The Official Google Blog

Celebrate Africa Day through culture and music

Tue, 25 May 2021 10:00:00 +0000

Africa is home to more than 1.5 billion people, and each country, community and person has an incredible story to tell. Through the power of technology, artists and cultural institutions are using online platforms to share their stories and engage with new audiences.

This year, we’re hosting the Africa Day Benefit Concert in collaboration with MTV Base Africa and Idris Elba. We invite you to tune in at 7 PM CAT this evening to experience a musical homage to this amazing continent, and its next generation of pop stars making headlines across the world.

The concert is the culmination of Africa Month, which we’ve celebrated through YouTube Music and Google Arts & Culture. We’ve hosted a live performance by Sauti Sol, a talk on theLeading Women in Music, and the launch of the projectÈkó for Show: Explore Lagos. Music unites Africa, and we hope the concert tonight will bring Africans and people from other parts of the world together to celebrate the continent's roots, rhythms and records.

As we celebrate Africa Day today, we invite you to explore the continent's rich cultural heritage through curated online experiences on YouTube and Google Arts & Culture. We hope Africans and people from all over the world will be inspired by these activities that bring together the continent's roots and rhythms.

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Africa Day Concert hosted by Idris Elba

Step inside Africa’s cultural institutions

There are thousands of iconic museums, galleries and cultural sites in Africa, including Kenya's African Heritage House. Virtually visit 32 cultural institutions across the continent and read over300 expert-curated stories on art, identity, music, fashion, food and more.

Search for your favorite African artist and click on the Art Projector feature to display their artwork in front of you. Start with paintings byAli Omar Ermes, Ben Enwonwu, Mohammed Khadda, Nja Mahdaoui, Wangechi Mutu, William Kentridge and Wosene Worke Kosrof.

Discover more about contemporary African art and its artists by visiting Jean Pigozzi’s Pocket Galleryin augmented reality. Can you spot the paintings by artistChéri Samba and Esther Mahlangu?

Exterior of the African Heritage House, Deidi von Schaewen, African Heritage House

Be inspired by Africa's trailblazing women

Let the voices of women from the past and present inspire you. Meet a courageous freedom fighter, let Mama Nike ignite your creativity, learn about activist Winnie Mandela's bravery, take in the remarkable story ofQueen Tiye and score a goal with a strong women's football team.

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Winnie Madikizela-Mandela

Learn about Kenyan heroes and explore the future

Step back in time with 61 Kenyan heroes and discover how they fought for their communities’ land, freedom and spiritual well-being. Take the quiz to find out who your super alter-ego would be.

Drawing on Afrofuturism, be inspired by artists from the diasporaand Osborne Macharia to create your own Afrofuturist world. Release your inner superpowers and let your imagination be your guide.

Superheroes of Kenya, Shujaa Stories and National Museums of Kenya, 2020

Feel the buzz of Lagos and explore South Africa

Step inside Lagos, Nigeria's most populous city, with Èkó for Show, and let over 100 creatives inspire you. Start singing Afrobeat tunes with Reekado Banks, paint the lagoon withVictor Ehikamenor, meet the stars of Nollywood with Iké Udé and letDavido inspire your taste buds.

Continue your journey to South Africa and feel the urban vibe with musicians Busiswa andMuzi. Let them take you on a personal city tour and learn how Durban and Johannesburg have impacted their lives.

Èkó for Show: Explore Lagos, Google Arts & Culture

Celebrate the power of African literature

Let poet Siphokazi Jonas'love letter to her home country inspire you, and learn more about what identity means to author Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o.Share Africa’s greatest stories by joining the #AfricaReads challenge with YouTube. Share a video of yourself reading a book by your favorite African author, or watch how people across the continent came together to read Lọlá Shónẹ́yìn's novel The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives.

Crack the hieroglyphic code

Still curious about words and languages? We challenge you to crack the hieroglyphic code from Ancient Egypt with the AI-powered toolFabricius.You can also use emojis to create secret codes with friends.

Fabricius: Learn, Play, and Work, Google Arts & Culture

Explore and protect Africa’s wildlife and natural wonders

Africa is home to some of the world's most extraordinary wildlife and nature. Learn more about the importance of conservation with thelast male northern white rhino or join a virtual game to meet Africa's big five: lion, leopard, rhino, elephant and buffalo.

If you’re one for appreciating nature, we invite you to check out the people of Kilwa Kisiwani in Tanzania, and learn how planting mangrove trees and using technology can help save historical ruins and communities.

Addo Elephant National Park, Eastern Cape, South Africa, South African Tourism

Turn your lens on Africa

Join Africa's photographers in capturing and sharing culture in new ways. Be inspired by legendary photojournalist James Barnor, take a look back at 10 years of LagosPhoto Festival and learn how to turn the street into a runway with Stephen Tayo.

Ibeji (brothers), Stephen Tayo, Homecoming, 2019

Explore Black history beyond the continent

African culture has had a transformative impact on the world and keeps fuelling creativity in the diaspora. Join rapper Nas in paying homage to the long tradition of black musicians and storytellers who inspire us to this day. Learn more about Black history and culture in theUnited States, theUnited Kingdom or explore 50 years of black creativity through the exhibitionGet Up, Stand Up Now.

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Celebrating history's Black musicians with Nas

Find out more on YouTube Music and with the Google Arts & Culture app on Android or iOS.

4 things to know about Google Photos' storage policy change

Mon, 24 May 2021 17:15:00 +0000

Six months ago, we announced a change to our High quality storage policy that allows us to keep pace with the growing demand for storage and build Google Photos for the future. On Tuesday, June 1, we’ll start rolling out this change so that any new photos and videos you back up will count toward the free 15GB of storage that comes with every Google Account or the additional storage you’ve purchased as a Google One member.

Before this happens, we want to recap what we announced back in November — and share a couple new things — to make the transition easier.

Your existing High quality photos and videos are exempt from this change: Any photos or videos backed up in High quality before June 1, 2021, will not count toward your Google Account storage. These photos and videos will remain free and exempt from the storage limit.

You have a personalized estimate of how long your storage may last:Your estimate takes into account how frequently you back up photos, videos and other content to your Google Account. We estimate that more than 80 percent of you should still be able to store roughly three more years of memories in High quality with your free 15GB of storage. As your storage nears 15GB, we will notify you in the app and follow up by email. If you don’t see an estimate, you may not have uploaded many photos and videos to Google Photos, you may be close to your storage limit (making it difficult to predict how many months your remaining storage will last) or your account is provided through work, school, family or another group.

You have a new, free tool to easily manage your storage quota: If you want to keep using Photos for free, we can help. Today, we’re starting to roll out a tool in the Photos app to help you easily manage the photos and videos you’ve backed up that count toward your storage quota. The storage management tool surfaces photos or videos you might want to delete — like blurry photos, screenshots and large videos — so you can get the most out of your storage. You can also purchase more storage through Google One where available.

Your storage options will be easier to understand: We are renaming our High quality storage tier to Storage saver, which you’ll start to see soon. While we’re updating the name, your photos and videos will continue to be stored at the same great quality. As always, you have the control to choose the storage option that works best for you, whether that’s storing more photos and videos with Storage saver or backing them up in the same resolution that you took them with Original quality.

We know this is a big change and hope Google Photos continues to be the home for your memories. You can learn more about this change in our Help Center.

The 2021 Doodle for Google national finalists are here

Mon, 24 May 2021 16:00:00 +0000

I’ve worked on the Doodle team at Google for more than five years — and I believe this year’s theme, “I am strong because…” is our most powerful prompt to date. And not just because of the unprecedented pandemic and growing social movements and conversations we’ve seen sweep our nation and world over the last year. This theme also presents an opportunity to not only honor, but also celebrate a more general beautiful truth that we sometimes don’t talk about enough: kids are strong and resilient. And that strength is boundless and inspiring.

We kicked off the 13th annual Doodle for Google contest back in January and invited K-12 students across the country to submit their artistic interpretations of “I am strong because…”. We received tens of thousands of submissions from students in all 50 states, as well as Washington D.C., Guam, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. After carefully reviewing all the submissions, we announced our 54 state winners and opened up public voting on our website. And today, we’re happy to share that the votes are in, the judges have deliberated and drum roll please…we’re ready to announce our five national finalists for the 2021 Doodle for Google contest!

Our finalists were chosen based on a combination of public voting and our judging criteria, including artistic merit, creativity and how well participants communicated the theme in their artwork and written statement. We’re supremely grateful to each of these artists for trusting us with their inspiring stories of inner strength. Meet our finalists:

K-3rd grade National Finalist: Sadra Rajaee, Arizona
Title: Imagination brightens the future
Artist statement:“I am strong because I have an imagination. With my imagination I make my parents laugh and help them through hard times.”

4th-5th grade National Finalist: Elise Then, Oregon
Title:Nature’s Strong-Fold
Artist statement:"In this Doodle, I choose to represent strength found in nature using origami. For example, hummingbirds, the smallest bird in the world, can beat their wings 40 times in the blink of an eye! Nature is a gift where I derive my strength. I must appreciate and care for it."

6th-7th grade National Finalist: Marketa Douglas, Rhode Island
Title:Connections and kindness
Artist statement: “My Doodle shows my grandma and I, connected by one of the only ways of communicating at this time. It’s meant to represent doing your best to be kind and stay strong for others, with the different symbols showing other places I see this strength every day.”

8th-9th grade National Finalist: Kiara Susana Ponce Virella, Puerto Rico
Title:Splash of hope
Artist statement:“I am strong because I got through scoliosis surgery. That's the scar decorating my back. All the canvases that I painted show I grew stronger. Now I'm coming to terms with who I am, and look past my flaws. I may not seem strong, but I am. In my own special way, just like everyone else.”

