accessory name will include your first name after it successfully pairs with Bluetooth. For example, Pixel Buds will be renamed “Alex’s Pixel Buds.”
  

  
  

  On phones running Android 10, you can also adjust headphone settings, like linking it to Google Assistant and accessing Find My Device, right from the device details page. The setting varies depending on your headphone model.

  

  Harmon Kardon FLY and the new Google Pixel Buds will be the first true wireless earbuds to enjoy all of these new features, with many others to come. We’ll continue to work with our partners to bring Fast Pair to more headset models. Learn about how to connect your Fast Pair accessory here.

  
  
  https://www.blog.google/products/android/fast-pair-easier-bluetooth/
• 

  Healthcare AI systems that put people at the center
  • sorangutan  

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  Over the past four years, Google has advanced its AI technologies to address critical problems in healthcare. We’ve developed tools to detect eye disease, AI systems to identify cardiovascular risk factors and signs of anemia, and to improve breast cancer screening.

  For these and other AI healthcare applications, the journey from initial research to useful product can take years. One part of that journey is conducting user-centered research. Applied to healthcare, this type of research means studying how care is delivered and how it benefits patients, so we can better understand how algorithms could help, or even inadvertently hinder, assessment and diagnosis.

  Our research in practice

  For our latest research paper, "A Human-Centered Evaluation of a Deep Learning System Deployed in Clinics for the Detection of Diabetic Retinopathy," we built on a partnership with the Ministry of Public Health in Thailand to conduct field research in clinics across the provinces of Pathum Thani and Chiang Mai. It’s one of the first published studies examining how a deep learning system is used in patient care, and it’s the first study of its kind that looks at how nurses use an AI system to screen patients for diabetic retinopathy. 

  Over a period of eight months, we made regular visits to 11 clinics. At each clinic, we observed how diabetes nurses handle eye screenings, and we interviewed them to understand how to refine this technology. We did our field research alongside a study to evaluate the feasibility and performance of the deep learning system in the clinic, with patients who agreed to be carefully observed and medically supervised during the study. 

  

  A nurse operates the fundus camera, taking images of a patient’s retina.

  The observational process

  In our research, we provide key recommendations for continued product development, and provide guidance on deploying AI in real-world scenarios for other research projects.

  Developing new products with a user-centered design process requires involving the people who would interact with the technology early in development. This means getting a deep understanding of people’s needs, expectations, values and preferences, and testing ideas and prototypes with them throughout the entire process. When it comes to AI systems in healthcare, we pay special attention to the healthcare environment, current workflows, system transparency, and trust.

  The impact of environment on AI

  In addition to these factors, our fieldwork found that we must also factor in environmental differences like lighting, which vary among clinics and can impact the quality of images. Just as an experienced clinician might know how to account for these variables in order to assess it, AI systems also need to be trained to handle these situations.

  For instance, some images captured in screening might have issues like blurs or dark areas. An AI system might conservatively call some of these images “ungradable” because the issues might obscure critical anatomical features that are required to provide a definitive result. For clinicians, the gradability of an image may vary depending on one’s own clinical set-up or experience. Building an AI tool to accommodate this spectrum is a challenge, as any disagreements between the system and the clinician can lead to frustration. In response to our observations, we amended the research protocol to have eye specialists review such ungradable images alongside the patient’s medical records, instead of automatically referring patients with ungradable images to an ophthalmologist. This helped to ensure a referral was necessary, and reduced unnecessary travel, missed work, and anxiety about receiving a possible false positive result. 

  Finally, alongside evaluating the performance, reliability, and clinical safety of an AI system, the study also accounts for the human impacts of integrating an AI system into patient care. For example, the study found that the AI system could empower nurses to confidently and immediately identify a positive screening, resulting in quicker referrals to an ophthalmologist.

  So what does all of this mean? 

  Deploying an AI system by considering a diverse set of perspectives in the design and development process is just one part of introducing new health technology that requires human interaction. It's important to also study and incorporate real-life evaluations in the clinic, and engage meaningfully with clinicians and patients, before the technology is widely deployed. That’s how we can best inform improvements to the technology, and how it is integrated into care, to meet the needs of clinicians and patients. 

