Some weekend work that will (hopefully) enable more Egyptians to be heard
(Cross-posted on the Official Google Blog)
Like many people we’ve been glued to the news unfolding in Egypt and thinking of what we could do to help people on the ground. Over the weekend we came up with the idea of a speak-to-tweet service—the ability for anyone to tweet using just a voice connection.
We worked with a small team of engineers from Twitter, Google and SayNow, a company we acquired last week, to make this idea a reality. It’s already live and anyone can tweet by simply leaving a voicemail on one of these international phone numbers (+16504194196 or +390662207294 or +97316199855) and the service will instantly tweet the message using the hashtag #egypt. No Internet connection is required. People can listen to the messages by dialing the same phone numbers or going to twitter.com/speak2tweet.
We hope that this will go some way to helping people in Egypt stay connected at this very difficult time. Our thoughts are with everyone there.
Celebrating Data Privacy Day
(Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog)
It’s become a welcome tradition: Today is the fourth annual Data Privacy Day. Dozens of countries have been celebrating with events throughout the week to inform and educate us all about our personal data rights and protections.
This is the first year I’ve marked this day as director of privacy across both engineering and product management at Google. I’ve chosen to spend the day in Washington, D.C., where there’s a been a lot of robust and productive discussion lately. People from Congress, the Federal Trade Commission, the Department of Commerce, and industry and consumer groups have been contributing to these important conversations about how to best protect people’s data, and we’re happy to be participating too. I’m doing my part by bringing my geek sensibilities into a public discussion that we’re hosting today. In fact, that’s what we’re calling it: “The Technology of Privacy: When Geeks Meet Wonks.” I’ll be joined on the panel by technologists from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Federal Trade Commission and the National Institute of Standards and Technology. If you can’t attend in person, don’t worry—we’ll be uploading a video of the event later in the day on our Public Policy blog and you’ll also be able to see it on the Google Privacy Channel on YouTube.
On this Data Privacy Day, a major focus for Google is on creating ways for people to manage and protect their data. We’ve built tools like the Google Dashboard, the Ads Preferences Manager and encrypted search, and we’re always working on further ideas for providing transparency, control and security to empower our users. For example, earlier this week we launched an extension for Chrome users called Keep My Opt-Outs, which enables you to opt out permanently from ad tracking cookies. And pretty soon we’ll be extending the availability of 2-step verification, an advanced account security solution that is now helping protect more than 1,000 new accounts a day from common problems like phishing and password compromise. Right now it’s available to Google Apps Accounts; we’ll be offering it to all users in the next few weeks.
Data Privacy Day 2011 reminds us that as industry and society are busy moving forward, we face new challenges that together we can tackle through conversation and innovation. We’re eager to be part of the solution.
Update (2/1/11): Here's the video of our panel, "The Technology of Privacy: When Geeks Meet Wonks." Enjoy –
White spaces momentum continues
Today we’re one step closer to a world with “super Wi-Fi.” In an order released yesterday afternoon, the FCC conditionally designated nine companies, including Google, as administrators for a white spaces database and outlined some important ground rules for its operation.
Just last fall the Commission adopted final technical rules on white spaces – the unused, public airwaves that we believe will lead to the next generation of wireless technologies. Before inventors can start to introduce new products and services on these airwaves, the FCC must certify the white spaces databases, which will ensure that different wireless signals don’t interfere with each other.
In the coming weeks, the FCC’s Office of Engineering and Technology will work with the designated database administrators, including real-world testing to ensure that databases provide accurate results. Last year, we submitted a proposal to build and operate a database, and we plan to be involved in the FCC’s process moving forward.
We’re excited to see momentum continue on white spaces, and can’t wait to see what new technologies will emerge.
Help wanted: Google hiring in 2011
(Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog.)
2010 was a huge year for Google. Many of our big bets—on mobile, display advertising, the cloud and more—really started to pay off. Amazingly, Android now runs on over 100 devices with more than 300,000 activations each day. Chrome has at least 120 million active users and it’s growing quickly. Last year more than 1 million businesses switched to Google Apps and embraced its 100% web approach. And we’ve made search faster than ever, even whenyou’re on the go.
But it wasn’t just a growth year for our products—the company grew as well. In 2010 we added more than 4,500 Googlers, primarily in engineering and sales: second only to 2007 when we added over 6,000 people to Google.
I love Google because of our people. It's inspiring to be part of the team. And that's why I am excited about 2011—because it will be our biggest hiring year in company history. We’re looking for top talent—across the board and around the globe—and we’ll hire as many smart, creative people as we can to tackle some of the toughest challenges in computer science: like building a web-based operating system from scratch, instantly searching an index of more than 100 million gigabytes and even developing cars that drive themselves. There’s something at Google for everyone—from geo, to enterprise, to video—with most of the work done in small teams, effectively working as start-ups. (The average number of software engineers on a project at Google is 3.5.) That’s why the vast majority of our people stay with us, building their careers and taking on new challenges within the company.
