Google Cloud Platform News

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  5 tips for effective distance learning during school closures
  • sorangutan  

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  For the foreseeable future, most teachers will be teaching in front of a screen instead of a classroom. For educators who are new to distance learning, it can be challenging to know where to start. So we asked our Certified Innovators, a passionate community of Google for Education experts transforming education across the world, to share their best practices and strategies. 

  Continue live teaching online

  Marcello Baroni, high school, teacher of graphic design, Scuola d'Arte A. Fantoni Bergamo Italy

  With schools closed, our whole school has been conducting distance lessons with Google Meet. That’s 650 students, 22 classes, 30 teachers, 20 tutors, and coordinators all connected virtually, so learning isn’t disrupted. We’ll be using Meet in the future to keep all students connected, wherever they are.

  Teachers and students are also finding Google Classroom helpful to stay connected and engaged. Here are tips for using Classroom during periods of high demand. And to avoid connectivity issues, consider pre-recording lessons and posting to Classroom, or use the livestream feature in Google Meet. 

  Create digital office hours 

  Michael Kaufman, Tech Integration Coach, American School Foundation of Guadalajara

  Digital office hours are a great way to ensure remote students still get one-on-one support from their teachers. I use Google Calendar and Hangouts Meet to create digital office hours. The two tools together make it easy to organize your hours and create a space for live interaction between the teacher and students in a distance learning situation.

  Here is my YouTube video that guides you through creating digital office hours with Hangouts Meet and Google Calendar. 

  Use offline features to support students with limited or no home internet access

  Mykel Williams, 7th Grade Math, Baldwin County Alabama

  Even if students have limited or no internet access at home, remote learning can be done using offline features for Chromebooks. Our students can still access Drive offline and they can download video lectures from Google Classroom to watch later if they don’t have internet at home.

  

  Build a digital learning hub

  Kyle Pace, Director of Technology, Grain Valley Schools

  Using Google Sites—a simple website building tool—you can build a central hub for resources, important updates, and reminders can help students stay organized and keep parents and guardians in the loop, too. Students can also use Sites to create digital portfolios and share their work with teachers, guardians, and peers. Our teachers do a fantastic job of using Google Sites to keep parents and students up-to-date throughout the school year. Each team has its own dedicated site with important information and reminders, which helps learning stay on track.

  Want to get started with Sites? Check out this tutorial. 

  Provide one-on-one guidance remotely

  Abbey Sarault, 9th Grade biology and medical detectives, Abington

  If a student is absent, has trouble accessing the internet, or even just needs a refresher on how to do something, videos can be a huge help, especially when students can download and replay them. With the Screencastify extension, it’s easy to record your screen and share the video with students directly in Classroom. You can also use videos to explain new tools and approaches to help students get the hang of distance learning. Here’s how I used ScreenCastify to guide absent students through an assignment. 

  Teach from Home is our resource to help teachers who are teaching remotely. For more distance learning tips and information, follow along on Twitter and Facebook. If you have tips for supporting remote students, share them with us here. And if you’re just getting started using remote learning tools, check out the Teacher Center, where you can find 101 trainings and lots more. 

  
  
  https://www.blog.google/outreach-initiatives/education/5-tips-distance-learning/
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  11 startups addressing global problems—here’s how we’re helping
  • sorangutan  

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  When we announced our Google for Startups Accelerator on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in November, we did not foresee how dramatically day-to-day life would soon change. The COVID-19 pandemic and its widespread health, social and economic consequences have made the goal of the program—to help founders build technology to  solve serious issues facing our world—even more pressing. 

  We received almost 1,200 applications from across Europe, the Middle East and Africa and—together with an external jury—we carefully evaluated each of these ideas. Today, we’re announcing the 11 startups selected to participate in our inaugural Google for Startups Accelerator on the SDGs. These startups address a wide range of social and environmental challenges, and are working toward at least one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals outlined by the U.N. 

  Apic.ai (Germany) uses honeybees as biosensors in the fight to protect biodiversity. 

  Cervest.earth (UK) provides personalized insights on the impact of climatic and extreme events, predicting the risks and effects of climate volatility in real-time, for any location on the planet. 

  Ellipsis.earth (UK) uses drone imagery and machine learning to identify and track plastic pollution, aiming to provide a global database of the types of plastic waste found in our oceans, beaches and rivers.

  Everimpact (France) combines satellite imagery and ground sensing to monitor air quality and carbon emissions in cities.  

  Flare (Kenya) offers software infrastructure and operational support for medical emergency response services in Sub-Saharan Africa.

  mDoc (Nigeria) uses a digital platform and in-person hubs to support people living with chronic diseases. 

  OKO (Israel) is crop insurance designed for emerging markets, using new technologies in satellite imagery and weather forecasting to simplify and automate claim management. 

  Ororatech (Germany) is the first commercial supplier of infrared satellite data for early detection and real-time monitoring of wildfires across the globe. 

  Skilllab (Netherlands) uses AI to empower job seekers, such as refugees, to integrate their skill sets into local labor markets.

  Solar Freeze (Kenya) is pioneering mobile cold storage units powered by renewable energy for smallholder farmers, to help them reduce post-harvest loss in the developing world.

  Wondertree (Pakistan) accelerates cognitive and motor development in children with special needs through movement-based therapeutic and educational AR games. 

  Each startup founder will work closely with engineers from over 20 Google teams and other subject matter experts to address product, engineering, business development, and funding challenges. Since this accelerator is focused on sustainability, founders will learn these skills through the lens of the Sustainable Development Goals and relevant partners.

  In order to keep the program safe and accessible in light of COVID-19, the first two on-site events will now be digital. Virtual training will cover topics such as creating Objectives and Key Results (OKRs), UX Research & Behavioral Economics, ML Data Pipelines and Data Visualization, SDG innovation for sustainable impact, and Strategies for Social Impact Fundraising. The five-month program kicks off on April 21st, and a second cohort will be selected later in the year.

  Google for Startups was created to support those who want to build something better—and that’s exactly what we’ll continue to do, whether online or IRL. These are just a few of the many startups working locally on global solutions, and we’ll continue to bring Google’s resources to this entrepreneurial community.

  
  
  https://www.blog.google/outreach-initiatives/entrepreneurs/11-startups-addressing-global-problems/
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  Support for public health workers fighting COVID-19
  • sorangutan  

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  This week, we're beginning a series of Doodles to recognize the many people responding to COVID-19—from doctors and nurses caring for people on the front lines, to teachers and food service workers ensuring essential goods and services are still available. Coinciding with the start of National Public Health Week in the U.S., our first Doodle in the series shines a light on the public health workers who are at the forefront of fighting this disease.  

  Public health is what we do together as a society to create the conditions in which everyone can be healthy. Public health workers include leaders at organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO), as well as scientists, like epidemiologists, field researchers, and lab scientists and technicians working to better understand the virus, find new cases, and track and predict and prevent its spread. 
  

  
  

  Community education and access to reliable information are critical parts of promoting and protecting public health. Over the last few months we’ve partnered with WHO, Centers for Disease and Prevention (CDC) and national health ministries to surface authoritative information on COVID-19. On Search, people can find official information on how to prevent COVID-19 transmission, with links to helpful resources from health authorities. On YouTube, we have a dedicated news shelf with COVID-19 news from authoritative sources, curated playlists with official information, and we’ve connected popular YouTube creators with public health leaders. We’ve also launched #StayHome #WithMe, a campaign that encourages people to practice social distancing with playlists on education, cooking, fitness and more. 

