We recently made a change to simplify the way Chrome handles sign-in. Now, when you sign into any Google website, you’re also signed into Chrome with the same account. You’ll see your Google Account picture right in the Chrome UI, so you can easily see your sign-in status. When you sign out, either directly from Chrome or from any Google website, you’re completely signed out of your Google Account.
We want to be clear that this change to sign-in does not mean Chrome sync gets turned on. Users who want data like their browsing history, passwords, and bookmarks available on other devices must take additional action, such as turning on sync.
The new UI reminds users which Google Account is signed in. Importantly, this allows us to better help users who share a single device (for example, a family computer). Over the years, we’ve received feedback from users on shared devices that they were confused about Chrome’s sign-in state. We think these UI changes help prevent users from inadvertently performing searches or navigating to websites that could be saved to a different user’s synced account.
We’ve heard—and appreciate—your feedback. We’re going to make a few updates in the next release of Chrome (Version 70, released mid-October) to better communicate our changes and offer more control over the experience.
While we think sign-in consistency will help many of our users, we’re adding a control that allows users to turn off linking web-based sign-in with browser-based sign-in—that way users have more control over their experience. For users that disable this feature, signing into a Google website will not sign them into Chrome.
We’re updating our UIs to better communicate a user’s sync state. We want to be clearer about your sign-in state and whether or not you’re syncing data to your Google Account.
We’re also going to change the way we handle the clearing of auth cookies. In the current version of Chrome, we keep the Google auth cookies to allow you to stay signed in after cookies are cleared. We will change this behavior that so all cookies are deleted and you will be signed out.
We deeply appreciate all of the passionate users who have engaged with us on this. Chrome is a diverse, worldwide community, and we’re lucky to have users who care as much as you do. Keep the feedback coming.
Today, the European Commission published a Code of Practice on Disinformation in Europe -- a code we helped create. The Code is the next step in the work we’re already doing with experts and publishers worldwide to elevate quality information online and support news literacy.
Today, people have more information at their fingertips than ever before, and a free and open web is a vital resource for web users and businesses the world over. But some seek to exploit the web’s freedoms for harm, including by spreading disinformation—verifiably false information deliberately intended to deceive. Here are five ways we're investing globally to connect people to quality information online:
1. Improving Search to connect people to quality information
People expect to get great results in Search, and we fail in our mission if we surface poor quality or misleading results. We’re constantly evolving our approach to get people to the best and most useful results and over the years, we've invested significantly in protections against spam, bots, and other attempts to game our search results. In 2017, we announced that we’d made improvements to our evaluation methods and algorithmic updates to surface more authoritative content. Every year we make thousands of improvements to Search to improve the quality of results for the wide range of queries Google sees every day. In 2017, we ran more than 270,000 experiments, with trained external Search Quality Evaluators and live user tests, resulting in more than 2,400 improvements to Search. To better deal with inappropriate Autocomplete predictions, we launched a feedback tool last year to inform improvements to our systems. We also updated our Autocomplete policies to prevent poor or offensive predictions.
2. Cutting the flow of money to scammers and misrepresentative websites
In recent years we’ve seen a rise in scammers trying to take advantage of the growing popularity of online news to make money. So we prohibit websites in our ad network from serving ads on misrepresentative content. Essentially this means that you can’t serve ads if you’re pretending to be a legitimate news website based in London when you’re actually a content scammer in a different city. By cutting off the flow of money to this kind of activity, we hope to remove the incentive to create it.
High-quality reporting by journalists and news organizations is crucial in the fight against disinformation. We’re committed to helping publishers grow their traffic, their audience, their subscriptions and their revenue for the long haul—last year, we paid $12.6 billion to publisher partners and drove 10 billion clicks a month to publishers’ websites for free. In 2015, to sustain innovation in digital journalism, we created the Digital News Initiative (DNI) with a €150million fund. We’ve built products in partnership with publishers to directly address challenges faced by the news industry, from the open-source Accelerated Mobile Pages to optimize content for the mobile web to Subscribe with Google and Player for Publishers, which make it easier for publishers to host and monetize their content. And most recently we launched the global Google News Initiative to help journalism thrive in the digital age, with a commitment of $300 million over the next three years. We believe this will help strengthen quality journalism, evolve business models to drive sustainable growth, and empower news organizations through technological innovation.
4. “Fact-check” labels in Google News and Search
We introduced fact-check labels to Google News and Google Search results to let publishers highlight fact-checked content and help people find and more easily consult articles that provide a critical outlook on claims made by others. Beyond its value to users, this feature helps support the work of the fact-checking community—a fast-growing field, with more than 150 organizations trying to tackle accuracy in the media as well as traditional publishers engaging in fact-checking work.
5. Funding innovation and research into disinformation
Newsrooms, researchers and civil society are also working to tackle this issue. To help these organizations, we’ve funded research; we’re partnering in industry initiatives like First Draft and Cross Check that help newsrooms fight misinformation; and we’re working with newsrooms and other platforms on standards for online credibility through the Trust Project.
We’re clear on our ultimate goal—to get people access to useful and relevant information from authoritative sources. We'll keep working with partners around the world to make it happen.
In 2004, our founders wrote that we were not a conventional company and never intended to become one. In that same letter, they set a vision for philanthropy that would contribute significant resources and Googler time to help solve the largest of the world's problems. Out of that tall order, we created Google.org. With other teams at Google, we’ve donated over $1.5 billion since 2005. Also, over the past four years, our Googlers have logged more than 1 million volunteer hours.
Since then we've had the privilege to partner with hundreds of organizations and nonprofit leaders from nearly every corner of the globe. When choosing our grantees, we look for new thinking on how to tackle all sorts of challenges—like closing global education gaps, using data science to improve criminal justice and supporting communities when disaster strikes.Importantly, we also look for organizations that are testing their effectiveness and sharing results transparently with the broader sector to increase understanding of what works.
As we celebrate Google’s 20th year anniversary this month, we’re recognizing the accomplishments of one of those organizations, where the impact of an investment that we made years ago is just coming to fruition.
In 2012, I met GiveDirectly co-founders Michael Faye and Paul Niehaus, who had a thought-provoking idea: what if it’s more effective to give money directly to individuals instead of through philanthropic programming? Enabling beneficiaries to have more of a voice in how to spend aid is not only more empowering, Faye and Niehaus thought, it can be more efficient.
The question sparked the beginning of a multi-year partnership. Since 2012, Google.org has provided $6 million to support unconditional direct cash transfers that benefit people in need and to research the impact of GiveDirectly’s approach. We’ve also had Googler volunteers provide services from engineering help to serving on their board of directors. In 2014, we joined USAID in funding GiveDirectly to study two methods to reduce malnutrition in Rwanda: providing cash directly to people who can choose how to spend it or using the same amount of funding on programs pertaining to water, sanitation, and hygiene and nutrition.
Last week, researchers released the findings. This study found that large cash transfers (~$530 per household) had a meaningful and significant effect on reducing malnutrition while small cash transfers or the tailored programming did not. With more cash, families could expand their children’s nutritional intake, improve the quality of their homes and pay down debt.
This research highlights the importance of evaluating different approaches to solving big problems: weighing the monetary value of cash transfers against the cost of developing other programs to tackle the issue. This evaluation framework is now being used by USAID in several studies. Along with GiveDirectly’s leadership, we hope that these types of studies will help other organizations identify the most effective ways of creating a better world, faster.
We admire GiveDirectly’s willingness to put forward big ideas and work with us to expand our understanding of how we can use capital and technology to support great leaders to improve social outcomes.
“Focus on the user and all else will follow.” It’s one of the first principles Google laid out in the early days, and it’s still a guiding force as we build new products. And these days, focusing on the user means understanding that, for many people, technology has become a source of distractions, rather than a useful tool. Research the Android team released earlier this month indicates that mobile devices can create a sense of habit and obligation that is hard to break, even as people look for ways to create a healthy relationship with technology.
