Last week we added Haitian Kreyòl as a language to Google search. Visitors to our Haitian homepage can now use search in English, French and Kreyòl.Haitian Kreyòl is spoken by more than 10 million people in Haiti and in the Haitian diaspora in the Bahamas, Canada, Cayman Islands, Dominican Republic, France, French Guiana, Puerto Rico and the United States.The massive earthquake that recently stuck Haiti took a heavy toll on communication infrastructure (including TV, radio and newspapers). In the weeks following the earthquake, the Internet has become an important tool for Haitians to search for news and information. We previously added support for Haitian Kreyòl to Google Translate and we are happy that Google search can now be used the Haitian people in their native language.We would like to thank the Haitian volunteers who heard our call for volunteer translators and generously shared their time and knowledge to improve the search experience for all Haitians.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Introducing a collection of favorite places from around the world
We on the Google Maps team are committed to organizing all the local places and businesses that can be found online, from a design shop in New York City, to an architectural bookstore in San Francisco, to a cabaret in London. To show you the range of all this interesting local information, we've teamed up with local experts around the world to share some of their favorite places.
Culinary expert and chef Alice Waters has shared her favorite places for organic and sustainable food in San Francisco and the Bay Area, including places like Blue Bottle Cafe, whose coffee Alice serves at Chez Panisse in Berkeley, and Bi-Rite Creamery, where you can find salted caramel ice cream.
Iwona Blazwick, director of the Whitechapel Gallery in London, has shared her favorite places to experience art in London, from the Tate Modern for contemporary art to Curzon Soho cinema, where you can catch the latest independent film releases.
Vladimir Spivakov, artistic director and principal conductor of the State chamber orchestra Moscow Virtuosi and the National Philharmonic of Russia, has shared his favorite places to hear and appreciate theater and music in Moscow, from the Moscow Conservatory, where he studied, to the historic Maly Theater, the oldest theater in Moscow.
With this project we also hope to send a friendly message to local businesses — people are looking online for local information, and you should be here. Timothy Childs, Founder and Chief Chocolate Officer of TCHO in San Francisco, shares his perspective on using online tools to build and grow:
"TCHO is all about using appropriate technology, to make high quality chocolate and experiences for our customers. As our start-up moves to early growth stage, we are now using tools like Google Maps and the Local Business Center to reach customers and to continue building our business."
It's estimated that 80% of U.S. Internet users use web search to find restaurants, stores and other local businesses, and yet only about half of local businesses currently have a website. By working with local experts to highlight the power of the web, we're encouraging local business owners to build out their online presence. If you're a business owner looking to get online, have a look at the Google Local Business Center.
Culinary expert and chef Alice Waters has shared her favorite places for organic and sustainable food in San Francisco and the Bay Area, including places like Blue Bottle Cafe, whose coffee Alice serves at Chez Panisse in Berkeley, and Bi-Rite Creamery, where you can find salted caramel ice cream.
Iwona Blazwick, director of the Whitechapel Gallery in London, has shared her favorite places to experience art in London, from the Tate Modern for contemporary art to Curzon Soho cinema, where you can catch the latest independent film releases.
Vladimir Spivakov, artistic director and principal conductor of the State chamber orchestra Moscow Virtuosi and the National Philharmonic of Russia, has shared his favorite places to hear and appreciate theater and music in Moscow, from the Moscow Conservatory, where he studied, to the historic Maly Theater, the oldest theater in Moscow.
With this project we also hope to send a friendly message to local businesses — people are looking online for local information, and you should be here. Timothy Childs, Founder and Chief Chocolate Officer of TCHO in San Francisco, shares his perspective on using online tools to build and grow:
"TCHO is all about using appropriate technology, to make high quality chocolate and experiences for our customers. As our start-up moves to early growth stage, we are now using tools like Google Maps and the Local Business Center to reach customers and to continue building our business."
It's estimated that 80% of U.S. Internet users use web search to find restaurants, stores and other local businesses, and yet only about half of local businesses currently have a website. By working with local experts to highlight the power of the web, we're encouraging local business owners to build out their online presence. If you're a business owner looking to get online, have a look at the Google Local Business Center.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Submit your ideas to change the face of broadband
Have an idea for how to expand high-speed Internet access across the United States? Here's your chance to have your voice heard.
Under the terms of the recent economic stimulus package, the Federal Communications Commission must deliver to Congress a National Broadband Plan by February 2010. Several weeks ago, we laid out Google's vision for how to make broadband Internet available and affordable for every American — and hundreds of others have already submitted comments of their own.
The FCC has called for "maximum civic engagement" in developing a broadband strategy, and we're hoping to help them to achieve just that.
We've teamed up with the New America Foundation to launch a Google Moderator page where you can submit and vote on ideas for what you think the Commission should include in its National Broadband Plan. Two weeks from now we'll take the most popular and most innovative ideas and submit them to the official record at the FCC on your behalf.
