Today’s blog post is by the winner of this year’s Doodle 4 Google competition, 10th grader Akilah Johnson. Given the contest’s theme—“What makes me...me”—who better than the young artist herself to answer that question? - Ed.
When I was younger, I attended Roots Public Charter School and Roots Activity Learning Center in Northwest Washington, D.C. These schools promote a strong connection to African heritage, and an Afrocentric lifestyle; we regularly celebrated important African American people and I learned a lot about my history as an African American. As I grew older, I realized that the black people that came before us have made us into what we are today. So of course I had to include them in my doodle on the theme “What makes me...me.”
My goal with my art was to not only turn heads but souls as well—not only for someone to see it and be amazed by it but also to have them understand and connect with it. My drawing explores childhood themes and then moves into reflections on our society. Everything surrounding the word "Google" depicts my characteristics. Of all the things I chose to include, the six most special to me are the Symbol of Life (the ankh), the African continent, where everything began for me and my ancestors, the Eye of Horus, the word "power" drawn in black, the woman's fist based on one of my favorite artist’s works, and the D.C. flag—because I’m a Washingtonian at heart and I love my city with everything in me!
I've always been encouraged to pursue art, especially by my teachers—first Baba Camera from Roots, and now my art teacher Zalika Perkins. But participating in Doodle 4 Google gave me an understanding of why art matters and why MY art matters—because it speaks to people. No matter our differences, everyone is touched by art in some way. Winning this competition opened my eyes to the many types of art and the many ways it can resonate with people. I’m excited to keep creating art that matters.
Posted by Akilah Johnson, Doodle 4 Google winnerIMAGE URLAUTHOR NAMEAUTHOR TITLEAUTHOR TEAM
Go isn’t just a game—it’s a living, breathing culture of players, analysts, fans, and legends. Over the last 10 days in Seoul, South Korea, we’ve been lucky enough to witness some of that incredible excitement firsthand. We've also had the chance to see something that's never happened before: DeepMind's AlphaGo took on and defeated legendary Go player, Lee Sedol (9-dan professional with 18 world titles), marking a major milestone for artificial intelligence.
Pedestrians checking in on the AlphaGo vs. Lee Sedol Go match on the streets of Seoul (March 13)
Go may be one of the oldest games in existence, but the attention to our five-game tournament exceeded even our wildest imaginations. Searches for Go rules and Go boards spiked in the U.S. In China, tens of millions watched live streams of the matches, and the “Man vs. Machine Go Showdown” hashtag saw 200 million pageviews on Sina Weibo. Sales of Go boards even surged in Korea.
Our public test of AlphaGo, however, was about more than winning at Go. We founded DeepMind in 2010 to create general-purpose artificial intelligence (AI) that can learn on its own—and, eventually, be used as a tool to help society solve some of its biggest and most pressing problems, from climate change to disease diagnosis.
Like many researchers before us, we've been developing and testing our algorithms through games. We first revealed AlphaGo in January—the first AI program that could beat a professional player at the most complex board game mankind has devised, using deep learning and reinforcement learning. The ultimate challenge was for AlphaGo to take on the best Go player of the past decade—Lee Sedol.
To everyone's surprise, including ours, AlphaGo won four of the five games. Commentators noted that AlphaGo played many unprecedented, creative, and even “beautiful” moves. Based on our data, AlphaGo’s bold move 37 in Game 2 had a 1 in 10,000 chance of being played by a human. Lee countered with innovative moves of his own, such as his move 78 against AlphaGo in Game 4—again, a 1 in 10,000 chance of being played—which ultimately resulted in a win.
The final score was 4-1. We're contributing the $1 million in prize money to organizations that support science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education and Go, as well as UNICEF.
We’ve learned two important things from this experience. First, this test bodes well for AI’s potential in solving other problems. AlphaGo has the ability to look “globally” across a board—and find solutions that humans either have been trained not to play or would not consider. This has huge potential for using AlphaGo-like technology to find solutions that humans don’t necessarily see in other areas. Second, while the match has been widely billed as "man vs. machine," AlphaGo is really a human achievement. Lee Sedol and the AlphaGo team both pushed each other toward new ideas, opportunities and solutions—and in the long run that's something we all stand to benefit from.
But as they say about Go in Korean: “Don’t be arrogant when you win or you’ll lose your luck.” This is just one small, albeit significant, step along the way to making machines smart. We’ve demonstrated that our cutting edge deep reinforcement learning techniques can be used to make strong Go and Atari players. Deep neural networks are already used at Google for specific tasks—like image recognition, speech recognition, and Search ranking. However, we’re still a long way from a machine that can learn to flexibly perform the full range of intellectual tasks a human can—the hallmark of true artificial general intelligence.
Demis and Lee Sedol hold up the signed Go board from the Google DeepMind Challenge Match
With this tournament, we wanted to test the limits of AlphaGo. The genius of Lee Sedol did that brilliantly—and we’ll spend the next few weeks studying the games he and AlphaGo played in detail. And because the machine learning methods we’ve used in AlphaGo are general purpose, we hope to apply some of these techniques to other challenges in the future. Game on!
Posted by Demis Hassabis, CEO and Co-Founder of DeepMindhttps://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEgcgfhehhaBt6W71j5cVljT53BMKFXBz-fkhcnESu4SRGE53U1FBggZ0P65zGlJpNuDct7O-xANqjfHsBWnCrKAlAYbOectHxvWUe3abIr2Rzw3BDrestyrYhKL8Vh41JB4ucTUUt0OQ/s320/A26U5144.jpgDemis HassabisCEO and Co-FounderDeepMind
With spring around the corner, it’s time to look forward to sunnier skies—and summer getaways. These days, mobile phones make it easier than ever for you to sneak in vacation dreaming and planning here and there—in line at the coffee shop, waiting at the doctor’s office, or on your way to meet a friend.
