Google New Zealand Blog

New Zealand at the research cutting edge: Software Defined Networking

2012-05-21T19:59:00.000+12:00

It's a little known fact that New Zealand is home to some cutting-edge work that is making networks, including the Internet, faster, more flexible and more stable.

Those who follow developments in networking have probably heard about Software Defined Networking (SDN) and the Open Networking Foundation. SDN enables networks to be more flexible and less complex by moving decision making off of individual network devices and onto external controllers. To borrow an analogy from one writer, it’s kind of like replacing taxi cabs with self-driving cars. SDN has attracted a lot of interest and support from not only universities and researchers, but from major network equipment vendors, ISPs and companies like Google.

At the most recent Open Networking Summit Google’s Senior Vice President of Technical Infrastructure Urs Hoelzle spoke about Google’s use of an SDN technology called OpenFlow, which we use to connect our data centers together. SDN offers a way to give much more precise control over traffic flowing over this network and enable much more efficient utilization than conventional routing protocols.

What has been not quite so widely reported is that SDN work is being done right here in New Zealand. On May 15, REANNZ (Research and Education Advanced Network New Zealand) and Victoria University of Wellington hosted an event where attendees from area universities built New Zealand’s first experimental OpenFlow network.

Other recent SDN activity includes research at Victoria on building an open source LSR (Label Switch Router) based on OpenFlow, and University of Waikato’s contributions to OpenFlow projects including Open VSwitch which is built into recent Linux kernels. Both of these efforts serve to demonstrate the practical use of SDN and enable further advanced network research. Wellington ISP CityLink is also considering OpenFlow deployment.

Kiwis are very much at the forefront of networking technology with SDN and OpenFlow, and it’s exciting to see it right here in New Zealand - with more to come!

Posted by Josh Bailey, Software Engineer, Google New Zealand.

You Asked For It! Here Are Your 16 Next Vloggers...

2012-05-09T15:37:00.001+12:00

Since launching, YouTube Next Creator has helped chefs cook up better videos, trainers get more people into shape, and non-profits extend the reach of their causes. So figuring out which category to tackle, well, next, was a bit of a challenge. Rather than deciding ourselves, we asked you to make the tough decision for us. With a resounding cry, you told us, “BRING US NEXT VLOGGER!”

Not only is vlogging one of the most popular forms of expression on YouTube, but selecting Next Vlogger also resulted in more applications than we’ve received for any previous Next Creator program. Bravo! Although, that still left us with some tough decisions...

After much debate and many sleepless nights, we’re excited to introduce you to the 16 Next Vloggers:

From sports recaps to music parodies, book reviews to space lions, gaming tips to Smurf collecting, advice and self-empowerment to Pokemon mastery, and even some stuff that can’t be categorised, these vloggers--like the art of vlogging--literally touch on every content category.

We are also happy to announce that a local New Zealander — Matt Mulholland of Get It Sorted — is one of the 16 winners. Matt does a lot of songs and comedy numbers on top of the normal vlogger talks with the audience.

Fun bunch, huh? In total, they’ve racked up over 125 million views. Not a shabby start, but like most YouTube creators, they’re eager to reach even more people. To help them get there, the Next Vloggers will participate in three months of trainings via Google+ Hangouts, including mentoring from one of most successful top YouTube vloggers and content creators, iJustine and Natalie Tran from communitychannel, and receive $5,000 worth of video equipment and $10,000 worth of promotion on and off YouTube. Subscribe to their channels to follow them on their journey over the next few months and beyond.

Not a vlogger but still want to gain some skills to help you go from zero to hero .....views? Then, you’re in luck because we’re kicking off some rad YouTube Creator Workshops that cover a wide range of topics from “Introduction to Cinematography” to “Improving Your Channel with YouTube Analytics.” You can check out the YouTube Creator Events site to see the calendar of workshops that you can attend via Google+ Hangouts on Air from the YouTube Creators page.

Vlog on!

Posted by Austin Lau & Bing Chen, Global YouTube Creator Program Managers, recently watched “INSERT PLAYLIST”.

Privacy Awareness Week 2012

2012-04-30T16:29:00.004+12:00

Today is the start of Privacy Awareness Week, an annual event across Asia Pacific to remind everyone to take steps to protect their privacy and safeguard personal information online.

At Google we take our users’ privacy and security very seriously. We build transparency, choice and security into our products, starting with the earliest stages of product design. In fact, we have a team of more than 300 world-class engineers and product managers who spend all day, every day, thinking about this. You can read more about our approach to privacy here.

Privacy Awareness Week is a great opportunity for Kiwis to learn more about the security features and privacy tools we offer. Here are a few to get you started.

Google Dashboard: This is a tool that offers signed-in users a simple view of the data associated with their Google Account. From this one central location, you can easily change your privacy settings for any Google services you use, from Blogger to Gmail, from search to YouTube.

Two-step verification: This feature helps protect your Google Account from threats like password compromise and identity theft. To sign into your account, you’ll enter your normal username and password, and then you’ll be asked to enter a 6-digit code, which will be sent to your phone.

Ads Preferences Manager: From this one place, you can view and edit the information Google uses to show ads on Google search and Gmail, and interest-based ads on websites in Google’s ad network. You can add or edit information to affect how ads are selected, or opt-out of seeing customised ads altogether.

These are just a few in a range of privacy tools and measures you can take to ensure you have meaningful control of your privacy. For more information about Privacy Awareness Week, visit the website.

Posted by Ross Young, Public Policy and Government Affairs, Google Australia and New Zealand

New Zealand Art Goes Global

2012-04-04T10:08:00.001+12:00

Last year, we launched the Google Art Project, which brought artworks from 17 of the world's most famous galleries within reach of New Zealanders who would otherwise have to spend thousands of dollars and dozens of hours on a plane.