  
  

  Beyond this education effort, we’re proud to support the important work public health workers are doing behind the scenes to learn more about the virus, develop and deploy vaccines, and create evidence-based policy intended to reduce community transmission.

  
  

  Scientists are critical to understanding and combating COVID-19. We’re supporting their work by providing Google Cloud research credits, including high performance computing to researchers. On Google Cloud’s Kaggle data science community, a coalition of leading research groups have gathered more than 44,000 COVID-19-related scholarly articles to share with data scientists.  

  
  

  To aid researchers, data scientists, and analysts, we’ve also made available a hosted repository of public datasets, like Johns Hopkins Center for Systems Science and Engineering, the Global Health Data from the World Bank, and OpenStreetMap data, free to access and query through our COVID-19 Public Dataset Program.

  
  

  Just last week we published an early release of our COVID-19 Community Mobility Reports: aggregated, anonymized data on movement trends across places such as retail and recreation, groceries and pharmacies, to give public health workers insights to make more data driven policy. These reports are designed to inform public health officials as they implement and refine social distancing measures designed to prevent the spread of the virus, while protecting essential movement. 

  
  

  Today we salute public health workers who are playing an important role in responding to this pandemic. Over the next two weeks, our Doodles will honor other essential frontline workers, including healthcare workers, first responders and the many people keeping services like sanitation, food service, public transit, schools, and more up and running. Thank you to all the people who are working to save lives and keep communities safe during this pandemic.

  
  

  
  
  https://www.blog.google/technology/health/support-public-health-workers-fighting-covid-19/
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  Ways to stay informed on coronavirus news
  • sorangutan  

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  Around the world, people are turning to the news to understand the evolving coronavirus pandemic. We’re working to help people find and engage with quality news across our products to stay informed on COVID-19 developments.

  Surfacing the latest authoritative coverage 

  The new COVID-19 experience on Google News pulls together and organizes all the latest news at the global and local level and provides easy access to the latest guidance regarding prevention, symptoms, and treatment from the World Health Organization (WHO) and other authoritative sources. This feature is available across iOS, Android and web platforms in more than 20 countries and will be coming to more in the upcoming weeks.

  When people look for coronavirus information on Google Search, we show the latest news coverage at the top of their results. Given the fast-moving nature of coronavirus news, we’re working to ensure people receive the most up-to-date stories from broadly trusted sources in their Search results. These news results are part of our comprehensive COVID-19 experience in Search, which provides easy access to authoritative health information and data. 

  
  

  On Google Assistant, we’ve expanded our coronavirus news coverage to provide the latest updates in more languages. Now when you ask, “Hey Google, what’s the latest news on coronavirus?” Google will give timely updates from relevant news providers. This experience is available globally on mobile devices and in more than 10 languages on smart speakers and smart displays.

  Providing context to understand the full story

  With so much new information about COVID-19 constantly coming online, it’s important not only to understand the latest news but also to gain context on various aspects of the story. 

  The Google News COVID-19 feature organizes stories by topic such as the economy, health care and travel—as well as by region so people can better understand the pandemic's impact around the world. We’re also experimenting with how to best include a dedicated fact check section in this COVID-19 experience to highlight fact-check articles that address potentially harmful health misinformation. 

  Podcasts provide a way for people to engage more deeply with different aspects of the coronavirus story. In the past several weeks, dozens of new high-quality podcasts about coronavirus have launched, and many established shows have focused their coverage on the virus. As part of the recently redesigned Google Podcasts app, we’ve added a dedicated carousel in several languages to connect people to these podcasts to help understand the coronavirus’ impact from a variety of perspectives.
  

  Highlighting important local news and information

  Local news plays a critical role in informing people about the virus’ impact in their communities. The COVID-19 feature in Google News puts local news front and center with a dedicated section highlighting the latest authoritative information about the virus from local publishers in your area. This feature is available today in more than 10 countries and will expand to additional countries in the coming weeks.

  
  

  

  In Search, we’re surfacing Tweets from local authorities, as they provide important announcements about the virus to their communities. On Google Assistant, we’re working to help people access coronavirus news about a particular location, and we’re now able to provide more specific answers to requests in English like “Hey Google, play news about coronavirus in New York.” And in the past month, more than half of listens to our audio news feature Your News Update have included a coronavirus story from a local news outlet.

  
  

  We'll continue to work on highlighting high-quality, relevant news about COVID-19 for people around the world over the coming weeks.

  
  

  
  
  https://www.blog.google/products/news/ways-stay-informed-coronavirus-news/
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  Helping public health officials combat COVID-19
  • sorangutan  

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  As global communities respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been an increasing emphasis on public health strategies, like social distancing measures, to slow the rate of transmission. In Google Maps, we use aggregated, anonymized data showing how busy certain types of places are—helping identify when a local business tends to be the most crowded. We have heard from public health officials that this same type of aggregated, anonymized data could be helpful as they make critical decisions to combat COVID-19. 

  Starting today we’re publishing an early release of our COVID-19 Community Mobility Reports to provide insights into what has changed in response to work from home, shelter in place, and other policies aimed at flattening the curve of this pandemic. These reports have been developed to be helpful while adhering to our stringent privacy protocols and policies. 

  The reports use aggregated, anonymized data to chart movement trends over time by geography, across different high-level categories of places such as retail and recreation, groceries and pharmacies, parks, transit stations, workplaces, and residential. We’ll show trends over several weeks, with the most recent information representing 48-to-72 hours prior. While we display a percentage point increase or decrease in visits, we do not share the absolute number of visits. To protect people’s privacy, no personally identifiable information, like an individual’s location, contacts or movement, is made available at any point. 

  We will release these reports globally, initially covering 131 countries. Given the urgent need for this information, where possible we will also provide insights at the regional level. In the coming weeks, we will work to add additional countries and regions to ensure these reports remain helpful to public health officials across the globe looking to protect people from the spread of COVID-19.

  

  Navigate and download a report for your region of interest

  In addition to other resources public health officials might have, we hope these reports will help support decisions about how to manage the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, this information could help officials understand changes in essential trips that can shape recommendations on business hours or inform delivery service offerings. Similarly, persistent visits to transportation hubs might indicate the need to add additional buses or trains in order to allow people who need to travel room to spread out for social distancing. Ultimately, understanding not only whether people are traveling, but also trends in destinations, can help officials design guidance to protect public health and essential needs of communities.

  

  A Community Mobility Report example for State of Louisiana, United States

  In addition to the Community Mobility Reports, we are collaborating with select epidemiologists working on COVID-19 with updates to an existing aggregate, anonymized dataset that can be used to better understand and forecast the pandemic. Data of this type has helped researchers look into predicting epidemics, plan urban and transit infrastructure, and understand people’s mobility and responses to conflict and natural disasters.

  Privacy protections

  The Community Mobility Reports are powered by the same world-class anonymization technology that we use in our products every day. For these reports, we use differential privacy, which adds artificial noise to our datasets enabling high quality results without identifying any individual person. 