With this in mind, over the past year, teams across Google have turned their attention to building features that help you better understand how you use your devices and apps, disconnect when you want, and create healthy habits for your whole family. Here’s a look at some of the ways we’re helping you reclaim a sense of balance and focus on what matters most to you:
Digital wellbeing data and controls for your Android phone
Android 9 Pie lets you see a dashboard of how you’re spending time on your device, including how many times you’ve unlocked your phone, and how many notifications you’ve received. You can also set time limits on apps, like “30 minutes for Chrome.” When you’re close to the limit, you’ll get a nudge reminding you, and when time is up you won’t be able to use the app anymore (unless you cheat!). You can also try Wind down, which helps you remember to stop scrolling and get to sleep. These features are currently in beta for Pixel users.
Digital ground rules for your family
Every year, more and more kids have access to connected devices: according to our research, 75 percent of kids age 6-12 own or share a tablet, and 52 percent of kids age 6-12 own or share a smartphone. Our Family Link app, which is now available in nearly every country around the world, helps parents better manage their kids’ experience with technology. Family Link lets parents set screen time limits, approve or block certain apps, remote lock devices, and view activity reports so they can stay in the loop on how their kids are exploring.
Last week we shared that in addition to using Family Link for children under 13, parents around the world can use Family Link to supervise their teen’s existing Google Account (see applicable age for a teen in your county).
You choose how you YouTube
It’s easy to lose track of time when you’re watching YouTube videos. That’s part of the fun! But for those times you want to set some boundaries, YouTube has added features to help you understand how much time you’re spending in the app and help you take a break. The new Time Watched profile tells you exactly how much time you’re spending in the app, and you can set a reminder for yourself to take a break once you’ve hit a certain amount of time. We’ve also added the option for you to bundle YouTube notifications into one daily digest. You can even choose what time of day you want to see it.
We’ve always aimed to build products that help you get things done efficiently and free you up to focus on the other things that matter to you—from Search, where our goal has always been to get you an answer as fast as possible, to tools like Smart Reply in Gmail which suggest text for you. That’s more important now than ever, and we’ll keep building with that principle in mind.
The world we live in today is very different from the one when Google started back in 1998. We’re no longer using clunky computers to perform simple searches and send basic emails—with the phones in our pockets, we can accomplish things we couldn’t have come close to doing with ye olde desktop. But as technology becomes increasingly woven into our day-to-day, making sure it’s improving life—instead of distracting from it—is more important than ever. That’s focusing on the user, and that’s what we’re continuing to do.
Google Arts & Culture started back in 2011, and if Google’s mission is to make the world’s information more accessible, then Arts & Culture aims to make more culture accessible to anyone, anywhere. Since the early days, we’ve collaborated with partner institutions as varied as Japan’s Tezuka Osama Museum, Brazil’s Inhotim Museum and the U.S. National Parks. In many cases, we’ve collaborated with the cultural sector to build special technologies designed to bring their stories to life for the digital world—from our trolley to Cardboard to the Art Camera to a little thing we call the Art Selfie and state-of-the-art AI experiments.
But enough talk. While it’s nearly impossible to choose the best highlights from this massive collection, it’s time to take a quick tour through 20 of Google Arts & Culture’s hidden treasures:
1. One of the world’s oldest works of art. This figurine found in Berekhat Ram in Israel is believed to be 233,000 years old. Microscopic analyses have proved that it was shaped by human hands—apparently the first artists in the world.
Figurine from Berekhat Ram – The Israel Museum
2. A city full of temples, preserved through 3D. In 2016, an earthquake damaged many of the temples in Bagan, Myanmar. Working with CyArk, a nonprofit that works to preserve 3D digital archives of at-risk monuments, we’ve made it possible for people to go on a virtual tour of the city of a thousand temples, as well as other heritage sites around the world.
3. Fantastic beasts from long ago. You don’t need dino DNA to come face to face with prehistoric predators. It’s a lot safer to meet colossal sea dragons and other prehistoric creatures in VR.
4. The stilettos of an American icon. There are few icons as iconic as Marilyn Monroe. And Monroe’s sparkling red stilettos, designed by Salvatore Ferragamo, are more than a fashion statement—they’re a feat of engineering. As part of a project exploring the past and present of fashion, you can see these red pumps up close and learn the story behind this shoe and thousands of other fashion pieces.
“The Kiss,” arguably the most popular work by Gustav Klimt, was first exhibited in 1908. It is one of the icons of European modern art, representing the culmination of the phase known as the “Golden Epoch.” With gigapixel technology, you can zoom in to see each gilded detail.
The Kiss – Gustav Klimt
7. A track lost to history. The original phonograph of Louis Armstrong’s “Tiger Rag” may have disappeared from memory but for Deutsche Grammophon. We worked with the record label—the world’s first—to restore and digitize their sound archives and tell the story of Emile Berliner, who invented the grammophon player.
8. What a freedom fighter takes home. Upon his release from Victor Verster Prison, Nelson Mandela’s belongings were gathered up, inventoried, and signed over to a member of his release team. Included on the list is a surfboard. Mandela took great pleasure in being allowed to go swimming—but every time Mandela went in the water, warder Jack Swart had to go in with him. Swart wasn’t an adept swimmer, so Mandela requested a “boogie-board” for him to try.
9. The private home of a celebrated female artist. The personal life of Frida Kahlo was the subject of many of her works and remains fascinating to this day. And the house where Kahlo was born, lived and died is in many ways a physical reflection of her creative mind, as a sanctuary and inspiration for the artist. We captured the La Casa Azul on Street View with the Trolley for anyone to explore.
8. Tiger Rag by Louis Armstrong – Deutsche Grammophon.png
Tiger Rag by Louis Armstrong – Deutsche Grammophon
9.Mandela Inventory list – Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory.jpg
Mandela Inventory list – Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory
10. La Casa Azul –Museo Frida Kahlo.png
La Casa Azul – Museo Frida Kahlo
10. A piece of space history.
The Space Shuttle Discover is one of NASA’s most notable orbiters. Discovery was used to deploy the Hubble Space Telescope in 1990—one of 39 missions in 25 years of service. And you can step into space exploration history with a tour of Discover in virtual reality, alongside two astronauts who helped deliver Hubble to orbit.
Astronaut on an EVA – Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum
11. Age-old lessons in craftsmanship, rediscovered. Japan's traditional craftsmanship is world-renowned, and few things capture the beauty and mastery as much as the making of "Arita ware."
12. The sights and sounds of Rio de Janeiro’s comunidades. Take an interactive 360° bike ride to explore the some of the most vibrant—and previously unmapped—neighborhoods of Rio de Janeiro and meet some truly inspiring cariocas.
13. A legendary queen. Nefertiti—whose name means “the Beautiful One Has Come”—was one of the most powerful and influential women in Ancient Egypt. Her bust, on display in the Neue Museum on Berlin’s Museum Island, is completely unique—no other Ancient Egyptian stone bust like it is known.
14. The hidden connections between artworks. They say any two people in the world can be connected through friends of friends, in just a few steps. How about artworks? Using machine learning to analyze the visual features of artworks, the experiment X Degrees of Separation finds pathways between any two artifacts, connecting the two through a chain of artworks.
15. The tallest Gandhi in the world
In 2014, the headquarters of the Delhi Police was the site for an unprecedented collaboration between a government body and street art. The artists Anpu and Hendrick ECB collaborated on a portrait of Gandhi so huge—152 feet tall—that it required the tallest industrial crane available in India to complete it.