  
  
  https://www.blog.google/technology/health/healthcare-ai-systems-put-people-center/
• 

  The science of why remote meetings don't feel the same
  • sorangutan  

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  As COVID-19 has pushed more teams to work remotely, many of us are turning to video calls. And if you’ve ever been on a video call and wondered why it doesn’t feel quite the same as an in-person conversation, we have something in common. As a researcher at Google, it’s my job to dig into the science behind remote communication. Here are a few things I’ve discovered along the way. 
  

  
  

  #1: Milliseconds matter. 

  
  

  As a species, we’re hardwired for the fast-paced exchange of in-person conversation. Humans have spent about 70,000 years learning to communicate face-to-face, but video conferencing is only about 100 years old. When the sound from someone’s mouth doesn’t reach your ears until a half second later, you notice. That’s because we’re ingrained to avoid talking at the same time while minimizing silence between turns. A delay of five-tenths of a second (500 ms)—whether from laggy audio or fumbling for the unmute button—is more than double what we’re used to in-person. These delays mess with the fundamental turn-taking mechanics of our conversations. 

  On your next video conference, pump the brakes on your speaking speed to avoid unintended interruptions. If it’s a smaller group, try staying unmuted to provide little bits of verbal feedback (“mmhmm,” “OK”) to show you’re actively listening. 
  
  

  #2: Virtual hallway conversations boost group performance. 

  
  

  At the office, my meetings usually start with some impromptu, informal small talk. We share personal tidbits that build rapport and empathy. Making time for personal connections in remote meetings not only feels good, it helps you work better together. Science shows that teams who periodically share personal information perform better than teams who don’t. And when leaders model this, it can boost team performance even more. 

  Carve out time at the start of a meeting to catch up and set aside time to connect with colleagues over virtual coffee or lunch breaks.
  
  

  #3: Visual cues make conversations smoother.

  
  

  If you’re face-to-face with someone, you might notice they’ve leaned forward and invite them to jump into the conversation. Or, you might pick up on a sidelong glance in the audience while you’re giving a presentation, and pause to address a colleague’s confusion or skepticism. Research shows that on video calls where social cues are harder to see, we take 25 percent fewer speaking turns. 

  But video calls have something email doesn’t: eye contact. We feel more comfortable talking when our listeners’ eyes are visible because we can read their emotions and attitudes. This is especially important when we need more certainty—like when we meet a new team member or listen to a complex idea.

  Resist browser tabs competing for your attention. 

  
  #4: Distance can amplify team trust issues.

  
  

  When things go wrong, remote teams are more likely to blame individuals rather than examining the situation, which hurts cohesion and performance. Different ways of working can be frustrating, but they’re important. Biological Anthropologist Helen Fisher has shown that we can harness the “productive friction” of diverse work styles today similar to how hunter-gatherers did 50,000 years ago to determine if a newly discovered plant was poisonous, medicinal or delicious.

  Have an open conversation with your remote teammates about your preferred working styles and how you might complement each other. 

  
  #5: Passing the talking stick makes remote teams smarter.

  
  

  

  Conversations on calls are less dynamic, and the proverbial “talking stick” gets passed less often. That’s a big deal for remote teams because sharing the floor more equally is a significant factor in what makes one group smarter than another. Computational social scientists like Alex ‘Sandy’ Pentland and Anita Woolley have shown that higher performing groups aren’t made up of individuals with higher IQs but instead people who are more sensitive to emotions and share the floor more equally.

  Identify calls where conversational dynamics could be better. Encourage more balanced conversation, help some get their voice heard and remind others to pass the talking stick.

  If you’re interested in learning more about any of this science, you can check out my sources here.

  
  

  
  
  https://www.blog.google/inside-google/working-google/science-why-remote-meetings-dont-feel-same/
• 

  Street View is helping this tour guide stay in business
  • sorangutan  

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  On March 24, government restrictions due to COVID-19 went into effect across the United Kingdom. With nonessential businesses forced to close, public gatherings banned, and most people required to stay at home, these regulations instantly transformed daily life. They also presented a serious threat to Katie Wignall’s business: Katie makes her living as a tour guide, showing curious visitors the highlights of London.