  The insights are created with aggregated, anonymized sets of data from users who have turned on the Location History setting, which is off by default. Users who have Location History turned on can choose to turn the setting off at any time from their Google Account, and can always delete Location History data directly from their Timeline. 

  These are unprecedented times and we will continue to evaluate these reports as we get feedback from public health officials, civil society groups, local governments and the community at large. We hope these insights will add to other public health information that will help people and communities stay healthy and safe.

  
  
  https://www.blog.google/technology/health/covid-19-community-mobility-reports/
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  Chromebook accessibility tools for distance learning
  • sorangutan  

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  Around the world, 1.5 billion students are now adjusting to learning from home. For students with disabilities, this adjustment is even more difficult without hands-on classroom instruction and support from teachers and learning specialists.

  For educators and families using Chromebooks, there are a variety of built-in accessibility features to customize students’ learning experience and make them even more helpful. We’ve put together a list of some of these tools to explore as you navigate at-home learning for students with disabilities.

  Supporting students who are low vision

  To help students see screens more easily, you can find instructions for locating and turning on several Chromebook accessibility features in this Chromebook Help article. Here are a few examples of things you can try, based on students’ needs:

  • Increase the size of the cursor, or increase text size for better visibility. 

  • Add ahighlighted circle around the cursor when moving the mouse, text caret when typing, or keyboard-focused item when tabbing. These colorful rings appear when the items are in motion to draw greater visual focus, and then fade away.

  • For students with light sensitivity or eye strain, you can turn on high-contrast mode to invert colors across the Chromebook (or add this Chrome extension for web browsing in high contrast).

  • Increase the size of browser or app content, or make everything on the screen—including app icons and Chrome tabs—larger for greater visibility. 

  • For higher levels of zoom, try thefullscreen or docked magnifiers in Chromebook accessibility settings. The fullscreen magnifier zooms the entire screen, whereas the docked magnifier makes the top one-third of the screen a magnified area. Learn more in this Chromebook magnification tutorial.

  

  Helping students read and understand text

  Features that read text out loud can be useful for students with visual impairments, learning and processing challenges, or even students learning a new language.

  • Select-to-speak lets students hear the text they choose on-screen spoken out loud, with word-by-word visual highlighting for better audio and visual connection.

  • With Chromevox, the built-in screen reader for Chromebooks, students can navigate around the Chromebook interface using audio spoken feedback or braille. To hear whatever text is under the cursor, turn on Speak text under the mouse in ChromeVox options. This is most beneficial for students who have significant vision loss. 

  • Add the Read&Write Chrome extension from Texthelp for spelling and grammar checks,  talking and picture dictionaries, text-to-speech and additional reading and writing supports- all in one easy to use toolbar. 

  • For students with dyslexia, try the OpenDyslexic Font Chrome extension to replace web page fonts with a more readable font. Or use the BeeLine Reader Chrome extension to color-code text to reduce eye strain and help students better track from one line of text to the next. You can also use the Thomas Jockin font in Google Docs, Sheets and Slides.

  Video tutorial of show to enable elect-to-speak

  Guiding students with writing challenges or mobility impairments

  Students can continue to develop writing skills while they’re learning from home.

  • Students can use their voice to enter text by enabling dictation in Chromebook accessibility settings, which works in edit fields across the device. If dictating longer assignments, students can also use voice typing in Google Docs to access a rich set of editing and formatting voice commands. Dictating writing assignments can also be very helpful for students who get a little stuck and want to get thoughts flowing by speaking instead of typing. 

  • Students with mobility impairments can use features like the on-screen keyboard to type using a mouse or pointer device, or automatic clicks to hover over items to click or scroll.

  • Try the Co:Writer Chrome extension for word prediction and completion, as well as excellent grammar help. Don Johnston is offering free access to this and other eLearning tools. Districts, schools, and education practitioners can submit a request for access.

  Video tutorial of voice typing in Docs

  How to get started with Chromebook accessibility tools

  We just shared a 12-part video series with training for G Suite and Chromebook Accessibility features made by teachers for teachers. These videos highlight teachers’ experience using these features in the classroom, as well as what type of diverse learner specific features benefit. For more, you can watch these videos from the Google team, read our G Suite accessibility user guide, or join a Google Group to ask questions and get real time answers. To find great accessibility apps and ideas on how to use them, check out the Chromebook App Hub, and for training, head to the Teacher Center.

  
  

  We’re also eager to hear your ideas—leave your thoughts in this Google Form and help educators benefit from your experience.

  
  
  https://www.blog.google/outreach-initiatives/education/chromebook-accessibility-covid19/
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  The teen fact-checkers fighting misinformation
  • sorangutan  

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  Editor's note: It’s International Fact-Checking Day today and teenager Lyndsay Valadez from Indianapolis, Indiana tells us why fact-checking matters. She’s a member of the Teen Fact-Checking Network at MediaWise—part of the Google News Initiative and a Google.orgfunded partnership with The Poynter Institute for Media Studies. 

  Being a freshman in college and living in a dorm away from my mom and sister means we usually stay in touch by text. In between “What’s up?” and “Miss you!” I occasionally get a different kind of message from home: “Is this real?” But now that my school has switched to digital teaching because of the coronavirus, there’s no escape from my family who constantly bombard me in person about claims surrounding COVID-19. 

  Scrolling through social media, it can be tough to know the difference—especially if you haven’t been trained to look for it. Just like my mom taught me to say “Please” and “Thank you,” I’m now teaching her how to tell the difference between fact from fiction online. And learning those skills is really crucial at this time with people’s health on the line. 

  As a journalism major at Indiana University, I understand the need for truth-telling and how important facts are in this digitized age. That’s why I became an intern with the Teen Fact-Checking Network—part of the MediaWise Project—where I research, write and put together videos debunking false claims, half-truths and fantasy. 

  During my time, some of the debunked posts I’ve done include the ones about Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders and Hurricane Dorian. Of course, lately I am super busy covering the coronavirus.

  One fact check that’s particularly special to me is one I did alongside my younger sister, Elizabeth Valadez, who recently joined MediaWise’s Teen Fact-Checking Network. It has been so neat to watch her fact-check while helping her along the way. Together, we worked on this fact-check about how long the coronavirus can live on different surfaces. 

  

  During the time working with my sister, I realized how our own media experiences affect the way we approach fact-checking. We have different tastes—she’s into the social aspect while I like the more informational side. But this variety of media viewpoints and understanding helped us present a fuller, more comprehensive fact-check. Together, we’re teaching people to ask three key questions created by MediaWise partner, the Stanford History Education Group: Who is behind the information? What is the evidence? And what do other sources say?

  Teen fact-checking siblings

  Surprisingly enough, we aren’t the only siblings fact-checking together at MediaWise. 

  Fact-checking brothers Kush Patel, 16, and his little brother Parth, 13, from North Carolina debunked a Twitter claim about a book predicting the 2019 coronavirus. Brother-sister duo Jahin Rahman, 16, and Fahmin Rahman, 14, teamed up to fact-check a claim aboutCO2 emissions dropping 25 percent in China because of the virus. You might be surprised by the answer!

  

  Left: Brother-sister duo Jahin and Fahmin Rahman. Right: Kush Patel and his little brother Parth.