11.Flower vase with design of dragon and clouds in overgraze enamels – Tachibana Museum.jpg
Flower vase with design of dragon and clouds in overgraze enamels – Tachibana Museum
12. Christ The Redeemer – Rio de Janeiro Department of Conservation.png
Christ The Redeemer – Rio de Janeiro Department of Conservation
13. Bust of Queen Nefertiti – Neues Museum.png
Bust of Queen Nefertiti – Neues Museum
14. X Degrees of Separation.png
X Degrees of Separation
15. Mahatma Gandhi Mural, St+Art India.jpg
Mahatma Gandhi Mural, St+Art India
16. The (original) bedrooms—virtually reunited. Van Gogh was a prolific correspondent as well as artist, writing many letters and postcards throughout his lifetime. These often included the first sketches of many of his most famous masterpieces—including a drawing of the world-famous The Bedroom, included in a letter dated 17 October 1888 to Paul Gauguin.
Left: Autograph letter, dated 17 October 1888, to Paul Gauguin – The Morgan Library & Museum. Right: The Bedroom – Van Gogh Museum
17. The philosophy, in ink, of one of Confucius’ most distinguished pupils. The most important collection of artwork in Chinese history is held in the Palace Museum inside the Forbidden City, home to 24 emperors for nearly 500 years. One of the collection’s oldest surviving pieces is this calligraphy by renownedOuyang Xun about Confucius’ most distinguished student Bu Shang.
18. The design process behind one of the world’s most recognizable landmarks. Architect Jørn Utzon took inspiration from nature to design the shelled roof of the iconic Sydney Opera House. In this exhibit, you can see how early designs with a lower roof profile evolved into the upright design we recognize today. The final design was the result of three years of experimentation, and each shell was derived from the shape of a sphere.
19. A revolution in the making. A Scrapbook compiled by the Suffragette Ada Flatman draws you into the struggle for women's rights—from 18th-century activists to modern-day trailblazers. Discover never-before-seen news cuttings, flyers and photographs from the Suffragette movement in the Road to Equality exhibit.
20. Art criticism—from an unexpected source.
Three paintings. Two art experts. One kid. Can the competing art experts correctly guess famous paintings based off a kid's descriptions? That’s the idea behind the video series Name That Art.
17. Bu Shang Studying, Running Regular Script – The Palace Museum.jpg
Bu Shang Studying, Running Regular Script – The Palace Museum
18. Model detailing the sections derived from a sphere that comprise the final scheme for the roof – Sydney Opera House.jpg
Model detailing the sections derived from a sphere that comprise the final scheme for the roof – Sydney Opera House
19. Scrapbook compiled by the Suffragette Ada Flatman – Museum of London.png
Scrapbook compiled by the Suffragette Ada Flatman – Museum of London
For nearly two decades, people around the world have used Google to find answers, communicate, build businesses, and more. Our users have long entrusted us to be responsible with their data and we take that trust and responsibility very seriously.
Our investment in privacy and security is evident in every product we build, including the powerful tools we provide to help our users make decisions about their data like the Privacy Checkup. Google products and features cannot launch until they are approved by the specialists in our Privacy and Data Protection Office, which solicits input from across Google, as well as periodically from users and experts worldwide. And our broad commitment to transparency is evident in our newly-refreshed Privacy Policy, which includes informative videos that explain our practices and settings, as well as tools like My Activity that provide detailed information about the data in a user’s Google Account and options for how to control it. Since 2010, our Transparency Report has provided information on how the policies and actions of governments and corporations affect privacy, security, and access to information.
I’m proud of the work we do at Google. That’s why, after almost a decade leading Google's privacy legal team, I've recently agreed to take on the role of Chief Privacy Officer. In this role, I set the priorities for the privacy program at Google, including continually challenging ourselves to make sure our privacy and security tools, policies, and practices are as user-focused as every other aspect of our business. My team’s goal is to help you enjoy the benefits of technology, while remaining in control of your privacy.
This is an important time to take on this new role. Now, more than any other time I have worked in this field, there is real momentum to develop baseline rules of the road for data protection. Google welcomes this and supports comprehensive, baseline privacy regulation. People deserve to feel comfortable that all entities that use personal information will be held accountable for protecting it. And we believe that regulation can support a dynamic marketplace for businesses of all types and sizes.
Today, we’re sharing our view on the requirements, scope, and enforcement expectations that should be reflected in all responsible data protection laws. This framework is based on established privacy frameworks, as well as our experience providing services that rely on personal data and our work to comply with evolving data protection laws around the world. These principles help us evaluate new legislative proposals and advocate for responsible, interoperable and adaptable data protection regulations. How these principles are put into practice will shape the nature and direction of innovation. You can find more detail in this PDF.
Sound practices combined with strong and balanced regulations can help provide individuals with confidence that they’re in control of their personal information. I look forward to discussing these principles and Google’s work on privacy and security with the U.S. Senate later this week, and to working with policymakers and all stakeholders on regulation that protects consumers and enables innovation.
Growing up in India, there was one good library in my town that I had access to—run by the British Council. It was modest by western standards, and I had to take two buses just to get there. But I was lucky, because for every child like me, there were many more who didn’t have access to the same information that I did. Access to information changed my life, bringing me to the U.S. to study computer science and opening up huge possibilities for me that would not have been available without the education I had.
The British Council Library in my hometown.
When Google started 20 years ago, our mission was to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. That seemed like an incredibly ambitious mission at the time—even considering that in 1998 the web consisted of just 25 million pages (roughly the equivalent of books in a small library).
Fast forward to today, and now we index hundreds of billions of pages in our index—more information than all the libraries in the world could hold. We’ve grown to serve people all over the world, offering Search in more than 150 languages and over 190 countries.
Through all of this, we’ve remained grounded in our mission. In fact, providing greater access to information is as core to our work today as it was when we first started. And while almost everything has changed about technology and the information available to us, the core principles of Search have stayed the same.
First and foremost, we focus on the user. Whether you’re looking for recipes, studying for an exam, or finding information on where to vote, we’re focused on serving your information needs.
We strive to give you the most relevant, highest quality information as quickly as possible. This was true when Google started with the Page Rank algorithm—the foundational technology to Search. And it’s just as true today.
We see billions of queries every day, and 15 percent of queries are ones we’ve never seen before. Given this scale, the only way to provide Search effectively is through an algorithmic approach. This helps us not just solve all the queries we’ve seen yesterday, but also all the ones we can’t anticipate for tomorrow.
Finally, we rigorously test every change we make. A key part of this testing is the rater guidelines which define our goals in search, and which are publicly available for anyone to see. Every change to Search is evaluated by experimentation and by raters using these guidelines. Last year alone, we ran more than 200,000 experiments that resulted in 2,400+ changes to search. Search will serve you better today than it did yesterday, and even better tomorrow.
As Google marks our 20th anniversary, I wanted to share a first look at the next chapter of Search, and how we’re working to make information more accessible and useful for people everywhere. This next chapter is driven by three fundamental shifts in how we think about Search:
The shift from answers to journeys: To help you resume tasks where you left off and learn new interests and hobbies, we’re bringing new features to Search that help you with ongoing information needs.
Underpinning each of these are our advancements in AI, improving our ability to understand language in ways that weren’t possible when Google first started. This is incredibly exciting, because over 20 years ago when I studied neural nets at school, they didn’t actually work very well...at all!
But we’ve now reached the point where neural networks can help us take a major leap forward from understanding words to understanding concepts. Neural embeddings, an approach developed in the field of neural networks, allow us to transform words to fuzzier representations of the underlying concepts, and then match the concepts in the query with the concepts in the document. We call this technique neural matching. This can enable us to address queries like: “why does my TV look strange?” to surface the most relevant results for that question, even if the exact words aren’t contained in the page. (By the way, it turns out the reason is called the soap opera effect).
I’ve worked on Search at Google since the early days of its existence. One of the things that keeps me so inspired about Search all these years is our mission and how timeless it is. Providing greater access to information is fundamental to what we do, and there are always more ways we can help people access the information they need. That’s what pushes us forward to continue to make Search better for our users. And that’s why our work here is never done.