10th-12th grade National Finalist: Milo Golding, Kentucky
Title:Finding hope
Artist statement:“I am strong because I have hope. I once asked my father how he overcame obstacles and became who he wanted to be. He replied, ‘Hope, hope keeps me strong.’ After I unexpectedly lost him at 13 due to a heart attack, it helped me overcome grief and support other children who lost loved ones.”

Congratulations again to Sadra, Elise, Marketa, Kiara Susana and Milo! As national finalists, our student winners will receive a $5,000 college scholarship, Google hardware for the school year and some fun Googley swag. Check out their artwork, along with all 54 of the state winners on our website gallery.

In the next and final stage of the contest, our judging panel will determine which of our five national finalists will be chosen as the national contest winner. In addition to their artwork being featured on Google’s homepage for 24 hours, they’ll receive a $30,000 scholarship and a $50,000 technology package for their school.

Good luck to our national finalists, and stay tuned to find out who our 2021 contest winner will be!

A Googler’s fight against the “model minority” myth

Mon, 24 May 2021 16:00:00 +0000

Editor's note: Charlene Wang, an associate product manager for Google Play Ads, recently published a book on combating Asian American stereotypes. We sat down with Charlene to talk about her book.

Three years ago, Charlene Wang drafted a letter to her brother Warren in Taipei. He was preparing to move to the United States for college, and she wanted to give him advice. Specifically, she wanted him to know what to expect about the stereotypes that Asian people face in America, and her suggestions for how to navigate those harmful expectations while staying true to himself. “I wanted to share all the things I wish someone had told me when I first came here,” she says.

Eventually, her letter became a book: “Model Breakers: Breaking Through Stereotypes and Embracing Your Authenticity,” which was published in April of this year.

The title is a reference to the pervasive and harmful myth of the “model minority” — the stereotype that Asian American people are naturally smart, studious, successful and docile. While that might sound positive on its surface, the myth is damaging in numerous ways. It pigeonholes Asian people into the stereotype of being hardworking, but lacking the people skills necessary to be good leaders. It groups all Asian people — people from diverse backgrounds and cultures from more than 50 countries — into a monolithic, homogenous group under the assumption that all Asian people have the same advantages or face the same challenges. And the model minority myth also acts as a racial wedge, perpetuating inequality by pitting people of color against one another. “That's why we used ‘Model breaker,’ since it's basically breaking up that model minority myth and turning it into something positive,” Charlene says.

In the book, Charlene explores the challenges she encountered as an Asian immigrant facing racist stereotypes upon moving to the U.S., as well as how she healed from these experiences and found her voice in spite of it all.

One example: After she founded a company in 2016, she had an opportunity to pitch to an investor. But when it was her turn to pitch, he shut her down before she finished. “I introduced myself and I didn't even get to say what I was working on,” she recalls. He told her to take an ESL course and learn to speak English. “He didn't even let me finish. And then I didn't say anything because I didn't know I could. I didn’t know how.”

Over time she says she learned how to speak up for herself when she faced similar situations. A year later, she was invited to attend a conference to help entrepreneurs craft their pitches. She noticed that the person who had invited her seemed to doubt her qualifications. “I knew I needed to do something different,” she recalls. “I knew that if I didn't speak up this time I would be repeating the story, so I wanted to stop the pattern.” She called him out, explained why he was wrong to doubt her — and then she became the most popular speaker at the conference. She says he sent her a long apology email after, acknowledging his error. “He apologized for how he made me feel, and he acknowledged that he has his biases, and he underestimated how much age, or sex, or even other biases hurt you,” she says. The experience was eye-opening for her. “I think that moment really changed the way I think about my voice and my story,” Charlene says. It further motivated her to help others understand the power of their voice and story as well.

Charlene Wang, author of "Model Breakers: Breaking Through Stereotypes and Embracing Your Authenticity"

“The book is the toolkit for how to know yourself, be yourself, tell your own story and take some risks,” she says. The intended audience is young people — high school students, or people just entering the workforce. And her goal is to reach the Asian American community, as well as to raise awareness about challenges that the Asian American community faces.

She originally focused the book on her own personal perspective, but throughout the writing process it evolved to include the voices of other people who have gone through similar things. For research purposes she interviewed nearly 100 people, including Asian immigrants, refugees and Asian Americans representing a variety of ethnicities, as well as non-Asian allies. Interviewing other people helped her to identify common patterns, particularly in how some people may experience and respond to trauma. For instance, roughly 15% of people in the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community struggle with mental health, and her interviews reflected that. So she devoted some chapters to family dynamics and caring for your mental health. Another theme she discovered had to do with risk: Some people she spoke with were afraid to take risks, she says. So she devoted some of the book to the benefits of risk-taking.

Ultimately, her research helped her see the necessity of reframing and reclaiming the narrative of what it means to be Asian in America as a way to dispel the model minority trope while valuing your own authentic self. “The first step is to really know what makes you you, what makes you excited, what values you have — from you, not your family or your parents, but what you love to do,” she says. “And then once you’ve found that, how can you see that in your family, in your work, in your passion. And that requires a lot of experimentation. Everyone is different.”

The book is coming out amid the tragic backdrop of a horrifying increase in anti-Asian violence. But racism and anti-Asian sentiment isn’t new. “People didn’t know these things happened before,” Charlene says. She says she wants to encourage Asian Americans to feel brave enough to continue being themselves, and sharing their stories, in spite of the risks: “How can we help everyone feel secure?” she asks. “How can we help everyone see that they’re already good, that they have value? How do you find things about yourself that are so loveable that you just want to share them with other people?”

Charlene believes that recognizing, accepting and embracing your core values is a key first step to living authentically, in spite of stereotypes or pressure to act or behave a certain way. And she also thinks that celebrating your values and your culture can be deeply inspirational for others in your community. “The stereotype is the backstory,” she says. “You have to tell a better story that inspires you to wake up every day, so you can speak up for yourself. It’s hard and it takes a lot of courage, but know that you're also speaking out for thousands of people.”

Join us for Google for Games Developer Summit 2021

Mon, 24 May 2021 16:00:00 +0000

With a surge of new gamers and an increase in time spent playing games in the last year, it’s more important than ever for game developers to delight and engage players. To help developers with this opportunity, the games teams at Google are back to announce the return of the Google for Games Developer Summit 2021on July 12th-13th.

Hear from experts across Google about new game solutions they’re building to make it easier for you to continue creating great games, connecting with players and scaling your business. Registration is free and open to all game developers.

Register for the free online event at g.co/gamedevsummit to get more details in the coming weeks. We can’t wait to share our latest innovations with the developer community.

Kevin Espiritu’s Epic Gardening grew a business online

Mon, 24 May 2021 16:00:00 +0000

Kevin Espiritu never expected to be a gardener. As an accounting student at UC Santa Barbara, he supported himself by playing online poker. “When I graduated,” he said, “I didn’t know what I wanted to do.” Kevin spent looking at screens, playing professional poker and video games, and realized he needed to do something to “reset” himself. When his brother came home from college, the two decided to spend a summer gardening.

Epic Gardening began as a blog where Kevin shared the cultivation techniques, strategies and tools and he had acquired. And from this garden, Kevin grew a thriving business. At Epic Gardening, he cultivated an enormous social media following, including over 1 million YouTube subscribers. Epic Gardening aims to educate 10 million people worldwide on how to start their gardens right in their backyards. I sat down with Kevin to discuss where his passion came from and how he grew his audience.

Once a single blog, Epic Gardening is now two books, a podcast and a warehouse of supplies.

When you started gardening, it was hard to find beginner’s information. Was that the problem you were trying to solve?

Without growing up as a gardener, there were two issues I noticed. All the terminology was only for gardeners — if you're trying to learn, that's not helpful — and the good information was buried in semi-inaccessible formats. I thought I'd write it in a blog format, which was the prevailing medium at the time.

How did you turn your garden blog into a successful online business?

There were a lot of ups and downs because I didn't know much about monetization. I knew how to get some traffic and build a little community, so I tested different ways to make money online. I ran display ads and created affiliate links to products that I used. Those are two methods that still exist today in Epic Gardening. I had built websites and done marketing, and still hit a ceiling that I couldn't get past. So I went to work for a publishing company. I thought to myself, “If I can't figure out how to make a viable income on my own, I'll go work for someone who can. Then, once I learn enough, I'll jettison out and do Epic Gardening.” I learned a lot about business there before I dedicated myself to Epic Gardening.

What did you learn at the publisher that allowed you to take your business to the next level?

I learned that it matters what you focus on and the order in which you focus on it.

For example, I added links everywhere and tried to blanket the site with affiliate links wherever it made sense. At the publishing company, I saw how focused and targeted they were. I dug into my Amazon affiliate data, and I asked a few questions: “What are the products I'm selling the most of by volume? What are the products I'm selling the most of by price, and how can I either expand that affiliate coverage by writing about a single piece of expensive equipment? Can I cover those in ways that increase the overall footprints and clicks?"

I wrote a couple of articles on hydroponics on how to keep the reservoir cool. The chiller that I use made a nice commission on Amazon. Those two articles are still ticking away, making a decent amount of affiliate commission. That one activity accounted for a 30% increase in revenue.

Kevin is the author of two books, Urban Gardening and Grow Bag Gardening.

How do you decide that 10 million people was the goal?

One thousand came from Kevin Kelly's essay, “One Thousand True Fans.” The idea is that if you have one thousand people who are true fans, they'll buy and support whatever you put out — you can live off that and support yourself doing whatever you like. Then I multiplied that by ten because one thousand is not that many people in the grand scheme of things.

I went to 10,000 when my blog traffic hit one thousand. I went to 100,000when I hit 10,000 subscribers on YouTube and one million once I hit 100,000on YouTube. I went up again, to 100 million, so I should update the website.