  
  

  Today the Teen Fact-Checking Network has 35 teenagers on staff from a dozen states. Through social media storytelling, we’ve debunked more than 300 claims—and that’s only the beginning. The staff is now solely fact-checking claims about COVID-19, and has debunked more than 20 social media posts. Who knows, in 10 years the TFCN could be fact-checking at a level similar to organizations like Politifact or Snopes. 

  

  And as we mark this fourth year of International Fact-Checking Day, we recognize the need for this kind of media literacy and teaching others how to fact-check. So far MediaWise has helped more than 5 million people learn how to be media savvy about what they see online. And through in-person training, the MediaWise team has taught more than 18,000 students at 70 different schools across the country.

  MediaWise has taught me that no matter how old you are, we can all stand to be better. And we all need to work together to do our part in combating the spread of misinformation. Now more than ever. 

  This International Fact-Checking Day, check out Civic Online Reasoning, a free curriculum developed by the Stanford History Education Group as part of MediaWise on how to evaluate online information. 

  
  
  https://www.blog.google/outreach-initiatives/google-news-initiative/teen-fact-checkers-fighting-misinformation/
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  COVID-19: $6.5 million to help fight coronavirus misinformation
  • sorangutan  

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  Health authorities have warned that an overabundance of information can make it harder for people to obtain reliable guidance about the coronavirus pandemic.

  Helping the world make sense of this information requires a broad response, involving scientists, journalists, public figures, technology platforms and many others. Here are some ways we plan to help.

  Supporting coronavirus fact-checking and verification efforts

  We’re providing $6.5 million in funding to fact-checkers and nonprofits fighting misinformation around the world, with an immediate focus on coronavirus.

  Collaboration is a crucial component of journalism’s response to a story as complicated and all-encompassing as COVID-19. For this reason, the Google News Initiative (GNI) is stepping up its support for First Draft. The nonprofit is providing an online resource hub, dedicated training and crisis simulations for reporters covering COVID-19 all over the globe. First Draft is also using its extensive CrossCheck network to help newsrooms respond quickly and address escalating content that is causing confusion and harm. We’re also renewing our support for the collaborative verification project Comprova in Brazil.

  As fact-checkers address heightened demand for their work, we are providing immediate support to several organizations. Full Fact andMaldita.es will coordinate efforts in Europe focused on countries with the most cases (Italy, Spain, Germany, France and the United Kingdom) to amplify experts, share trends, and help reduce the spread of harmful false information. In Germany, CORRECTIV will step up its efforts to engage citizens in the fight against misinformation.

  LatamChequea, coordinated by Chequeado, is providing a single hub to highlight the work of 21 fact-checking organizations across 15 countries in the Spanish-speaking world and Latin America. With our support, PolitiFact and Kaiser Health News will expand their health fact-checking partnership to focus on COVID-19 misinformation. 

  Increasing access to data, scientific expertise and fact checks

  Access to primary expert sources during an evolving public health crisis is both challenging and fundamental for journalists covering the story. To make this easier, we’re providing funding to SciLine, based at theAmerican Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Australian Science Media Centre, creators of Scimex.org. We’re supporting the creation of a database for reporters developed by the journalism technology nonprofit Meedan in partnership with public health experts.

  The GNI is also supporting the JSK Journalism Fellowships at Stanford University and Stanford's Big Local News group to create a global data resource for reporters working on  COVID-19. The new project will collate data from around the world and help journalists tell data-driven stories that have impact in their communities.

  The International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) continues to advocate for fact-checkers worldwide; our renewed support will boost their efforts to uphold best practices in the fact-checking field and showcase the work of the CoronaVirusFacts alliance. In addition, Science Feedback will conduct a network analysis using the hundreds of COVID-19 fact checks published globally to track the spread of related misinformation.

  We also want to do more to highlight fact-check articles that address potentially harmful health misinformation more prominently to our users and we’re experimenting with how to best include a dedicated fact check section in the COVID-19 Google News experience.

  Providing insights to fact-checkers, reporters and health authorities

  So that reporters can understand and explain how the world is searching for the virus, we’ve made Google Trends data readily available in localized pages with embeddable visualizations. 

  We’re also making more local Google Trends data available for journalists, health organizations and local authorities to help them understand people's information needs around the world.

  
  

  

  Questions in Search on coronavirus in cities around the world

  Fact-checkers and health authorities need help to identify topics that people are searching for and where there might be a gap in the availability of good information online. Unanswered user questions—such as “what temperature kills coronavirus?”—can provide useful insights to fact-checkers and health authorities about content they may want to produce. 

  To help, we’re supporting Data Leads in partnership with BOOM Live in India and Africa Check in Nigeria to leverage data from Question Hub. This will be complemented by an effort to train 1,000 journalists across India and Nigeria to spot health misinformation.

  Our online resources are being updated to support the vital work journalists are doing. The GNI Training Center has tools for data journalism and verification in 16 languages, and our global team of Teaching Fellows is delivering workshops entirely online in 10 languages.

  Today's announcement is one of several efforts we’re working on to support those working to cover this pandemic. We look forward to sharing more soon. 

  
  

  
  
  https://www.blog.google/outreach-initiatives/google-news-initiative/covid-19-65-million-help-fight-coronavirus-misinformation/
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  Transform your photo in the style of an iconic artist
  • sorangutan  

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  From the bold, swirling movement in Vincent van Gogh's paintings, to the surreal, confident brushstrokes of Frida Kahlo, many famous artists have instantly recognizable styles. Now you can use these styles to transform your own photos. With Art Transfer, a new feature in the Google Arts & Culture app, you can apply the characteristics of well-known paintings to your own images.

  To try it, open the Camera menu in the bottom bar of the Google Arts & Culture app and select “Art Transfer.” After taking or uploading a photo, choose from dozens of masterpieces to transfer that style onto your image. (And while you wait, we’ll share a fun fact about the artwork, in case you’re curious to know a bit more about its history.) For more customization, you can use the scissors icon to select which part of the image you want the style applied to. 
  

  Thanks to cultural institutions from around the world, such as the UK’s National Gallery and Japan’s MOA Museum of Art, we’re able to feature artists like van Gogh, Frida Kahlo, Edvard Munch or Leonardo da Vinci.

  

  Many Google Arts & Culture experiments show what’s possible when you combine art and technology. Artificial intelligence in particular can be a powerful tool not just in the hands of artists, but also as a way for people to experience and learn about art in new ways.  

  
  

  In this case, Art Transfer is powered by an algorithmic model created by Google AI. Once you snap your photo and select a style, Art Transfer doesn’t just blend the two things or simply overlay your image. Instead, it kicks off a unique algorithmic recreation of your photo inspired by the specific art style you have chosen. 

  And all of it happens right on your device without the help of the cloud or your image being processed online.

  We are curious to see what you will create with a little help of AI. Once you are happy with your Art Transfer, tap share to share the results as a still image or as a GIF - #ArtTransfer. 

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

  
  
  https://www.blog.google/outreach-initiatives/arts-culture/transform-your-photo-style-iconic-artist/
• 

  Improve Android deployments with new employee adoption kit
  • sorangutan  

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  Bringing Android Enterprise to your organization opens up new possibilities for your business, and a well-structured communication plan can help employees understand all the capabilities.

