(Cross-posted on the Google Docs Blog, Google Student Blog and Google LatLong Blog)
Are you a student who loves science? Do you have a good idea for an experiment that you’d like to share with the world? In 1996, two young computer science students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, had a hypothesis that there was a better way to find information on the web. They did their research, tested their theories and built a search engine which (eventually) changed the way people found information online. Larry and Sergey were fortunate to be able to get their idea in front of lots of people. But how many ideas are lost because people don’t have the right forum for their talents to be discovered? We believe that science can change the world—and one way to encourage that is to celebrate and champion young scientific talent as we do athletes and pop idols.
To help make today’s young scientists the rock stars of tomorrow, in partnership with CERN, The LEGO Group, National Geographic and Scientific American, we’re introducing the first global online science competition: the Google Science Fair. It’s open to students around the world who are between the ages of 13-18. All you need is access to a computer, the Internet and a web browser.
You may have participated in local or regional science fairs where you had to be in the same physical space to compete with kids in your area. Now any student with an idea can participate from anywhere, and share their idea with the world. You build and submit your project—either by yourself or in a team of up to three—entirely online. Students in India (or Israel or Ireland) will be able to compete with students in Canada (or Cambodia or Costa Rica) for prizes including once-in-a-lifetime experiences (like a trip to the Galapagos Islands with a National Geographic Explorer), scholarships and real-life work opportunities (like a five-day trip to CERN in Switzerland). And if you’re entering a science fair locally, please feel free to post that project online with Google Science Fair, too!
To enter, register online and create your project as a Google Site. Registration is open through April 4, 2011. Please note: you must get parental or guardian consent in order to compete. You can check out the complete rules here. After April 4, we’ll begin judging and will announce our semi-finalists in early May.
The semi-finalist projects will be posted on our online gallery, where we’ll encourage the public to vote for a “people’s choice” winner. From our list of semi-finalists, we’ll select 15 finalists to bring their projects to Google headquarters on July 11 to compete in our final, live event, where world-renowned science judges will select a winner in each age category, as well as a grand-prize winner.
Here's an example of a great science fair project site to inspire you. We asked Tesca, a U.S. high school senior from Oregon, to create it for us based on an award-winning project she’s been working on for years. Tesca’s objective is to make hospitals more efficient using artificial intelligence—a world-changing goal, to be sure.
So if you think you're the next Albert Einstein, Marie Curie—or Larry Page or Sergey Brin—sign up today for the Google Science Fair. Prove once again how science can change the world!
Meet the YouTube Symphony Orchestra 2011
(Cross-posted from the YouTube Blog)
Your votes are in. The professionals have had their say. And now, 101 people from more than 30 countries around the world are heading to Sydney Opera House to perform together in March as the YouTube Symphony Orchestra 2011.
These final 101 outstanding musicians—who range in age from 14 to 49, and hail from five different continents—have emerged from the 336 finalists selected last month by partner orchestras worldwide (including London Symphony Orchestra, Berliner Philharmoniker and Sydney Symphony). Your votes on those finalists then helped artistic advisor Tilson Thomas and composer Mason Bates settle on the final line-up.
Among the final group is a vuvuzela-fixated trombonist from Germany, an Arizona-based clarinetist who has never left the U.S. and a Guzheng player from China, whose instrument is one a lot of the world has never seen or heard before. They’ll come together from March 14 to prepare for a final performance on Sunday, March 20, which will be streamed live to the world on YouTube.
We want to open up every stage of the orchestra process. We called for auditions from around the world on YouTube and were blown away by the amazing videos we received in response; the YouTube community voted on their favorites and visited the channel in their millions; and now we’re inviting you to join the winning musicians as they begin their creative journey to Sydney. We’ll post their videos and behind-the-scenes footage of the orchestra—from rehearsal and master classes to performance—to the YouTube Symphony channel, and to our mobile apps (which you can download on the Android Market by searching for [youtube symphony orchestra] or Apple App Store). In March we’ll start broadcasting from Sydney, so tune in!
Next stop: Sydney.
Your votes are in. The professionals have had their say. And now, 101 people from more than 30 countries around the world are heading to Sydney Opera House to perform together in March as the YouTube Symphony Orchestra 2011.