  But instead of trying to simply wait out the crisis, Katie looked to technology for a solution to creatively keep her business going. We chatted with her to find out how she’s successfully managed to take her walking tours virtual.

  

  One of the beaver statues on Oxford Street

  Describe your business, Look Up London.

  I provide walking tours all over London for public and private groups. I’m a Blue Badge Tourist Guide, which is the top accreditation for tourist guides in the UK. We do two years of training, pass 11 exams, and we’re the only guides that can take you inside the Tower of London and Westminster Abbey.

  Look Up London started originally as a blog and social media channels, where I shared quirkier bits of London history. The name is all about spotting the little details in the architecture around you, to tell the story of why something looks the way it does. For example, on Oxford Street, which is famous for its shopping, there's a building decorated with sculptures of beavers. They're a clue to the fact it used to be a hat factory—slightly gruesome, but a detail that is so often missed by passersby!

  How has your business been impacted by COVID-19 and the government restrictions?

  I’ve had to shut down, basically. I can’t go out; we’re not able to meet up in groups to deliver the normal tours. All of the work I had booked going into the summer—the busiest time—has just been cancelled or postponed. Literally overnight there was no work at all. 

  

  Katie giving a tour of the Guildhall

  What gave you the idea for virtual tours?

  It was actually a suggestion from a follower on Instagram who asked, “Is there a way you could do virtual tours?” I started out by going out myself and having my husband film me on London streets, but then as the situation escalated, we weren’t allowed outside.

  So then I thought I’d experiment with Google Street View. If I couldn’t go outside, I could offer people the next best thing, through a screen. I was already using Street View a lot for my work—it’s really good for my research. I love the feature where you can go back in time. It’s not possible for every location, but for a lot of central London, you can select a place in Google Maps for desktop, drag the Street View pegman into the picture and click on the clock in the top left corner to explore imagery from the past. You can see where buildings have been demolished and what used to be standing where.

  So now, every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 2 PM London time, I use Street View to give a virtual tour on Instagram Live. And for anyone who can’t make that time, I post the recordings on my website. They’re all free, and if people enjoy them, they can make a donation.

  What’s been the response?

  People have been so lovely. From the comments, I think it’s been very helpful for people in lockdown, who maybe are older and can’t get out of the house as often, or people who’ve had to leave London and are feeling homesick. Lots have messaged me to say it’s made them feel like they’ve been outside. They’ve really learned something new and taken their minds off the situation for twenty minutes or so.

  Any advantages to using Street View compared to being there in person?

  The great thing about Street View is that you can hop about—you can jump a mile down the road and people don’t have to get on a bus or actually walk, so you can cover a lot of ground.

  And then there’s that feature to go back in time and see things how they appeared years ago, back to 2008. On a normal tour, you can show pictures and give people an idea, but if people are on Street View and feel like they’re standing in a space and seeing the changes right there, it’s a different experience.

  One example, on my Aldgate tour, is a garden space that has been relandscaped. The garden looks beautiful now, but three years ago you could see the cobbles of Victorian London. And those cobbles happen to have been the site of the murder of Catherine Eddowes, who was a victim of Jack the Ripper. That was an evocative thing to be able to show.

  Any advice for other small business owners who are trying to figure out how to adapt right now?

  I think you have to do the thing that you enjoy doing. I don’t think I’d be able to do these three times a week if I didn’t enjoy them. If you have something that you want to share, there’s no reason you shouldn’t do that. Technology has made everything so accessible, and if you care about something, chances are others care about that as well.

  
  
  https://www.blog.google/products/maps/street-view-helping-tour-guide-stay-business/
• 

  Go on a cultural rendezvous with “Art For Two”
  • sorangutan  

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  If you don’t work for a cultural institution, you’ve probably never had the opportunity to wander all alone through a museum’s hallways, exhibition spaces and galleries, after hours, with no one else around. That’s a privilege usually reserved for staff—until now. 

  
  

  In the first installment of Google Arts & Culture’s new video series called “Art for Two”, curators from three cultural institutions are extending a special invitation to explore their collections, minus the crowds, as they discuss their favorite rooms and pieces with digital curators Mr. Bacchus and The Art Assignment.