  
  

  We’ve created the Android Enterprise Employee Adoption Kit to help IT teams communicate the features and benefits to their employees.

  
  

  Resources include helpful videos, flyers, email templates, and slide decks that walk through how to get started with Android device features and management tools. We’ve designed these assets to be useful for preparing your users, assisting them in getting started, and sharing out tips, especially for those switching to Android.

  
  

  Getting teams ready for Android Enterprise

  To generate buzz before introducing Android Enterprise to your organization, you can use and customize our email scripts to share details about the new mobile experience for your team. Some companies may wish to create a demo desk to give new users a guided tour of Android Enterprise features. We’ve included suggested scripts to help walk employees through what’s to come.

  
  

  Our user adoption slides detail the benefits, features, and scope of different device management modes. New YouTube videos offer a helpful overview of using the work profile, managed Google Play, and zero-touch enrollment. These videos can be embedded into internal sites or shared out directly.

  
  

  Also, customizable slide decks walk through initial steps with a new Android device, provide detailed instructions for key tasks like downloading an app, or highlight the many benefits to using the work profile.
  

  
  

  Learning Android features

  Giving your team regular tips and tricks helps them take advantage of Android features and gain confidence in their device. We’ve prepared assets that offer suggestions for using helpful productivity tools in Android and embracing the privacy and work-life balance the work profile offers.

  
  This kit is available for all those who wish to help their teams find success with Android. Learn more about Android Enterprise and how it can transform your business.
  
  https://www.blog.google/products/android-enterprise/employee-adoption-kit/
• 

  Stadia Savepoint: March updates
  • sorangutan  

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  We're back with another update in our Stadia Savepoint series, providing a summary of recent news on Stadia.

  This month we added seven new games to the Stadia store including DOOM Eternal and Lost Words: Beyond the Page, a First on Stadia title. With Serious Sam Collection, Spitlings and Stacks On Stacks (On Stacks) being added to Stadia Pro on April 1, subscribers can claim and build their library of games, playing for free as part of their subscription.

  

  Stadia Capture Library on Web

  Web Capture Library

  Access captured gameplay screenshots and clips on your laptop or desktop and download them from your library.

  4K on Web

  Players with an active Stadia Pro subscription plus the necessary hardware and network speeds can now play Stadia at up to 4K resolution on the web in their Chrome browser.

  Recent content launches on Stadia

  • Borderlands 3: Guns, Love, and Tentacles: The Marriage of Wainwright & Hammerlock Expansion

  • DOOM Eternal

  • Lost Words: Beyond the Page

  • Serious Sam Collection

  • SteamWorld Quest

  • SteamWorld Dig

  • SteamWorld Dig 2

  • SteamWorld Heist

  • The Crew 2

  • Tom Clancy’s The Division 2

  • Tom Clancy’s The Division 2: Warlords of New York Expansion

  New games announced for Stadia

  • Monopoly

  • Monster Jam Steel Titans

  • MotoGP20

  • Relicta

  • The Turing Test

  Stadia Pro updates

  • New games that are free to claim for Stadia Pro subscribers in April: Serious Sam Collection, Spitlings, Stacks On Stacks (On Stacks).

  • Existing games still available to add to your collection: Destiny 2, GRID, GYLT, Metro Exodus, SteamWorld Dig 2, SteamWorld Quest: Hand of Gilgamech and Thumper.

  • Act quickly: Metro Exodus and Thumper leave Stadia Pro on March 31.

  • Ongoing discounts for Stadia Pro subscribers: Check out the web or mobile Stadia store for the latest.

  That’s it for March—we’ll be back soon to share more updates. As always, stay tuned to the Stadia Community Blog, Facebook and Twitter for the latest news. 

  
  
  https://www.blog.google/products/stadia/stadia-savepoint-march-updates/
• 

  COVID-19: $800+ million to support small businesses and crisis response
  • sorangutan  

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  As the coronavirus outbreak continues to worsen around the world, it’s taking a devastating toll on lives and communities. To help address some of these challenges, today we’re announcing a new $800+ million commitment to support small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), health organizations and governments, and health workers on the frontline of this global pandemic. 

  
  

  Our commitment includes:

  
  

  • $250 million in ad grants to help the World Health Organization (WHO) and more than 100 government agencies globally provide critical information on how to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and other measures to help local communities. This is an increase from our initial $25 million announced last month. In addition, we’re providing $20 million in ad grants to community financial institutions and NGOs specifically to run public service announcements on relief funds and other resources for SMBs.

  • A $200 million investment fund that will support NGOs and financial institutions around the world to help provide small businesses with access to capital. As one example, we’re working with the Opportunity Finance Network in the U.S. to help fill gaps in financing for people and communities underserved by mainstream financial institutions. This is in addition to the $15 million in cash grants Google.org is already providing to nonprofits to help bridge these gaps for SMBs.

  • $340 million in Google Ads credits available to all SMBs with active accounts over the past year. Credit notifications will appear in their Google Ads accounts and can be used at any point until the end of 2020 across our advertising platforms. We hope it will help to alleviate some of the cost of staying in touch with their customers.

  • A pool of $20 million in Google Cloud credits for academic institutions and researchers to leverage our computing capabilities and infrastructure as they study potential therapies and vaccines, track critical data, and identify new ways to combat COVID-19. Learn how to apply for credits on the Google for Education site.

  • Direct financial support and expertise to help increase the production capacity for personal protective equipment (PPE) and lifesaving medical devices. We’re working with our longtime supplier and partner Magid Glove & Safety, with the goal of ramping up production of 2-3 million face masks in the coming weeks that will be provided to the CDC Foundation. Additionally, employees from across Alphabet, including Google, Verily and X, are bringing engineering, supply chain and healthcare expertise to facilitate increased production of ventilators, working with equipment manufacturers, distributors and the government in this effort.

  In addition to these commitments, we also increased the gift match Google offers every employee annually to $10,000 from $7,500. That means our employees can now give $20,000 to organizations in their communities, in addition to the $50 millionGoogle.org has already donated. Together, we’ll continue to help our communities—including our businesses, educators, researchers and nonprofits—to navigate the challenges ahead.

  
  
  https://www.blog.google/inside-google/company-announcements/commitment-support-small-businesses-and-crisis-response-covid-19/
• 

  Keeping our network infrastructure strong amid COVID-19
  • sorangutan  

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  Google's network supports products that people around the world rely on every day, like YouTube, Search, Maps and Gmail. It also connects Google Cloud customers to their employees and users. As the coronavirus pandemic spreads and more people move to working or learning from home, it’s natural to wonder whether the Google network can handle the load. The short answer is yes. 

  We’ve designed our network to perform during times of high demand. The same systems we built to handle peaks like the Cyber Monday online shopping surge, or to stream the World Cup finals, support increased traffic as people turn to Google to find news, connect with others, and get work done during this pandemic. And while we’re seeing more usage for products like Hangouts Meet, and different usage patterns in products like YouTube, peak traffic levels are well within our ability to handle the load. 

  Google’s network consists of a system of high-capacity fiber optic cables that encircle the globe, under both land and sea, connecting our data centers to each other, and to you. Traffic flows over our dedicated network, optimized for speed and reliability until we hand it off to more than 3,000 internet service providers (ISPs) in 200+ countries and territories for local delivery—the “last mile”—using hundreds of points of presence and thousands of edge locations around the world.