Kevin Espiritu is a self-taught gardener who has shared his techniques with estimated 10 million people worldwide.

How did you clone yourself? You're able to manage multiple social media channels, sell physical products, write a book and travel the world.

I wish I could do that. I was writing probably 12 hours a day for months to get the blog up and running. At a certain point, I had enough stuff on the blog, which wasn’t the best use of my time. I needed people to read it, so I hired my first writer, trained her to do what I was doing and focused on promoting the content. When promotion stopped being the best use of time, I moved over to YouTube. I leave a trail of systems and people in my wake that help me keep everything going.

As we sit here today, you have over 60 million views on YouTube and over one million subscribers. How did you get there?

That was a long journey. I was bad at YouTube and I don't really consider myself a YouTuber. The blog existed already and I asked, "What are the most popular blog articles that I have on a search traffic basis?" Then I made videos to better illustrate those concepts. Next, I started to make videos specifically for that audience. Before, I would only green-light a video if it could make sense within the whole ecosystem of Epic Gardening. If it does, that's a bonus. I try to create every piece of content contextual to the platform it's on and the people that are on it. That makes it a lot harder, but obviously, your results are a lot better.

Pixel artists show what "progress" means to them

Mon, 24 May 2021 16:00:00 +0000

^{Photos by Natalia Mantini, MaryV and Tim Kellner}

In her latest piece, "A gente mora por cima e abaixo do perigo," June Canedo documents her family's immigration from Brazil. “The many lessons from my home place and family, which I interpret into objects, are markers of my movement,” she explains. “Often forward but with many detours along the way.”

June Canedo

The same could be said of Google Pixel’s Creator Labs’ latest body of work: The program most recently invited nine artists to explore the idea of progress, captured on Pixel 5.

Like June, photographers MaryV and Andrew Thomas Huang explored heritage in their work, looking at how we carry forward certain traditions. MaryV commemorated her friend Aeron and daughter Becca in Korean Hanboks. Andrew showcased his reconnection to his Chinese ancestry by incorporating Taoist scripture and symbolism; he felt compelled to share an intimate self portrait literally reflecting his self discovery.

From left to right: MaryV's and Andrew Thomas Huang's work.

Two of our artists trekked alone into state parks with their Pixel devices — thanks to exceptional battery life, no extra equipment needed. Tim Kellner captured vibrant images of flora in his piece “Distant” while Natalia Mantini said she wanted to “soothe the viewer with beautiful, meditative imagery amplifying the historical practice of healing through Earth” in her series.

From left to right: Tim Kellner's and Natalia Mantini's work.

Inspired by the motto of his native Jamaica, Anthony Prince Leslie created a piece inviting us all to find common ground.

Anthony Prince Leslie

All of the artists interpreted progress differently, but each left us with a similar feeling — a feeling of forward movement and positive momentum. Creator Labs artists also include Josh Goldenberg (Glassface), Kennedi Carter and Mayan Toledano. You can see examples of their work and more from the artists above on the Pixel Instagram page.

Google News Showcase, now on desktop

Mon, 24 May 2021 15:00:00 +0000

Last year we announced the launch of Google News Showcase, our product and licensing program that pays publishers for bringing their voice and curation into Google’s news products. Backed by a $1 billion investment, we’ve so far launched the product in the U.K., Australia, Germany, Brazil, Argentina, Italy, Czechia and India. Ninety percent of the publishers signed up for News Showcase in more than a dozen countries represent local, regional or community newspapers.

Since we launched, we’ve also released new features like Extended Access, which gives News Showcase readers more opportunities to read select paid content from our publisher partners to show them the value of high-quality news.

Today, we’re announcing a few new features for News Showcase. First, we’re rolling out News Showcase for desktop users of Google News (via news.google.com/showcase). Now every user of Google News, regardless of what device they’re using, can see enhanced story panels from our News Showcase partners. This feature is available in the eight countries where we’ve currently launched News Showcase.

Here’s how readers and publishers will see News Showcase panels working on desktop:

Most people will see News Showcase panels right on their Top Stories page, the first page they land on in Google News. Here, right below the top stories of the day, we’ve added a new carousel containing the latest News Showcase panels from publishers they already follow, as well from publishers they might be interested in.

An example of the desktop experience for Google News Showcase with some of our partners.

For users who want to explore, we’ve added the News Showcase catalog page, accessible directly via the left-side navigation. Here, users can see the latest panels from every participating publisher in their country: both national titles covering issues across the country and throughout the world, and smaller regional and local outlets covering the events closer to the places readers may live and care about.

An example of how Google News Showcase's catalog page will look with some of our partners.

And for users who want to dive deeper, we’ve added a new News Showcase section directly on participating publishers’ landing pages — their homepage within Google News. Here, readers can see all their News Showcase panels: the latest Rundown panel, covering the most important issues for a publisher every day, and their story panels, which give readers deeper context on important articles.

An example of how a News Showcase publishers’ landing page will look.

These desktop experiences will happen seamlessly, and will appear to users without requiring any additional work from our publisher partners.

"Google News Showcase is a valuable resource for publishers like La Voz de San Justo. It allows our editors to select relevant content for our audience in an easy, effective and intuitive way. It's a product with multiple benefits,” says Constanza Martínez, a content manager from La Voz de San Justo, a local publisher in Argentina. “Our editors can update the panels in a heartbeat to keep our audience informed, and after that they are able to get on with other work in the workflow of the newsroom. With Google News Showcase we present premium content to readers in a seamless way, even for a local publisher like us."

We’re also rolling out a new feature within News Showcase panels today. Publishers will be better able to add context around their stories via linked bullet points in their panels. You’ll start to see these new links appear on News Showcase on mobile over the next few weeks.

An example of how the new linked bullets in News Showcase panels will look from a reader perspective.

The goal of News Showcase panels is to help users find new publishers and build strong relationships with them, so they can always find the latest news from a publication they trust. While that is a longer-term goal, we've been encouraged by what we're seeing as we have continued to expand and improve News Showcase. Millions of users are seeing News Showcase panels every day, getting a better understanding of stories right within their news feeds. They’re also clicking through to read the full article on the publisher’s site; we’re now delivering over 10 million clicks per month from News Showcase content.

People continue to tell us they want more from their favorite publishers. Users have tapped the Follow button more than 460,000 times on News Showcase panels (almost double what they were just a few months ago), ensuring they get to see regular updates from their favorite publishers every time they open Google News. We’ll work with publishers to learn more about how people engage with News Showcase to be sure we’re delivering on our long-term goal of strengthening the relationship between readers and publishers.

News Showcase is just one part of Google’s overall commitment to the news industry. We partner with news publishers through the Google News Initiative, offer innovative products like Subscribe with Google to help them earn sustainable revenue, and build tools like those inJournalist Studio to help make it simpler and more affordable to uncover and write stories. High-quality journalism is important to us, to our users and to society as a whole, and we’re dedicated to ensuring a positive future with our products and investments.

New grants help Australian teachers build digital skills

Sat, 22 May 2021 12:15:00 +0000

In a world where technology is evolving rapidly, it’s vital that Australian teachers have the knowledge and access to the resources they need in order to equip students for the future.

For the past ten years, we’ve been contributing to these efforts through Google’s Educator Professional Development Grants program providing teachers with skills and tools to confidently teach computational thinking and computer science concepts. In that time, over 20,000 teachers have benefited from the practical professional development workshops.

This year, our grants aim to bring digital technologies training to teachers in regional and remote communities where access to these opportunities can sometimes be limited.

We’re excited to announce 19 winners across Australia:

The impact of PD Grants for Educators

It’s been inspiring to see teachers build their skills and watch the impact this has had in local communities.

”The ongoing provision of the Google Educator PD grants (3 years) has resulted in us being able to build a solid reputation in the North Queensland region as a provider of excellent quality Digital Technologies Teacher Professional Development,” said Leanne Cameron, a Senior Lecturer at James Cook University. “Additionally, the participants have learnt that they will continue to be supported and updated into the future.”

Last year, COVID-19 delayed many of the ‘hands on’ workshops. But awardees found innovative ways to deliver training safely and sometimes remotely. James Cook University overcame the challenges presented by the pandemic to hold a series of virtual sessions with indigenous students from remote areas, who were able to join from local learning hubs.

Once restrictions had eased, the university was able to bring a group of teachers together from the remote community schools to discuss the curriculum and conduct 'train the trainer' sessions.

“These teachers have now gone back into their communities to share what they have learnt, supported by the workshop leaders in optional weekly online sessions that will continue until the end of the current semester,” said Leanne.

In 2021 James Cook University hopes to use their Educator Grant to offer practical workshops that will complement the more theoretical offerings of last year.

Finding any Cartier watch in under 3 seconds

Fri, 21 May 2021 16:00:00 +0000

Cartier is legendary in the world of luxury — a name that is synonymous with iconic jewelry and watches, timeless design, savoir-faire and exceptional customer service.

Maison Cartier’s collection dates back to the opening of Louis-François Cartier’s very first Paris workshop in 1847. And with over 174 years of history, the Maison’s catalog is extensive, with over a thousand wristwatches, some with only slight variations between them. Finding specific models, or comparing several models at once, could take some time for a sales associate working at one of Cartier’s 265 boutiques — hardly ideal for a brand with a reputation for high-end client service.

In 2020, Cartier turned to Google Cloud to address this challenge.

An impressive collection needs an app to match

Cartier’s goal was to develop an app to help sales associates find any watch in its immense catalog quickly. The app would use an image to find detailed information about any watch the Maison had ever designed (starting with the past decade) and suggest similar-looking watches with possibly different characteristics, such as price.