In fact, last year, according to our internal data for google.com, we saw a whopping 50 percent increase in travel-related questions on mobile phones. But even as that number grows, it can be hard to get all the right information in one place on a small screen. There are a dizzying number of questions to answer when planning a trip: What are the best places to visit? What time of year is good to go? What kind of prices can I expect?
Today we’re introducing something to make all this easier: Destinations on Google, which helps you discover and plan your next vacation, right from Google Search on your phone.
Here’s how it works:
Search with Google on your mobile phone for the continent, country, or state you’d like to travel to and add the word “destination” to see an easy-to-browse collection of options. Destinations integrates a deep understanding of all the places in the world with Google Flights and Hotel search, so you can see available flight and hotel prices instantly. So instead of jumping between a dozen links or tabs to get the information you need, you can sit back and scroll—and leave the heavy lifting to us. To find a vacation that’s just your style, search for a destination and something you’d like to do there, like “spain surfing,” “new zealand hiking,” or “colorado skiing.” We’ll suggest spots that fit with your hobbies and interests. Say you’re planning to take some time off in June or July, but you haven’t decided exactly when to go. The “Flexible Dates” filter lets you refine your results by month, so you can see when fares and rates are lowest within the time range you want, across multiple destinations. Want to avoid crowds or bad weather? Select any destination and tap the “Explore” tab to see what the weather is like year-round and when your destination is most popular, based on historic visits from other travelers. Once you've selected a destination, tap "Plan a trip" to see rates for hotels and flights. We show you highs and lows for the next six months, so you can find the right price tag for you. And as you slide left or right, the results instantly update with real-time fares and rates, pulling from the trillions of flight itineraries and hotels we price every day on Google Flights and Hotel search. You can also tap the pencil icon to customize results further with flight and hotel preferences, including number of stops, hotel class, and number of travelers. Whether you’ve got five days or 12, don’t fret about figuring out where to go first or which spots you can’t miss. Simply search for “Spain travel,” and click the blue arrow icon to browse the most frequently traveled itineraries. The suggested itineraries are based on historic visits by other travelers to those places, so you can use the wisdom of the crowd and save time researching. Let Destinations on Google make it smooth sailing to your next vacation. Bon voyage!
Posted by Radhika Malpani, Engineering Director, Travelhttps://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlG-Ccdcp7ztbSlgnXt6H46EZeJ8si4zQR0J6A_co03-mI7DF7p8MwiJ7fKeAxU77QBn9oih52nNWx3rQgqoexvvV-LYmbJINx8BuzdaeauXyE58TiBztrQwKbWFn3D-5udb25mRfd12Y/s1600/TravelDestinations.jpg Radhika MalpaniEngineering DirectorTravel
Over the years, Doodles have commemorated the achievements of women in science, civil rights, journalism, sports, arts, technology and beyond. It’s always an honor to pay tribute to women who have changed the course of history, sometimes in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles. But for this year’s International Women’s Day, we wanted to celebrate the Doodle-worthy women of the future. So we gathered our cameras and pencils and visited 13 countries where we asked 337 women and girls to complete the sentence, “One day I will…” This is what they told us: Our video Doodle was created by three women on the Doodle team (Liat Ben-Rafael, Lydia Nichols, and Helene Leroux) and features original music by Merrill Garbus (tUnE-yArDs).
From toddlers to grandmothers, the women in San Francisco, Rio de Janeiro, Mexico City, Lagos, Moscow, Cairo, Berlin, London, Paris, Jakarta, Bangkok, New Delhi and Tokyo all sparkled with personality. Each new city brought more “One day I will”s, more signature dance moves, more hugs, more high-fives. The aspirations we heard were as varied as the women and girls who shared them, from the very personal—swim with pigs in the Bahamas—to the very global—give a voice to those who can’t speak—and everything in between. When it was done, we found that our own “One day I will…”s had grown bigger and richer, inspired by the women we’d met.
Even women who are already accomplished aren’t done dreaming. Jane Goodall shared her hope to one day discuss the environment with the Pope, while Nobel Prize Winner Malala Yousafzai and activist Muzoon Almellehan continue to work fearlessly toward a future where every girl can go to school.
In most filming locations we worked with a female-only crew to help create a celebratory and encouraging environment. To see more from all our locations, see the 12 city videos on g.co/iwd.
It’s not always easy to put into words what you want to achieve. When we asked women and girls on the street to articulate their aspirations, they often had to pause and think about it for a few minutes. Whether their responses were detailed or broad strokes, concrete or abstract, funny or heartwarming, it was inspiring to see them take the time to dream.
Now it’s your turn. Share your aspiration with #OneDayIWill and get one step closer to where you’re going. You never know, you could be the subject of a doodle yourself someday...
Posted by Lydia Nichols and Liat Ben-Rafael, Doodle Team https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggH3EXI-9tOpkmtxoXP_gsSEHaSsQjzs3tKTwBRsbRK7vwgwcgwBLEXv4c9V_a6MGZg7onweMz_6lniO8pBAZHWfuW3R2f-VfpKdxZ7xR0OXynJQIdVrT8f0adgCi51zw_h4l6Uw7F6wg/s1600/IWD_B.jpg Lydia Nichols and Liat Ben-RafaelDoodle Team
Right now, 16 private teams from around the world are in a race to the moon. They’re in a $30 million competition called the Google Lunar XPRIZE (GLXP), which challenges teams to design and build a rover, land it on the surface of the moon, drive it 500 meters across the lunar landscape, and send HD video and imagery back to Earth by the end of 2017. And soon, you’ll be able to learn their stories in a new digital documentary series from Google, Academy Award®-nominated director Orlando von Einsiedel, Executive Producer J.J. Abrams, Bad Robot, and Epic Digital.