  Handling traffic on Google’s infrastructure and bringing it close to people helps limit the burden on operators—whose networks have different levels of reserve capacity—to allow them to focus on delivering that last mile. Together, we work to provide the best possible experience for browsing, video-conferencing, streaming, making purchases online, and more to people around the world. We’re continuing to work with governments and network operators around the globe as we do our part to minimize stress on the system. As part of this, we recently announced that we are temporarily defaulting all videos on YouTube to standard definition.  

  We also recognize the importance of Google services at a time like this and continue to add capacity to stay ahead of demand. Our dedicated global network deployment and operations team is increasing capacity wherever needed, and, in the event of a disruption, recovers service as quickly as possible. 

  This may be a time of global uncertainty, but we're working hard to ensure the Google network is there for everyone, business or consumer, day and night.
  

  
  
  https://www.blog.google/inside-google/infrastructure/keeping-our-network-infrastructure-strong-amid-covid-19/
• 

  Identifying vulnerabilities and protecting you from phishing
  • sorangutan  

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  Google’s Threat Analysis Group (TAG) works to counter targeted and government-backed hacking against Google and the people who use our products. Following our November update, today we’re sharing the latest insights to fight phishing, and for security teams, providing more details about our work identifying attacks against zero-day vulnerabilities. 

  Protecting you from phishing

  We have a long-standing policy to send you a warning if we detect that your account is a target of government-backed phishing or malware attempts. In 2019, we sent almost 40,000 warnings, a nearly 25 percent drop from 2018. One reason for this decline is that our new protections are working—attackers' efforts have been slowed down and they’re more deliberate in their attempts, meaning attempts are happening less frequently as attackers adapt.

  

  Distribution of the targets of government-backed phishing in 2019.

  We’ve detected a few emerging trends in recent months.

  Impersonating news outlets and journalists is on the rise

  Upon reviewing phishing attempts since the beginning of this year, we’ve seen a rising number of attackers, including those from Iran and North Korea, impersonating news outlets or journalists. For example, attackers impersonate a journalist to seed false stories with other reporters to spread disinformation. In other cases, attackers will send several benign emails to build a rapport with a journalist or foreign policy expert before sending a malicious attachment in a follow up email. Government-backed attackers regularly target foreign policy experts for their research, access to the organizations they work with, and connection to fellow researchers or policymakers for subsequent attacks. 

  Heavily targeted sectors are (mostly) not surprising

  Government-backed attackers continue to consistently target geopolitical rivals, government officials, journalists, dissidents and activists. The chart below details the Russian threat actor group SANDWORM’s targeting efforts (by sector) over the last three years.

  

  Government-backed attackers repeatedly go after their targets

  In 2019, one in five accounts that received a warning was targeted multiple times by attackers. If at first the attacker does not succeed, they’ll try again using a different lure, different account, or trying to compromise an associate of their target.

  We’ve yet to see people successfully phished if they participate in Google’s Advanced Protection Program (APP), even if they are repeatedly targeted. APP provides the strongest protections available against phishing and account hijacking and is specifically designed for the highest-risk accounts. 

  Finding attacks that leverage zero-day vulnerabilities

  Zero-day vulnerabilities are unknown software flaws. Until they’re identified and fixed, they can be exploited by attackers. TAG actively hunts for these types of attacks because they are particularly dangerous and have a high rate of success, although they account for a small number of the overall total. When we find an attack that takes advantage of  a zero-day vulnerability, we report the vulnerability to the vendor and give them seven days to patch or produce an advisory or we release an advisory ourselves. 

  We work across all platforms, and in 2019 TAG discovered zero-day vulnerabilities affecting Android, Chrome, iOS, Internet Explorer and Windows. Most recently, TAG was acknowledged in January 2020 for our contribution in identifying CVE-2020-0674, a remote code execution vulnerability in Internet Explorer. 

  Last year, TAG discovered that a single threat actor was capitalizing on five zero-day vulnerabilities. Finding this many zero-day exploits from the same actor in a relatively short time frame is rare. The exploits were delivered via compromised legitimate websites (e.g. watering hole attacks), links to malicious websites, and email attachments in limited spear phishing campaigns. The majority of targets we observed were from North Korea or individuals who worked on North Korea-related issues.

  For security teams interested in learning more, here are additional details about the exploits and our work in 2019:

  The vulnerabilities underlying these exploits included:

  • Internet Explorer - CVE-2018-8653

  • Internet Explorer - CVE-2019-0676

  • Chrome - CVE-2019-5786

  • Windows Kernel - CVE-2019-0808

  • Internet Explorer - CVE-2019-1367

  • Internet Explorer - CVE-2019-1429

  The following technical details are associated with the exploits and can be used for teams interested in conducting further research on these attacks:

  • CVE-2018-8653, CVE-2019-1367 and CVE-2020-0674 are vulnerabilities inside jscript.dll, therefore all exploits enabled IE8 rendering and used JScript.Compact as JS engine.

  • In most Internet Explorer exploits, attackers abused the Enumerator object in order to gain remote code execution. 

  • To escape from the Internet Explorer EPM sandbox, exploits used a technique consisting of replaying the same vulnerability inside svchost by abusing Web Proxy Auto-Discovery (WPad) Service. Attackers abused this technique with CVE-2020-0674 on Firefox to escape the sandbox after exploiting CVE-2019-17026.

  • CVE-2019-0676 is a variant of CVE-2017-0022, CVE-2016-3298, CVE-2016-0162 and CVE-2016-3351 where the vulnerability resided inside the handling of “res://” URI scheme. Exploiting CVE-2019-0676 enabled attackers to reveal presence or non-presence of files on the victim’s computer; this information was later used to decide whether or not a second stage exploit should be delivered.

  • The attack vector for CVE-2019-1367 was rather atypical as the exploit was delivered from an Office document abusing the online video embedding feature to load an external URL conducting the exploitation.

  Our Threat Analyst Group will continue to identify bad actors and share relevant information with others in the industry. Our goal is to bring awareness to these issues to protect you and fight bad actors to prevent future attacks. In a future update, we’ll provide details on attackers using lures related to COVID-19 and expected behavior we’re observing (all within the normal range of attacker activity). 

  
  
  https://www.blog.google/technology/safety-security/threat-analysis-group/identifying-vulnerabilities-and-protecting-you-phishing/
• 

  Discover podcasts you’ll love with Google Podcasts, now on iOS
  • sorangutan  

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  It took me a decade to find the podcasts I love most. When I lived in Chicago, I started downloading podcasts for traffic-filled drives to soccer practice. One that stood out during the ninety-minute commute was Planet Money, which became a ritual for me as I studied economics. Since then I've gradually gathered a list of favorites for all activities from long runs to cooking dinner—Acquired, PTI, and More Perfect are a few. Building my podcast library took years and a number of friends introducing me to their favorite shows and episodes, such as a particularly memorable Radiolab about CRISPR.

  But you should be able to find new favorites in minutes, not years. We’ve redesigned the Google Podcasts app to make it easier to discover podcasts you’ll love, build your list of go-to podcasts, and customize your listening. To support listeners on more platforms, we’re also bringing Google Podcasts to iOS for the first time and adding support for subscriptions on Google Podcasts for Web. Regardless of the platform you’re using, your listening progress will sync across devices, and you’ll be able to pick up right where you left off.