Starting today, the Art Project is bringing Kiwi art to the world, with 251 artworks from the Auckland Art Gallery and Te Papa in Wellington now available to anyone with a computer and an Internet connection.

You can now view in high resolution more than 30,000 photos of artworks and exhibits from 151 cultural institutions in 40 countries. You can easily search across the entire collection, whether you’re looking for a particular artwork (e.g. “Sunflowers”) or browsing and comparing pieces in groups (e.g. all Rembrandts, or all etchings). You can also consult additional reading material or videos as you’re viewing a piece by clicking the “Details” button next to it.

One striking example is William P. Hart’s “Ballarat Street, Queenstown, NZ, flooded 1878”, an iconic photograph of townspeople boating in a flooded urban street that was recorded for posterity long before such images were used in newspapers.

The Art Project includes 46 ‘gigapixel’ super high resolution images that reveal brushwork details beyond what is visible to the naked eye. This level of detail often leads to a very different experience with the artwork. One striking example is Hans Holbein the Younger’s “The Merchant Georg Gisze”. At high-levels of zoom, the tiny Latin couplet written on the wall behind the merchant comes into perfect focus.

You can also take a virtual tour through 46 galleries using Google’s Street View technology. Using the same technology that enables you to wander through city streets, you can stroll through the halls of The Met and the Musee D’Orsay. Art Project also includes a “My Galleries” feature where you can collect your own favourites from across the site, leave comments, upload related YouTube videos, and share your collection with your friends, fellow students, or teachers.

You can find a wide range of art types in the Art Project, from paintings and sculptures to architecture and aboriginal art. Whether you’re a student, an aspiring artist or a casual museum-goer, we hope that the Art Project gives you a fun and innovative way to interact with art—and hopefully inspires you to visit the real thing!

Posted by Amanda Scott, Product Partnerships.

Traffic Conditions for New Zealand on Google Maps

2012-03-20T10:59:00.001+13:00

Kiwi automobile commuters, we want to reduce your time stuck in traffic. Today we have expanded our live traffic coverage in Google Maps to cities in New Zealand.

To look at the current traffic conditions for an area, simply go to maps.google.co.nz and click on the traffic layer located in the widget on the upper right hand side of the screen. The desktop maps are great for scanning the roads before you get in the car. But if you want to check out the latest road info on the go, the traffic layer is also available on your mobile device through Google Maps for Mobile and Google Maps Navigation.

Also note that if the roads you are travelling on do not yet show traffic information, don’t despair. You can help your fellow drivers and improve traffic data by using Google Maps Navigation or Google Maps for Mobile while traveling.

Posted by Andrew Foster, Product Manager, Google Maps

From snowflakes to surfactants: meet the YouTube Space Lab regional winners

2012-02-23T11:12:00.002+13:00

At the end of January, we invited you to choose your favorite YouTube Space Lab experiment ideas from sixty finalist teams, and today we have our winners! More than 100,000 of you cast your votes that combined with the scores from our panel of judges to decide the regional winners for the final stage of the competition.

We’re happy to announce that the Asia Pacific regional winners in the 14-16 category Patrick Zeng and Derek Chan are Kiwis! Patrick and Derek, Year 12 students at Auckland Grammar, focused their experiment on measuring fluids’ rate of heat transfer in microgravity.

Find out the other winners below, and of course, you can meet them all on the Space Lab Channel.

14 - 16 year old regional winning teams
Asia Pacific region: Is space too cold for life to exist? by Patrick Zeng & Derek Chan from New Zealand
Europe, Middle East and Africa region: Could weightless liquids be the key to better gadgets? by Laura Calvo & María Vilas from Spain
The Americas region: Could alien superbugs cure disease on Earth? by Dorothy Chen & Sara Ma from U.S.A.
17 - 18 year old regional winning teams:
Asia Pacific region: Could liquid magnets take us deeper into space? by Sachin Kukke from India
Europe, Middle East and Africa region: Can you teach an old spider new tricks? by Amr Mohamed from Egypt
The Americas region: Could a snowflake unlock the mysteries of the universe? by Emerald Bresnahan from U.S.A
The six regional winning teams will travel to Washington, D.C., where we’ll announce the two global winners (one team from each age group). These two winners will have their experiments performed 400km above Earth aboard the International Space Station (ISS) and live streamed on YouTube as part of a global event celebrating science and space. While in Washington, all the teams will take part in a series of activities to honour their achievements, including the opportunity to experience weightlessness on a ZERO-G flight.

Space Lab invited budding scientists to submit a YouTube video describing an idea for an experiment that could be carried out aboard the ISS. The channel, which serves as a launch pad for discovering great space and science videos on YouTube, has received more than 50 million views worldwide throughout the course of the competition. This week we’re uploading interviews with the winners in their hometowns, so subscribe to the channel to keep up to date with all the latest from here on Earth!

Posted by Zahaan Bharmal, YouTube Space Lab lead, recently watched the “ESA Education (English)” playlist.

Collaborate and edit anywhere with the updated Google Docs for Android

2012-02-23T11:05:00.000+13:00

This is a cross-post from the Official Google Blog

As I was sitting on the ferry commuting to Google’s Sydney office this morning, two thoughts occurred to me. First, Australia is beautiful. If you’ve never been here, you really should visit. And second, it’s amazing how productive I can be with just my Android phone and an Internet connection. I was responding to email, reading news articles and editing documents—just like I do at the office. Only the view was better!