But creating this app presented some unique challenges for the Cartier team. Visual product search uses artificial intelligence (AI) technology like machine learning algorithms to identify an item (like a Cartier wristwatch) in a picture and return related products. But visual search technology needs to be “trained” with a huge amount of data to recognize a product correctly — in this case, images of the thousands of watches in Cartier’s collections.

As a Maison that has always been driven by its exclusive design, Cartier had very few in-store product images available. The photos that did exist weren’t consistent, varying in backgrounds, lighting, quality and styling. This made it very challenging to create an app that could categorize images correctly.

On top of that, Cartier has very high standards for its client service. For the stores to successfully adopt the app, the visual product search app would need to identify products accurately 90% of the time and ideally return results within five seconds.

Redefining Cartier’s luxury customer experience with AI technology

Working together with Cartier’s team, we helped them build a visual product search system using Google Cloud AI Platform services, including AutoML Vision and Vision API.

The system can recognize a watch’s colors and materials and then use this information to figure out which collection the watch is from. It analyzes an image and comes back with a list of the three watches that look most similar, which sales associates can click on to get more information. The visual product search system identifies watches with 96.5% accuracy and can return results within three seconds.

Now, when customers are interested in a specific Cartier watch, the boutique team can take a picture of the desired model (or use any existing photo of it) and use the app to find its equivalent product page online. The app can also locate products that look similar in the catalog, displaying each item with its own image and a detailed description that customers can explore if the boutique team clicks on it. Sales associates can also send feedback about how relevant the recommendations were so that the Cartier team can continually improve the app. For a deeper understanding of the Cloud and AI technology powering this app, check out this blog post.

High-quality design and service never go out of style

Today, the visual product search app is used across all of the Maison’s global boutiques, helping sales associates find information about any of Cartier’s creations across its catalog. Instead of several minutes, associates can now answer customer questions in seconds. And over time, the Maison hopes to add other helpful features to the app.

The success of this project shows it’s possible to embrace new technology and bring innovation while preserving the quality and services that have established Cartier as a force among luxury brands. With AI technology, the future is looking very bright.

Evolving Dynamic Ad Insertion for the future of streaming

Fri, 21 May 2021 08:00:00 +0000

This past year truly was the year of advanced TV video streaming. Viewers increasingly turned to over-the-top (OTT) streaming platforms for entertainment, like new direct-to-consumer apps and free ad-supported streaming TV services. To help TV programmers and distributors adapt with this growth, we’ve been working on a more flexible approach on how they manage their content workflow and place ads into their streaming solutions.

We built Google Ad Manager’s Dynamic Ad Insertion (DAI) to provide TV partners an end to end solution to deliver broadcast-quality and personalized ad experiences for ad-supported video content. Today we’re reimagining our ad insertion technology for the next generation of video streaming with DAI Pod Serving, which helps simplify OTT streaming complexity by integrating with your existing first or third-party streaming workflow. This evolution of our DAI technology helps the broader streaming ecosystem by giving you and your video platforms more flexibility to manage your streaming workflow and deliver a customized viewing experience so that you can grow your business.

How DAI Pod Serving works

Ad Manager’s DAI has always been an integral part of ad-supported video streaming, helping TV partners power their live and on-demand video (VOD) content across screens. Historically, partners sent their video content through Ad Manager’s DAI, allowing it to decision the ads into an ad pod (or commercial break), transcode and condition creatives into the right format and then stitch the content and ads into a single video stream (also known as manifest manipulation).

With DAI Pod Serving, partners no longer need to send their content to Ad Manager — they own their entire streaming workflow — and Ad Manager provides them with “ready-to-stitch” ad pods they can stitch into their content. TV programmers and distributors have many streaming solution providers to choose from, and with DAI Pod Serving they can integrate Google's ad decisioning technology into their first or third party video streaming solutions.

DAI Pod Serving offers all the same great benefits of DAI, including live scale capacity with prefetching and Early Break Notification, creative transcoding and conditioning, access to all programmatic demand and verification and measurement. Now let’s take a look at how DAI Pod Serving works with partners’ existing video workflows.

Integrating with first-party video streaming solutions

Some TV programmers build their own first-party video streaming solutions, where they own the content management, manifest manipulation and distribution workflow from start to finish. In this example, DAI Pod Serving will decision and condition each commercial break into a ready-to-stitch ad pod that’s in the appropriate format, and then partners can insert the ad pod into their TV content using their own in-house manifest manipulation solution. This provides partners with greater control over their entire video streaming workflow, while DAI Pod Serving delivers high-quality, seamless ads so that partners can grow their video revenue.

“DAI Pod Serving gives us flexibility to continue to use both our in-house video streaming and encoding solutions alongside streams encoded by our partners, while allowing Ad Manager to deliver broadcast-quality ads within MLB.TV live streamed baseball games and other longform content,” says Dan Newberry, Sr. Director, Ad Tech and Operations, Major League Baseball.

Powering ads in third-party video platforms

To help partners increase flexibility and operational efficiencies across their streaming and monetization solutions, DAI Pod Serving can integrate with third-party video streaming platforms. Our first integration is with Verizon Media Platform, a leading provider of OTT video streaming solutions. This meets the needs of partners who use Verizon Media to manage their streaming workflow and use Ad Manager as their video ad server.

This integration provides an additional layer of flexibility for Verizon Media Platform customers using Ad Manager for programmatic demand. For those partners, Verizon Media Platform will stitch the ad pod provided from Ad Manager directly into a unified stream, allowing partners to continue taking advantage of Verizon Media's Smartplay session management technology, and deliver personalized, broadcast-quality streams at scale.

“Our integration with Ad Manager's DAI Pod Serving unlocks value across streaming ecosystems by enabling customers to take advantage of Google's monetization in concert with Verizon Media's personalization, digital rights management and content targeting,” says Scott Goldman, Director, Product Management, Verizon Media Platform.

With this integration, we’re able to further support joint partners like Hearst Television, who use both the Verizon Media Platform for streaming and Ad Manager for ad serving and monetization. Hearst Television can now use Ad Manager to decision their ads for both reservation and programmatic while Verizon Media Platform stitches the ads into their content to provide a high-quality streaming experience to viewers everywhere.

“The integration between Ad Manager and Verizon Media Platform benefits our business by allowing our streaming and monetization solutions to work together so that we can deliver a high-quality streaming experience while maximizing revenue,” says Michael Rosellini, Vice President, Digital Operations, Hearst Television.

This integration allows the video ecosystem to work more closely together for the betterment of video streaming and we look forward to integrating with more partners and video platforms in the future.

Two Googlers meet for the first time at I/O

Thu, 20 May 2021 17:35:00 +0000

Mike Pegg has never missed an I/O. “There’s a magic about it,” he says. “It’s sort of like seeing Google come to life, right?” Mike leads Developer Relations for the Google Maps Platform team, and when we spoke via Google Meet a few days before I/O, he was gearing up to present at the conference from his Bay Area home. Gearing up, literally.

“My tech check for my AMA will happen...right here,” he says looking around his desk at home. “I literally had a suitcase sent to me with all my camera gear and microphones. I even bought some ethernet cabling so I’m not competing with my son’s gaming on our WiFi!”

While Mike’s AMA would broadcast from his home, up until recently he thought he wouldn’t physically make it to I/O this year. Then he heard there would be a (small) audience. “I was so excited to take part, I just wanted to help out in whatever way I could.” Speakers who would be on stage at the Mountain View campus nominated colleagues to be audience members — and Mike was one of about 35 Googlers selected to sit in the audience at I/O.

As was Lamon Bethel, a visual designer. Unlike Mike, Lamon had never been to I/O — in fact, he’d never been to the Mountain View campus. Based in San Francisco, he’s only been working at Google for about nine months. “The invite was sort of mysterious,” Lamon says. “It was like a Friday or Saturday and I was going through my inbox and there was this totally nondescript, cryptic email saying I’d been nominated to sign up to attend I/O.” At first he thought it was a joke — he was so new at Google, and he wasn’t a developer. He signed up anyway and soon enough, found out that he would be on site for I/O with the small audience group.

Audience members each received face masks upon arrival.

Lamon would be diving head first into the world of Google — as well as into the now-unique experience of seeing so many people at the same time. “It was energizing just to be in touch with all the I/O folks throughout the planning process,” he said before the event. “When I’m actually in the presence of other people, and seeing the presenters...I’m so curious what that will feel like!”

When I talked to Mike and Lamon a few days before I/O, it was the first time they “met,” though they knew they would both be in the audience. They don’t work in the same department, so it’s likely that even if they’d been working in offices this year, their paths wouldn’t have crossed. But both of them said they couldn’t wait to be on site at I/O, experiencing an event happening in front of them, in real life.

Of course, they were also just looking forward to meeting. “I can’t wait to meet you, Lamon!” Mike said during our call. “This will be so cool. It will almost be like your first day at Google.”

By all accounts, it was a good one. “The energy of the speakers, the audience members was great — it was such a seamless day,” Lamon says. Lamon got to meet coworkers for the first time, and Mike was reunited with people he’s worked with for years. “It was pretty special to not only reconnect, but also experience the magic of the I/O keynote together!”

And Lamon and Mike also met — in person — even though they were seated at different stages. “But when we had breaks and during lunch and breakfast, we found time to connect,” Lamon says. “He’s someone that I feel like I’ll always have this really unique bond with after having gone through that I/O experience together,” Mike says.

Giant cranes and video games: How I/O went digital

Thu, 20 May 2021 17:00:00 +0000

There’s a sign on the wall behind Andrew Rossi's desk that’s been impossible to ignore during video calls lately. The placard counted down the days until I/O 2021 — and as event lead for Consumer Apps at Google, Andrew is part of a huge team behind the whole production. While it now reads “0,” the purposefully placed sign was visible during the many virtual meetings he had with people all across Google in the run-up to an entirely different kind of I/O.