  The new app is organized around three tabs: Home, Explore and Activity. The Home tab features a feed of new episodes and gives you quick access to your subscribed shows. When you select an episode you want to listen to, you’ll now see topics or people covered in that podcast, and you can easily jump to Google Search to learn more.

  

  In the Explore tab, “For you” displays new show and episode recommendations related to your interests, and you can browse popular podcasts in categories such as comedy, sports, and news. You’ll be able to control personalized recommendations from the Google Podcasts settings, which are accessible right from the Explore tab.

  
  

  

  As you listen and subscribe to more podcasts, the Activity tab will display your listen history, queued up episodes, and downloads. For each show in your subscriptions, you can now enable automatic downloading and/or push notifications for when new episodes come out.
  

  The new Google Podcasts is available on iOS today and rolling out to Android this week. Try it out and discover your next favorite show.

  
  
  https://www.blog.google/products/search/discover-podcasts-youll-love-with-google-podcasts-now-on-ios/
• 

  Learn from our mobility experts at Android OnAir
  • sorangutan  

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  To support Android Enterprise customers with their mobility initiatives, we’ve created a series of webinars at Android OnAir that offer best practices in deploying and managing devices. Each webinar tackles an essential subject that is top of mind for IT decision makers and admins. Participants can join a live Q&A during the broadcast to get answers directly from Google. If you can’t make the live broadcast, webinars are all available on-demand.

  Our current catalogue of on-demand webinars cover important topics like deployment strategies and Android security updates. Check out the upcoming schedule and register today to reserve your spot.
  
  

  Google security services on Android 

  April 15:Android devices are backed by industry-leading security to help keep devices safe. Learn how Google Play Protect, Safe Browsing, SafetyNet and other Google Security Services help safeguard company data and employee privacy, and discover strategies to incorporate them into your mobility initiative.
  
  

  Using mobile to improve business continuity 

  May 13: Android can transform how your teams connect with each other and work more efficiently, no matter where they are. Learn how you can take mobile devices beyond traditional use cases and give employees more convenience with access to internal services like private apps, corporate sites and key services to extend business continuity to any device.
  
  

  How Google mandates Android security standards

  June 17:Consistent security and management standards give companies the confidence to use a mix of devices from different OEMs to support various business use cases. Find out more about how Google works closely with device manufacturers and developers to implement security systems that are deployed on enterprise devices.
  
  

  Preventing enterprise data loss on Android

  July 15: Data loss can be catastrophic for any business. Learn how Android Enterprise management features give IT admins the tools to mandate secure app and data usage practices that help prevent leaks and guard against attacks from bad actors. Discover Android management strategies to give employees the level of access you want while helping protect critical company data.
  
  

  Equip your frontline workers for success with Android

  August 12: Frontline workers like sales associates, warehouse managers, delivery drivers and others perform critical tasks that drive customer success. However, mobile investment in these employees remains low. Businesses can use mobile devices to empower these teams with data-driven decisions and real-time access to company resources. Learn how business can use Android device diversity to provide the right device for each digital use case.
  
  

  Explaining Android Enterprise
  Recommended and security requirements

  September 16: Android Enterprise Recommended simplifies mobility choices for businesses with a Google-approved shortlist of devices, services, and partners that meet our strict enterprise requirements. Find out how this initiative can help your team select devices with consistent security and software requirements and find validated Enterprise Mobility Management and Managed Service Provider partners.

  
  

  
  
  https://www.blog.google/products/android-enterprise/android-on-air/
• 

  Five things you (maybe) didn't know about AI
  • sorangutan  

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  While there’s plenty of information out there on artificial intelligence, it’s not always easy to distinguish fact from fiction or find explanations that are easy to understand. That’s why we’ve teamed up with Google to create The A to Z of AI. It’s a series of simple, bite-sized explainers to help anyone understand what AI is, how it works and how it’s changing the world around us. Here are a few things you might learn:

  

  A is for Artificial Intelligence

  1. AI is already in our everyday lives. 

  You’ve probably interacted with AI without even realizing it. If you’ve ever searched for a specific image in Google Photos, asked a smart speaker about the weather or been rerouted by your car’s navigation system, you’ve been helped by AI. Those examples might feel obvious, but there are many other ways it plays a role in your life you might not realize. AI is also helping solve some bigger, global challenges. For example, there are apps that use AI to help farmers identify issues with crops. And there are now systems that can examine citywide traffic information in real time to help people efficiently planning their driving routes.

  

  C is for Climate

  2. AI is being used to help tackle the global climate crisis. 

  AI offers us the ability to process large volumes of data and uncover patterns—an invaluable aid when it comes to climate change. One common use case is AI-powered systems that help people regulate the amount of energy they use by turning off the heating and lights when they leave the house. AI is also helping to model glacier melt and predict rising sea levels so effective that action can be taken. Researchers are also considering the environmental impact of data centers and AI computing itself by exploring how to develop more energy efficient systems and infrastructures.

  

  D is for Datasets

  3. AI learns from examples in the real world.

  Just as a child learns through examples, the same is true of machine learning algorithms. And that’s what datasets are: large collections of examples, like weather data, photos or music, that we can use to train AI. Due to their scale and complexity (think of a dataset made up of extensive maps covering the whole of the known solar system), datasets can be very challenging to build and refine. For this reason, AI design teams often share datasets for the benefit of the wider scientific community, making it easier to collaborate and build on each other's research.

  

  F is for Fakes

  4. AI can help our efforts to spot deepfakes.

  “Deepfakes'' are AI-generated images, speech, music or videos that look real. They work by studying existing real-world imagery or audio, mapping them in detail, then manipulating them to create works of fiction that are disconcertingly true to life. However, there are often some telltale signs that distinguish them from reality; in a deepfake video, voices might sound a bit robotic, or characters may blink less or repeat their hand gestures. AI can help us spot these inconsistencies.

  

  Y is for You

  5. It’s impossible to teach AI what it means to be human. 

  As smart as AI is (and will be), it won’t be able to understand everything that humans can. In fact, you could give an AI system all the data in the world and it still wouldn’t reflect, or understand, every human being on the planet. That’s because we’re complex, multidimensional characters that sit outside the data that machines use to make sense of things. AI systems are trained and guided by humans. And it’s up to each person to choose how they interact with AI systems and what information they feel comfortable sharing. You decide how much AI gets to learn about you.

  For 22 more bite-sized definitions, visit https://atozofai.withgoogle.com

  
  
  https://www.blog.google/technology/ai/five-things-a-to-z-ai/
• 

  Porsche Taylor puts women in the driver's seat
  • sorangutan  

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  Porsche Taylor’s first time riding a motorcycle alone could have gone better. “That first ride, I had absolutely nothing on right: My helmet was too big, I didn’t own a jacket. I might have had on some baseball gloves; everything was just totally upside-down wrong,” she says. “But I wasn’t afraid, it was exhilarating. It was trying something new, being in control. It was that initial feeling of the freedom of the wind.”

  Porsche was one of the participants in the Women Riders World Relay, a relay ride that spanned the globe, beginning in February 2019 in Scotland and ending February 2020 in London. WRWR organizers used Google products like Maps, Sheets and Translate to make sure riders not only had constant, up-to-date access to their routes, but also were able to explore and connect with one another along the way. 