We want to give everyone the chance to be productive no matter where they are, so today we’re releasing a new update to the Google Docs app for Android. We've brought the collaborative experience from Google Docs on the desktop to your Android device. You'll see updates in real time as others type on their computers, tablets and phones, and you can just tap the document to join in.

We also updated the interface to make it easier to work with your documents on the go. For example, you can pinch to zoom and focus on a specific paragraph or see the whole document at a glance. We also added rich text formatting so you can do things like create a quick bullet list, add color to your documents, or just bold something important. Watch the new Google Docs app in action:

If you want to hear about the latest Docs news or send us feedback on the new app, visit Google Docs on Google+.

Gotta run—I’ve got another ferry to catch!

Posted by Vadim Gerasimov, Software Engineer

Making computer science accessible: apply now for 2012 CS4HS Grants

2012-02-22T15:50:00.001+13:00

Working with micro-controllers at UQ’s worskhop.

The need for computer science professionals is increasing faster than universities are able to graduate CS students -- not just in Australia and New Zealand, but around the world. That’s why Google has worked with universities around the world to develop the CS4HS program: Computer Science for High School.

CS4HS is an initiative sponsored by Google to promote Computer Science and Computational Thinking in high school and middle school curriculum. The program takes a “train the trainer” approach. Universities develop 2-3 day workshops for teachers that provide training, tips, and actual classroom materials to help them teach programming and computing in their schools and turn their students into computational thinkers and creators.

This summer five CS4HS workshops were held in Australia and New Zealand, at University of Melbourne, University of Canterbury, Victoria University of Wellington, University of Queensland, and University of Adelaide. University of New South Wales and the University of Sydney will hold theirs in the coming weeks. Over 200 teachers have:
learned about programming software directly from developers, full-time CS faculty, and Google engineers;
participated in hands-on workshops ranging from robotics programming to mobile app development with App Inventor;
attended informational talks by industry leaders; and
discussed new and emerging CS curricula at the high school and middle school level.

CS4HS participants and tutors at the University of Queensland’s workshop.

This sort of training is especially helpful for the surprising number of teachers in Australia and New Zealand who are devoting their own free time to offering computer science classes as a club or an extra course outside of the school’s primary curriculum.

Professor Paul Strooper, Head of the School of Information Technology & Electrical Engineering at the University of Queensland, said, “The CS4HS program was a huge success for UQ since the funding enabled us to develop three new hands-on computer science workshops for high schools which we are hoping to deliver to groups of students throughout the year. We used part of the funding to offer travel grants which enabled 15 teachers from all over Queensland and as far as Sydney to attend the CS4HS Workshop. Participating teachers from the Brisbane area have already started contacting us to organise workshops for their students at UQ and we are planning to visit the teachers from Mackay later in the year to run workshops for their students.”

From now until 3rd March 2012, CS4HS is accepting applications for 2012 grants; if you’re affiliated with a college or university in Australia or New Zealand, we’d love to hear from you. If you’re not affiliated with a college or university you can still encourage your local university, community college or technical school to apply for a grant. After applications close, we’ll post the workshop websites of participating schools on cs4hs.com for professors looking for ideas and for teachers interested in learning more about what’s being offered.

Posted by Sally-Ann Williams, Program Manager Engineering, Google Australia

Introducing our Google Student Ambassadors

2012-02-22T10:45:00.000+13:00

Last week we welcomed our newly appointed Google Student Ambassadors to our Sydney office and the inaugural Google Student Ambassador Summit.

After putting a call out for students interested in acting as on-campus liaisons between Google and their universities, we selected 52 student ambassadors representing 23 universities across Australia and New Zealand. Ambassadors get the chance to learn about Google products and programs and organise campus events for their fellow students.

Our ambassadors are a diverse bunch. Not only are they geographically scattered, but they have majors from computer science to anthropology, business and even zoology. What they all have in common is a passion for new technology, enthusiasm about Google, and deep involvement in their school communities.

Sam Jarman, a seasoned app developer and Computer Science student at the University of Canterbury, and fellow Kiwi Julius Bennett, a finance and accounting student in Auckland, hope to raise campus awareness about the benefits of the cloud with a product like Google Docs.

Desiree Kelly is currently studying Computing and Intelligent Systems and Software Development at Griffith University. Desiree wants to be an advocate for women in I.T. and has been active in helping organise Geek Girl Coffees in Brisbane.

Desiree, Sam and Julius attended the two-day summit with their fellow ambassadors and received presentations from Googlers about Google Apps for Education, YouTube, Google Chrome, Google Maps, Google Places and Google+.

It was not all work though. There was plenty to time to socialise as they took part in Google Sydney’s weekly TGIF drinks and went on a Sydney Harbour cruise, bringing the summit to a fitting close.

All our ambassadors finished the summit with lots of ideas they’ll bring back to campus. One of our ambassadors has also put together a circle on Google+. Add everyone to your own circles to follow what they’re doing on campus.

Posted by Marco Duarte, Engineering Programs and Recruiting Specialist, Google

Christchurch Earthquake — One Year Later: live streaming the memorial service on YouTube

2012-02-22T09:47:00.000+13:00

Today, on the one year anniversary of the Christchurch earthquake, the New Zealand Herald is providing full coverage of the city’s memorial services on YouTube, commemorating the lives that were lost and those who are still affected by the tragedy. The live-stream of the memorial services starts at 7am NZT on NZ Herald’s YouTube channel.

On 22 February, 2011, Christchurch was rocked by a magnitude 6.3 earthquake, killing 185 people and devastating much of the historic city centre. The state broadcaster’s raw coverage of the immediate aftermath was one of the most-viewed videos on YouTube on that day, as millions of people around the world stopped to watch the tragedy unfold.