I/O is a major undertaking under normal circumstances, and it took a unique brand of elbow grease this year. But after I/O 2020 was canceled due to the pandemic, Google’s developer relations and marketing teams couldn’t let another year pass without it.

“Apps and the web became even more integrated into our daily lives over the past year,” says VP of Engineering Jason Titus. “They helped us stay healthy, connected and productive — and this served to spotlight how developers were really part of helping us adapt to the challenges of 2020.”

Planning for this year’s event began nearly as soon as I/O 2020 was canceled. The team agreed on an event primarily focused on live broadcast but that also offered flexibility for participants, while also respecting how different parts of the world were experiencing the pandemic. It would be a three-day digital event, with a mix of live keynotes, pre-recorded technical sessions and interactive features — and it would be unlike anything Google had created before.

Online, everyone’s invited

Taking the event virtual had a big upside: More of Google’s global developer community could attend, for free. This year, there were 225,000 registrations, mostly from outside the U.S.

“Going digital meant we had the freedom to think of new ways to deliver technical content,” says Elizabeth Cha, who leads developer marketing. “It seemed the best way to be helpful to developers this year was to give greater access to our technical experts and let the developer community support one another. So beyond the usual technical sessions and Codelabs, we're offering Ask Me Anything (AMA) sessions, instructor-led workshops and meetups.”

A video technician tests out one of the at-home recording kits sent to presenters so they could record their talks from home.

Just like an in-person event involves crowd control and line management, a digital event requires building the infrastructure so everyone can participate. The team took the opportunity to make other improvements for accessibility and inclusivity — including an American Sign Language option for the two main keynotes, a first.

“This year, instead of the online experience accompanying the physical event, the online experience is the event,” says Developer Relations Product Manager Ilen Zazueta-Hall. “Scaling the event was a coordinated effort — we had to rethink so much. Like how do we scale workshops? How many languages do we translate technical content into? How do we make sure it’s accessible, and that people can connect?”

Live, from Google I/O

While online development was crucial, there was also the challenge of broadcasting live. The team wanted to keep keynotes live because, among other things, digital burnout was a factor. “We’re all sick of sitting down in front of a screen,” VP of Marketing Marvin Chow says. The best way to fight this fatigue was with live video. “When it’s taped, you don’t get that same authenticity and connection.”

The production crew films the keynote dress rehearsal.

Going live was a complex process. First, Andrew and his team had to find a location. Originally, the idea was to film from Shoreline Amphitheatre, Google I/O’s home since 2016, but that was quickly dismissed. The venue, which can fit more than 22,000 people, would have felt eerie without thousands of attendees.

So the team settled instead on Google’s “Quad” campus in Mountain View. That, too, came with unknowns. “You can’t just throw a stage on campus, because the sun would just beat down on everyone,” Andrew explains. So the team brought in giant cranes to cover the area. “We tracked things like how much the wind blows on an average day.”

Googlers in the I/O audience.

In addition to two stages and space for production crews, the quad could accommodate a small, socially distanced audience. “We realized we could get 15 people around one stage and 19 around another,” Andrew says. This would give presenters something to look at, and bring some energy to the broadcast. Presenters nominated fellow Googlers, so they would see familiar faces. Audience members agreed to a list of COVID-19-related requirements as well as sitting through two rehearsals in case production needed to use backup film. No phones or laptops were permitted the entire time.

But the work was well worth it: Googlers were excited to head to campus for I/O — and each other. In some cases, colleagues even met in person for the first time.

Googlers gather at the dress rehearsal the day before the keynote.

For everyone who couldn’t go, there was an online Adventure.

Adventure awaits

A significant draw of I/O for developers is everything that happens IRL. “You know when you’re in line for food and you strike up a conversation with someone?” Elizabeth says. “And you find out you’re both working on the same problem or interested in similar topics and then ideas start pouring in — that’s what I/O is about.”

Enter I/O Adventure, a reimagining of what it’s like to actually be there and get your "hands on" the latest technology, complete with virtual product demos and hangout spaces where you can meet and chat with other developers. Adventure was developer advocate Tom Greenaway’s idea; he’d come up with it as a way for attendees to join in during Chrome Developer Summit (CDS) last December. It was a success, so the team decided to bring it to I/O.

I/O attendees gathering inside I/O Adventure. Participants can interact with over 450 pieces of unique product content — like technical demos, videos and codelabs — and earn up to 140 pieces of virtual swag.

Tom, along with a small team of designers and programmers, collaborated with various Google product departments to craft experiences inside the game. Machine learning and AI, for example, have a musical forest where trees transform into instruments as you bump into them. “As they change, collaboratively, people all over the world will make music together,” Tom says. And Google engineers had special help testing the product — from their kids. “They did about two hours of testing in all over a weekend,” says Elizabeth, whose own children assisted. “And they wanted to play more!”

Elizabeth’s kids test out I/O Adventure.

Invention...and Easter eggs

Appropriately for an event that celebrates developer creativity, inventiveness is a theme that runs throughout everything the team did to make I/O happen this year. “I/O 2021 was about meeting developers where they are and making it easier for them to innovate quickly,” Jason says. In such a daunting year,it was increasingly clear how much the world needs builders. “By helping developers, we help everyone who uses the technology they build.”

And of course, what would any Google project be without a few Easter eggs? “Do you know the Konami Code?” Tom asked during a recent demo of Adventure. “It’s up, up, down — ” ...actually, you’ll just have to find out for yourself.

16 updates from Google I/O that’ll make your life easier

Thu, 20 May 2021 16:00:00 +0000

Part of our mission is to help make your daily life easier. At I/O this year, we shared news about a wide range of products and services that’ll do just that, from starting your car with your phone to searching your screenshots using Google Lens. Here are just a few of the features you should keep an eye out for.

Quickly view your notifications, invoke Google Assistant on Android.

Android 12 includes the biggest design change since 2014. We rethought the entire experience, from the colors to the shapes, light and motion, and made it easier to access some of the most used features:

To invoke Google Assistant wherever you are, long press the power button.
Swipe down to view your new notification shade, an at-a-glance view of all your app notifications in one place.
And to make it easier to access everything you need, Google Pay and Device Controls have been added to your customizable quick settings.

Learn about all the big changes in Android 12.

Manage your privacy settings more easily on Android.

On top of the new design changes, we’ve also launched a new Privacy Dashboard, giving you easy access to your permissions settings, visibility into what data is being accessed and the ability to revoke permissions on the spot. You also have new indicators that let you know when apps are using your microphone and camera, as well as a way to quickly shut off that access. And we’ve added new microphone and camera toggles into quick settings so you can easily remove app access to these sensors for the entire system. Learn about new privacy controls in Android 12.

Change the channel with your phone.

Lost your TV remote? Don’t sweat it — we’re building remote-control features directly into your Android phone. Another bonus: If you need to enter a long password to log into one of your many streaming services subscriptions, you can save time and use your phone’s keyboard to enter the text. This built-in remote control will be compatible with devices powered by Android TV OS, including Google TV, and it’ll roll out later this year. Learn more about how we’re helping your devices work better together.

Use your phone to enter your password for your streaming services.

And unlock your car with your phone while you’re at it.

We’re working with car manufacturers to develop a new digital car key in Android 12. This feature will enable you to use your phone to lock, unlock and even start your car — and in some cases you won’t even need to take it out of your pocket. And because it’s digital, you’ll also be able to securely and remotely share your car key with friends and family if needed. Read more about Android Auto.

Understand more about your Search results.

When you’re looking up information online, it’s important to check how credible a source is, especially if you aren’t familiar with the website. Our About This Result feature in Google Search provides details about a website before you visit it, including its description, when it was first indexed and whether your connection to the site is secure. This month, we’ll start rolling out About This Result to all English results worldwide, with more languages to come. And later this year, we’re going to add even more helpful contextual details — like how the site describes itself, what other sources are saying about it and related articles to check out.

Change your password using Chrome and Assistant.

Chrome on Android will help you change your passwords with a simple click. On supported sites, whenever you check your passwords and Chrome finds a password that may have been compromised, you will see a "Change password" button from Assistant. Powered by Duplex on the Web, Assistant will not only navigate to the site, but actually go through the entire process of changing your password for you. This feature is already available for purchasing movie tickets, ordering food, and checking into flights.

Use Google Lens to translate your homework into a language you’re more comfortable with.

Google Lens enables you to search what you see — from your camera, your photos and even your search bar. For a lot of students, their schoolwork might be in a language they’re not as comfortable with. That’s why we’re updating the Translate filter in Lens, making it easy to copy, listen to or search translated text in over 100 languages. Learn more about how information comes to life with Lens and AR.

And search your screenshots with Google Lens.

Lots of people take screenshots of things they’re interested in buying — but it can be hard to follow up on those screenshots afterward. Now when you look at any screenshot in Google Photos, we’ll prompt you to search the photo with Lens. This will help you find that pair of shoes or wallpaper pattern that you liked so much.

Search your screenshots using Google Lens.

When shopping online, keep track of your open carts when you open a new tab.

Raise your hand if this has ever happened to you: You’ve got a browser open to do some online shopping, but then you get distracted and open up two, three, or 10 other windows — and you forget what you were online to do in the first place. We’re introducing a new feature in Chrome that shows you your open carts when you open a new tab. No more lost shopping carts here.

And get the best value for products you’re buying online.

Coming soon, we’ll let you link your favorite loyalty programs from merchants like Sephora to your Google account to show you the best purchase options across Google. Learn more about all our latest shopping updates.

Explore unfamiliar neighborhoods with more detailed views in Maps.