  
  You'll hear from the experts themselves: The director of the Museo d’Arte Orientale shows his favorite figurine and explains why it’s unusual. Sit at an antique kitchen table with Olivier Gabet, director of the Musée des arts décoratifs, or learn more about what makes Lucio Fontana’s installation at the Galleria Civica di Arte Moderna e Contemporanea so special.

  Marco Guglielminotti Trivel, director of the Museo d’Arte Orientale meets digital curator Mr. Bacchus

  Still itching to explore more? Another new series called “Perspectives” invites you to learn about important cultural destinations through the eyes and with the commentary of an inspirational guide. For the first edition, Grammy-nominated Indian-American artist Raja Kumari takes us on a personal ride to temples in India, including the famous Mahabalipuram—a cultural jewel and popular tourist destination, referred to as “Sculpture by the Sea.”

  

  Raja Kumari shows you the Temples of India

  Travel isn't just about checking things off your bucket list. At a slow “couch travel” pace, Quiet Journeys, accompanied by the soothing sound of classical music, will help you relax and drift off into museums and masterpieces from all around the world.

  
  “Art for Two”, ”Perspectives” and “Quiet Journeys” are the latest additions to our growing library of video formats that connect art and culture in new and unexpected ways. Check out Art Zoom to explore masterpieces through the eyes of famous musicians, and other videos on the Google Art & Culture YouTube channel. 

  
  

  Discover more on Google Arts & Culture—or download our free app for iOS or Android.
  

  
  
  https://www.blog.google/outreach-initiatives/arts-culture/go-on-a-cultural-rendezvous-with-art-for-two/
• 

  More ways to fine tune Google Assistant for you
  • sorangutan  

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  Smart speakers and Smart Displays often sit on the kitchen counter or living room table and are used by more than one member in the household. So we’ve made sure that each person can tweak their preferences for interacting with Google Assistant. When setting up your Google Assistant, you can choose to enable Voice Match and teach Assistant to recognize your voice so you can receive personalized results, like calendar reminders and favorite playlists—even if you share a device with other people in your household. 

  Now when you set up Voice Match, Google Assistant will prompt you to say full phrases instead of just the hotword "Hey Google." For example, during Voice Match set up, the Assistant will ask you to say “Hey Google, play my workout playlist” so it can better identify who is engaging with significantly higher accuracy. With Voice Match, you can link up to six people to a single Google Assistant-powered device, so you each get tailored results when using the device.

  

  Adjust how your devices activate 

  Different factors, like how noisy an environment is, may affect the Assistant’s responsiveness to the hotword or cause it to accidentally activate when it hears something similar to “Hey Google.” To better tailor Google Assistant to your environment and desired responsiveness, we’re rolling out a new feature that allows you to adjust how sensitive smart speakers and Smart Displays are to the hotword. You can make Google Assistant more sensitive if you want it to respond more often, or less sensitive to reduce unintentional activations. 

  In the coming weeks, you’ll start seeing the option to adjust how sensitive Google Assistant is in your settings through the Google Home app. These settings can be changed at any time and you can fine tune your preferences for each device if, for example, one is in a busy area like the kitchen while the other is on the bedroom nightstand. This feature will be supported in English with more languages to follow.

  
  
  https://www.blog.google/products/assistant/more-ways-fine-tune-google-assistant-you/
• 

  Respecting rights: Global Network Initiative assessment report
  • sorangutan  

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  In their first letter to shareholders, our founders highlighted Google’s mission to “develop services that significantly improve the lives of as many people as possible." This vision continues to guide all of us at Google. From Search to YouTube, Gmail to Google Maps—we’ve worked to ensure that our products increase access to information, help people connect with one another, and amplify opportunities around the world. In doing so, Google’s business, products, and technology have long had implications for the advancement of global human rights.

  As a founding member of the Global Network Initiative (GNI), we’ve worked closely with civil society, academics, investors and industry peers to protect and advance freedom of expression and privacy globally as we deliver high-quality, relevant and useful content. Yesterday, GNI released its third assessment of Google, conducted by an independent third party, and determined that we are making good-faith efforts to implement the GNI Principles with improvement over time. 