Christchurch, is New Zealand’s second-largest city, located on the South Island. The idyllic town is known for its friendly people, abundant gardens, and historic stone buildings. And its convenient location makes an easy gateway to mountains, beaches — and Hobbits.

Quakes have continued in Christchurch over the last year. Despite this hardship, we remain inspired by the great resilience of the city’s residents, who have worked hard towards rebuilding their hometown and keeping alive the memory of the tragedy.

Posted by Richard North, a YouTuber from Christchurch.

Doodling for Dickens’ Birthday: A behind the scenes look

2012-02-07T18:16:00.001+13:00

This is a cross post from the Inside Google Books Blog

Today marks the 200th anniversary of Charles Dickens's birthday (born February 7, 1812). To celebrate the life and work of one of the world's greatest storytellers, the Google doodle team created this fantastic celebratory Doodle for our home page:

In addition, our Google Books editorial team curated a collection of free and featured Dickens classics available in Google eBookstore in Dickens's native land (United Kingdom) and some Commonwealth countries (Canada, Australia) as well as the US -- a relatively new nation that Dickens himself visited in 1842 and 1867.

As anyone who has read a Dickens novel can attest, they are full of memorable characters, realism, humour, lyricism, and social commentary. He is considered one of the greatest novelists of the Victorian era, and responsible for some of the most iconic stories in English literature. Contemplating Dickens’ diversity of characters and themes, I wondered how the artist who created the Dickens doodle, Mike Dutton, handled the challenge.

Prior to working at Google, Mike was a freelance artist, and illustrated several children’s books, including Donovan's Big Day. He is no stranger to making the words on a page come alive through imagery.

Mike has worked on countless doodles, some honoring other authors like Richard Scarry, and others celebrating events like the Royal Wedding and the World Cup. His favorite doodles to work on (so far!) were Mary Blair’s 100th birthday and Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (author of The Little Prince).

When asked about his experience trying to represent Dickens, Mike said that it posed a greater challenge than most. “Google doodles,” he said, are intended to be fun and delightful; however Dickens’ work is frequently serious in tone. So I decided to focus on Dickens’ characters to bridge this gap.”

And Mike’s doodle is full of characters! We see Nell and her grandfather in the The Old Curiosity Shop, many characters from Little Dorrit, Oliver and his friends from Oliver Twist and Estella and Pip from Great Expectations. Even a certain French aristocrat graces the doodle, sitting inside the uppercase “G” -- a reference to his eventual death by guillotine. And no tribute to Dickens would be complete without Ebenezer Scrooge and a vivid depiction of London in the background.

Mike said that while he normally works on his tablet, he had to go back to a physical drawing board for the Dickens doodle, creating each character separately so that he could place them within different parts of the Google logo. Like an engineer, he likes to iterate on what he designs, until he gets it right.

Mike’s puzzle – layering characters

from Great Expectations and Oliver Twist

When I visited his office, I also saw that like other artists, Mike immersed himself in his subject. He had Dickens’ novels stacked by his desk, as well as images from adaptations of the author’s novels pinned to his wall.

“Just happy to be here.”

Interestingly, while a doodler’s work neither hangs in a museum nor receives the reverence of a Da Vinci or a Picasso, the illustrations are perhaps more widely and instantly viewed than any other artists’ in history. When asked about this, Mike responded:

“Sometimes I feel I got to cut in line somewhere along the artist’s journey. Being a doodler is a very fun job, but we take it seriously. Our ultimate goal is to engage and delight users, but we want to make sure we really pay proper homage to each figure along the way too.”

Mike’s doodle lets Dickens’ characters speak to the author’s impact, the way Dickens himself used them to speak his messages to the world. They are familiar, warm, and tell their sometimes harsh stories in a way that makes us want to take notice and enjoy. He uses them to successfully capture what made Dickens’ great: characters that are real to us.

Learn more about Google doodles

Posted by Ariel Levine, Google eBooks Associate

Picture perfect: Welcome customers into your business on Google Maps

2012-01-27T11:24:00.003+13:00

When we initially announced the Business Photos pilot program, we wanted to give business owners an easy way to get customers in the door online using interactive, high-quality, 360-degree images of places on Google Maps and on Google Search results. With thousands of businesses under our belt — from restaurants to salons— we’ve been hearing the same question again and again from both business owners and photographers alike: How can I participate?

Well, with the overwhelming success of the first pilot, we’ve decided to unveil a complementary initiative that will help us reach more interested business owners, more quickly: Trusted Photographers.

View Larger Map

Click and drag to view the inside of Da Vincis 

It’s simple. Visit our new website and search for a Google Trusted Photographer in your area. Either email or call a photographer in your area to schedule a time and agree on a price that you will pay the photographer for a photoshoot of your business. This self-serve model makes for easier scheduling and quicker turnaround, while also supporting the local photographers in your community. During the hour it should take for the shoot, you can collaborate with the photographer about how best to display and capture your business. When finished, the photographer will upload the images to Google, and shortly thereafter, you’ll see 360-degree panoramic views of your business on Google.co.nz, Google Maps and on your Google Places listing.  

See how Business Photos has helped Toy Joy of Austin, Texas.

Trusted Photographers are available in 14 U.S. cities, as well as in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and France. Don’t see a photographer in your area? Let us know, as that will help us determine where more Trusted Photographers are needed.

Posted by Gadi Royz, Product Manager, Google Maps

Android Developer Labs Coming to New Zealand

2012-01-23T16:12:00.002+13:00

Our Android Developer Advocates are kicking off 2012 with new events to get out and meet Android developers around the world. First stop: Australia & New Zealand!