Google Maps is now supported by Apple CarPlay, which means that iPhone users can navigate with Google Maps right from their car’s built-in display. Read on to learn how to get the most out of the new experience:
Real time information when you need it: Google Maps on CarPlay features the same navigation experience found in the app. Search for places, see alternative routes and get live, up to date information about traffic jams and delays happening right now. See an up to the minute ETA so you know exactly when you’ll be at your destination.
Never miss a beat.You know the drill. You’re rushing out the door, and you immediately start navigating on your iPhone to see how long it’ll take you to get to your destination. Google Maps on CarPlay lets you start navigation from your iPhone and immediately pick up where you left off once you’ve connected to CarPlay - because we know that minutes matter when you’re pressed for time.
No data? No problem.You can still find your way even if you have spotty reception or an expensive data plans. Whether you’re camping in the wilderness or traveling abroad, you can use downloaded maps of an area so you can see directions and use turn by turn navigation even when you can’t get online.
These are a few of our favorite things:If you’re obsessed with creating lists likewe are, you’re in luck. You can access any of your saved lists from Google Maps on CarPlay, and quickly navigate to all of your favorite places with a single tap.
Save time when commuting: If you've set up your commute within the app, you can quickly navigate to home or work. While en route, you’ll see real time traffic updates about your journey so you can be prepared for whatever the ride has in store.
To get started, make sure your iPhone is running iOS 12, update your app to Version 5 in the App Store and connect your iPhone via CarPlay. Have an Android phone? Make sure to check out Google Maps onAndroid Auto..
Ad experiences matter. They affect not only your revenue, but how audiences perceive your content. A quality cross-screen ad experience can be the difference between a loyal fanbase and a lost audience. TV programmers and distributors who understand how to deliver timely, relevant messages to their multi-device viewers have an opportunity to differentiate themselves from the competition—and drive more revenue.
Google Ad Manager has been steadily investing in advanced TV solutions to help our partners deliver seamless, customized and measurable ad experiences everywhere audiences are watching. We’re seeing strong results. Last year alone, ad impressions served to connected TVs using Ad Manager increased by more than 80 percent according to internal data. But that's only one area where advanced TV is helping partners reimagine the way people watch.
Delivering seamless experiences on all screens
Audiences today expect broadcast quality experiences no matter how they tune in. To combat issues like buffering and poor ad playback quality, a growing number of Ad Manager partners are using Dynamic Ad Insertion technology to stitch video ads into their live, linear and on-demand content. Looking at internal data from the first half of 2018, ad impressions served using Dynamic Ad Insertion grew by more than 60 percent year-over-year, and ad impressions served during live events like the 2018 World Cup increased by over 2x.
So, what does this actually mean for TV programmers and distributors? Grupo América recently shared how they used Ad Manager’s advanced TV solutions to grow their revenue and deliver more relevant ads for their digital audiences. By replacing the commercial breaks in the online broadcasts of their linear TV streams with digital video ads delivered via Dynamic Ad Insertion, they were able to increase their revenue by 4x, and improve their ad view-through rates and video completion rates by 2x and 8x, respectively.
Customized viewing, everywhere
Ad Manager’s expertise in programmatic and real-time ad decisioning helps you maximize revenue while still protecting your viewer’s experience. For instance, capabilities like Smarter TV Ad Breaks help you optimize your commercial breaks for the highest revenue based on the most relevant combination of ads, customized for each viewer—all while respecting your business rules, like competitive exclusions and frequency capping.
Building on the momentum of our digital and OTT solutions, we’re also developing and testing new features that will deliver addressable ads within linear TV broadcasts. We recently partnered with Totalplay, one of Mexico’s most innovative telecommunications and IPTV providers, to test delivering addressable ads to their TV audiences via Dynamic Ad Insertion for Linear TV. Once live, the solution will enable Totalplay to sell addressable TV ads programmatically to households across Mexico’s largest cities.
Totalplay’s CEO Eduardo Kuri Romo, is optimistic that the partnership will bring more diverse options to advertisers and lead to stronger campaign performance:
The strategy for Totalplay has always been innovation. Our bet is that linear addressable TV will enhance our ad initiatives and become relevant for our advertisers. This is the beginning of the TV ecosystem evolution—we are enhancing the experience.Eduardo Kuri Romo CEO, Totalplay
Measurable experiences, because seeing is believing
One of the more challenging aspects of delivering addressable ads across TV platforms is arriving at a common language to evaluate and measure performance. Currently there is limited standardization across the digital, OTT and linear TV space—making the convergence of insights and the ability to report on cross-screen TV performance difficult.
Ad Manager is constantly working to expand the view and coverage of our measurement capabilities by pioneering new solutions. One example of this is becoming a founding member of the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s Tech Lab Coalition for Open Measurement to enable free and open measurement for viewability across mobile apps. We continue to partner with organizations like the Media Rating Council, The Better Ads Coalition, and more, on the development of new solutions that work to benefit the industry overall.
Moving forward with advanced TV
The business of entertainment has never been more exciting, and advanced TV represents a big opportunity. Moving forward, we're here to help you reimagine the commercial break in a way that supports your business today, and in the future.
This fall, Lianne Sánchez Rodríguez is swapping her college course schedule for a map of Google’s campus. Instead of heading back to the University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez, she will get to see firsthand what it’s like to be a software engineer.
We're committed to building a more diverse and representative Google that reflects our users. That’s why, as part of our strategy to do so, we're continuing to hire and invest in the talent of tomorrow. This fall, we welcomed Lianne, 64 other rising juniors, and 5 faculty members from 11 Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) as a part of our new Tech Exchange program.
The universities represented in the Tech Exchange program. (Top, left to right: Howard University, Florida A&M University, California State University Dominguez Hills, Morgan State University, New Mexico State University, Prairie View A&M University. Bottom, left to right: North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, Dillard University, University of Texas--El Paso, University of Puerto Rico--Mayaguez, Spelman College)
The institutions sending students to Google this year share our commitment to making computer science education accessible and available to everyone. Tech Exchange builds on the success of a 2017 pilot program between Google and Howard University (known as Howard West), during which 26 students completed a three-month computer science education program. Half of those students have since found engineering internships at Google or in the tech industry.
Throughout the year, students will take a selection of applied CS courses, including machine learning, product management, computational theory, and database systems, from HBCU/HSI faculty and Google engineers. Michael McDonald, who usually attends Morgan State University, an HBCU in Maryland, is excited to spend the entire academic year in this kind of education environment, which he describes as unique: “We’re immersed in computer science courses and get a real-world experience.”
But this internship goes beyond the books—students will get to know other Googlers from different product areas to get a glimpse of what their futures could hold. And that all started at our kick-off ceremony this week, during which Howard alum and Google VP of Global Partnerships Bonita Stewart expressed her thrill for the program, saying, “It’s so exciting for us to create a space for everyone, as we build products for everyone.”
During the Tech Exchange Opening Ceremony, Howard University’s Dr. Wayne Frederick told the audience of students, academics and Googlers, "This program is going to have a huge impact in terms of how we groom leaders, recognizing that getting them in the professional setting early, reducing their apprehensions, is going to be crucial."
What do students hope to get from their year at Google? Lianne sums it up well: “[Tech Exchange] pushes us to get out there, to not be afraid of making mistakes … and to work hard in order to achieve our goals.”
As we wrote earlier this week, there’s a new dedicated home for news about Google Cloud. As a result, we’re kicking off a series highlighting interesting stories from Cloud so you don’t miss out. Without further ado, here’s a look at what happened with Google Cloud in August.
We showed you how to save time in spreadsheets.
For many of us, repetitive tasks in spreadsheets can be a drain on both time and focus. The Macro Recorder in Sheets can help you record time-consuming actions and automatically play them back—no coding necessary. Here’s how to use it.
We took a closer look at TPUs.
The Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) is a custom chip we designed from scratch for machine learning workloads. They’re used to power popular Google products like Translate, Photos, and Gmail, and they’re also available to our Google Cloud customers. Curious about how neural networks work, and what TPUs can do? This handy primer can teach you.
We used AI to identify street art.
There are more ways to take advantage of machine learning than business uses like identifying products or forecasting demand. One Googler used AutoML Vision to build a graffiti artist classifier that helps you identify the street artist behind your favorite urban mural.
We shared DevOps best practices.
DevOps aims to unify software development and operations, and is an important component of fast-moving teams. Adopting its best practices can help them develop, deliver, and manage software faster. In August, we sponsored Accelerate: State of DevOps 2018: Strategies for a New Economy, a survey of almost 1,900 DevOps professionals that offers a comprehensive look at how software teams are using DevOps, and what’s working for the highest performers among them.
We created a robot dance party.
It’s one thing to offer the infrastructure and services needed to create Hollywood-caliber visual effects, and another thing to show people how. At Next ‘18 we built an entire animated short over the course of three days using Google Cloud Platform. Learn more about what we did.
That was August in a nutshell, but there were a whole lot more stories to choose from. We’ll be back next month with more from Google Cloud.
Technically, the Google Doodle existed before the Google company. A few days before Google incorporated, our founders added the Burning Man festival logo to the Google homepage to indicate they were out of town. With this, a colorful legacy was born: our homepage Doodles.
In the last two decades a talented team has created thousands of illustrated, animated and interactive variations of our logo. From our humble roots of using the same clipart turkey in both the 1998 and 1999 Thanksgiving Doodles, to our Emmy-nominated VR short earlier this year (congrats, NASA! 🚀💜), we've come a long way.
As we celebrate 20 years of Google, join us on a quick trip down memory lane to revisit 20 notable Doodles from the last two decades.
First, there were early Doodles.
First Doodle ever: Burning Man Festival, 1998 Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin played with the corporate logo to indicate that they were headed to the Burning Man festival—it was their “out of office" message for Google users. With this, the idea of creatively altering the company logo was born.
First Doodle series: Google Aliens, 2000 In May 2000, five Doodles by illustrator Ian David Marsden followed aliens encountering the Google logo, then hauling it off to Mars (1, 2, 3, 4, 5).Though Doodles are traditionally tied to a milestone date, this series was just for the LOLs.
First international Doodle: Bastille Day, 2000 Larry and Sergey asked Dennis Hwang, an intern at the time, to produce a Doodle to commemorate Bastille Day. It was so well received that Dennis was appointed Google's first Chief Doodler, and Doodles started appearing regularly on the Google homepage.
First animated Doodle: Halloween, 2000 Created by guest artist Lorie Loeb, this Doodle featured two jack-o-lanterns in place of the “O’s” in Google, and was punctuated by a scary spider dangling from the “L.” Sp🎃🎃ky.
Burning man Doodle
Aliens Doodle
Bastille Day Doodle
Halloween Doodle
They became more technologically advanced...
First interactive game Doodle: 30th anniversary of PAC-MAN, 2010 Drawing inspiration from his dad’s career as an arcade technician, designer/engineer Marcin Wichary built the PAC-MAN Doodle from the ground up. The Doodle was true to PAC-MAN’s roots: it included the original game logic, graphics, sounds, and even the original bugs.
First live-action Doodle: Charlie Chaplin’s 122nd birthday, 2011 This short film featured appearances from the entire Doodle team, with Doodler Mike Dutton in the starring role. In order to stay as close to Chaplin’s original films as possible, it was recorded in Niles, California on the same set where many of his silent movies were filmed. Niles is also the home to the advisers for this Doodle, the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum.
First Doodle slideshow: 200th Anniversary of Grimm's Fairy Tales, 2012 This Doodle was inspired by comics, and let readers pan through the story at their own pace. Doodler Matt Cruickshank’s modern take on “Little Red Riding Hood,” the tale featured flat designs and even an alternative ending.
First open-sourced code Doodle: 60th Anniversary of Stanislaw Lem's First Publication, 2011 Honoring prolific science-fiction writer Stanisław Lem, this Doodle was a mini-game designed by Sophia Foster-Dimino (inspired by the work of Polish illustrator/Lem collaborator, Daniel Mróz) that let you manipulate a robot after seeing it grow on the screen. It was the first time the code (all 17,000 lines of it!) behind a Doodle had been open sourced, allowing the public to access the code and see how the Doodle was built.
First Doodle animated via piano: Claude Debussy's 151st birthday, 2013 This Doodle panned across an 1800’s cityscape at night, and relied on a bit of technological ingenuity to perfectly time lights, smoke puffs and star twinkles to Debussy’s music. Fun fact: the music for this Doodle was performed by Doodler Leon Hong’s sister, Sabrina Hong.
PACMAN Doodle
Chaplin Doodle
Grimm's Doodle
Stanislaw Doodle
Debussy Doodle
And got even more creative.
First organic Doodle: Earth Day 2012 Life’s a garden and so are Doodles (we dig both). A handful of dedicated Doodlers rigged a camera to the roof of the building to grow this colorful Doodle. Talk about a green thumb.
First animated paper cut-out Doodle, Lotte Reiniger’s 117th birthday, 2016 In this video, Doodler Olivia Huynh, set out to recreate filmmaker and animator Lotte Reiniger’s style, painstakingly cutting out thousands of paper silhouettes, and moving them ever so slightly for each frame. Fittingly, the film featured Reiniger herself—in paper form of course!.
First Doodle with a narrated poem: Dr. Maya Angelou’s 90th Birthday, 2018 In this video Doodle, people inspired by Dr. Angelou’s life and legacy—including Alicia Keys, Martina McBride, Oprah Winfrey and even the author’s son Guy Johnson—narrated Angelou’s iconic poem “Still I Rise,” set to a backdrop of beautiful captions designed by Melissa Crowton.
First VR/360 Doodle: Celebrating Georges Méliès, 2018 This Emmy-nominated VR/360 video Doodle celebrated the pioneering French illusionist and film director Georges Méliès. The Doodle team’s Helene Leroux, in collaboration with Spotlight Stories and Nexus Studios, told the story of a Méliès-like character and his adventures on a virtual film set.
First same-day Doodle: Discovery of Water on the Moon, 2009 Doodle artist Jennifer Hom was so inspired by a news article she read about the discovery of water on the moon that she immediately set to work on a Doodle to commemorate this event. The Doodle was completed in roughly four hours, and still holds the record for fastest Doodle launch ever.
Most people featured in a Doodle: International Women’s Day, 2014 Featuring more than 100 women from all over the world, this video Doodle included such inspiring women as Russian actress, comedian and singer Nonna Grishaeva; 14-year-old Brazilian education activist Isadora Faber; Nigerian agricultural pioneer Foluso Olaniyan and many, many more.
Most partners involved in a Doodle: 44th Anniversary of the Birth of Hip Hop, 2017 This Doodle took interactivity to a new level, letting you mix samples from legendary breakbeats. Following a primer on the history of Hip Hop, narrated by Fab 5 Freddy, former host of “Yo! MTV Raps,” the Doodle gave a tutorial on how to be a virtual DJ on a pair of interactive turntables. Fittingly for a Doodle celebrating an inherently collaborative musical genre, we worked with seven creative partners and nine Hip Hop pioneers to create the Doodle, and more than 50 Hip Hop insiders helped us spread the word.
Longest production time: Celebrating Selena Quintanilla, 2017 The life of Mexican-American musician, fashion icon, entrepreneur, philanthropist and international superstar Selena Quintanilla was celebrated in a musical Doodle video animated by Doodler Kevin Laughlin. Set to one of Selena’s most iconic songs, “Bidi Bidi Bom Bom,” the video illustrated Selena’s rise from childhood phenom to musical powerhouse and took 18 months to produce. If you count that Doodle team member Perla Campos swears she was born to help bring this Doodle to life, it was a work in progress for nearly 30 years. 💃🏽
First Doodle 4 Google contest, 2005 The first Doodle 4 Google contest took place in the U.K., and found its first winner in 11-year-old Lisa Wainaina’s design, “The Day of the Child.” The contest, which now takes place every year in multiple countries, invites students to design their own Doodle and compete for a chance at scholarships and technology packages for their schools.