  The report provides an overview of how the GNI Principles are integrated into our governance structure, due diligence and risk management, and operational practices regarding freedom of expression and privacy. Senior management oversees the implementation of the GNI Principles at Google and provides quarterly updates to the Board of Directors. We’ve implemented an extensive network of Googlers covering product, jurisdiction, and functional areas who are responsible for the day-to-day work of protecting user rights of freedom of expression and privacy. Members of these teams can escalate issues to Google’s senior management, and are supported by a global human rights policy lead.  

  As we reflect on Google’s assessments and some of the recent developments in our work to protect the free expression and privacy interests of our users, and our responsibilities to the societies in which we operate, we wanted to highlight a few examples of how our engagement with GNI continues to inform our broader approach to human rights.

  Transparency

  Transparency is core to Google’s commitment to respect human rights. Ten years ago (almost to the day!) Google launched a tool to inform people about government requests for user data or content removal. 

  Now the Google Transparency Report hub includes transparency reports on requests for user information, government requests to remove content, traffic and disruptions, among many other topics. In April 2018, YouTube took an important first step by releasing a quarterly report on the types and amount of content we remove for violating the YouTube Community Guidelines. Since then, we’ve continued to add more data—disclosing the policy reasons for video and channel removals, the country of upload for video removals, and information about comment removals and appeals—reflecting Google’s continued commitment to iterate on our transparency reporting.

  AI principles

  In 2018, we published Google’s AI principles, which affirm our commitment to socially beneficial and accountable AI technology, and explicitly state that we won’t design or deploy AI technology that violates international law and human rights. This builds upon our core efforts to incorporate the U.N. Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights into our responsible decision-making around emerging technologies. 

  Since announcing the principles, we’ve established and evolved our formal processes to ensure we’re thoughtfully considering and assessing new AI projects, products and deals. Human rights due diligence is part of that process. 

  Human rights by design 

  Before creating our Celebrity Recognition tool, Google Cloud asked the human rights experts at Business for Social Responsibility (BSR) to conduct a human rights impact assessment (HRIA). The BSR assessment helped inform and strengthen Google’s “human rights by design” approach—further integrating human rights into product design and development, and strengthened human rights management at Google by embedding more capacity across various Google teams. 

  Integrating the human rights assessment in the process of product development ensured that we were following our AI Principles and meeting our broader responsibility to consider and mitigate potential human rights risks. This due diligence helped us build a product in a sensitive area and encourage product managers to and think about product challenges in a new way. When we announced the Celebrity Recognition tool in October 2019, we also released a summary of our Human Rights Impact Assessment.

  The GNI assessment also provided  recommendations for enhancing our implementation of the GNI Principles, which  will inform our policies and practices and strengthen our advocacy in 2020. All of this work helps us incorporate business and human rights principles into Google’s long-term strategies and day-to-day decision-making. We’ll continue to build on this approach, enriching lives and strengthening our communities in the future.

  
  
  https://www.blog.google/outreach-initiatives/public-policy/respecting-rights-global-network-initiative-assessment-report/
• 

  How to foster inclusion while working from home
  • sorangutan  

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  People are searching for new ways to connect with their communities while being physically distant. I’ve focused my career on building initiatives and resources for minority groups within large companies. To ensure Google is a workplace where everyone can do their best work, we've spent the last several years understanding how employees from different backgrounds experience Google and building internal programs that foster an inclusive work environment.

  As we navigate the impact of COVID-19 in our own workplace, it’s vital to continue building a culture of belonging. With much of our workforce working remotely, we’re focused on helping our employees connect and finding new ways to prioritize inclusion. Here are some of the lessons we’ve learned.
  
  

  Help boost virtual connections 

  We know current events are impacting our employees in different ways. Some are balancing expanded childcare responsibilities, while others who live alone may be experiencing feelings of isolation. Based on early research, we see that people in underrepresented groups are likely being impacted disproportionately more, in general. To help, we’ve explored a variety of virtual formats for connecting people across Google and many of our Employee Resource Groups have extended their efforts to help underrepresented Googlers build community during this time. Our Black Googler Network hosts recurring virtual Yoga sessions, and our Women@Google chapters across the globe have been hosting virtual sessions for connection and career development. Our Asian Google Network has aggregated resources for their community and created office hours for members to connect online. 
  