These final 101 outstanding musicians—who range in age from 14 to 49, and hail from five different continents—have emerged from the 336 finalists selected last month by partner orchestras worldwide (including London Symphony Orchestra, Berliner Philharmoniker and Sydney Symphony). Your votes on those finalists then helped artistic advisor Tilson Thomas and composer Mason Bates settle on the final line-up.
Among the final group is a vuvuzela-fixated trombonist from Germany, an Arizona-based clarinetist who has never left the U.S. and a Guzheng player from China, whose instrument is one a lot of the world has never seen or heard before. They’ll come together from March 14 to prepare for a final performance on Sunday, March 20, which will be streamed live to the world on YouTube.
We want to open up every stage of the orchestra process. We called for auditions from around the world on YouTube and were blown away by the amazing videos we received in response; the YouTube community voted on their favorites and visited the channel in their millions; and now we’re inviting you to join the winning musicians as they begin their creative journey to Sydney. We’ll post their videos and behind-the-scenes footage of the orchestra—from rehearsal and master classes to performance—to the YouTube Symphony channel, and to our mobile apps (which you can download on the Android Market by searching for [youtube symphony orchestra] or Apple App Store). In March we’ll start broadcasting from Sydney, so tune in!
Next stop: Sydney.
Google Goggles gets faster, smarter and solves Sudoku
(Cross-posted from the Google Mobile Blog)
Barcodes
When shopping offline, it’s helpful to be able to learn more about a product by scanning its barcode. With the new Android version of Google Goggles, scanning barcodes is much faster. Open Goggles and hover over the barcode or QR code. Within a second the phone gently vibrates and presents results, without requiring a button press. Simply tap on the result to read product reviews, check in-store availability and compare prices.
Print ads in magazines and newspapers
We’re excited to take another step in our vision of connecting offline media to online media. The next time you're flipping through the pages of your favorite magazine, try taking a picture of an ad with Goggles. Goggles will recognize print ad and return web search results about the product or brand. This new feature of Goggles is enabled for print ads appearing in major U.S. magazines and newspapers from August 2010 onwards.
This feature is different from the marketing experiment that we announced in November. We're now recognizing a much broader range of ads than we initially included in our marketing experiment. And when we recognize a print ad, we return web search results. While in the experiment, we return a specific link to an external website.
Sudoku
Our favorite weekend distraction is a quiet 15 minutes spent solving a Sudoku puzzle. But even that can be an frustrating experience if (like us) you make a mistake and are unable to solve the puzzle. Now, Goggles on Android and iPhone can recognize puzzles and provide answers to help make you faster than a Sudoku champ. So if you ever get stuck, take a clear picture of the entire puzzle with Goggles and we’ll tell you the correct solution. Check out this video to see how it works.
Custom Search integrated into Go Daddy websites
Go Daddy, the world's largest domain name registrar and top web hosting provider, has made it easy for website owners to integrate Google Custom Search into their websites through its WebSite Tonight product.
WebSite Tonight is a do-it-yourself service that lets users create, design, update and publish websites without requiring any knowledge of HTML. The product offers 1,500+ design templates and enables you to very easily add widgets to your web pages. WebSite Tonight was named for its ease of use—you can create a website as quickly as one night.
Now, you have the option to add high-quality search across your website using Google Custom Search, simply by dragging and dropping a search box widget into your template. You can select from a set of predefined search themes, so the search results can be in harmony with the website's design. The screenshot below shows Custom Search integrated into an example website.
As a part of implementing Google Services for Websites, Go Daddy has also integrated Google Webmaster Tools. This enables Google to automatically receive Sitemaps for better discovery and indexing of a website—improving search quality both on the website and on Google.com.
We hope this drag-and-drop search box integration will help website owners easily provide a valuable service to their visitors, while also improving user retention and conversion on their sites.
To see step-by-step instructions for adding search to your GoDaddy website, visit the CSE blog.
WebSite Tonight is a do-it-yourself service that lets users create, design, update and publish websites without requiring any knowledge of HTML. The product offers 1,500+ design templates and enables you to very easily add widgets to your web pages. WebSite Tonight was named for its ease of use—you can create a website as quickly as one night.