The GLXP competition, which started in 2007, aims to kick off a new era of space exploration by enabling low-cost and efficient access to the moon. Not only is the moon our closest neighbor in space, it’s also the gateway to exploring the rest of the universe—and provides opportunities for discovery in the fields of science, technology, and human habitation.
The teams in the competition come from all walks of life, from Silicon Valley tech experts, to hackers in Germany, to IT specialists in India, to a father and son working out of their their Vancouver apartment. In a series of 9 digital documentaries, Moon Shot goes behind the scenes with each team, bringing to life their challenges, sacrifices, quirks, and most importantly, the reasons why they’re making the 238,900 mile journey to the moon.
The series will be available for free on Google Play on March 15 and on YouTube on March 17. Subscribe to the Google Lunar XPRIZE YouTube Channel to be one of the first to see it, and for more information, visit lunar.xprize.org.
Posted by Yasemin Denari Southworth, Marketing Manager, Google Brand Marketinghttps://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg95iJXcMF2rkD3619YNP5ss7DrDEhcIJcE_LAANGJokatY889gHfWhYbWekCAjImpFiFWlYR48rjPD-j5FFJZeWBz_QcPCpFi8vdf2Dd1jb2fez-S2rUkCzzkmBQhiUC90IOOEGelVaRY/s1600/Screen+Shot+2016-03-04+at+10.03.58+AM.pngYasemin Denari SouthworthMarketing ManagerGoogle Brand Marketing
But unlike many other global pandemics, the spread of Zika has been harder to identify, map and contain. It’s believed that 4 in 5 people with the virus don’t show any symptoms, and the primary transmitter for the disease, the Aedes mosquito species, is both widespread and challenging to eliminate. That means that fighting Zika requires raising awareness on how people can protect themselves, as well as supporting organizations who can help drive the development of rapid diagnostics and vaccines. We also have to find better ways to visualize the threat so that public health officials and NGO’s can support communities at risk.
As a company whose mission is helping people find information, with a lot of experience in analyzing large sets of data, we’re in a good position to help—at scale and at speed. So today we have Google engineers working with UNICEF to analyze data to determine how to map and anticipate the virus. We’ve also made some updates to our products to make Zika information more accessible, and we’re providing UNICEF with a $1 million grant to help their efforts on the ground.
Mapping information to help with prevention A volunteer team of Google engineers, designers, and data scientists is helping UNICEF build a platform to process data from different sources (i.e., weather and travel patterns) in order to visualize potential outbreaks. Ultimately, the goal of this open source platform is to identify the risk of Zika transmission for different regions and help UNICEF, governments and NGO’s decide how and where to focus their time and resources. This set of tools is being prototyped for the Zika response, but will also be applicable to future emergencies.
Google software engineers John Li and Zora Tung with UNICEF research scientist Manuel Garcia Herranz and UX designer Tanya Bhandari working on the open source data platform.
Supporting UNICEF’s efforts to combat Zika Our $1 million grant will be used by UNICEF to raise widespread awareness, reduce mosquito populations, support the development of diagnostics and vaccines, and work with communities and governments to prevent Zika transmission. The organization expects to reach 200 million affected or vulnerable people in Brazil and throughout Latin America with these efforts.
We’ve also launched a matching campaign for Google employees, aimed at providing an additional $500,000 to UNICEF and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) to support their work on the ground.
Making Zika virus information accessible We already include robust information for 900+ health conditions directly on Search for people in the U.S. We’ve now also added extensive information about Zika globally in 16 languages, with an overview of the virus, symptom information, and Public Health Alerts from that can be updated with new information as it becomes available.
We’re also working with popular YouTube creators across Latin America, including Sesame Street and Brazilian physician Drauzio Varella, to raise awareness about Zika prevention via their channels.
We hope these efforts are helpful in fighting this new public health emergency, and we will continue to do our part to help combat this outbreak.
And if you’re curious about what that 3,000 percent search increase looks like, take a look:
Posted by Jacquelline Fuller, Director, Google.orghttps://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYUV8zwJuphFj3rclfB0GuiOzHu9f2615qZbditvgbI6D96kj1W48pUHWwCVHfAQfbKFE2IZTiIvvYWZ4L4_6l0zZtX4xGkT-geIkhAtYM9sZ0RIPFiLRH4ULWWVhGkvuy640gnbgCh8o/s1600/UN011564+%25281%2529.JPGJacquelline FullerDirectorGoogle.org
I started working with Dr. Carl Mack when I took an engineering internship in my hometown of Seattle. But it wasn’t long before my internship took me in a completely different direction. The city was on high alert in the wake of racial discrimination and violence, and Dr. Mack was the VP of the city’s NAACP chapter. At his side, I was soon participating in protests and closed door meetings with city leaders—opening my eyes to non-technical solutions, and setting me off on a path that would eventually lead me to Google.org, where today I lead giving projects focused on the Bay Area and on racial justice.
More recently, incidences of racial violence have again dominated our headlines, with the killing of young men like Tamir Rice and Jordan Davis, the deaths of Michael Brown and Sandra Bland, and countless other acts of injustice. And it isn’t just heartbreaking individual stories. The data is troubling: African Americans are incarcerated at nearly six times the rate of whites. An estimated 40 percent of all students expelled from U.S. schools are black, and 30 percent are Latino. Of course, Google and our own industry need to do more to promote equality and opportunities for all.
Social innovators can help us move closer to our ideals of equality and justice. That’s why last year, Google.org launched a new, dedicated effort to support leaders who are doing critical work to end mass incarceration and combat endemic educational inequality for black and brown students. We announced $2.35 million in grants to support leaders like #BlackLivesMatter co-founder Patrisse Cullors; Chris Chatmon, who leads Oakland's African American Male Achievement Initiative; and Raj Jayadev, who founded the criminal justice reform organization Silicon Valley De-Bug.