  

  Manage equitably 

  Managers have a unique role in caring for teams, and we’ve asked our managers to work with their teams to create flexible work schedules. Having regular conversations with employees about how their attention might be divided and which projects should be prioritized is one way to see how they’re doing and help everyone remain connected. It’s also important to find solutions that work for both our roles and needs at home. We temporarily expanded our existing Carer's Leave policy to support employees who need to take time off to look after their children. And beyond formal policies, managers play a critical role in ensuring employees feel supported and included.  
  
  

  Help people speak up

  Remote meetings keep us connected, but video conversations can make it tougher for some participants to speak up. We want everyone to feel comfortable, empowered and heard, because it makes them—and all of us—more successful. To ensure everyone’s voices are recognized, use multi-sensory cues to indicate who’s speaking and who’s listening. We encourage employees to avoid relying only on visual cues like hand gestures because people with visual impairments, or who are temporarily distracted or have bad internet connection, may not be able to see them. We also recommend appointing a moderator separate from the speaker, if possible, to help participants ask questions in real time. A moderator lessens the onus on the speaker to pay attention to participants’ body language or their unmuting, as well as on participants to figure out when they can chime in. It’s also a good idea to leave space in the meeting for those who’ve been quiet to contribute by saving time and opening up for input, but don’t feel like you have to “go around the room”—equal time doesn’t always mean equal contribution. Some people formulate and communicate questions better by writing, so consider an accessible, shared channel or document for participants to type their questions and have the speaker or a moderator go through them. Bonus: The act of writing forces people to be more succinct and clear.
  
  

  Make sure meetings and presentations are accessible

  Accessibility is a core value at Google and it’s critical to our inclusion work. Real-time closed captions (CC) can help participants who are deaf or hard-of-hearing, aren’t fluent in the language being used or are unable to adequately use audio. Provide a phone dial-in option for those without strong internet access. Participants can also turn off their cameras to improve the connection or adjust the video quality. For presentations, using a large font size and high contrast (here’s how in Google Docs and Slides) helps people easily see images and read text. Slides are a useful tool, but not everyone may be able to see them, so we also recommend providing alternatives to purely visual information, like giving a verbal summary of a photo, chart or graph. If you’re going to share your slides, documents and other materials, remember to add alt text, or text description of the visual, to your images, graphs and charts so people who use screen readers know what visuals are being shown. Finally, when it comes to images, find ways to show diversity in race, skin tone, size, cultural background, name, hair type, ability, gender, age, geography and beyond. The people you use in your images should represent diverse backgrounds.

  We’re committed to making Google a place where people of different views, backgrounds, and experiences can do their best work and show up for one another.  These tips aren’t exhaustive by any means, but they are a useful start to empowering people to meaningfully join in and contribute.
  
  https://www.blog.google/outreach-initiatives/diversity/how-foster-inclusion-while-working-home/
• 

  Getting to great matches in Google Search
  • sorangutan  

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  We’ve probably all gone through this before: you do a search for something, and the results just don’t seem to be related to what you were looking for.

  
  

  It’s definitely not what we want to see happen, and we try to prevent it in a number of ways. For example, if you spell something wrong, we have systems to detect those misspellings and provide proper spelling predictions, so you can find web pages and information that match the words you were really searching for. We also continue to make improvements to our underlying language understanding systems in Search, so even if you don’t phrase something exactly as it’s written online, we can still understand the words and concepts in a way that makes sure you can find a good match.

  
  

  But these systems don’t always work perfectly, and sometimes, there just isn’t information available on the web that matches what you typed in.

  

  Starting today in the U.S., we’re rolling out a new message that lets you know when Google hasn’t been able to find anything that matches your search particularly well. While you can still go through the results to see for yourself if they’re helpful, the message is a signal that we probably haven’t found what you’re looking for. When possible, the feature will also provide some alternative searches as well as tips on how you could reformulate your query to better find the information you seek.

  
  

  This feature shouldn’t show up too often-- after all, there’s usually something helpful we can find! But when it does, we hope it helps save you some time and gets you to the information you wanted more quickly. If it turns out that what you were hoping to find just isn’t on the web at all, you can always check back later to see if anyone has created a new article or posted new information that you’ll find helpful. And in the meantime, there’s always more to explore.

