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- Tech for good - catching up on Google.org
- Google Apps highlights – 1/28/2011
- This week in search 1/28/2011
| Tech for good - catching up on Google.org Posted: 28 Jan 2011 11:36 PM PST Google.org continues to ramp up technology projects and test new ideas while Google's overall charitable giving, in-kind giving and employee volunteering have grown as well. Our newsletter outlines the latest updates to our philanthropic projects. I caught up with Megan Smith, VP New Business Development and General Manager of Google.org, to talk about how Google views philanthropy. After two years at the helm of Google.org, what are you most optimistic about? The Internet offers an opportunity to connect in ways never before possible. Things that have historically been far apart are now "virtually adjacent"—most people are a text away, data sets can be mashed up, and all world knowledge is coming online from both expected and surprising sources. Given all of this, I am most excited about all the extraordinary ways people are using the web to connect, be informed, use data and to start solving problems together. For Google.org specifically, we want to contribute our knowledge and skills to help use technology to address humanity's greatest challenges. We now have more than 50 engineers and about 40 other cross-functional Googlers working on four or five larger projects—like Google Crisis Response and RE<C—and over a dozen smaller experimental pilot projects. What kind of project fits this opportunity? One of our newer projects, Google Earth Engine, takes advantage of Google's computing infrastructure to create a planetary sciences computation platform that could help reduce negative environmental impact at scale. The first focus is on deforestation monitoring. Earth Engine has just made it through the pilot phase to a full project with its launch last month at climate change talks in Mexico. If we meet our goals to enable global-scale monitoring of changes in the planet's environment, I believe that Earth Engine could play an important information role in helping to slow deforestation. What's the biggest lesson you've learned since joining Google.org? Two things: first, the opportunity we have is great; and second, the work has served as a reminder that creating truly useful, innovative technology is challenging and requires patient iteration, dialog, teamwork and creativity. It takes time to gather new ideas, learn from the right partners, collaborate, pilot those ideas that pass initial assessment and then launch for scale the few projects that meet the criteria for a Google.org product. Do Google.org projects have a specific focus? We don't have a topical focus—we work on technology solutions to many different kinds of global challenges. The key is to take advantage of Google's strengths. In the area of global health, for example, we have been able to create a global flu monitoring system based on search data. For our environmental work, we were able to leverage our data center computing power to put together the finest-scale forest map of Mexico to date (processing this data would take two years on one computer, but we made it in less than 24 hours using our computing infrastructure). How does Google.org start and ramp up its technology projects? We work to tap into the talent at Google. Some projects have come out of hallway conversations and others from extensive talks with partners in the field. Formally, we have a bimonthly new initiatives meeting with senior engineers where talented individuals or teams within Google bring ideas or prototypes. If we think the idea is a match and has promise, we give it budget, headcount, guidance and time to see where it can go during a pilot period. Once we have a live pilot or project, we take advantage of Google.com's standard project review and management processes that our company has effectively used for years. What if those pilots fail? That's normal. We should expect that some of them will fail or will only have smaller impact. If you're not failing some of the time, you're not taking risks. As we progress, some of our failures will hopefully teach us as much as some of our successes. What other charitable giving does Google do? As a company that has been doing well, it's important that we push ourselves to be amongst the most generous companies. We have several charitable giving programs supporting, for example, education (especially K-12 science and math programs), university research, communities where we work, and technology solutions for underserved groups. Last year the company gave more than $145 million to non-profits and academic institutions, and more than $184 million when including Google Grants, Google.org technology projects and in-kind product support for non-profits. How is this philanthropic work different from that of other companies? Like other companies, we have charitable giving programs, we provide products in-kind and we have a range of employee volunteering programs. Some companies like ours may also have experiments like Google.org to leverage their strengths—a form of skills-based giving. However, many companies do amazing charitable work through a centralized Corporate Social Responsibility arm that tackles a key issue or two. We approach philanthropy the way we do our core business, with big goals and a "launch early and iterate" approach. Ideas come from all over the company and we work to tackle a range of issues we care about, from clean energy to education to development. It may not be as clean as the process that some others have, but we think this is how we can have the most impact. We remain determined, as our founders said when they set the vision for Google.org, "to find original ways to extend our assets, so that we can drive scalable, sustainable efforts. ...the underlying principle: Never stop looking for ways to do the best with what you have."      |