If you’re traveling by foot, augmented reality in Live View will show you helpful details about the shops and restaurants around you – including how busy they are, and recent reviews and photos. And if you’re traveling, Live View will tell you where you are relative to your hotel – so you can always find your way back.

Avoid the crowds with area busyness.

Maps already shows the busyness of specific places — in fact, more than 80 million people use the live busyness information on Google every day. Now we’re expanding that functionality to show the busyness of an entire area, allowing you to see just how bustling a neighborhood or part of town is at any given moment. This means that if you want to keep things low-key, you can use Maps to see the hotspots to avoid. And if you’re looking for the most popular places to visit, you can use area busyness to scope out the liveliest neighborhoods at a glance.

See breakfast spots in the morning and dinner joints at night.

We’re updating Maps to show you more relevant information based on what time of day it is and whether you’re traveling. That means we’ll show you things like coffee shops in the morning, when you need that caffeine fix, and burger joints at night, when you’re hungry for dinner. And if you’re on a weekend getaway, we’ll make tourist attractions and local landmarks easier to spot. Learn more about our latest updates to Maps.

Discover unexpected Memories in Photos.

Starting later this summer, when we find a set of three or more photos with similarities like shape or color, we'll highlight these little patterns for you in your Memories. For example, Photos might surface a pattern of your family hanging out on the same couch over the years — something you wouldn’t have ever thought to search for, but that tells a deeply meaningful story about your daily life. Learn more about Little patterns in Photos.

Bring your pictures to life with Cinematic moments.

When you’re trying to get the perfect photo, you usually take the same shot two or three (or twenty) times. Using neural networks, we can take two nearly identical images and fill in the gaps by creating new frames in between. This creates vivid, moving images called Cinematic moments. Producing this effect from scratch would take professional animators hours, but with machine learning we can automatically generate these moments and bring them to your Recent Highlights. Learn more about Cinematic moments.

Cinematic moments will bring your photos to life.

Transform how you work with smart canvas in Google Workspace.

As part of our mission to build the future of work, we’re launching smart canvas, a bunch of exciting updates across Docs, Sheets and Meet. New features include interactive building blocks—smart chips, templates, and checklists—as well as a new pageless format in Docs and emoji reactions. We're also bringing Meet closer to Docs, Sheets and Slides, and much more. See all of the big updates to Google Workspace.

Innovating and advocating for accessible classrooms

Thu, 20 May 2021 16:00:00 +0000

We’re continually working to improve access to inclusive tools, from building two free screen readers into Chromebooks to providing voice typing and live captions with Google Workspace for Education. But as far as we’ve all come in bringing accessible teaching and learning tools into our classrooms, there is always more to do about digital inclusion.

Today, on Global Accessibility Awareness Day, we at Google want to celebrate the great work that teachers have done to bring acceptance and inclusion into their schools — while we commit ourselves to more innovation with and for people with disabilities in the future.For example, we’re celebrating people like Chang-Dong Ryu, who teaches history at Seohyun Middle School in South Korea. Ryu is blind, and uses Google Classroom’s accessibility features to teach his students deeper lessons about acceptance and ability. “What I can do best is teach my students that value that comes with being ‘different,’” Ryu told us in a video we shared in February. “That way, when my students meet new friends and colleagues with visual impairments, they will accept them into their community as equals.”

We’re continuing to tell more stories of educators and students with disabilities, and show more representation across our community, as we build with and for people with disabilities.

Image of woman and her young son who wears glasses lay on his bed using a Chromebook for schoolwork.
Rory and Tricia Concepcion, a mother and son with a cognitive disability, have been distance learning this past year using Chromebooks.
A woman who is blind or low vision lays on a blanket with her seeing eye dog, using her Android phone to use the TalkBack feature.
Bobbi Pompey, who has vision loss, lays in a park using TalkBack on Android.
Googler Aubrie Lee is sitting at her desk in her wheelchair, gesturing at her Chromebook device as she attends a work meeting.
Aubrie Lee, Googler and disability rights activist, uses Google Meet on her Chromebook to connect with colleagues.

Building a more inclusive Chrome OS

In keeping with our goal to learn from users of our accessibility tools, and to give people with disabilities an even playing field, we continue to build new tools for accessibility in Google for Education solutions, with and for people with disabilities. Here are a selection of the latest features, all available on your Chromebook today:

Live captioning:Chrome Browser now has a Live Caption feature that automatically provides real-time captions for media with audio. The live captioning works with social media and video sites, podcasts and radio content, personal video libraries (such as Google Photos) and embedded video players. For students with hearing disabilities, the captions help improve accessibility of online content. In a noisy classroom environment, or one where students need to keep volume low on their school devices, the captions are helpful for any students. To turn on Live Caption, go to Chromebook settings, then “Accessibility.”

Mouse panning: Chrome OS now offers centered mouse panning. This means that when students and teachers with vision disabilities are using the full-screen magnifier, they can now move the viewport while keeping the mouse or trackpad close to, or directly on, the center of the screen. This makes it much easier to navigate around the screen, as users don’t need to move the mouse to the edge of the screen to move the zoomed-in area – much better for accessing all learning content.

Activating ChromeVox:For users of ChromeVox, the screen reader that’s built into Chromebooks, the first time they open up a Chromebook, after 20 seconds of inactivity, they’ll hear audio and visual instructions for activating ChromeVox. For students and teachers who need screen readers but haven't yet used ChromeVox, there is a new tutorial available after turning on the screen reader for the first time, and is available in ChromeVox settings. The instructions are very helpful for getting started without hesitation.

Image descriptions on Android:For people who use screen readers on Chromebooks, the “get image descriptions” feature provides descriptions of unlabeled images, such as those that don’t have alt text. This feature will soon be brought to Android devices. When students with vision disabilities are using Chromebooks or Android phones or tablets to access online content, they’ll be able to have a better understanding of the images they come across, similar to their sighted classmates.

Forced colors:For students using the Chrome Browser on Windows who need high contrast in order to read text and see image details, Chrome now supports Windows' OS level high contrast settings. The extension lets people choose filters to adjust color contrast, flip black and white or remove colors altogether.

Enhanced Select-to-speak:As mentioned in Chromebook's 10th birthday post, new features let students and teachers speed up, slow down and pause the reading voice in real-time, and easily jump to different sections of text. Students with disabilities —or anyone who needs help comprehending a challenging reading assignment — can use these new Select-to-speak features to listen at their own pace.

To learn more about the accessibility tools built into Chromebooks and Google Workspace for Education, check out edu.google.com/accessibility, share this one pager, watch video tutorials on accessibility features, or learn more on our Help Center.

11 ways we're innovating with AI

Thu, 20 May 2021 15:57:00 +0000

AI is integral to so much of the work we do at Google. Fundamental advances in computing are helping us confront some of the greatest challenges of this century, like climate change. Meanwhile, AI is also powering updates across our products, including Search, Maps and Photos — demonstrating how machine learning can improve your life in both big and small ways.

In case you missed it, here are some of the AI-powered updates we announced at Google I/O.

LaMDA is a breakthrough in natural language understanding for dialogue.

Human conversations are surprisingly complex. They’re grounded in concepts we’ve learned throughout our lives; are composed of responses that are both sensible and specific; and unfold in an open-ended manner. LaMDA — short for “Language Model for Dialogue Applications” — is a machine learning model designed for dialogue and built on Transformer, a neural network architecture that Google invented and open-sourced. We think that this early-stage research could unlock more natural ways of interacting with technology and entirely new categories of helpful applications. Learn more about LaMDA.

And MUM, our new AI language model, will eventually help make Google Search a lot smarter.

In 2019 we launched BERT, a Transformer AI model that can better understand the intent behind your Search queries. Multitask Unified Model (MUM), our latest milestone, is 1000x more powerful than BERT. It can learn across 75 languages at once (most AI models train on one language at a time), and it can understand information across text, images, video and more. We’re still in the early days of exploring MUM, but the goal is that one day you’ll be able to type a long, information-dense, and natural sounding query like “I’ve hiked Mt. Adams and now want to hike Mt. Fuji next fall, what should I do differently to prepare?” and more quickly find relevant information you need. Learn more about MUM.

Project Starline will help you feel like you’re there, together.

Imagine looking through a sort of magic window. And through that window, you see another person, life-size, and in three dimensions. You can talk naturally, gesture and make eye contact.

A woman communicates with her sister and baby using Project Starline.
We brought in people to reconnect using Project Starline.
A woman communicates with her friend using Project Starline.
We brought in people to reconnect using Project Starline.
A woman and a man communicate using sign language using Project Starline.
We brought in people to reconnect using Project Starline.
A woman communicates with her friend using Project Starline.
We brought in people to reconnect using Project Starline.

Project Starline is a technology project that combines advances in hardware and software to enable friends, family and co-workers to feel together, even when they're cities (or countries) apart. To create this experience, we’re applying research in computer vision, machine learning, spatial audio and real-time compression. And we’ve developed a light field display system that creates a sense of volume and depth without needing additional glasses or headsets. It feels like someone is sitting just across from you, like they’re right there. Learn more about Project Starline.

Within a decade, we’ll build the world’s first useful, error-corrected quantum computer. And our new Quantum AI campus is where it’ll happen.

Confronting many of the world’s greatest challenges, from climate change to the next pandemic, will require a new kind of computing. A useful, error-corrected quantum computer will allow us to mirror the complexity of nature, enabling us to develop new materials, better batteries, more effective medicines and more. Our new Quantum AI campus — home to research offices, a fabrication facility, and our first quantum data center — will help us build that computer before the end of the decade. Learn more about our work on the Quantum AI campus.

Maps will help reduce hard-braking moments while you drive.

Soon, Google Maps will use machine learning to reduce your chances of experiencing hard-braking moments — incidents where you slam hard on your brakes, caused by things like sudden traffic jams or confusion about which highway exit to take.