Today, I'm excited to continue that momentum with the addition of four more organizations in this space, totalling $3 million in new grants. To help eliminate racial bias within our educational systems, we’re supporting San Francisco’s My Brother and Sister's Keeper (MBSK) program, Oakland’s Roses in Concrete Community School, and the tech-enabled college success startup, Beyond12. We're also supporting Bryan Stevenson and the national Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), which is focused on countering deep-seated bias against people of color in our communities and institutions. In addition to the grant, we’re committed to working with EJI to bring its public education work online so that millions more can experience it.
From left to right: David Drummond, Senior Vice President, Corporate Development, Alphabet; Bryan Stevenson, Founder and CEO, Equal Justice Initiative; Dr. Jeff Duncan-Andrade, Founder, Roses in Concrete Community School, Oakland; Landon Dickey, Special Assistant for African American Achievement & Leadership, San Francisco Unified School District; Alexandra Bernadotte, Founder and CEO, Beyond 12; Richard Carranza, Superintendent, San Francisco Unified School District; and Justin Steele, Principal, Google.org. Photo credit: 510Media.
Each of these organizations and their leaders have shown a deep, fundamental understanding of racial injustice and are actively finding ways to rid our systems of social, educational and economic exclusion. We as a company are proud to support them.
Posted by Justin Steele, Principal, Google.org https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp-44KrtGD-HjA4sKEREiS1rsHvz-bgQ6vwEFc2A_SgnUhwshLMF1W0IITV77qVlHpvJNGWIF4gmemnHVhtmcm1Fe-aHoKTaCZt2l078zAqCtcAYYmJFD9R21vmwKmMn7WO5N4UfsumYI/s1600/first.jpgJustin SteelePrincipalGoogle.org
The web is an increasingly critical tool for news organizations, allowing them to communicate faster, research more easily, and disseminate their work to a global audience. Often it's the primary distribution channel for critical, investigative work that shines a light into the darkest corners of society and the economy—the kind of reporting that exposes wrongdoing, causes upset and brings about change.
Unfortunately there are some out there who want to prevent this kind of reporting—to silence journalism when it’s needed most. A simple, inexpensive distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack can be carried out by almost anyone with access to a computer—and take a site completely offline before its owners even know they’ve been attacked.
These attacks threaten free expression and access to information—two of Google’s core values. So a few years ago we created Project Shield, an effort that uses Google’s security infrastructure to detect and filter attacks on news and human rights websites. Now we’re expanding Project Shield beyond our trusted testers, and opening it up to all the world’s news sites to protect them from DDoS attacks and eliminate DDoS as a form of censorship.
We learned a lot from our early group of Project Shield testers. Not only have we kept websites online during attacks that otherwise would have taken them offline, we learned crucial information about how these types of attacks happen, and how we can improve our services to defend against them.
With this expansion, tens of thousands of news sites will have access to Project Shield. And because Project Shield is free, even the smallest independent news organizations will be able to continue their important work without the fear of being shut down.
Finally, Project Shield is not just about protecting journalism. It’s about improving the health of the Internet by mitigating against a significant threat for publishers and people who want to publish content that some might find inconvenient. A free and open Internet depends on protecting the free flow of information—starting with the news.
Visit our website to learn how Project Shield works and, if you work in journalism, discover how you can join the fight to protect the world’s news.
Posted by Jared Cohen, President, Jigsaw, and Advisor to Executive Chairman, Alphabet Inc.https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix7rszfzVMPo2YJqae_VcXqvA4SBxidbZjJ1syX0ReH5GjKObQ-H8EGW-wYJ8bGQMHXOuhqA78wJRlkYj1MCFpHdKxJQLycJvozoGWsJW6PbfLbtiIFrjSASniR5glH0sI_wzgMcatsU8/s1600/Shield.jpgJared CohenPresidentJigsaw
Posted by Yolanda Mangolini, Director, Global Diversity & Inclusion
On February 1 we kicked off Black History Month with a Doodle recognizing the remarkable life of Frederick Douglass and a new collection of Black history archives on the Cultural Institute. Googlers around the world have joined in the celebrations, hosting film screenings, spoken word performances, speaker series, and participating in community service. These efforts have been driven by the Black Googler Network (BGN), one of Google’s largest employee resource groups with 12 branches worldwide.
BGN focuses on empowering the Black community at Google and beyond. BGN Googlers work on many different teams, participating in BGN as volunteers or in their 20 percent time. They run service trips to communities in need, provide professional development and mentorship programs, convene dialogues on topics affecting the Black community, and help Googlers connect with each other and develop a sense of community. They’ve also driven social justice movements across the company, including solidarity for #BlackLivesMatter and $2.35 million in funding from Google.org for racial justice innovators.
As Black History Month comes to a close, we asked some of these Googlers to share what they’re working on both in their day jobs and within BGN.
Brandon says: In addition to my job working on sales for Google’s large customers, I pursue my passion for diversity, inclusion, and giving back through my role as the BGN Global co-Chair. Giving back is core to BGN’s work: our Annual Outreach Trip convenes members from around the world for several days of service. In 2015 we went to Charleston, SC, where we conducted coding workshops for around 100 students and parents to expose them to computer science and how creative, collaborative, and fun it can be. The year prior, we held a Social Media 101 training for 100+ small business owners in Atlanta. Everyone deserves equal access to opportunity, whether it’s computer science education or the economic benefits of the Internet. I’m proud to have Google’s support while doing work that affirms #BlackLivesMatter.
Robin says: I work as a Data Center Facilities Specialist in Atlanta, supporting and coordinating data center functionality for 350 onsite personnel. BGN has always been an important part of my Google experience: I supported the revival of our Atlanta chapter, served for three years on our service-oriented Outreach Leadership Team, and integrated our smaller data center chapters into a stronger, more supportive unit—BGN@datacenters.