| Google Apps highlights – 1/28/2011 Posted: 28 Jan 2011 03:15 PM PST This is part of a regular series of Google Apps updates that we post every couple of weeks. Look for the label "Google Apps highlights" and subscribe to the series. - Ed. Over the last couple of weeks, we added ways to keep up with new messages in Gmail and printing capabilities from Gmail mobile and mobile documents, and announced a partnership with Verizon to make it easier for millions more businesses to start using Google Apps. Desktop notifications for Gmail When people switch to web-based email, sometimes they miss seeing desktop alerts when new mail is waiting to be read. In the past, Gmail required a helper application to show alerts, but on Wednesday we made it so Gmail can display desktop notifications for new email and chat messages with nothing more than a browser. If you use Google Chrome, you can enable desktop notifications in the Gmail settings panel.  Search-as-you-type for Gmail Labs Gmail Labs is a testing ground where you can try out new features and provide feedback on your experiences. As the list of Labs has grown to more than 50 options, we wanted to make it easier to find features you're interested in, so we introduced search-as-you-type on the Labs page. With just a few keystrokes, you can pinpoint just what you're looking for—no more scrolling down a long list of options to find what you want.  Unread message icon in Gmail Labs The Gmail tab in your browser displays how many unread messages you have, but if you have lots of tabs open or use pinned tabs in Google Chrome, the Gmail browser tab is too small for you to see the count of unread messages. On Tuesday we added a new Lab that shows your unread message count in the browser tab icon, so you can always see at a glance how many new messages you have. Visit the Gmail Labs settings page and type "unread" in the new search box to find and try this feature.  Cloud Print for Gmail and Docs Printing is sometimes tricky even when you're in the same room as your printer, not to mention when you want to print on a remote printer or from a mobile device. Last year we introduced Cloud Print to make printing easier from any device to any Cloud Print-enabled printer, without the need for any special software. On Monday we added support for Cloud Print to Gmail mobile and mobile documents, so now you can print messages and documents directly from your phone or tablet to your Cloud Print-enabled printer.   Education category in the Google Apps Marketplace Businesses, schools and organizations can shop for third-party applications, features and services that complement Google Apps in the Marketplace, and over the last few months we've seen a surge in listings geared for schools and universities. To make it easier for schools to link up with great partners in their field, we added a dedicated category for educational listings. There you'll find powerful add-ins from LearnBoost, Grockit, Aviary and many other education software providers.  Who's gone Google? More than 3 million businesses, plus many more schools, non-profits and government agencies have switched to Google Apps over the last few years, and we're looking forward to helping the next wave of customers get started. To that end, we're thrilled to have Verizon as our newest partner. Verizon will provide Google Apps to many of their small business broadband customers, making it possible for businesses to obtain a more complete set of small business IT services from a single provider. Welcome to Google Apps! I hope these product updates and customer stories help you and your organization get even more from Google Apps. For more details and the latest news, check out the Google Apps Blog.     |
| Posted: 28 Jan 2011 02:07 PM PST This is part of a regular series of posts on search experience updates that runs on Fridays. Look for the label "This week in search" and subscribe to the series. - Ed. With freezing conditions on the East Coast this season, many people are thinking about weather. One of our favorite Google tricks is to simply type [weather] and get the forecast, personalized for your location, immediately at the top. With Google Instant, this trick gets even better because you only need to type [w]—we'll do the rest. This week we rolled out a couple new weather search features to help you plan your next ski trip or figure out when to sneak outside between blizzards. Live results for snow conditions As ski season hits high gear, we've partnered with OnTheSnow.com and SkiReport.com to provide you up-to-date snow condition information right on the search results page. Just search for your favorite ski resort and you'll see the current snow depth, latest snow falls, terrain conditions and the overall availability of the resort. The results also include links to more detailed information such as photos, weather forecasts and reviews.  The new weather live results appear in snippets for onthesnow.com and skireport.com Example searches: [squaw valley], [wisp ski] Interactive, precise weather results for mobile Sometimes when you're planning your day, you only need a couple hours of sunshine for a jog or a hike through the park. The seven-day forecast is great, but what you really want to know is if it will be sunny exactly when you're thinking of heading outside. So earlier this week we introduced a new search result for weather on iPhone and Android-powered devices. The new format enables you to interact with the results and see the forecast for any specific time over a 12-hour period.  The new weather results are available on google.com in English. Simply search for the weather That's all for this week. Check the forecast and hopefully soon you can stop reading tech blogs and head outside!     |
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