First Doodle Quiz, Earth Day Quiz 2015 This totally scientific quiz helped people discover themselves in the animal kingdom—and learn fun animal facts in the process. Animal-loving celebrities like Jane Goodall and Edward Norton filmed videos sharing their personal critters, and helped raise money for several animal charities. You can still take the quiz by searching for “earth day quiz” on Google.
Best cat cameo: Momo the Cat, Halloween 2016 An animated version of Doodler artist Juliana Chen’s cat made his second of several Doodle appearances in this adorable Halloween-themed game. The game included five levels, magic spells, and a powerful wand to fend of ghostly foes. Momo made appearances in 2015 and 2017's Halloween Doodles as well, and has inspired a *lot* of Momo fan art.
Doodle 4 Google 2005
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INTERNAL_USE_ONLY_10-31-Halloween-HiRes.png
On behalf of Doodlers past and present, thank you for viewing, sharing and clicking our creations all these years. You never know what will show up in our Doodles in the next few decades—probably some turkeys, maybe a cat—but it will definitely be made with love and appreciation for your curiosity and support.
Asking “what if,” and using technology to find the answer, has always been a part of what we do at Google. In 2011, we started the Google Science Fair to inspire teens to answer their own “what if’s” using science, technology, engineering and math. I’ve been a fan of science fairs all my life—but I’m particularly fond of Google’s—and this year’s edition kicks off today. Students from around the world will tinker (and code, experiment, design and build), until they come up with the answer they’re after.
Our most recent Google Science Fair grand prize winner, Kiara Nirghi—an 18 year-old young woman from South Africa—is passionate about finding new ways to protect our environment, especially her community that’s affected by drought. I had the opportunity to chat with Kiara and ask her a few questions about what inspired her:
What question did you try to answer with your Google Science Fair project?
“Can fruit waste save crops during a drought?” I wanted to see if it would be possible for crops to grow without a regular water supply.
How did you get interested in this question?
When my family and I were driving to the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal, I was shocked to pass empty reservoirs that had previously been full of water. It was the first time I saw the effects of drought on my community, and it inspired me to research potential solutions that would be safe for the environment.
Was there a moment when things didn't work as you had hoped?
I think that science and failure undoubtedly work hand-in-hand … not achieving the "correct" results but still persevering could take you to an award-winning solution or it could take you to a whole different idea. You have to start from the beginning again, but that's also fine. Perseverance will always move you toward the next step to making the world better!
What advice would you give other students who also want to make a difference?
Never be afraid to simply ask a question. Asking is always the first step to discovering an answer that will make a difference or solve a problem.
To join, visit Googlesciencefair.com and check out our new materials, thought-starters and inspiration to help you develop your idea. We know teachers play an important role in encouraging students and helping them work through their questions, so we’ve created a new set of ISTE-certified resources and classroom activities to help get the ideas flowing.
Submissions will be accepted through December 12—the winner will get a $50,000 scholarship, and 20 global finalists will come to Google headquarters to share their projects and be in the running for scholarships and prizes from National Geographic, Lego Education, Scientific American, and Virgin Galactic.
So now the question is, what if you could win the Google Science Fair?
Inbox by Gmail has been a great place to experiment with new ideas like snoozing emails to later, as well as try the latest AI-powered experiences like Smart Reply, Nudges and high-priority notifications to help you stay productive.
Four years after launching Inbox in 2014, we've learned a lot about how to make email better—and we’ve taken popular Inbox experiences and added them into Gmail to help more than a billion people get more done with their emails everyday. As we look to the future, we want to take a more focused approach that will help us bring the best email experience to everyone. As a result, we’re planning to focus solely on Gmail and say goodbye to Inbox by Gmail at the end of March 2019.
We introduced the new Gmail in April this year, incorporating many of the same features you’ve come to love about Inbox plus newer features like Smart Compose, which helps you draft emails faster. Read more about how these features in Gmail can help you manage your inbox better in this post.
We know change is hard, so we’ve created a transition guide to help you switch from Inbox to the new Gmail with ease. All your conversations are already waiting for you in Gmail. See you there.
As researchers on the Android team, we spend a lot of time out in the world, listening to our users. To do our best work, we leave our passions behind. Objectivity is key. But it’s hard not to develop empathy, especially when you start to notice that not everything about people’s experience with technology is positive.
As early as 2015, we noticed that increasingly, people we talked to were raising a flag about how distracting notifications on mobile devices can be. So we started thinking a lot about the role of notifications on people’s phones, and how we could build a better experience to help people achieve balance. We started with some small changes in Android Nougat, like bundling notifications and making it easier to reply to a message without opening the app.
But we knew there was more that we could do to understand how phones might be making it harder for people to disconnect, and the frustration this was generating. So last year my colleague Safia Baig and I embarked on a research project to do that, and we’ve just published the results.
What we found
Working across different cultures, we conducted our research in the U.S. and Switzerland. We spoke at length with and shadowed for hours at a time 19 participants aged 18-65, using either Android or iOS smartphones. We also analyzed data we had previously collected from 112 participants in China, Japan, Singapore, Sweden, and the U.S. over a period of two years.
Surprisingly, we found few differences across cultures, countries, gender, age groups or types of devices people were using. Across the board, mobile devices loaded with social media, email and news apps, were creating a constant sense of obligation, generating unintended personal stress.
Our research found two reasons why people's relationships with their phones was evolving in this manner. First, there are a lot of engaging things to do with your phone, and it’s hard to break the habit. One person we interviewed said that the phone was far from liberating: “It’s like a prison. You can get lost in your phone and not get out. Social media, gaming, being available [to others] all day… you can’t get away.” Second, people feel that there is a social obligation to reply to messages very quickly, and to be available all the time: “My phone is like a little pet—it goes with me from room to room. I don’t want to miss any messages.”
While people look forward to vacations, one of the few times they are able to disconnect, they also want to be able to choose when to detach: When they have an unplanned or forced disconnection (e.g., leaving their phone at home, running out of battery), they feel anxiety and extreme inconvenience. They lose productivity, they worry about others wondering why they’re not replying to messages, they worry about missing important information—they have a fear of missing out (“FOMO”).
How we can help people find balance
Our research indicates three ways the mobile industry can help people toward a healthy relationship with their phones:
Facilitate disconnection—by giving people information that helps them reflect upon their own usage and digital behaviors, and the tools to disconnect, like the Digital Wellbeing Dashboard in Android 9, and YouTube’s Time Watched profile
Reduce temptation to re-engage, by adding an extra step like the App Timer in Android 9 Pie
Allow for partial disconnection—for example, keeping the essential phone functionalities available, while restricting other applications
The App Timer in Android 9 is an example of how phones can be built to reduce temptation to re-engage
We’ve begun to make some of these changes across Google products with our Digital Wellbeing effort, which we announced at I/O this year. Digital Wellbeing is a core concept of Android 9 Pie, and we’ve recently introduced more controls across platforms like YouTube. We’re also working on building tools that allow parents to control the type of access their kids have to technology, through Family Link.
A sense of obligation has crept into tech. People want tools to break it. They want to be able to set aside their phone sometimes, not worry about missing anything absolutely urgent, and feel in control of their phone use. We have a responsibility to make that easier—to give people a way to reclaim their time and not feel tied to their devices. But we also believe that we should give people something more—not just more control or a better balanced relationship with technology, but the “joy of missing out,” or “JOMO.”