I also work on projects to expand access to technology in my local community. I serve as a CS First program evangelist, helping engage diverse students in computer science learning, and I’m a Diversity Ambassador advancing our diversity work in the data centers. One of my proudest moments was when I helped secure a Google grant for a robotics program at a local school—helping them scale the project from 10 students to 150!
Victor says: In my role on the Diversity team, I work to ensure that all Googlers play a role in fostering a fair and inclusive culture. My work with BGN is focused around the multifacetedness of the Black experience. Through community partnerships and collaborations between BGN and Gayglers, I try to showcase the rich particularities to the personal and professional lives of Black people on the LGBTQIA spectrum. I’m celebrating Black History Month by renewing my commitment to unapologetically bringing my whole self to work each and every day.
Maasha says: Our Black History Month theme within Google this year is "Lift Every Voice: Ignite Inclusion." This theme of inclusion is powerful for me: when I first came to Google, I felt a bit isolated. I was not only a Black woman in Tech, but also working in the corporate social responsibility space, where there aren’t many Black folks. Joining BGN was critical in helping me feel like I could truly be myself at Google, with all my triumphs, tribulations, and differences included.
These days, I’m passionate about making Google a place where everyone is comfortable being themselves. In my role on the GooglersGive team, a program which gets Googlers involved in charitable giving and community service, I’ve coordinated opportunities for Googlers to use their spare time giving back in places ranging from Oakland and Harlem to Ghana and South Africa. Projects include teaching students computer science skills, conducting outreach to at-risk youth, and working with communities struggling with homelessness and abuse.
Jessica says: I first encountered Google’s commitment to making the company and the technology industry more diverse and inclusive as a BOLD intern on the Diversity team. Later, I returned to Google full-time on the People Operations team, and I plugged into the Black Googler Network. I’ve been able to serve in leadership roles for Black History Month, develop relationships with BGN members across the world, and interact with senior executives. BGN has provided me with opportunities that have helped me gain confidence and feel like I belong at Google—while allowing me to contribute to a cause much larger than myself.
Access to information is at the heart of Google’s mission. Unfortunately, today, the mobile web isn't living up to the expectations people have for getting the information they need, particularly when it comes to speed. In fact, data shows that people abandon websites after just three seconds if the content doesn't load quickly—which is bad not just for people trying to get what they want online, but for the publishers who want those readers to enjoy the content they've created for them. That's why, last October, we joined others across the industry on the Accelerated Mobile Pages Project (AMP for short), an open source initiative to make the mobile web as fast as possible.
In just over four months, AMP has come a long way, with hundreds of publishers, scores of technology companies and ad-tech businesses all taking part in this joint mission to improve the mobile web for everyone. And starting today, we’ll make it easy to find AMP webpages in relevant mobile search results, giving you a lightning-fast reading experience for top stories.
Now when you search for a story or topic on Google from a mobile device, webpages created using AMP will appear when relevant in the Top Stories section of the search results page. Any story you choose to read will load blazingly fast—and it’s easy to scroll through the article without it taking forever to load or jumping all around as you read. It’s also easy to quickly flip through the search results just by swiping from one full-page AMP story to the next.
AMP is great for browsing the web on mobile devices, because webpages built with AMP load an average of four times faster and use 10 times less data than equivalent non-AMP pages. In many cases, they’ll load instantly. It's how reading on the mobile web should be—fast, responsive and fun.
While helping people find fast AMP content through Google Search is a significant step, there’s still a lot of work ahead for the open source AMP Project. Still, it’s been thrilling to see how the industry has come together to work on this common goal of making the mobile web great for everyone. And given the potential AMP holds for other types of content, we’re excited about what the future holds.
Posted by David Besbris, VP Engineering, Searchhttps://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKllif5VH9JV2Do2Y6AflP9WJfB5ibk3e26jEXGgZybDsWJzoqcUFOWzyX68sHPRH9B9kkw6w0m5luhtmg1DkcO6JoVSlsgXL1r3N1VnrpX73Vf8l5He81mPJfmPbTp3OY8VR54lq6ok8/s1600/AMP+hero.jpgDavid BesbrisVP EngineeringSearch
The 2016 Google Science Fair opens for submissions today. Together with LEGO Education, National Geographic, Scientific American and Virgin Galactic, we’re inviting all young explorers and innovators to make something better through science and engineering. To learn more about the competition, how to enter, prize details and more, visit the site, and follow along on Google+ and Twitter.
I remember the day I first heard about the Google Science Fair last year. I was sitting in my 10th grade science class when my teacher asked us: “What will you try?” I loved the invitation—and the challenge—that the Google Science Fair offered. It was a chance to use science to do something that could really make a difference in the world.
I had always been curious and interested in science, and knew I wanted to submit a project, but didn’t really know exactly where to begin. I asked my teacher for his advice on selecting a research topic. He encouraged me to choose something that I felt passionate about, or something that outraged me, and told me to look at the world around me for inspiration. So I did. At that time, the Ebola crisis was all over the news. It was a devastating situation and I wanted to help be a part of the solution. I had found my project.
With the outbreak spreading so quickly, I decided that I wanted to find a way to diagnose the virus earlier so that treatment could be delivered as quickly as possible to those who were affected. I read online about silk’s amazing storage and stabilizing properties, and wondered if I could use silk to transport antibodies that could test for the virus. After many failed attempts (and cutting up lots of cocoons) I finally succeeded in creating a temperature-independent, portable, and inexpensive diagnostic test that could detect the Ebola virus in under 30 minutes. I was really excited that my research could help contribute to saving lives, and I was proud to be selected as the Grand Prize winner a few months later.
As the 2016 Google Science Fair launches today, I wanted to share a few tips from my own experience: First, as my teacher once guided me to do, look at the world around you for ideas. If you’re stuck, try the Make Better Generator to find something that excites or inspires you. Second, find a mentor who’s interested in the same things as you. There are a lot of helpful ideas on the GSF site to get you started. And finally, don’t get discouraged—often what first appears like failure can teach you so much more.