Android Developer Labs (ADLs) will be taking place in Melbourne (Tuesday 31 January), Sydney (Friday 3 February) and Auckland (Wednesday 8 February). ADLs are aimed at accomplished Android developers who want to learn the best practices for building truly world-class Android apps. Ideally, developers will enter an ADL with a good app that has already garnered some success, but leave with a great app that will appeal to Android users everywhere.

In these sessions, we’ll cover the following topics:
Latest advances in Ice Cream Sandwich
Utilising cloud services in Android apps
Designing polished and immersive user experiences
Building rich apps for both smartphones and tablets
How do I participate?

Registration is open to everyone, but we will sift through the applications by hand and select the most qualified developers. In choosing attendees, we’re primarily looking for developers who have already released a successful app on Android Market but want to improve its overall quality, fit and finish.

Other prerequisites include a laptop with the Eclipse & Android SDK (API 15) installed and configured, an Android device(s) for debugging and a solid understanding of Android fundamentals (activities, layouts, app life cycle, etc). If you’re selected to attend, you’ll receive an invitation up to 48 hours before the event.

Visit the Android Developer Lab website for more information and submit your application.

Sixty YouTube Space Lab Finalists Announced: Vote Now For Your Favorites

2012-01-18T11:14:00.006+13:00

A few months ago we set 14-18 year olds the bold challenge to design a science experiment that could be performed by NASA aboard the International Space Station, something that has traditionally been the preserve of qualified astronauts and scientists. Coming up with a suitable idea required huge imagination, passion and scientific curiosity, which is why we were thrilled with your response— we received a total of 2,000 video submissions from students in more than 80 countries!

Expert scientists helped us check and rank all of the entries, and today we are very proud to announce the sixty finalists. All of their submissions can now be viewed on the YouTube.com/SpaceLab Channel, and from 17–24 January, you can vote for the ones you want to win. We need your help selecting the six regional winners, and ultimately the two global winners that will have their experiments performed 400 kilometers above Earth and live streamed on YouTube. Start voting today.

Among the finalists for the Asia-Pacific region were a team from New Zealand — Patrick Zeng and Derek Chan of Auckland Grammar School.

And remember, the channel is also a launchpad to some of the best space and science videos on YouTube. We’ve already received more than 39 million combined video views worldwide and we’re adding new videos and playlists regularly, like this new playlist about the mysteries of the Red Planet. Subscribe to the channel to keep up to date with all the latest content.

Didn’t make it to the final round? Check out the newly launched Google Science Fair 2012 for another chance to enter an amazing global science competition.

Posted by Zahaan Bharmal, YouTube Space Lab lead.

Ask your question in the 2012 Google Science Fair

2012-01-17T14:22:00.001+13:00

Are human beings born curious, or can curiosity be nurtured through environment, competition or a good teacher? Everyone’s got a question—that’s ours. But we’re sure you’ve got tons of questions, too. So we’re inviting students around the world to pose their most pressing questions and answer those questions through scientific inquiry as part of our second annual Google Science Fair.

Along with our partners CERN, The LEGO Group, National Geographic and Scientific American, it’s the largest online science competition in the world. Open to students ages 13-18, students (either individually or in teams of up to three people) pose a question, develop a hypothesis and conduct science experiments to test it.

Last year, we received entries that strove to solve a wide variety of needs, from “How can I cure cancer?” to “Can I teach a robot to learn English?” to “Can I build a faster sailboat?” The breadth and depth of these projects was incredibly impressive, and this year we hope to see even more entries from the next generation of brilliant young scientists.

From the entries we will recognise 90 regional finalists before our judges select the top 15 finalists, who will be flown to Google headquarters in Mountain View, California, for the Google Science Fair event on July 23, 2012. At the finals, a panel of distinguished international judges (like Vint Cerf, Sylvia Earle, and Nobel Laureates David Gross and Ada Yonath) will select top winners in each age category (13-14, 15-16, 17-18).

In addition to satisfying your curious mind, your project can also help to win you some pretty cool prizes, like a US$50,000 college scholarship from Google, a 10-day trip to the Galapagos Islands with a National Geographic Explorer or an internship at Google or any one of our partners.

We’re also introducing a new category for this year’s competition—the Scientific American Science in Action award which will see the winner earn US$50,000 and a year-long mentorship to make their project a reality. We were so inspired by 2011 finalist Harine Ravichandran’s project, which attempted to solve energy surges in rural villages, that this year we decided to recognise an outstanding project that addresses a social, environmental or health need.

The Google Science Fair will accept submissions until Sunday, April 1 at 11:59 GMT.

Google itself was founded through experimentation and with the Google Science Fair, we hope to inspire scientific exploration among the next generation of scientists and engineers, celebrate scientific talent, create scientific role models and unite students around the world in the quest for learning.

Visit google.com/sciencefair and ask your most burning questions.

(Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog)
Posted by Cristin Frodella, Google Education Team

Rebecca Black, Ghost Chips and LMFAO: 2011 in review on YouTube

2011-12-21T13:18:00.000+13:00

YouTube contains the largest and most diverse set of videos ever assembled, but in amongst the one trillion playbacks on YouTube this year, there are some videos that draw us all together. These videos capture the imagination as we watch them over and over and share them with our friends and family.

Today we reveal the top 10 videos watched by New Zealanders on YouTube in 2011.

Homegrown viral videos and ads were amongst the top videos watched by New Zealanders as Kiwis came online to be entertained by music clips, informed by footage of news events and preoccupied by latest internet sensation.

The nek minute video has been watched more than 1.7 million times and was the second most watched community video on YouTube this year. Viral music sensation Rebecca Black came in first with her song Friday.