Google and the New America Foundation agree that public participation in this process is critical. Expanding access to broadband has the potential to transform communities across the country, spark economic growth, and restore American competitiveness. Now that the Commission has officially opened this proceeding, and with a new Chairman at the helm, we think it's time to give people the opportunity to learn about the issue and to weigh in with their thoughts. And as the process continues to unfold at the FCC, we'll keep you informed of additional ways to share your views and voice your ideas to the agency.
So do you have any good ideas? Submit them today on Google Moderator — and you just might help change the face of broadband in the United States.
Under the terms of the recent economic stimulus package, the Federal Communications Commission must deliver to Congress a National Broadband Plan by February 2010. Several weeks ago, we laid out Google's vision for how to make broadband Internet available and affordable for every American — and hundreds of others have already submitted comments of their own.
The FCC has called for "maximum civic engagement" in developing a broadband strategy, and we're hoping to help them to achieve just that.
We've teamed up with the New America Foundation to launch a Google Moderator page where you can submit and vote on ideas for what you think the Commission should include in its National Broadband Plan. Two weeks from now we'll take the most popular and most innovative ideas and submit them to the official record at the FCC on your behalf.
Google and the New America Foundation agree that public participation in this process is critical. Expanding access to broadband has the potential to transform communities across the country, spark economic growth, and restore American competitiveness. Now that the Commission has officially opened this proceeding, and with a new Chairman at the helm, we think it's time to give people the opportunity to learn about the issue and to weigh in with their thoughts. And as the process continues to unfold at the FCC, we'll keep you informed of additional ways to share your views and voice your ideas to the agency.
So do you have any good ideas? Submit them today on Google Moderator — and you just might help change the face of broadband in the United States.
Explore the moon in Google Earth
Ever since I was a young girl, it has been a dream of mine to travel into space. In September of 2006, I was fortunate enough to make that dream a reality — I took off from the launch pad in Baikonur bound for the International Space Station and became the world's first private female space tourist. Since then, it's been my mission to help as many people as possible think ambitiously about ways to push the boundaries of exploration, both here on Earth and beyond. As a trustee of the X PRIZE Foundation, and the sponsor of the Ansari X PRIZE, I support Google's goal of opening up space through projects like the Google Lunar X PRIZE, which serve to educate the public about the global benefits of space exploration.
That's why I'm so excited about the release of Moon in Google Earth, which is launching today at the Newseum in Washington D.C. This tool will make it easier for millions of people to learn about space, our moon and some of the most significant and dazzling discoveries humanity has accomplished together. Moon in Google Earth enables you to explore lunar imagery as well as informational content about the Apollo landing sites, panoramic images shot by the Apollo astronauts, narrated tours and much more. I believe that this educational tool is a critical step into the future, a way to both develop the dreams of young people globally, and inspire new audacious goals.
With Google Earth, young explorers around the world can bounce around the galaxy in Sky, fly to Mars and now visit the moon from wherever they may be. To learn more watch the video below or visit the Lat Long Blog. Finally, outer space doesn't seem so far away anymore.
That's why I'm so excited about the release of Moon in Google Earth, which is launching today at the Newseum in Washington D.C. This tool will make it easier for millions of people to learn about space, our moon and some of the most significant and dazzling discoveries humanity has accomplished together. Moon in Google Earth enables you to explore lunar imagery as well as informational content about the Apollo landing sites, panoramic images shot by the Apollo astronauts, narrated tours and much more. I believe that this educational tool is a critical step into the future, a way to both develop the dreams of young people globally, and inspire new audacious goals.
With Google Earth, young explorers around the world can bounce around the galaxy in Sky, fly to Mars and now visit the moon from wherever they may be. To learn more watch the video below or visit the Lat Long Blog. Finally, outer space doesn't seem so far away anymore.
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Reducing our carbon footprint
Reducing our carbon footprint
5/06/2009 03:05:00 PM
In June 2007 Google made a voluntary commitment to become carbon neutral. To honor this commitment, we calculated our global carbon footprint, purchased high-quality carbon offsets, and worked with a third party to certify our calculations and validate our offset portfolio. Through this process, we've neutralized all of Google's 2007 emissions, as well as part of our 2008 emissions. We'll continue to invest in offset projects until we reach carbon neutrality.Offsets are only a small part of what we are doing to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. While offsets with strong additionality can achieve real emissions reductions in unregulated sectors at a relatively low cost, we view them as a short-term solution for Google, not as a substitute for other action. They provide a way for us to take responsibility for our emissions now, while we continue to advocate the development of utility-scale renewable energy. Current standards for offsets require a significant amount of work to evaluate the quality of each offset project and ensure that projects go beyond "business as usual." Stronger additionality standards -- that are more stringent, clear, and objective -- would also make it simpler for corporations like Google to use offsets as part of an overall strategy to neutralize emissions.
While we do plan to continue with the purchase of offsets to neutralize the emissions we cannot eliminate through efficiency or renewable energy, our green team will focus on what we do best -- engineering technology solutions. We've seen the success of transportation and IT efficiency programs like RechargeIT and the Climate Savers Computing Initiative, and the potential of renewable power and energy information initiatives such as RE and Google PowerMeter.