Technology should improve your life, instead of distracting from it. There’s a lot more work to be done, but the first step toward bringing JOMO into people’s lives is to start listening. This research represents some of our earliest efforts to do that, with much more to come.
Every time you open your browser, you have a mission to accomplish: trips to plan, emails to send, stories to read, skills to learn. We built Chrome to help you do all of those things as quickly and safely as possible. Today we celebrate Chrome’s 10th birthday, and just like a kid on the cusp of double digits, we’re constantly growing and changing. In the case of Chrome, those changes happen every six weeks to bring you new features and security updates, but our 10th birthday update is bigger than normal. Before we blow out our birthday candles, here’s a rundown of the updates coming your way today:
Jazzing up our look
First up, Chrome has a new look. You can see it across all platforms—desktop, Android, and iOS—where you’ll notice more rounded shapes, new icons and a new color palette. These updates have a simpler look and will (hopefully) boost your productivity. Take tabs, for instance. Are you a secret tab-hoarder? No judgment. We changed the shape of our tabs so that the website icons are easier to see, which makes it easier to navigate across lots of tabs. On mobile, we've made a number of changes to help you browse faster, including moving the toolbar to the bottom on iOS, so it's easy to reach. And across Chrome, we simplified the prompts, menus, and even the URLs in your address bar.
Introducing the new Chrome.
Get things done faster
You get a lot done online these days—booking travel and appointments, shopping and working through your to-do lists across multiple sites at once. And we want to make sure that you can do all of those things easily and safely. Now, Chrome can more accurately fill in your passwords, addresses, and credit card numbers, so that you can breeze through online checkout forms. All this information is saved to your Google account, and can also now be accessed directly from the Chrome toolbar.
We’ve also significantly improved the way Chrome handles passwords. Staying secure on the web means using strong and unique passwords for every different site. When it’s time to create a new password, Chrome will now generate one for you (so you’re not using your puppy’s name for all of your passwords anymore). Chrome will save it, and next time you sign in, it’ll be there, on both your laptop and phone.
Chrome’s updated password manager generates and stores unique, strong passwords for you.
Smart answers directly in your search bar
You know the box at the top of Chrome that combines the search bar and address bar into one? We call it the Omnibox, and we built it so that you can get to your search results as fast as possible. Today, we’re making it even more convenient to use. It will now show you answers directly in the address bar without having to open a new tab—from rich results on public figures or sporting events, to instant answers like the local weather via weather.com or a translation of a foreign word.
Get all your answers without leaving your current tab.
Plus, a bonus if you find yourself with two dozen tabs open across three browser windows: Search for a website in your Omnibox and Chrome will tell you if it’s already open and let you jump straight to it with “Switch to tab.” Soon, you’ll be able to search files from your Google Drive directly in your Omnibox too.
Things just got personal
Everyone uses Chrome their own way, so we made it easier to personalize. You can now create and manage shortcuts to your favorite websites directly from the new tab page—simply open a new tab and “Add shortcut.” And as if you needed an excuse to look at more pictures of your dog, you can now customize the background of a newly-opened tab with a photo of Fido.
What’s happening under the hood
While today brings changes to the part of Chrome you can see, we're always working on "behind the scenes” improvements to Chrome, and we've made a lot of those in 2018. We launched an ad filter to keep you safe from malicious and annoying ads, helped move the web to HTTPS to keep you secure online, launched site isolation which provides deeper defense against many types of attacks including Spectre, and brought VR and AR browsing to Chrome. And we’re now rolling out a set of new experiments to improve Chrome’s startup time, latency, usage of memory, and usability.
Chrome wouldn’t be where it is without the developer community, our partners in The Chromium Projects. So we’re also rolling out some updates just for them, from new CSS features to improved performance tracking ability.
We'll be back with deep dives on our beloved Chrome Dino, the new password manager and the thinking beyond today’s redesign throughout the next couple weeks. Now, time to eat some cake!
This summer, we’ve brought the Google Assistant to more devices across Europe and the rest of the world to help you get answers and get things done in more languages (most recently supporting Spanish, Swedish and Dutch).
At IFA 2018, we’re adding multilingual support, so that the Assistant will be able to understand and speak more than one language at a time. Additionally, we’ll be introducing new phones and a broad range of devices and appliances for the home that support the Assistant from our growing ecosystem of partners in Europe.
Talk to the Google Assistant in multiple languages
Family members in bilingual homes often switch back and forth between languages, and now the Assistant can keep up. With our advancement in speech recognition, you can now speak two languages interchangeably with the Assistant on smart speakers and phones and the Assistant will respond in kind. This is a first-of-its-kind feature only available on the Assistant and is part of our multi-year effort to make your conversations with the Assistant more natural.
If you’re looking for an answer in English, ask, “Hey Google, what’s the weather like today?” If you’re craving tunes from your favorite German hip hop band, just ask “Hey Google, spiele die Fantastischen Vier.” Currently, the Assistant can understand any pair of languages within English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, and Japanese. We’ll be expanding to more languages in the coming months.
A fully connected home
Enjoying home entertainment Listening to music is one of the most popular ways people use the Assistant. That’s why we built the Google Home Max to offer high-fidelity and balanced sound and now it's available in Germany, UK and France—Google Home Max will hit store shelves starting today.
This week, we’re also announcing that the Assistant will be built into new voice-activated speakers, including the Bang & Olufsen’s Beosound 1 and Beosound 2, Blaupunkt’s PVA 100, Harman Kardon’s HK Citation series, Kygo’s Speaker B9-800, Polaroid’s Sam and Buddy and Marshall Acton II and Stanmore II. Expect these smart speakers and soundbars to roll out later this year in local European markets.
Getting things done in the kitchen On the heels of introducing our first ever Smart Displays last month with Lenovo, we’re expanding our offerings with the upcoming launch of JBL’s Link View and LG XBOOM AI ThinQ WK9 in the coming weeks. With these new Smart Displays, you’ll have the perfect kitchen companion. You can use your voice and tap or swipe the screen to follow along with a recipe, control your smart home, watch live TV on YouTube TV, and make video calls with Google Duo. Smart Displays also come integrated with all your favorite Google products services like Google Calendar, Google Maps, Google Photos and YouTube.
Controlling all connected devices in your home The Assistant is also making your home even smarter. Just in the past year, there are now triple the number of home devices and appliances that work with the Assistant in Europe from all the major local brands you’re familiar with.
Our partners will be releasing more devices that work with the Assistant throughout the home in the coming months, including:
Thermostats: tado° Smart Thermostat and Smart Radiator Thermostat, Homematic IP Radiator Thermostate
Security and Smart Home Hubs: Netatmo’s Smart Indoor and Outdoor Security Cameras, TP-Link’s Kasa Cam KC120 and Kasa Cam Outdoor KC200, Smanos K1 SmartHome DIY Security Kit, and Somfy’ TaHoma smart home hub
Lighting: FIBARO Switch, MEDION RGB LED bulb and stripe, and the Nanoleaf Light Panels
Whether you speak German, French, English, Italian, Spanish, you’ll be able to set the temperature, lock the doors, dim the lights and more from a smart speaker and smartphone.
On the go with your phone and headphones
The Google Assistant is expanding on more Android phones and headphones, helping you when you're on the go. Some of the latest flagship devices, including the LG G7 One, SHARP Simple Smartphone 4 and Vivo NEX S, now feature dedicated buttons to easily access the Assistant. In addition, the new Xperia XZ3 from Sony and Blackberry Key 2 LE also take advantage of the shortcuts to trigger the Assistant.
And this week we're announcing that over the coming year, more headphones are on the way, including the JBL Everest GA and LG Tone Platinum, and Earin M-2. When you pair them to your phone, you can talk to the Assistant instantly with just a touch, whether you want to skip a track to hear the next song, get notifications, and respond to your messages, or set reminders.
Phew, that was a lot of news. With lots of new devices and partners coming to Europe, the Google Assistant will be available to help you through every step of your day.