Stand in Black, a fan video supporting the All Blacks saw more than half a million views, while Mile-High Madness, an Air New Zealand safety video starring Richard Simmons, saw a global audience of almost 2.5 million views. Also making the list was Legend, an anti-drink driving ad by the New Zealand Transport Authority which was seen more than 1.5 million times.

Kiwis also came to YouTube to watch the latest music clips and this year LMFAO, Nicki Minaj, Bruno Mars and Chris Brown were amongst the top watched music videos.

In addition to compiling the YouTube most-watched lists, YouTube also took a look at the billions of queries that people typed into YouTube in 2011 to identify some of the fastest-rising search terms for each month, which included “ghost chips” (a reference to the drink-driving ad), the Christchurch earthquake and Charlie Sheen.

To see more of the year’s most popular and influential YouTube videos from across the world, visit youtube.com/rewind. And for more lists, see YouTube Trends and the YouTube blog.

Most Watched YouTube community videos in New Zealand:

Rebecca Black - Friday (OFFICIAL VIDEO)

Nek Minute

Stand in Black

Mile-high madness with Richard Simmons! #RICHROLL

Ultimate Dog Tease

Major Earthquake has hit Christchurch, New Zealand

Samsung Smart TV TVC New Zealand

Legend

Cadbury Share the Joy Song

Flash Haka @ Sylvia Park, 4.Sept.11

Most Watched music videos on YouTube in New Zealand:

LMFAO - Party Rock Anthem ft. Lauren Bennett, GoonRock

Nicki Minaj - Super Bass

Bruno Mars - The Lazy Song [Official Video]

Jessie J - Price Tag ft. B.o.B.

Jennifer Lopez - On The Floor ft. Pitbull

Gotye - Somebody That I Used To Know (feat. Kimbra)

Katy Perry - Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)

Chris Brown - Look At Me Now ft. Lil Wayne, Busta Rhymes

LMFAO - Sexy and I Know It

Adele - ''Someone Like You''

Then, to determine the fastest rising search terms for each month, we examined the billions of queries that people searched for on YouTube (through December 2011):

Fastest Rising search terms by month in country:

January	ricky gervais
February	christchurch earthquake
March	charlie sheen
April	party rock anthem
May	someone like you
June	man down rihanna
July	moves like jagger
August	stereo hearts
September	flash haka
October	we found love
November	ghost chips
December	fight for life

Posted by Johnny Luu, Communication and Public Affairs Manager, Google New Zealand

Experience the tsunami-affected areas of Japan through Street View

2011-12-13T15:26:00.000+13:00

Back in July, we announced our initiative to digitally archive the areas of Northeastern Japan affected by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. Today, we’re making good on that promise—after driving more than 44,000 kilometers through the affected regions, 360-degree panoramic imagery of those areas is now available through the Street View feature in Google Maps. The images can also be viewed via a special website called “Build the Memory,” where you can easily compare before and after shots of the towns changed by these events.

A virtual tour via Street View profoundly illustrates how much these natural disasters have transformed these communities. If you start inland and venture out toward the coast, you’ll see the idyllic countryside change dramatically, becoming cluttered with mountains of rubble and debris as you get closer to the ocean. In the cities, buildings that once stood proud are now empty spaces.

View Larger Map

In the bottom left corner of each image you’ll also see a month and year that tells you when a particular photograph was taken. When looking at images of the magnificent cities side-by-side with images of the ruins left in their place, this additional context demonstrates how truly life-changing this tragedy has been for those who live there and witnessed the destruction of their homes, neighborhoods and even entire districts. This timestamp feature has been the most requested Street View feature for the last few years, and it is now available on Street View imagery worldwide. Professionals such as historians, architects, city planners and tourism boards—as well as regular users including travelers and home-buyers—can now get a sense of how fresh the online photos are for a locations that interests them.

In the case of the post-tsunami imagery of Japan, we hope this particular digital archiving project will be useful to researchers and scientists who study the effects of natural disasters. We also believe that the imagery is a useful tool for anyone around the world who wants to better understand the extent of the damage. Seeing the street-level imagery of the affected areas puts the plight of these communities into perspective and ensures that the memories of the disaster remain relevant and tangible for future generations.

(Cross-posted on the Lat Long blog)

Posted by Kei Kawai, Senior Product Manager, Street View

Kiwis rugby mad as Sonny Bill Williams overcomes Bieber Fever

2011-12-07T01:35:00.001+13:00

From the Rugby World Cup and chicken thigh recipes to the meaning of love and the meaning of planking, New Zealanders turned to Google this year to find out more information and keep their finger on the pulse.

Today we’re releasing our annual Zeitgeist lists: this year’s hottest search terms on google.co.nz. The lists offer a unique glimpse into the big events, memorable moments and emerging trends which captivated us throughout 2011.

With the Rugby World Cup making headlines this year, it’s little surprise that it was the fastest rising search query of the year, meaning it saw the largest spike in searches in 2011. Kiwis were also looking up information on the Japanese earthquake, the rumoured iPhone 5 as well as the curious and viral nek minute video on YouTube.

But the biggest upset of 2011 involved a local lad. Proving that bicep and ball skills trump Bieber fever, golden boy Sonny Bill Williams won out Justin Bieber to be the most popular searched images on Google New Zealand. The rugby player also came third in top news searches as Kiwis turned to Google to find out the latest.

Our appetite for a high calorie diet saw us look up the bunless 1939kj KFC double down burger, which claimed top prize as the most popular food or drink search. Red velvet cupcakes, pizza, macaroons and buttercream icing rounded out the top five.

Here are our top search terms in New Zealand for 2011 -- we’ll be posting our global search terms next week, and we’ll tweet and post on Google+ to let you know!