  
  

  
  
  https://www.blog.google/products/search/getting-great-matches-google-search/
• 

  Increasing transparency through advertiser identity verification
  • sorangutan  

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  We’re committed to giving our users transparency, choice and control when it comes to the ads they see on our platforms. That’s why we’ve long offered tools like Ad Settings which allows people to control how ads are personalized or even opt out of personalized ads altogether, as well as features like Why this ad? which helps explain why a specific ad is being shown. Now, we’re working to bring additional transparency into the advertiser behind the ads people see.

  In 2018, we announced a new identity verification policy for political advertisers. The policy requires all advertisers that want to run election ads on our platforms go through a verification program to confirm their identity. We display that identity in the ad unit so that users can learn more about the election ads they see on Google’s platforms. Since introducing this program, we’ve verified political advertisers in 30 countries. And now, to provide greater transparency and equip users with more information about who is advertising to them, we are extending identity verification to all advertisers on our platforms.

  As part of this initiative, advertisers will be required to complete a verification program in order to buy ads on our network. Advertisers will need to submit personal identification, business incorporation documents or other information that proves who they are and the country in which they operate. Beginning this summer, users will start to see disclosures that list this information about the advertiser behind the ads they see.

  

  This change will make it easier for people to understand who the advertiser is behind the ads they see from Google and help them make more informed decisions when using our advertising controls. It will also help support the health of the digital advertising ecosystem by detecting bad actors and limiting their attempts to misrepresent themselves.

  We will start by verifying advertisers in phases in the U.S. and continue to expand globally. Because we are working closely with our advertising partners to scale the program while continuing to ensure we are surfacing helpful information to our users, we expect that this process will take a few years to complete. Advertisers can learn more about the identity verification program here. 

  At Google, our goal is to make more information about the ad experience universally available and accessible. Broadening our verification policy is the next step in reaching that goal. We’ll continue to look for additional ways to increase transparency in ads for our users. Stay tuned for more updates on our blog.
  

  
  
  https://www.blog.google/products/ads/advertiser-identity-verification-for-transparency/
• 

  Helping you avoid COVID-19 online security risks
  • sorangutan  

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  As people around the world are staying at home due to COVID-19, many are turning to new apps and communications tools to work, learn, access information, and stay connected with loved ones. 

  
  

  While these digital platforms are helpful in our daily lives, they can also introduce new online security risks. Our Threat Analysis Group continually monitors for sophisticated, government-backed hacking activity and is seeing new COVID-19 messaging used in attacks, and our security systems have detected a range of new scams such as phishing emails posing as messages from charities and NGOs battling COVID-19, directions from “administrators” to employees working from home, and even notices spoofing healthcare providers. Our systems have also spotted malware-laden sites that pose as sign-in pages for popular social media accounts, health organizations, and even official coronavirus maps. During the past couple of weeks, our advanced, machine-learning classifiers have seen 18 million daily malware and phishing attempts related to COVID-19, in addition to more than 240 million COVID-related spam messages. 

  
  

  To protect you from these risks, we've built advanced security protections into Google products to automatically identify and stop threats before they ever reach you. Our machine learning models in Gmail already detect and block more than 99.9 percent of spam, phishing and malware. Our built-in security also protects you by alerting you before you enter fraudulent websites, scanning apps in Google Play before you download, and more. But we want to help you stay secure everywhere online, not just on our products, so we’re providing these simple tips, tools and resources.

  Know how to spot and avoid COVID-19 scams

  With many of the COVID-19 related scams coming in the form of phishing emails, it’s important to pause and evaluate any COVID-19 email before clicking any links or taking other action. Be wary of requests for personal information such as your home address or bank details. Fake links often imitate established websites by adding extra words or letters to them—check the URL’s validity by hovering over it (on desktop) or with a long press (on mobile). Keep these tips handy and learn more at g.co/covidsecuritytips.

  Use your company’s enterprise email account for anything work-related

  Working with our enterprise customers, we see how employees can put their company’s business at risk when using their personal accounts or devices. Even when working from home, it’s important to keep your work and personal email separate. Enterprise accounts offer additional security features that keep your company’s private information private. If you’re unsure about your company’s online security safeguards, check with your IT professionals to ensure the right security features are enabled, like two-factor authentication.