Editor’s note: On the anniversary of the first launch of the Space Shuttle Discovery, we’ll hear from Dr. Ellen R. Stofan, planetary geologist and the John and Adrienne Mars Director of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, about a new 360 film on board the Shuttle that launched the Hubble Space Telescope.
Since the dawn of spaceflight, only a few hundred people have experienced space firsthand. But since the beginning, there have been moments that captured the world’s imagination and challenged our collective Earth-bound perspective. Of the many orbital endeavors that have made headlines through the decades, one of the most enduring and prolific has been the Hubble Space Telescope.
The Hubble has been called one of the most important single scientific instruments of all time. The data it collected has deepened our understanding of the natural world—from the edge of our solar system to the age of the universe—and the images it has returned have brought the startling beauty of the cosmos to people around the world.
Today, on the 34th anniversary of the Space Shuttle Discovery’s maiden voyage, the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum and Google Arts & Culture have teamed up to bring visitors into the orbiter like never before. Two of the astronauts who helped deliver Hubble to orbit as part of STS-31—Maj Gen Charlie Bolden and Dr. Kathy Sullivan—take us on a 360 journey inside Discovery at the Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center.
The video was captured using Google’s Halo camera, and takes us along with the astronauts as they climb aboard the spacecraft together for the first time in 28 years. Charlie and Kathy show us what life in space was like from dawn (they saw 16 sunrises and sunsets each day) to dinnertime (sometimes eaten on the ceiling), and relive the moment they deployed Hubble after years of planning and training.
STS-31 is just one great example of why Discovery was called the champion of the Shuttle fleet—and why it is now on display as part of the Smithsonian’s national collection. Discovery flew every kind of mission the Space Shuttle was designed to fly, from Hubble’s deployment to the delivery and assembly of International Space Station modules and more. Today, we’re celebrating the orbiter’s 39 missions and 365 total days in space with this special immersive film, 15 digital exhibits, virtual tours, and over 200 online artifacts.
The Space Shuttle Discovery_s Maiden Voyage on August 30th 1984.png
The Space Shuttle Discovery's Maiden Voyage on August 30, 1984
A Discovery astronaut services the Hubble Space Telescope.png
A Discovery astronaut services the Hubble Space Telescope
The space shuttle Discovery is the centerpiece of the James S. McDonnell Space Hangar at the National Air and Space Museum_s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Va..png
The space shuttle Discovery is the centerpiece of the James S. McDonnell Space Hangar at the National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Va.
Gregory J. Harbaugh, Joseph R. Tanner_s extravehicular activity crew mate, snapped this photo during the second phase of their walk and the fourth one of five for the STS-82 crew in order to services the Hubble Space Telescope.png
Gregory J. Harbaugh snapped this photo during the STS-82 crew's walk to service the Hubble Space Telescope.
Astronaut Charles F. Bolden In His Flight Suit.png
Astronaut Charles F. Bolden In His Flight Suit
The Space Shuttle Discovery Flies Atop a 747.png
The Space Shuttle Discovery Flies Atop a 747
As we enter a new era of spaceflight in the years ahead—with NASA’s Commercial Crew Program and the development of Hubble’s successor, the James Webb Space Telescope—I hope this new collection demonstrates the remarkable progress we’ve made toward unlocking the mysteries of the universe, and how much farther we can go together. Explore the magic of Discovery Space Shuttle on Google Arts & Culture.
From hurricanes and floods to volcanoes and earthquakes, the Earth is continuously evolving in fits and spurts of dramatic activity. Earthquakes and subsequent tsunamis alone have caused massive destruction in the last decade—even over the course of writing this post, there were earthquakes in New Caledonia, Southern California, Iran, and Fiji, just to name a few.
Earthquakes typically occur in sequences: an initial "mainshock" (the event that usually gets the headlines) is often followed by a set of "aftershocks." Although these aftershocks are usually smaller than the main shock, in some cases, they may significantly hamper recovery efforts. Although the timing and size of aftershocks has been understood and explained by established empirical laws, forecasting the locations of these events has proven more challenging.
We teamed up with machine learning experts at Google to see if we could apply deep learning to explain where aftershocks might occur, and today we’re publishing a paper on our findings. But first, a bit more about how we got here: we started with a database of information on more than 118 major earthquakes from around the world.
A visual representation of the 1992 magnitude 7.3 southern California Landers earthquake where the multi-colored portion represents the initial quake and the red boxes represent aftershock locations.
From there, we applied a neural net to analyze the relationships between static stress changes caused by the mainshocks and aftershock locations. The algorithm was able to identify useful patterns.
The end result was an improved model to forecast aftershock locations and while this system is still imprecise, it’s a motivating step forward. Machine learning-based forecasts may one day help deploy emergency services and inform evacuation plans for areas at risk of an aftershock.
Forecasted distribution of aftershock location probabilities for the Landers earthquake. Dark red colors indicate regions predicted to experience aftershocks. The black dots are the locations of observed aftershocks, and the yellow line shows the faults that ruptured during the mainshock.
There was also an unintended consequence of the research: it helped us to identify physical quantities that may be important in earthquake generation. When we applied neural networks to the data set, we were able to look under the hood at the specific combinations of factors that it found important and useful for that forecast, rather than just taking the forecasted results at face value. This opens up new possibilities for finding potential physical theories that may allow us to better understand natural phenomena.
We are looking forward to seeing what machine learning can do in the future to unravel the mysteries behind earthquakes, in an effort to mitigate their harmful effects.
As the old saying goes, “get a summer job and you’ll stick with it forever.” Just kidding, no one says that. If they did, many of Google’s leaders—who earned their first paychecks serving burgers, planting trees and hawking hair accessories—would be doing something pretty different right now.
If you looked at the resumes of the people leading teams, initiatives and products at Google today, you'd see a wide range of first jobs that, in many cases, taught lessons that still ring true. So as people around the country are wrapping up their seasonal gigs, we asked a few Google leaders about the summer jobs they once had.
Let’s get some fresh air first. Never ones to spend their summers behind a desk, these Googlers got their hard-earned paychecks in the great outdoors. Up in Canada, Partnerships President Don Harrison fought his way through mosquitoes, ticks and bears to plant trees. Further south in Michigan, there were fewer ticks but more kids at Diversity VP Danielle Brown’s lifeguarding gig. And Communications VP Corey DuBrowa clocked 18-hour days on a farm in Oregon, where the wheat and grass seed wasn’t going to harvest itself—no, that was Corey’s job.
Long before Google.org or GOOG, Google.org President Jacquelline Fuller and VP of Investor Relations Ellen West each donned a “polyester rust uniform” and set up shop at the drive-thru under the iconic double arches. For the rest of these Googlers, a summer job meant getting your hands soapy, taking food orders, and getting a crash course in mixology.
Whether selling sleeping bags, fruity drinks or hair accessories, these Googlers started out as young entrepreneurs. Eventually, Kent Walker traded in sleeping bags for legal documents (and now he’s our Chief Legal Officer). Ben Gomes left the Rasna stand to take an internship where he used neural nets to predict KFC chicken demand (before becoming one of Google’s first employees). And long after her scrunchie empire, Ana Corrales ended up in hardware, putting Google’s products in the hands of our customers.
Jeff Dean’s first-ever paying job struck a chord with wedding guests, while Vint Cerf’s interest in automatic coffee makers wasn’t as strong as the java they provided—after that summer, he intensified his studies in math and science. Though these gigs weren’t forever, these Googlers still learned a thing or two.
Early on, these people showed a knack for the careers they’d eventually find at Google. Beyond her duties fetching coffee and handing out mail, Stacy Sullivan's summer job taught her about company structure and how leaders treat employees, setting her up to become Google’s Chief Culture Officer. For Richard Gingras, VP of News Products, the headline was written long ago: He spent a summer stacking and collating newspapers for The Providence Journal.