  

  “The whole team did phenomenally with the amount of time they had to put together the route and figure out the baton passes,” says Porsche. Google Maps was particularly useful for creating Porsche’s route. She and her fellow riders rode from Sept. 25 to Oct. 14, starting in Maine and heading west across the Canadian border, then down through the Southwest to the Mexican border in Texas. They crossed the country, occasionally riding through snowstorms and dropping temperatures. “When you consider the seasons we were riding through, it was a definite challenge for organizers to find routes that weren’t closed down.” 

  While Google Maps could help the riders along their journey, it couldn’t do anything about inclement weather. “I quit about four times,” laughs Porsche. “Riding in the cold is not my favorite thing to do. But it was a positive experience all the way around; I don’t know that I would ride in the freezing cold again, but I would do a ride with those women again for sure. I always say the bonds are built on the ground: You’re going to love the folks you ride with to death or you won’t be so cool, and I’m happy to say I love those ladies to death.”

  Porsche is vocal about the need for more representation for women in the motor sports community, and she says that things like social media visibility and technical tools like Google Hangouts have helped women who may have felt alone in their shared passion find each other. This idea is in part what inspired her to found Black Girls Ride, a magazine and community originally launched as a place for women of color who ride, which has since grown to include all women. What inspired her to launch Black Girls Ride was the lack of representation she saw when she first started riding—especially in long-distance riding. Traditionally, women filled support roles during these cross-country expeditions, taking a literal backseat to men. In fact, Porsche’s first experience on a bike was sitting behind a man, on the back of her cousin’s bike. “I didn’t so much like the feeling of being a passenger...but I loved the feeling of riding.” 

  Thanks to women like Porsche and the WRWR riders, the world of motor sports is changing. “Women have become fearless and bold enough to take long distance biking trips on their own. We’re witnessing the explosion of the all-female long distance ride, where women take it upon themselves to create rides that cater to them instead of being a subset of an all-male ride. It’s where we get to take our power back.” 

  Talking about these rides and seeing women taking them via social media and internet communities are crucial, says Porsche, who also mentions using Google Hangouts to connect with riders across the country. “You’re able to see the growth of female riders; women taking these long distance trips and riding solo have always been there—there are women riding today who have been doing this since the 60s—but social media is now shining a light on them.” 

  That increased visibility is part of Porsche's work with Black Girls Ride. “I knew from riding in LA that there were more of us than the community would admit to. There was no representation in mainstream media, even for women who were riding professionally, there was very little to nothing,” Porsche says. Now "women all over the world are connecting to the Black Girls Ride brand. We have readers in London, Nigeria, France, just about every country you can name. I’m motivated by these women.” Black Girls Ride has become more than a publication, hosting trainings, workshops and events. And while both men and women are included, it’s Porsche’s focus to make sure women riders are invited to the table and that they are given the same representation, advertising and sponsorship opportunities. 

  Most of all, she just wants women to feel welcome in this world. “It’s always been my goal to create safe spaces for women to ask questions and get the help they need without fear of ridicule,” she says. “And I’m glad I can be a part of creating that.” 

  Learn more about the women behind WRWR and how they planned their relay at goo.gle/womenriders.

  
  

  
  
  https://www.blog.google/outreach-initiatives/diversity/porsche-taylor-women-riders-world-relay/
• 

  Stay updated on travel advisories and airline policies
  • sorangutan  

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  As the spread of COVID-19 continues, we’re seeing more searches for travel-related information—like travel advisories and trip cancellation policies—so we’re making some changes this week to help you find this information faster.
  

  
  

  Stay up to date on travel advisories
  

  When you search on Google for information like flights, hotels, or things to do you’ll start seeing COVID-19 related travel advisories or restrictions for your destination, with links to relevant information from your country’s travel authority when possible. This information will appear on the search results page, at the top of google.com/travel, and in Google Maps when you search for hotels.
  

  
  

  

  
  

  Understanding airline policies for flight changes and cancellations
  

  In response to COVID-19, many airlines have adjusted change fee and cancellation policies. When you search on Google for flights with a specific airline or go to Google Flights, we’ll direct you to our Help Center article with more information on airline policies. These policies may change, so be sure to click through to the airline’s website for the latest information.
  

  

  
  

  We hope these resources help you stay safe and make the best decisions about travel plans. We'll continue to work on ways to help as the COVID-19 situation evolves.
  

  
  
  https://www.blog.google/products/flights-hotels/travel-advisories-and-airline-policies/
• 

  City of Antwerp and Google to digitize 100,000 books
  • sorangutan  

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  The world of book publishing today is, in many ways, dignified and highbrow. But it was a different story in the 16th century, about a hundred years after the invention of the printing press. Publishing was a high-risk, high-reward proposition: With the right backing and enough capital investment, an entrepreneur could become wildly successful. But publishing the wrong thing in the wrong place could be disastrous—even fatal, with governments and religious authorities taking a very severe view of what content was fit to print.

  No one knew this better than Christophe Plantin, who set up a publishing house in Antwerp, Belgium, in the mid-16th century. Facing religious intolerance and escaping persecution, he helped put the city on the map as a publishing powerhouse. His own printing operation continued in his family for generations. 

  Today, Plantin’s home and business are preserved as the Plantin-Moretus Museum, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and home to 25,000 early printed books. Visitors to Antwerp can walk through the rooms where the family lived and worked, and researchers can delve into the collection’s manuscripts, books, archives and original prints.

  And now, thanks to a partnership between the City of Antwerp and Google, we will digitize more than 32,000 books from the museum, along with an additional 60,000 books held by the city’s Hendrik Conscience Heritage Library.

  • People view early printed books in display cases at the Hendrik Conscience Heritage Library.jpg

    The Hendrik Conscience Heritage Library houses books from the 16th century.

  • a person reshelves books in the stacks of the Hendrik Conscience Heritage Library.jpg

    The collection in the new warehouse of Hendrik Conscience Heritage Library

  • a researcher studies a book at a desk in the Hendrik Conscience Heritage Library.jpg

    The Hendrik Conscience Heritage Library will digitize a large portion of its collection via Google Books.

  In total, more than 100,000 international works published from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century will be made freely accessible in the coming years via Google Books and the library catalogues of both institutions. The scanned volumes, which are no longer subject to copyright, will be full-text searchable, meaning that researchers—as well as members of the public—will be able to search them easily and quickly.

  The digitization will start in early 2021, allowing time for both Google and the city to set up the project and establish logistics processes. We expect it will take at least three years, partly because we don’t want to cause too much disruption to library visitors who come to view the materials. The books will be transported securely in batches from Antwerp to our European digitization center. Shortly after each work is scanned, the digital copy will appear on books.google.com, and the libraries will also receive digital copies of their respective works to incorporate into their own catalogues. 

  Google Books was launched 15 years ago, with the goal of making all books from around the world digitally available and searchable for everyone. This collaboration with the City of Antwerp adds an incredibly rich collection from the Dutch-speaking world to our collection, and brings us a crucial step closer to achieving our mission.

  
  
  https://www.blog.google/around-the-globe/google-europe/city-antwerp-and-google-digitize-100000-books/