I joined Google more than eight years ago—when we had barely 500 employees and still used Outlook for email and AIM for chat—and while there have been many changes, Google is still the same entrepreneurial company it was when I started, encouraging Googlers to take on big ideas and high-risk, high-reward opportunities.
If you think you want to join the team, check out google.com/jobs.
Google Voice and Project CARE
For the second year in a row, Google partnered with Project CARE to provide special Google Voice accounts to homeless veterans. We provided about 500 accounts, giving homeless veterans a phone number that can be put on job applications and resumes, or handed out to family and friends. We’ve been offering similar services in the San Francisco area for the past few years.
As we mentioned last year, providing Google Voice accounts is a small gesture, but we hope these veterans find the product useful. Thanks again to the Winterhaven organizers for giving us the opportunity to participate.
Keep your opt-outs
Today we’re making available Keep My Opt-Outs, which enables you to opt out permanently from ad tracking cookies. It’s available as an extension for download in Chrome.
Why have we developed this feature?
Recently, the Federal Trade Commission and others have expressed interest in a “Do Not Track” mechanism that could offer users a simple way to opt out of personalized advertising. Advertising companies that are members of the Network Advertising Initiative (NAI) already let you opt out of tracking for the purposes of personalizing advertisements, and many online advertisers and trade associations have also joined a major self-regulatory effort to enforce a uniform privacy icon for ads, as well as opt-out guidelines.
There are more than 50 companies that are members that offer opt outs via these programs, including the top 15 largest ad networks in the U.S. Some, like Google, enable you not only to opt out, but to tailor the personalization of ads by specifying what types of ads you’re most interested in seeing.
However, the industry has faced a recurring technical challenge with these opt-outs and controls. If you clear your browser’s cookies, all customized settings — including these opt-outs — are lost. Another challenge is that sometimes new companies offer opt-outs, so you’d have to check frequently to make sure you’re opted out of what you want. A better “Do Not Track” mechanism is a browser extension that means you can easily opt out of personalized advertising from all participating ad networks only once and store that setting permanently.
We’ve been working on addressing these issues for awhile. Nearly two years ago, we engineered a solution for Google’s ad system. We made available, for all major browsers, a downloadable browser plugin that enables you to permanently opt out of Google’s advertising cookie, even if you deleted all your browser’s cookies. We’ve also built granular cookie controls into Chrome directly, and integrated Adobe Flash Player storage management into these controls. We’ve also modified Chrome’s incognito mode to ensure that it applies to “Flash cookies” in addition to regular cookies.
Today we are building on this work, and that of others, by allowing you to permanently opt out of ad tracking from all companies that offer opt-outs through the industry self-regulation programs. Keep in mind that once you install the Keep My Opt-Outs extension, your experience of online ads may change: You may see the same ads repeatedly on particular websites, or see ads that are less relevant to you.
Importantly, we’ve designed the extension so that it should not otherwise interfere with your web browsing experience or website functionality. This new feature gives you significant control without compromising the revenue that fuels the web content that we all consume every day.
More to come
We’re working to make this feature available for other browsers, too. We’ve also decided to make the code for this extension available on an open-source basis, so that other developers can let us know if there’s a bug, or even extend the code’s capabilities if they want to. We’re excited by the speed of innovation in online privacy and look forward to seeing future developments.
The Technology of Privacy: When Geeks Meet Wonks
Our privacy online depends a lot on the technology we use. So what better way to mark Data Privacy Day than to hear the latest in technology and policy from the people who have a deep understanding of how information gets transmitted and protected online?
Come to Google’s Washington, DC offices for a panel discussion about how privacy affects technology and vice versa. This discussion won’t linger on policy alone. Instead, it will focus on engineering and the mechanics behind the best practices of online privacy.
Moderator:
Come to Google’s Washington, DC offices for a panel discussion about how privacy affects technology and vice versa. This discussion won’t linger on policy alone. Instead, it will focus on engineering and the mechanics behind the best practices of online privacy.
Moderator:
Kim Hart, Reporter, Politico
Panelists:
Panelists:
Peter Eckersley, Senior Staff Technologist, Electronic Frontier Foundation
Ed Felten, Chief Technologist, Federal Trade Commission
Ari Schwartz, Senior Internet Policy Advisor, National Institute of Standards and Technology
Alma Whitten, Director of Privacy, Product and Engineering, Google
Friday, January 28, 2011
Panel begins at 10:00 AM
Google Science Fair seeks budding Einsteins and Curies
(Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog.)
Are you a student who loves science? Do you have a good idea for an experiment that you’d like to share with the world? In 1996, two young computer science students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, had a hypothesis that there was a better way to find information on the web. They did their research, tested their theories and built a search engine which (eventually) changed the way people found information online. Larry and Sergey were fortunate to be able to get their idea in front of lots of people. But how many ideas are lost because people don’t have the right forum for their talents to be discovered? We believe that science can change the world—and one way to encourage that is to celebrate and champion young scientific talent as we do athletes and pop idols.