Fastest rising searches 1. rugby world cup 2. japan earthquake 3. iphone 5 4. Pippa middleton 5. Adele 6. nek minute 7. google plus 8. Amy winehouse 9. Steven tyler 10. Ken Ring	Top image searches 1. Sonny Bill Williams 2. Justin Bieber 3. Katy Perry 4. New Zealand 5. All Blacks 6. Selena Gomez 7. Megan Fox 8. Kim Kardashian 9. Nicki Minaj 10. Christchurch earthquake
Fastest rising people 1. Pippa Middleton 2. Adele 3. Amy Winehouse 4. Steven Tyler 5. Ken Ring 6. Kate Middleton 7. Scarlett Johansson 8. Kimbra 9. Sonny Bill Williams 10. Mark Zuckerberg	Top searches for “what is?” 1. what is love? 2. what is energy? 3. what is culture? 4. what is twitter? 5. what is planking? 6. what is 3g? 7. what is skype? 8. what is gluten? 9. what is matariki? 10. what is html?
Top newsmakers 1. Christchurch earthquake 2. Rugby World Cup 3. Japanese tsunami 4. All Blacks 5. iPhone 6. Sonny Bill Williams 7. Cricket 8. China 9. Warriors 10. Apple	Top food searches 1. double down burger 2. red velvet cupcakes 3. pizza 4. macaroon 5. buttercream icing 6. chocolate cupcakes 7. chocolate brownie 8. peanut butter cookies 9. chicken thigh recipes 10. potato bake
Top travel destinations 1. Hawaii 2. Las Vegas 3. New York 4. Hamilton Island 5. Rarotonga 6. Port Douglas 7. Great barrier reef 8. Maui 9. Byron Bay 10. Fiji	Top Kiwi in news search 1. Sonny Bill Williams 2. Richie Mccaw 3. David Tua 4. Hone Harawira 5. John Key 6. Ken Ring 7. Dan Carter 8. Jonah Lomu 9. Graham Henry 10. Robbie Deans

Posted by Johnny Luu, Public Affairs and Communications Manager, Google New Zealand

My Wish for New Zealand - Doodle 4 Google winner annouced

2011-11-11T17:38:00.002+13:00

After receiving around 2500 doodles from students from across New Zealand, we finally can announce our winning doodle!

Congratulations to Liam Platt of Ponsonby Primary School, whose winning entry was chosen by the original Google doodler Dennis Hwang. Liam’s doodle, which represents his wish for a clean unpolluted environment and the protection of our native creature, will be featured on google.co.nz early next year.

The four age group winners spent yesterday at the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki. Olivia, Liam, Vida and Lucia were given a behind-the-scenes tour of the gallery and its collections with Meg, their tour guide. The four even had time for some doodling in the gallery’s learning centre.

The young doodlers were also shown a special gallery which is exhibiting their own framed doodle artworks. Their doodles will be displayed throughout the month of November for everyone to see.

Thank you to all our thousands of doodlers from across New Zealand, and look out for Liam’s doodle on our homepage.

Liam Platt and his winning doodle

Four national age-group finalists

Posted by Leticia Lentini, Events Marketing Manager, Google New Zealand

Hundreds of New Destinations for Your Virtual Travel Itinerary

2011-11-02T11:18:00.002+13:00

Over the last few years, Google Maps’ Street View service has helped Kiwis plan out routes to new locations, search for real estate online, and pick out visually memorable meeting spots. But you can also use Street View to travel virtually around the world. Global adventurers once shared their photos of far-away destinations with jealous friends, but now with Street View, those friends can walk around the same foreign lands and see famous tourist destinations like they were right there.

Leaning Tower of Pisa, Italy

We have some good news today for New Zealand’s virtual explorers. We have added hundreds and hundreds of new sites around the world for you to explore, ranging from temples in Taiwan, castles in Ireland, French chateaus, and snowy slopes in North American mountain ranges. You can walk around Italy’s iconic Leaning Tower of Pisa and try to find angles where it looks perfectly straight. Or you can lounge around the poolside at Monaco’s Monte Carlo Bay Resort. For years we have had the streets of Amsterdam on Street View, but now you can also enjoy an all-out full-out recreation of The Netherlands in Nagasaki, Japan at the Huis Ten Bosch Theme Park.

Taiwan Confucius Temple, Tainan, Taiwan

Since most of these partner program collections are not on public streets, Google works closely with the location owners to collect the imagery. And with Street View cars being too big and bulky, we use our Street View Trike, a three-wheeled contraption with a mounted Street View camera and a specially decorated box containing image-collecting gadgetry. Learn more about the trike here.

Stay tuned for even more imagery launches in coming months. And all the virtual tourists shouldn’t forget that you can also travel the world’s top art museums in our Google Art Project — and even the Moon!

Posted by Andrew Foster, Product Manager, Google Maps, Australia

Tournament ends with Sonny Bill and Dan on a high note

2011-10-31T20:40:00.001+13:00

If the number of Google searches an individual gets is an indicator of popularity, then Dan Carter and Sonny Bill Williams are at the top of their game – on and off the field!

In a recent search analysis of the tournament’s playmakers, Dan Carter’s groin injury achieved the highest search spike throughout the tournament spanning six weeks, while Sonny Bill Williams achieved the most searches overall, peaking after the opening game “Ripped Shirt” incident.

Searches for Quade Cooper after the Wallabies’ semi-final against the New Zealanders, came in at just 1% under Dan Carter, although Carter was consistently searched more than Cooper over the six weeks.

Deserving captain Richie McCaw peaked in Google searches after Sunday night’s final. IRB Coach of the Year Graeme Henry doesn’t rank at all in the searches, while IRB Player of the Tournament French Thierry Dusautoir only makes the smallest of inroads in search statistics after Les Bleus left the tournament with only second-place medals.