I urge other teenagers like me to take this opportunity to find a way to make the world around them better. Every one of us, no matter our age or background, can make a difference—and as young people, we’re not always so afraid to try things that adults think will fail. But change doesn’t happen overnight, and it often starts with a question. So look at the world around you and challenge yourself to make something better.
Posted by Olivia Hallisey, 2015 Grand Prize winner, Google Science Fairhttps://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiysDQyzsRgX6HMHHP7VW1MoYMulFq9CdpkdwcAxoNrwNdhkV4yHsvV_-KYVuDKE247vbLwg2Zbo8CHIxep9XiBf0dSY9UDwKUb_kCRteDZgzOk8doYWEnVcpaMUyWopFh4W5xYssHqMK8/s1600/Science+Fair.jpgOlivia Hallisey2015 Grand Prize winnerGoogle Science Fair
Today is Safer Internet Day, a moment for technology companies, nonprofit organizations, security firms, and people around the world to focus on online safety, together. To mark the occasion, we’re rolling out new tools, and some useful reminders, to help protect you from online dangers of all stripes—phishing, malware, and other threats to your personal information.
1. Keeping security settings simple
The Security Checkup is a quick way to control the security settings for your Google Account. You can add a recovery phone number so we can help if you’re ever locked out of your account, strengthen your password settings, see which devices are connected to your account, and more. If you complete the Security Checkup by February 11, you’ll also get 2GB of extra Google Drive storage, which can be used across Google Drive, Gmail, and Photos.
Safer Internet Day is a great time to do it, but you can—and should!—take a Security Checkup on a regular basis. Start your Security Checkup by visiting My Account.
2. Informing Gmail users about potentially unsafe messages
If you and your Grandpa both use Gmail to exchange messages, your connections are encrypted and authenticated. That means no peering eyes can read those emails as they zoom across the web, and you can be confident that the message from your Grandpa in size 48 font (with no punctuation and a few misspellings) is really from him!
However, as our Safer Email Transparency Report explains, these things are not always true when Gmail interacts with other mail services. Today, we’re introducing changes in Gmail on the web to let people know when a received message was not encrypted, if you’re composing a message to a recipient whose email service doesn’t support TLS encryption, or when the sender’s domain couldn’t be authenticated.
Here’s the notice you’ll see in Gmail before you send a message to a service that doesn’t support TLS encryption. You’ll also see the broken lock icon if you receive a message that was sent without TLS encryption.
If you receive a message that can’t be authenticated, you’ll see a question mark where you might otherwise see a profile photo or logo:
3. Protecting you from bad apps
Dangerous apps that phish and steal your personal information, or hold your phone hostage and make you pay to unlock it, have no place on your smartphone—or any device, for that matter.
Google Play helps protect your Android device by rejecting bad apps that don’t comply with our Play policies. It also conducts more than 200 million daily security scans of devices, in tandem with our Safe Browsing system, for any signs of trouble. Last year, bad apps were installed on fewer than 0.13% of Android devices that install apps only from Google Play.
Malicious advertising “botnets” try to send phony visitors to websites to make money from online ads. Botnets threaten the businesses of honest advertisers and publishers, and because they’re often made up of devices infected with malware, they put users in harm’s way too.
We've worked to keep botnets out of our ads systems, cutting them out of advertising revenue, and making it harder to make money from distributing malware and Unwanted Software. Now, as part of our effort to fight bad ads online, we’re reinforcing our existing botnet defenses by automatically filtering traffic from three of the top ad fraud botnets, comprising more than 500,000 infected user machines. Learn more about this update on the Doubleclick blog.
5. Moving the security conversation forward
Recent events—Edward Snowden’s disclosures, the Sony Hack, the current conversation around encryption, and more—have made online safety a truly mainstream issue. This is reflected both in news headlines, and popular culture: “Mr. Robot,” a TV series about hacking and cybersecurity, just won a Golden Globe for Best Drama, and @SwiftOnSecurity, a popular security commentator, is named after Taylor Swift.
But despite this shift, security remains a complex topic that lends itself to lively debates between experts...that are often unintelligible to just about everyone else. We need to simplify the way we talk about online security to enable everyone to understand its importance and participate in this conversation.
To that end, we’re teaming up with Medium to host a virtual roundtable about online security, present and future. Moderated by journalist and security researcher Kevin Poulsen, this project aims to present fresh perspectives about online security in a time when our attention is increasingly ruled by the devices we carry with us constantly. We hope you’ll tune in and check it out.
Online security and safety are being discussed more often, and with more urgency, than ever before. We hope you’ll take a few minutes today to learn how Google protects your data and how we can work toward a safer web, for everyone.
Posted by Gerhard Eschelbeck, VP, Security and Privacyhttps://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU8FsaqnN8oEhZLlFzhPRzB2YIXeimHSxobqRDN-pulMs_VFSikpesgPvV8EoXp7OCFp6pXwkSLnFDZoGyBxspMgtAPD9vTZ1JAsXgJKPY9do8Cr-PrQZtbNfWpcDoSvm4eoIrUus3o40/s1600/GOP-security_hero_1.jpg Gerhard EschelbeckVPSecurity and Privacy
Last October, we kicked off our annual Doodle 4 Google art competition, asking students to create a doodle to tell the world “What makes me…me.” This time around, we added a little twist: for the first time in eight years of Doodle 4 Google, there were no restrictions on the medium or materials kids could use to create a doodle. Kids took us up on the challenge. A quarter of all finalists used some non-traditional media—from clay and wood to origami, photographs and sheets of music—in their submission.