When you get directions in Maps, we calculate your route based on a lot of factors, like how many lanes a road has or how direct the route is. With this update, we’ll also factor in the likelihood of hard-braking. Maps will identify the two fastest route options for you, and then we’ll automatically recommend the one with fewer hard-braking moments (as long as your ETA is roughly the same). We believe these changes have the potential to eliminate over 100 million hard-braking events in routes driven with Google Maps each year. Learn more about our updates to Maps.

Your Memories in Google Photos will become even more personalized.

With Memories, you can already look back on important photos from years past or highlights from the last week. Using machine learning, we’ll soon be able to identify the less-obvious patterns in your photos. Starting later this summer, when we find a set of three or more photos with similarities like shape or color, we'll highlight these little patterns for you in your Memories. For example, Photos might identify a pattern of your family hanging out on the same couch over the years — something you wouldn’t have ever thought to search for, but that tells a meaningful story about your daily life. Learn more about our updates to Google Photos.

And Cinematic moments will bring your pictures to life.

When you’re trying to get the perfect photo, you usually take the same shot two or three (or 20) times. Using neural networks, we can take two nearly identical images and fill in the gaps by creating new frames in between. This creates vivid, moving images called Cinematic moments.

Producing this effect from scratch would take professional animators hours, but with machine learning we can automatically generate these moments and bring them to your Recent Highlights. Best of all, you don’t need a specific phone; Cinematic moments will come to everyone across Android and iOS. Learn more about Cinematic moments in Google Photos.

Cinematic moments bring your pictures to life, thanks to AI.

New features in Google Workspace help make collaboration more inclusive.

In Google Workspace, assisted writing will suggest more inclusive language when applicable. For example, it may recommend that you use the word “chairperson” instead of “chairman” or “mail carrier'' instead of “mailman.” It can also give you other stylistic suggestions to avoid passive voice and offensive language, which can speed up editing and help make your writing stronger. Learn more about our updates to Workspace.

Google Shopping shows you the best products for your particular needs, thanks to our Shopping Graph.

To help shoppers find what they’re looking for, we need to have a deep understanding of all the products that are available, based on information from images, videos, online reviews and even inventory in local stores. Enter the Shopping Graph: our AI-enhanced model tracks products, sellers, brands, reviews, product information and inventory data — as well as how all these attributes relate to one another. With people shopping across Google more than a billion times a day, the Shopping Graph makes those sessions more helpful by connecting people with over 24 billion listings from millions of merchants across the web. Learn how we’re working with merchants to give you more ways to shop.

A dermatology assist tool can help you figure out what’s going on with your skin.

Each year we see billions of Google Searches related to skin, nail and hair issues, but it can be difficult to describe what you’re seeing on your skin through words alone.

With our CE marked AI-powered dermatology assist tool, a web-based application that we aim to make available for early testing in the EU later this year, it’s easier to figure out what might be going on with your skin. Simply use your phone’s camera to take three images of the skin, hair or nail concern from different angles. You’ll then be asked questions about your skin type, how long you’ve had the issue and other symptoms that help the AI to narrow down the possibilities. The AI model analyzes all of this information and draws from its knowledge of 288 conditions to give you a list of possible conditions that you can then research further. It’s not meant to be a replacement for diagnosis, but rather a good place to start. Learn more about our AI-powered dermatology assist tool.

And AI could help improve screening for tuberculosis.

Tuberculosis (TB) is one of the leading causes of death worldwide, infecting 10 million people per year and disproportionately impacting people in low-to-middle-income countries. It’s also really tough to diagnose early because of how similar symptoms are to other respiratory diseases. Chest X-rays help with diagnosis, but experts aren’t always available to read the results. That’s why the World Health Organization (WHO) recently recommended using technology to help with screening and triaging for TB. Researchers at Google are exploring how AI can be used to identify potential TB patients for follow-up testing, hoping to catch the disease early and work to eradicate it. Learn more about our ongoing research into tuberculosis screening.

New ways to grow your app business and connect with users

Thu, 20 May 2021 13:00:00 +0000

Apps have transformed the way billions of people engage with the world — making it more convenient to play your favorite game, stay connected with loved ones and buy everyday essentials. In fact, our new research shows that 63% of consumers will continue to seek out the best app experiences even once stores reopen.

But as the demand for apps grows, it's increasingly challenging for developers to get their app discovered and convert new users into loyal customers. That’s why today, we’re sharing new ways to reach more people, activate insights to help improve performance and keep your valuable users coming back.

Connect with more users where
they are

App campaigns make it easy for you to reach new app users across Search, YouTube, Google Play, Discover and over three million other sites and apps.

People are increasingly moving across multiple devices to get stuff done. Even as mobile usage continues to surge, worldwide, 46% of total time on websites is spent on desktop, and we want to help you meet consumers where they are. Starting in June, we are expanding the reach of App campaigns on Android to users in the desktop versions of Google.com and the Google Display Network.

If a user clicks on your app ad in her desktop browser, she will be directed to the Google Play Store desktop website. From there, she can choose to install your app directly onto any Android device linked to her Play account.

Reach users on desktop with App campaigns on Android.

No additional action is required if you are already running App campaigns on Android today. Desktop traffic and performance for your app ads will automatically show under “Computers” in your campaign reports.

Activate insights to help improve performance

Connecting with new users is a critical first step in the life cycle of growing your app business. But it’s important to understand what happens after the first install by measuring the right in-app events.

With the Google Analytics for Firebase SDK, you can measure events that matter to your business and get important insights about how your users engage with your app. Previously, both coding and an app update were required if you wanted to create a custom in-app event, like logging a “purchase” when users reach your confirmation screen. We’re now introducing event creation and modification directly from the Analytics interface so you can configure the right in-app events based on your marketing objectives — without requiring any code updates.

Make changes to events directly in the Google Analytics interface.

Now, you can change an event name or parameters, or create new ones without any developer resources required. With the ability to quickly make adjustments to your event schema, you can ensure you always capture the most relevant conversion events for your app.

Once you’re measuring all the right events, you can improve performance by bidding on your Analytics conversions in App campaigns. According to internal data, we found that the median campaign that switched to using Google Analytics for Firebase conversions for bidding saw a 13% increase in installs and a 20% increase in in-app events, with no significant change to cost per conversion.

And we’re seeing success across the industry — Just Eat Takeaway.com, a leading global online food delivery marketplace, saw a 20% increase in app orders and a 15% decrease in cost per order after migrating to Google Analytics for Firebase for bidding.

To learn more about new capabilities with the Google Analytics for Firebase SDK, watch our Google I/O technical session.

Keep your valuable customers coming back

Loyal customers stick with brands that make it easy for them to get things done. Deep linking brings users into specific places in your app to make it easier for them to find what they’re looking for, whether it’s buying a new product, booking a trip or jumping back into their favorite game. This helps improve your ad performance — on average, deep linked ad experiences drive two times the conversion rates.

Shopee, a Singaporean e-commerce company, boosted their checkouts by 126% by using deep links to send traffic to the app if customers already had it installed.

Take app users directly to the products they want to see with deep linking.

But we’ve heard that getting started with deep linking isn’t easy — it takes collaboration with technical teams to create joint KPIs and to prioritize key updates.

To make it easier for you to work with your developers, this week we announced adeep link validator and impact calculator at Google I/O.

Marketers can use these tools in Google Ads to see which types of deep links they have, how to fix ones that aren’t working and estimate the ROI opportunity of implementing deep links. For a deep dive into each tool, visit our Google I/O technical session.

See how implementing deep links can boost your ROI.

App deep linking directs customers to the right content in your app to take action, often leading to more conversions. But the path is not always linear — people search across various sites and apps before taking action, which makes it harder to pinpoint which ad drove a conversion. That's why we're introducing data-driven attribution (DDA) for deep linked campaigns to help you understand which channels and ad interactions are most influential to driving conversions.

For example, let's say you're a retailer and you want to see what led your customer to buy a pair of sandals from your app. Now you can identify which specific mobile web ad clicks led your customer into your app to complete the purchase. This helps you make bidding for your web campaigns more effective by giving it a more complete understanding of performance that includes in-app conversions.

Assign credit to the actions that drove your conversions across web and apps.

To get started, you can reach out to your account manager to sign up for the beta or visit our Help Center.

To learn more about how you can reach more people, activate insights to help improve performance and keep your valuable users coming back, visit our Advertising Solutions Center.

Welcome to the new Google Store in NYC

Thu, 20 May 2021 13:00:00 +0000

Today, we’re announcing our plans to open Google’s first ever physical retail store, in one of the greatest cities in the world: New York. The new Google Store in Chelsea will be a space where customers can experience our hardware and services in a helpful way. We’ll be opening our doors to the public in summer 2021.

What’s inside?

At the Google Store, customers will be able to browse and buy an extensive selection of products made by Google, ranging from Pixel phones to Nest products, Fitbit devices to Pixelbooks and more. Or they can shop online at GoogleStore.com and pick up their orders in store. Throughout the store, visitors will be able to experience how our products and services work together in a variety of immersive ways, which we’re excited to share more about when the doors open.

We’ll have experts on hand to help visitors get the most out of their device, such as troubleshooting an issue, fixing a cracked Pixel screen or helping with installations. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a longtime Pixel user, are curious about our Nest displays or want to participate in one of the how-to workshops we’ll offer throughout the year — our team will be able to provide you with help that’s specific and personalized to your needs.

Health and safety first

Our expectations of how we shop have changed significantly, and forever, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many customers still want to experience hardware before they buy it — and learn what it feels like, sounds like and looks like in their hand or on a desk. But in-store shopping might look a bit different than what customers are used to, and that’s okay. The health and safety of customers and store team is our top priority, and we’ve built our store and shopping experience with that in mind and an eye towards the future.