To help make today’s young scientists the rock stars of tomorrow, in partnership with CERN, The LEGO Group, National Geographic and Scientific American, we’re introducing the first global online science competition: the Google Science Fair. It’s open to students around the world who are between the ages of 13-18. All you need is access to a computer, the Internet and a web browser.
You may have participated in local or regional science fairs where you had to be in the same physical space to compete with kids in your area. Now any student with an idea can participate from anywhere, and share their idea with the world. You build and submit your project—either by yourself or in a team of up to three—entirely online. Students in India (or Israel or Ireland) will be able to compete with students in Canada (or Cambodia or Costa Rica) for prizes including once-in-a-lifetime experiences (like a trip to the Galapagos Islands with a National Geographic Explorer), scholarships and real-life work opportunities (like a five-day trip to CERN in Switzerland). And if you’re entering a science fair locally, please feel free to post that project online with Google Science Fair, too!
To enter, register online and create your project as a Google Site. Registration is open through April 4, 2011. Please note: you must get parental or guardian consent in order to compete. You can check out the complete rules here. After April 4, we’ll begin judging and will announce our semi-finalists in early May.
The semi-finalist projects will be posted on our online gallery, where we’ll encourage the public to vote for a “people’s choice” winner. From our list of semi-finalists, we’ll select 15 finalists to bring their projects to Google headquarters on July 11 to compete in our final, live event, where world-renowned science judges will select a winner in each age category, as well as a grand-prize winner.
Here's an example of a great science fair project site to inspire you. We asked Tesca, a U.S. high school senior from Oregon, to create it for us based on an award-winning project she’s been working on for years. Tesca’s objective is to make hospitals more efficient using artificial intelligence—a world-changing goal, to be sure.
So if you think you're the next Albert Einstein, Marie Curie—or Larry Page or Sergey Brin—sign up today for the Google Science Fair. Prove once again how science can change the world!
Google Policy Fellowship: Last call for applications
There’s still time to apply for a 2011 Google Policy Fellowship – but the deadline is fast-approaching. All applications must be submitted by next Monday, January 17, 2010, at midnight PST.
The Google Policy Fellowship provides support to students and organizations working on the important tech issues of our time. Each selected fellow will receive a stipend of $7,500 to work with one of our host organizations in the U.S. or Canada for 10 weeks this summer. Students of all levels and disciplines are encouraged to apply.
This year is sure to be an important one for tech policy, so check out our website for more information, and good luck on your application.
The App Economy: How mobile developers attract users, win fans and make money
Over the past two years a new and burgeoning economy has grown quietly in the tech sector. Fueled by the boom in smartphones, programers and entrepreneurs have been attracting users and making money by building mobile applications, commonly known as apps. Mobile apps keep us entertained and productive while enhancing communication and information sharing. Today it is estimated there are more than 500 thousand apps running on more than 150 million mobile devices, and many of these apps are making serious money for their creators. The "app economy" is estimated to be $2 billion annually, growing to $4 billion by 2012. As part of our ongoing Google DC Talks series, we invite you to hear from successful app developers about this innovative new sector. How does someone go from creating mobile apps as a hobby to a full-time job? What kinds of apps are most popular with consumers? What's the difference between paying to download an app and making your app free but showing ads? How are app developers making money from their creations? And where is this new growth area going?
Participants are invited to submit questions in advance via Google Moderator at www.googledctalks.com.
Moderator:
Jon Potter, RPG Strategies
Panel:
Leon Palm, Developer, Google Public Sector Team
Ken Yarmosh, Analyst, Developer, & Author: App Savvy (O'Reilly Press)
David Smith, Developer, AudioBookShelf
Natalia Luckyanova, Developer, Harbor Master
Robert Sarvis, Developer, Wertago
Bringing greater transparency to the lawmaking process
There’s a saying: “If you like laws and sausages, you should never watch either one being made.” As it turns out, a lot of legislative work today is done on paper and outdated templates, with data about the process hard or impossible to come by. This means that very few citizens are able to follow laws as they’re being made.
We think that more transparency in the legislative process would result in better laws, more engaged citizens, and a better understanding of how the system works.
Lucky for the public, the House of Representatives has passed a new rules package that will make available much more information about how laws are made – with bills, amendments, and messages between the chambers and the White House all publicly available in electronic format. Under the new rules, all bills will be posted online for 72 hours before a final vote, and the House will require all committees to webcast their hearings and markups.
The House is also lifting the ban on electronic gadgets on the House floor, and the House Oversight Committee will post all committee hearings on a new, fully searchable YouTube channel called House.Resource.Org.
We’ve been strong advocates for government transparency, so we’re excited to see the House adopt reforms that will give the public more real-time information about what Congress is up to.
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