Today, Googlers are hosting surprise assemblies at schools from Waterville, Maine to Waipahu, Hawaii to celebrate the winners of each state and thank the teachers and parents who have encouraged them along the way. And for the first time ever, we’re announcing winners for Washington, D.C., Guam and Puerto Rico. See all 53 State and Territory Winners on our website.
Now, our finalists need your votes for a shot at having their doodle make it onto the Google homepage. Starting today through Feb 22, head to the Doodle 4 Google site to vote for your favorite artwork for each grade group. On March 21, we’ll announce the winner and four runners-up—and you’ll see the winning doodle on google.com.
Check out this year’s talented set of finalists and vote for your favorite!
Posted by Ryan Germick, Doodler and non-traditional media enthusiasthttps://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiBq2rpKHOwDwuChSDkZXOW2K2sEQUC9qDh_MsuyVDz7bJa3dyol6dgUHIiXi1TYP6mgWeUjmuZ0goEwacs5xtj0QvnFMqgiirxENU6KehYpPY09aiV-z2Df25_suEcQMKvrN4MjB0xKo/s1600/GOP-d4g_hero_1.jpgRyan GermickDoodler
Growing up, my parents were daily reminders of the sacrifices made by earlier generations of Black Americans to give people like me the opportunities they were denied. To this day, their stories propel me to continue the fight for justice. I am far from alone—reflecting on a shared history inspires millions around the world to work toward equality. But without some record, those stories and the passion they ignite could get lost.
Artworks, artifacts and archives have the power not only to give a story life, but to encourage action and incite change. That’s why the Google Cultural Institute is excited to add records from institutions like the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, the Studio Museum and Amistad Research Center and many more—bringing together important archives from Black history for anyone to access not only during Black History Month, but throughout the year.
From the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra to the historical records of Frederick Douglass and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., this collection includes 26 new institutions (50 overall) contributing 5,000+ items and more than 80 curated exhibits. It includes new Street View imagery and three Google Expeditions, including an exploration of the resurgence of Jazz in New Orleans with Irvin Mayfield and Soledad O’Brien. You can see a 360 degree YouTube video made in conjunction with that Expedition here:
In The Baltimore Museum of Art’s exhibition “Questioning the Canon,” you can see Mickalene Thomas’s Le déjeuner sur l'herbe: Les Trois Femmes Noires and compare it side-by-side with the Manet original to see the ways Thomas has subverted the subject-matter of this canonical white European work.
You can trace along the paths of history by reading Frederick Douglass’ letter to his former master, and read the original manuscripts of Dr. King’s ”I Have a Dream” and “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speeches. Absorb Dr. King’s personal letter to wife Coretta Scott King at the beginning of his four-month prison term for non-violent protest, then cut to photographs documenting his momentous first handshake at the White House with President Lyndon B. Johnson. Collecting these works into one place provides unprecedented access to a vital part of history that is too often forgotten. By comparing works of art and texts of speeches to find commonalities and distinctions, we can also build on the past to inspire ourselves and others. And while today is the first day of Black History Month, the work of remembering our history is necessary year round—which is why these records will be there on the Cultural Institute for generations to come.
Posted by Valeisha Butterfield Jones, Head of Black Community Engagementhttps://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx6mXOIr7rnpjwqFuLrhDATy9iQr06Frf9-arefL9VpPHjgP7hlXiCAdf_FkPoI8CpwRWk6a9Zl82vMmIWK40qUt_IMm4HravfJYKGND1pcKkA7r7Z-pL5n5wO45lHnQL-w7VHhyphenhyphenaNEYU/s1600/Screenshot+2016-01-29+at+4.02.49+PM.pngValeisha Butterfield JonesHead of Black Community EngagementAUTHOR TEAM
The game of Go originated in China more than 2,500 years ago. Confucius wrote about the game, and it is considered one of the four essential arts required of any true Chinese scholar. Played by more than 40 million people worldwide, the rules of the game are simple: Players take turns to place black or white stones on a board, trying to capture the opponent's stones or surround empty space to make points of territory. The game is played primarily through intuition and feel, and because of its beauty, subtlety and intellectual depth it has captured the human imagination for centuries.
But as simple as the rules are, Go is a game of profound complexity. There are 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 possible positions—that’s more than the number of atoms in the universe, and more than a googol times larger than chess.
This complexity is what makes Go hard for computers to play, and therefore an irresistible challenge to artificial intelligence (AI) researchers, who use games as a testing ground to invent smart, flexible algorithms that can tackle problems, sometimes in ways similar to humans. The first game mastered by a computer was noughts and crosses (also known as tic-tac-toe) in 1952. Then fell checkers in 1994. In 1997 Deep Blue famously beat Garry Kasparov at chess. It’s not limited to board games either—IBM's Watson [PDF] bested two champions at Jeopardy in 2011, and in 2014 our own algorithms learned to play dozens of Atari games just from the raw pixel inputs. But to date, Go has thwarted AI researchers; computers still only play Go as well as amateurs.
Traditional AI methods—which construct a search tree over all possible positions—don’t have a chance in Go. So when we set out to crack Go, we took a different approach. We built a system, AlphaGo, that combines an advanced tree search with deep neural networks. These neural networks take a description of the Go board as an input and process it through 12 different network layers containing millions of neuron-like connections. One neural network, the “policy network,” selects the next move to play. The other neural network, the “value network,” predicts the winner of the game.
We trained the neural networks on 30 million moves from games played by human experts, until it could predict the human move 57 percent of the time (the previous record before AlphaGo was 44 percent). But our goal is to beat the best human players, not just mimic them. To do this, AlphaGo learned to discover new strategies for itself, by playing thousands of games between its neural networks, and adjusting the connections using a trial-and-error process known as reinforcement learning. Of course, all of this requires a huge amount of computing power, so we made extensive use of Google Cloud Platform.