Masks, hand sanitation and social distancing will be required in the Google Store, and we’ll clean all spaces multiple times a day. The number of guests inside will be limited to ensure our customers feel safe during their shopping experience, and easy pickup options will also be available. We will continue to closely follow the guidance of the local and national authorities to adapt our health and safety procedures as needed.

Why New York?

The Google Store Chelsea will be part of our urban campus in the Chelsea neighborhood, which is home to many of our 11,000+ Google NYC employees. Google has been in New York for the last 20 years, and we view the store as a natural extension of our longtime commitment to the city.

The new Google Store is an important next step in our hardware journey of providing the most helpful experience of Google, wherever and whenever people need it. We look forward to meeting many of our customers and hearing their feedback on the store, so we can continue to explore and experiment with the possibilities of a physical retail space and build upon the experience.

For updates on our very first physical retail store, you can visit store.google.com/Chelsea. We hope to see you this summer!

The beat goes on: Using AI to build a drumming prosthetic

Thu, 20 May 2021 13:00:00 +0000

Since he was young, Jason Barnes loved drumming. But when he lost his arm in an accident at the age of 22, he wasn’t sure if he’d ever drum again. Since typical prosthetics weren’t built with drumming in mind, he couldn’t quite keep rhythm in the way he wanted to. His goal was to build a robotic drumming prosthetic that could.

Jason worked with a team of researchers and developers to use artificial intelligence (AI), specifically Google’s open source machine learning platform TensorFlow, to build a prosthetic arm that would let him keep creating music as naturally as possible. Ultimately, his drive to keep playing music helped push an entire area of research forward to help build better products for the more than a billion people around the world with a disability.

We chatted with Jason to learn more about building a prosthetic that helped him keep making music and the importance of building accessible technology. If you’re interested in learning more about our recent accessibility work or tips for designing more accessible products, you can watch on-demand sessions from I/O, our annual developer conference.

How did you find music and what was your journey to becoming a musician?

I found my love of music through my dad and random jam sessions in the garage. It was one of the first things in life that actually interested me. My love for music grew and led me down a bunch of other paths, playing in multiple bands and different genres of music.

What inspired this project?

I was in my first private music lesson with Eric Sanders, a drum instructor at the Atlanta Institute of Music. I explained this idea I had of making an AI-powered drumming prosthesis. He thought it was a super cool idea and connected me to Gil Weinberg, a professor at Georgia Tech Center for Music Technology, and his students. One thing led to another and within a week Gil reached out and was interested in the project.

What was it like to work with this team to build technology that fit your needs as a musician?

A lot of the people working on this project came from a more technological background. Even if they were musicians, they weren’t necessarily drummers. It was challenging to fuse those different worlds together to figure out how to make this applicable for a drummer and also meet the standards of building an advanced technological robot.

Where do you think this technology can take us next?

If we can build a fairly niche prosthetic specifically for drumming, then the options are endless — the sky's the limit. For example, based on the technology we developed you could help amputees who can’t use a computer mouse at all. They could essentially put on this prosthetic device and use a motion sensor to control the location of where the cursor is and be able to click and navigate.

Why is it important to build products that make something like music accessible to everyone?

Music is such a healing thing. I’ve seen a kid with cerebral palsy get a hold of drumsticks and play a beat almost perfectly and stay in rhythm. He’s completely oblivious to everything else that’s outside of that, he’s locked into what he’s doing and killing it — that’s amazing to me.

Personally, I don't know how I would have gotten through my accident without having music to turn to. It's something that has also helped me deal with losing my dad — it keeps my connection to him alive.

How anyone can make Maps more accessible

Thu, 20 May 2021 13:00:00 +0000

With Google Maps, we want to make it easier to get around, explore and get things done for everyone — and that includes people with disabilities. One way that we make sure our Maps have up-to-date information about details, like if a restaurant has tables suitable for people who use wheelchairs, is through our community of Local Guides. In honor of Global Accessibility Awareness Day, we’re sharing tips from some of these people about how anyone can contribute to a more accessible world — both on and off of the map.

Make an accessibility checklist for your reviews

When you add a review on Google Maps you can create your own template or accessibility checklist to make sure you have the most helpful details covered.

Tushar Suradkar, a Local Guide from India, created a system that helps him make sure all of his reviews covers the accessibility details he cares about — like if a place has tactile paths for the visually impaired, ramp access, and wheelchair-accessible entrances, restrooms, parking and elevators. Each time he leaves a review, he fills in a self-created template that makes these details clear and noticeable so people looking for this information can spot it.

Tushar’s accessibility checklist used on Google Maps reviews.

Add accessibility attributes to your business or places you’ve visited

After visiting a place or business, you can help indicate which accessibility features a place has — like whether it has a wheelchair-accessible entrance, wheelchair-accessible restroom, wheelchair-accessible parking — by answering questions about the business on the Google Maps app.

And if you’re a business owner or manager with a verified Business Profile on Google, you can add attributes to your Business Profile on Search and Maps. In addition to existing accessibility attributes, we recently added the assistive hearing loop attribute that indicates if somewhere, like a movie theater or library, has a sound system that is compatible with hearing aids. If attributes aren’t relevant to your business, you have even more ways you can make your business more accessible by using tools such as Live Transcribe, Live Caption, and TalkBack on Android.

Accessibility attributes displayed on Google Maps.

Create lists to curate accessible places on Google Maps

Another way to share local knowledge is by creating public lists on Google Maps. You can make lists of places like accessible museums in your city or the most wheelchair accessible restaurants in your neighborhood.

Asongfac Lily Rospeen, a Local Guide from the Southwest region of Cameroon, curates lists like her Accessibility Buea list that includes wheelchair accessible banks, hotels, hospitals, bookshops, pharmacies, and supermarkets in her city.

Spread the word about accessibility

Let others know about all the ways they can contribute to Maps to make it more accessible through attributes, reviews and more. Take inspiration from the Local Guides community.

Emeka Ulor, a Local Guide from Nigeria, has rallied other people to add accessibility data to Google Maps and help make it more inclusive. He started the One Accessibility project, recruiting more than 20 volunteers and hosting more than 100 meet-ups to encourage people to add accessibility information to Google Maps. His reviews include information about wheelchair accessible parking, entrances, restrooms, lighting, Braille and seating to help inform people about the accessibility of their destination.

You can read more about these Local Guides and how others in the community are making Google Maps more accessible on Connect, our blog and forum for Local Guides.

The Official Google Blog

Celebrate Africa Day through culture and music

Africa Day Concert hosted by Idris Elba

Winnie Madikizela-Mandela

Celebrating history's Black musicians with Nas

4 things to know about Google Photos' storage policy change

The 2021 Doodle for Google national finalists are here

A Googler’s fight against the “model minority” myth

Join us for Google for Games Developer Summit 2021

Kevin Espiritu’s Epic Gardening grew a business online

Pixel artists show what "progress" means to them

Google News Showcase, now on desktop

New grants help Australian teachers build digital skills

Finding any Cartier watch in under 3 seconds

An impressive collection needs an app to match

Redefining Cartier’s luxury customer experience with AI technology

High-quality design and service never go out of style

Evolving Dynamic Ad Insertion for the future of streaming

How DAI Pod Serving works

Integrating with first-party video streaming solutions

Powering ads in third-party video platforms

More integrations for the future of video streaming

Two Googlers meet for the first time at I/O

Giant cranes and video games: How I/O went digital

Giant cranes and video games: How I/O went digital

Online, everyone’s invited

Live, from Google I/O

Adventure awaits

Invention...and Easter eggs

16 updates from Google I/O that’ll make your life easier

Quickly view your notifications, invoke Google Assistant on Android.

Manage your privacy settings more easily on Android.

Change the channel with your phone.

And unlock your car with your phone while you’re at it.

Understand more about your Search results.

Change your password using Chrome and Assistant.

Use Google Lens to translate your homework into a language you’re more comfortable with.

And search your screenshots with Google Lens.

When shopping online, keep track of your open carts when you open a new tab.

And get the best value for products you’re buying online.

Explore unfamiliar neighborhoods with more detailed views in Maps.

Avoid the crowds with area busyness.

See breakfast spots in the morning and dinner joints at night.

Discover unexpected Memories in Photos.

Bring your pictures to life with Cinematic moments.

Transform how you work with smart canvas in Google Workspace.

Innovating and advocating for accessible classrooms

Building a more inclusive Chrome OS

11 ways we're innovating with AI

LaMDA is a breakthrough in natural language understanding for dialogue.

And MUM, our new AI language model, will eventually help make Google Search a lot smarter.

Project Starline will help you feel like you’re there, together.

Within a decade, we’ll build the world’s first useful, error-corrected quantum computer. And our new Quantum AI campus is where it’ll happen.

Maps will help reduce hard-braking moments while you drive.

Your Memories in Google Photos will become even more personalized.

And Cinematic moments will bring your pictures to life.

New features in Google Workspace help make collaboration more inclusive.

Google Shopping shows you the best products for your particular needs, thanks to our Shopping Graph.

A dermatology assist tool can help you figure out what’s going on with your skin.

And AI could help improve screening for tuberculosis.

New ways to grow your app business and connect with users

Connect with more users where they are

Activate insights to help improve performance

Keep your valuable customers coming back

Welcome to the new Google Store in NYC

What’s inside?

Health and safety first

Why New York?

The beat goes on: Using AI to build a drumming prosthetic

How anyone can make Maps more accessible

Make an accessibility checklist for your reviews

Add accessibility attributes to your business or places you’ve visited

Create lists to curate accessible places on Google Maps

Spread the word about accessibility

Connect with more users where
they are