  Secure your video calls on video conferencing apps

  The security controls built into Google Meet are turned on by default, so that in most cases, organizations and users are automatically protected. But there are steps you can take on any video conferencing app to make your call more secure:

  • If your meetings use short, numeric codes, turn on the password or PIN feature. The extra layer of verification will help ensure only the invited attendees gain access to the meeting.

  • When sharing a meeting invite publicly, be sure to enable the “knocking” feature so that the meeting organizer can personally vet and accept new attendees before they enter the meeting.

  • If you receive a meeting invite that requires installing a new video-conferencing app, always be sure to verify the invitation—paying special attention to potential imposters—before installing.

  Install security updates when notified

  When working from home, your work computer may not automatically update your security technology as it would when in the office and connected to your corporate network. It’s important to take immediate action on any security update prompts. These updates solve for known security vulnerabilities, which attackers are actively seeking out and exploiting.

  Use a password manager to create and store strong passwords

  With all the new applications and services you might be using for work and school purposes, it can be tempting to use just one password for all. In fact, 66 percent of Americans admit to using the same password across multiple accounts. To keep your private information private, always use unique, hard-to-guess passwords. A password manager, like the one built into Android, Chrome, and your Google Account can help make this easier.

  Protect your Google Account

  If you use a Google Account, you can easily review any recent security issues and get personalized recommendations to help protect your data and devices with the Security Checkup. Within this tool, you can also run a Password Checkup to learn if any of your saved passwords for third party sites or accounts  have been compromised and then easily change them if needed.

  
  You should also consider adding two-step verification (also known as two-factor authentication), which you likely already have in place for online banking and other similar services to provide an extra layer of security. This helps keep out anyone who shouldn’t have access to your accounts by requiring a secondary factor on top of your username and password to sign in. To set this up for your Google Account, go to g.co/2SV. And if you’re someone who is at risk of a targeted attack—like a journalist, activist, politician or a high profile healthcare professional—enroll in the Advanced Protection Program, our strongest security offering, at g.co/advancedprotection.

  Help your kids stay safe online

  With schools closed around the world, kids are online more than ever before. You can help your kids learn how to spot scams with the educational material at Be Internet Awesome and within the interactive learning game, Interland. You can also use Family Link to create age-appropriate accounts, control your kids’ app downloads, and monitor their activity.

  Our teams continue to monitor the evolving online security threats connected to COVID-19 so that we can keep you informed and protected. For more tips to help you improve your online security, visit our Safety Center.
  
  https://www.blog.google/technology/safety-security/helping-you-avoid-covid-19-security-risks/
• 

  What you need to know about Device Admin deprecation
  • sorangutan  

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  Android 10 delivered many helpful features for enterprise admins and users. It also marked the official deprecation of Device Admin-based management, a legacy form of Android management. 

  
  

  Since our original announcement about this change in 2017 we’ve been encouraging customers to adopt Android Enterprise, which offers a modern management framework for the evolving needs of enterprise customers.

  
  

  While Android 10 marks the official deprecation of Device Admin, some customers may still be on the legacy management framework because either their devices are not yet upgraded to Android 10 or their Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) Device Policy Controller is not updated to API level 29. 

  
  

  However, when Android 11 launches later this year, it is expected EMMs will need to update their DPCs to API level 29 by the fourth quarter of 2020. When this occurs, admins will no longer be able to manage lock screen settings, passwords or disable the camera.

  
  

  We’ve created a new video that outlines many of the key changes that IT admins can expect and strategies to prepare for a transition to Android Enterprise.

  Migrating to Android Enterprise

  To assist customers with this migration, we’ve created the Android Enterprise Migration Bluebook, which provides detailed steps and best practices for moving from a legacy Device Admin deployment to Android Enterprise. We also encourage reaching out to your organization’s EMM provider for assistance with planning.

  
  

  For further assistance with your mobility efforts, check out our Android OnAir webinar series where you can hear our experts discuss mobility topics and strategies for using Android to transform your business.
  
  https://www.blog.google/products/android-enterprise/da-migration/