After all that training it was time to put AlphaGo to the test. First, we held a tournament between AlphaGo and the other top programs at the forefront of computer Go. AlphaGo won all but one of its 500 games against these programs. So the next step was to invite the reigning three-time European Go champion Fan Hui—an elite professional player who has devoted his life to Go since the age of 12—to our London office for a challenge match. In a closed-doors match last October, AlphaGo won by 5 games to 0. It was the first time a computer program has ever beaten a professional Go player. You can find out more in our paper, which was published in Nature today.
What’s next? In March, AlphaGo will face its ultimate challenge: a five-game challenge match in Seoul against the legendary Lee Sedol—the top Go player in the world over the past decade.
We are thrilled to have mastered Go and thus achieved one of the grand challenges of AI. However, the most significant aspect of all this for us is that AlphaGo isn’t just an “expert” system built with hand-crafted rules; instead it uses general machine learning techniques to figure out for itself how to win at Go. While games are the perfect platform for developing and testing AI algorithms quickly and efficiently, ultimately we want to apply these techniques to important real-world problems. Because the methods we’ve used are general-purpose, our hope is that one day they could be extended to help us address some of society’s toughest and most pressing problems, from climate modelling to complex disease analysis. We’re excited to see what we can use this technology to tackle next!
Posted by Demis Hassabis, Google DeepMindhttps://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUHr_oMNooyopfdAq3loxkmJEFvU49CB8DD3JnBApfZpfmKM2KqM8_jP3qumr1Rtvf7q6n9Xgd2EfvH_MiHmVkq-svlGPGVMZpKhTJUyTspYPbgb3UOczQEEFYs6_a8zaL3aJ3Hfzwgv8/s1600/Go-game_hero.jpgDemis HassabisGoogle DeepMind
A year and a half ago we introduced Google Cardboard, a simple cardboard viewer that anyone can use to experience mobile virtual reality (VR). With just Cardboard and the smartphone in your pocket, you can travel to farawayplaces and visit imaginedworlds. Since then everyone from droid lovers and Sunday edition subscribers, to big kids and grandmas have been able to enjoy VR—often for the very first time. Here's a look at where we are, 19 months in:
1. 5 million Cardboard fans have joined the fold.
2. In just the past two months (October-December), you launched into 10 million more immersive app experiences:
4. You teleported to places far and wide, right from the comfort of YouTube.
5. Since we launched Cardboard Camera in December, you’ve captured more than 750,000 VR photos, letting you relive your favorite moments anytime, from anywhere.
While you've been traveling the world and beyond with Cardboard, we've been on a journey, too. Keep your eyes peeled for more projects that bring creative, entertaining and educational experiences to mobile VR.
Posted by Clay Bavor, VP Virtual Realityhttps://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii0DyJ3iCFT7NR9rBFLW-jz3QTyaH8q28bJ-mwj4PZdzDWClRDY9LVCD8CeRnbUIaYxNvmC5QCIOzKzMWz2JaT5uFjPbfA5eGNTRXo1aExw9fCIVMyg_C_YTfb_dje-B9lv6Icd_2KzxA/s1600/Google-Cardboard_hero.jpgClay BavorVPVirtual Reality
In just two days, Americans will tune in for the final Republican debate before the 2016 primary season officially kicks off in Iowa, and we’re teaming up with Fox News Channel to make sure every citizen can get the most out of it. To help people get informed before heading to the polls, we’re integrating three new components into the debate: a way to hear directly from candidates on Google; real-time Google Trends data; and questions from some of YouTube’s most prominent voices.
Hear from candidates directly, right on Google Political search interest spikes 440 percent on average during live televised debates as people turn to the web to learn more about the candidates and their platforms. Now people will have a new way to hear directly from candidates themselves, in real-time—right in Google Search results. This experimental feature helps voters make more informed choices, and levels the playing field for candidates to share ideas and positions on issues they may not have had a chance to address during the debate. By publishing long-form text, photos and videos throughout the debate, campaigns can now give extended responses, answer questions they didn’t get a chance to on stage, and rebut their opponents. As soon as the first debate begins at 7 p.m. ET on Thursday, search “Fox News debate” to find campaign responses.
Dig into issues with Google Trends Throughout the debate, we’ll also spotlight key insights from Google Trends that offer interesting insights about the candidates, issues, and debate topics—anything from questions asked about key issues to trending terms and rankings like the below minute-by-minute view of which candidate was searched most during the last debate.
You’ll also be able to answer polling questions about the issues that matter to you directly on Google Search when you search “Fox News debate.” Fox News will cover responses to these questions on air after the debate.
Watch YouTube creators engage with the candidates Finally, three prominent YouTube creators—Nabela Noor, Mark Watson, and Dulce Candy—will join the moderators in the debate to ask the candidates a question on an issue that matters to them and their communities. Bringing new voices from YouTube to political debates is something we’ve been doing since the 2008 election, and it can lead to personal and powerful interactions between candidates and voters.
The debate begins at 7 p.m. ET on Thursday, with the prime time debate starting at 9 p.m. ET. So tune in to Fox News Channel to learn more about your presidential candidates on Google!
Posted by Danielle Bowers, Google News Lab https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnjGoLmXOLzb7kbsDXFs1ooSqIcgnGS3AfZwl8MxW4XnuqD2jr4-Okaa-m6DYabPxBKgivxu6OxjFFDzEkdn18pBH6OqwY0jVccsB3IudeI4dje8iZlkru-8q6tz0AZbm8Eb98NC15aUM/s1600/GOP-debate_hero.jpgDanielle Bowers Google News Lab
I've always been encouraged to pursue art, especially by my teachers—first Baba Camera from Roots, and now my art teacher Zalika Perkins. But participating in Doodle 4 Google gave me an understanding of why art matters and why MY art matters—because it speaks to people. No matter our differences, everyone is touched by art in some way. Winning this competition opened my eyes to the many types of art and the many ways it can resonate with people. I’m excited to keep creating art that matters.