In Google Image searches, Sonny Bill Williams tops searches throughout the tournament by a long way: losing out to Dan Carter only by 4% on October 2 and by 5% after the final, where Carter took the attention of searchers around the world.

Meanwhile, the rest of the world challenged New Zealand in the number of searches for “Rugby”. Fiji is awarded with most searches, with Kiwis searching for the keyword 25% less.

Regional interest in Rugby:

1. Fiji

2. New Zealand

3. South Africa

4. Namibia

5. Ireland

6. United Kingdom

7. Madagascar

8. France

9. Australia

10. Botswana

Posted by Kate Mason, Google Australia and New Zealand Communications

Doodle 4 Google voting open

2011-10-24T13:16:00.002+13:00

Voting has begun to select your favourite Google Doodle. Last week our judges narrowed the thousands of entries to a shortlist of 20. Now is your turn to choose the four national age groups winners.

Voting closes November 2nd.

Posted by Leticia Lentini, Events Marketing Manager, Google New Zealand

Judging Doodle 4 Google

2011-10-18T13:31:00.005+13:00

Earlier this year we announced the popular Doodle 4 Google 2011 competition, which gives New Zealand students the chance to have their version of the Google logo on our homepage and win prizes for their school.

There was excitement in Auckland today as our judges Michael McCormack, Ingrid Berzins and Christa Napier Robertson had the hard job of choosing from 100 finalists to pick our 20 winners. Now it’s up to you to vote for your favourite in each age group and narrow it down to the top four.

(L-R: Christa Napier Robertson, Michael McCormack and Ingrid Berzins)

This year our volunteers who sorted through the 2000 ‘doodles’ that came in were also given a chance to pick their favourite. This special packing room mention goes to 8-year-old Archer Pascoe from Waikari School, who writes about his entry:

“My wish for New Zealand is that we have more kiwis and other native animals and plants. I want it to be kept green and warm. I want to protect our endangered animals. New Zealand is the best place in the world”.

Voting will begin on October 24th so make sure to get voting for your favourite doodle to appear on the Google New Zealand homepage.

To vote for your favourite, visit http://www.google.co.nz/doodle4google.

Posted by Leticia Lentini, Events Marketing Manager, Google New Zealand

Google Earth downloaded more than one billion times

2011-10-06T03:12:00.004+13:00

This is a cross-post from the Google LatLong blog.

How large is one billion? One billion hours ago modern humans were living in the Stone Age. One billion minutes ago, the Roman Empire was flourishing. If you traveled from Earth to the Moon three times, your journey would measure one billion meters.

Today, we’ve reached our own one billion mark: Google Earth has been downloaded more than one billion times since it was first introduced in 2005. That’s more than one billion downloads of the Google Earth desktop client, mobile apps and the Google Earth plug-in—all enabling you to to explore the world in seconds, from Earth to Mars to the ocean floor.

We’re proud of our one billion milestone, but we’re even more amazed at the way people have used Google Earth to explore the world. When we founded Keyhole, Inc. back in 2001 (the company was acquired by Google in 2004), we never imagined our geospatial technology would be used by people in so many unexpected ways. At www.OneWorldManyStories.com, we’ve collected stories from people all over the world who use Google Earth to follow their dreams, discover new and distant places, or make the world a better place.

Visit www.OneWorldManyStories.com to learn about people like Professor David Kennedy of the University of Western Australia, who’s used Google Earth to scan thousands of square kilometers in Saudi Arabia and Jordan. Professor Kennedy has discovered ancient tombs and geoglyphs dating back at least 2,000 years, all without leaving his desk in Perth. Architect Barnaby Gunning, after the April 6, 2009 earthquake near L’Aquila Italy, encouraged his fellow citizens to start rebuilding the city virtually in 3D. Their online urban planning will aid city planners and architects. Retired English teacher Jerome Burg created Google Lit Trips, which uses Google Earth to match places in famous books to their geographical locations, encouraging students to create connections between the stories they read in school and the world they live in.

We hope you enjoy the site, and that it illustrates how some of those one billion downloads of Google Earth have been making a difference. You can explore these stories right in your browser with the Google Earth plug-in or download the KML files to view in Google Earth.

If you have a Google Earth story you’d like to share, we’d love to hear from you. If you don’t have Google Earth, download it now and be part of the next billion stories. While it’s inspiring to see how Google Earth has touched the lives of so many, we know the best is yet to come.

Posted by Brian McClendon, VP of Engineering, Google Earth and Maps

M-Lab and Victoria University help New Zealand get better broadband data

2011-09-28T12:01:00.000+13:00

Suddenly, it's taking forever to reach your bank's website. What’s going on? How do you know whether it's a problem with your device, with the service you're trying to access, with the network, or with something else? The answer for a long time was: you don’t.

Measurement Lab (M-Lab) is trying to change that. M-Lab hosts open source tools that consumers access to measure broadband health and performance. Each test run gives consumers real-time information about their connection. And while they help consumers, they also collect rich data for researchers -- over 400 terabytes, available in the public domain, comprising a treasure trove that allows scientists to do deep analysis of the state of broadband networks.

Now, all of this is available in New Zealand. John Hine, Dean of Engineering at Victoria University of Wellington, understood the need for better data broadband data for researchers and consumers. He and his colleagues, working with local Google engineers, helped set up M-Lab servers in Wellington. With servers close enough to ensure accurate results, New Zealanders can now reliably access and run M-Lab's tests, and New Zealand's research community can dig into robust data about local broadband performance and make data-based suggestions on how to improve broadband performance.

Check out the M-Lab tools and see for yourself.

Posted by Josh Bailey, Google Software Engineer