The best way to reduce our corporate footprint is to not use electricity in the first place. Google will continue to reduce our emissions directly by building and designing some of the world's most efficient data centers as well as using on-site renewable energy to power our facilities. Over the last five years, we have eliminated over half the emissions we would have produced in the absence of these critical measures. Offsets serve to neutralize the rest. In the future, we will continue to drive for improvements in energy efficiency and to find affordable sources of renewable energy.
What's your Google story?
What's your Google story?
5/07/2009 08:45:00 AM
Working on the search team over the last few years, I have heard interesting stories of how Google has made a difference to individuals across the world. For instance, Yanick Cusson from Canada wrote to tell us about how he found his father:"I will always remember the very first day I got Internet at home. I had not seen my father in 17 years and had no clue where he was. The very first web page I went to was Google, and I simply wrote his name in the search box, and guess what? A public announcement from the government dated four years back mentioned him as promoted! I called the person who wrote the announcement, and by luck, she worked one floor up from my father's office. She transferred me directly to him, and we started talking. We have been in touch since then, and it's great!"
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Listening to Google Health users
At Google, we believe that consumers should have convenient and secure access to all their health data so that they can be better informed and be more involved in their care. Recently, a data-savvy patient known as e-Patient Dave blogged about data that was imported into his Google Health Account from his hospital in Boston, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Once he saw his data in Google Health, he saw diagnoses that were both alarming and wrong. Where did they come from?
It turns out that they came from the billing codes and associated descriptions used by the hospital to bill the patient's insurance company. These descriptions, from the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-9), often do not accurately describe a patient because the right ICD-9 code may not exist. So the doctor or hospital administrator chooses something that is "close enough" for billing purposes. In other cases, the assigned code is precisely what the doctor is trying to rule out, and if the patient turns out not to have that often scary diagnosis, it is still associated with their record. Google Health faithfully displayed the data we received on Dave's behalf. We and Beth Israel knew that this type of administrative data has its limitations but felt that patients would find it a good starting point. Too often, this is wrong.
At Google, we are constantly learning important lessons from our users. Two days after we learned about this issue, I met with Beth Israel CIO John Halamka, the patient's physician Dr. Danny Sands, and e-Patient Dave himself. We agreed on a reasonable plan: Beth Israel will stop sending ICD-9 billing codes and will instead only send to Google Health the free text descriptions entered by doctors. Beth Israel is also working with the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to associate those free text descriptions with a more clinically useful coding system called SNOMED-CT, so that we can offer patients useful services like automatic drug interaction checking. The result will be more accurate and useful information in patients' Google Health profiles.
This week, all four of us were also at a conference called Health 2.0 in Boston. Dave's story, and the lessons we all learned, were the focus of much discussion. We are grateful to Dave for his openness and passion for making things right. We're also glad this happened because we and many others now better understand the limitations of certain types of health data and we are working with partners to improve the quality of the data before it gets to Google Health and our users. We look forward to sharing what we learn with the broader community. We also learned that the patient community is surprisingly interested in understanding these data issues. Dave and his doctor Danny Sands collaborated on an informative post about different data vocabularies used in different aspects of healthcare. The patient-controlled "data liquidity" that Google Health supports is clearly an important part of the future of health care. We are more committed than ever to putting consumers in charge of their own health information.
It turns out that they came from the billing codes and associated descriptions used by the hospital to bill the patient's insurance company. These descriptions, from the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-9), often do not accurately describe a patient because the right ICD-9 code may not exist. So the doctor or hospital administrator chooses something that is "close enough" for billing purposes. In other cases, the assigned code is precisely what the doctor is trying to rule out, and if the patient turns out not to have that often scary diagnosis, it is still associated with their record. Google Health faithfully displayed the data we received on Dave's behalf. We and Beth Israel knew that this type of administrative data has its limitations but felt that patients would find it a good starting point. Too often, this is wrong.
At Google, we are constantly learning important lessons from our users. Two days after we learned about this issue, I met with Beth Israel CIO John Halamka, the patient's physician Dr. Danny Sands, and e-Patient Dave himself. We agreed on a reasonable plan: Beth Israel will stop sending ICD-9 billing codes and will instead only send to Google Health the free text descriptions entered by doctors. Beth Israel is also working with the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to associate those free text descriptions with a more clinically useful coding system called SNOMED-CT, so that we can offer patients useful services like automatic drug interaction checking. The result will be more accurate and useful information in patients' Google Health profiles.
This week, all four of us were also at a conference called Health 2.0 in Boston. Dave's story, and the lessons we all learned, were the focus of much discussion. We are grateful to Dave for his openness and passion for making things right. We're also glad this happened because we and many others now better understand the limitations of certain types of health data and we are working with partners to improve the quality of the data before it gets to Google Health and our users. We look forward to sharing what we learn with the broader community. We also learned that the patient community is surprisingly interested in understanding these data issues. Dave and his doctor Danny Sands collaborated on an informative post about different data vocabularies used in different aspects of healthcare. The patient-controlled "data liquidity" that Google Health supports is clearly an important part of the future of health care. We are more committed than ever to putting consumers in charge of their own health information.
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