Now, you have the option to add high-quality search across your website using Google Custom Search, simply by dragging and dropping a search box widget into your template. You can select from a set of predefined search themes, so the search results can be in harmony with the website's design. The screenshot below shows Custom Search integrated into an example website.
As a part of implementing Google Services for Websites, Go Daddy has also integrated Google Webmaster Tools. This enables Google to automatically receive Sitemaps for better discovery and indexing of a website—improving search quality both on the website and on Google.com.
We hope this drag-and-drop search box integration will help website owners easily provide a valuable service to their visitors, while also improving user retention and conversion on their sites.
To see step-by-step instructions for adding search to your GoDaddy website, visit the CSE blog.
Google Apps highlights – 1/7/2011
This is part of a regular series of Google Apps updates that we post every couple of weeks. Look for the label “Google Apps highlights" and subscribe to the series. - Ed.
It’s a new year, and we have new reasons to celebrate what’s possible with Google Apps. Since our last update, we’ve made it easier to track spreadsheet revisions and work with videos in Google Docs, added two new security features for organizations using Gmail and introduced new capabilities to make migrating to Google Apps even easier.
Revision history for spreadsheets
A few months ago we added better revision history tools for documents in Google Docs, and we just added a similar revision history tool for spreadsheets. Spreadsheet changes made by each co-author are marked by a different color, and you can easily see all of the changes made to your spreadsheet cell-by-cell.
Video player in the document list
Google Docs lets groups collaborate simultaneously on documents, spreadsheets, presentations and drawings, but you can also use it to upload and share a wide range of file types. Previously, if you uploaded and shared a video file, people you shared with could only download the file. Yesterday we released an update which lets you play many videos right from Google Docs, no file download required.
A safer email environment for customers
Organizations using Google Apps usually provide unrestricted email access to their users, but some organizations—like K-12 schools—want to prevent outsiders from interacting with a subset of their users over email. On Tuesday, we released a feature enabling an email “walled garden,” so organizations can meet this requirement. K-12 schools can help protect youngsters, and other types of organizations can provide limited email accounts to select employees, like contractors.
DKIM email authentication for improved email delivery
Yesterday we made it possible for customers to easily validate their outgoing email with DKIM digital signatures. DKIM allows many receiving email systems to verify whether an incoming message truly originates from the domain in the message’s “sent from” field. Spam filters can then use the reputation of the sender’s domain to help separate good mail from spam. For customers, using DKIM authentication means their outgoing mail is less likely to get caught up in their recipients’ spam filters.
Chrome browser for organizations
Google Chrome is built for speed, security and the ability to run the most sophisticated web-based applications. Until recently, it was tough for businesses to deploy Chrome as a successor or alternative to traditional browsers, but last month we added capabilities to Chrome so IT administrators can efficiently deploy and manage Chrome across their organizations. We’ve also made it possible for businesses to centrally deploy Chrome Frame to improve the performance of Internet Explorer®.
Improved tools for moving existing data to Google Apps
Customers are already moving data from legacy systems to Google Apps at an astounding rate, and we’ve just made improvements to our data migration tools. Whether you’re moving from Microsoft® Exchange, Lotus Notes® or other IMAP-based email systems, it’s now even easier to move email, calendar and contacts data into Google’s cloud.
Who’s gone Google?
Tens of thousands of businesses, schools and other organizations took advantage of the holiday break to move over to Google Apps. Some of the noteworthy additions include Compositites One, Broadway Maylan and BI-LO. We also heard some great stories from Traffic Konzept + Film GmbH a team of explorers and filmmakers on a first-ever expedition to sail both North Pole passages in a single season. You can learn more about their adventure and how they use Google Apps here:
I hope these product updates and customer stories help you and your organization get even more from Google Apps. For details and the latest news in this area, check out the Google Apps Blog.
It’s a new year, and we have new reasons to celebrate what’s possible with Google Apps. Since our last update, we’ve made it easier to track spreadsheet revisions and work with videos in Google Docs, added two new security features for organizations using Gmail and introduced new capabilities to make migrating to Google Apps even easier.
Revision history for spreadsheets
A few months ago we added better revision history tools for documents in Google Docs, and we just added a similar revision history tool for spreadsheets. Spreadsheet changes made by each co-author are marked by a different color, and you can easily see all of the changes made to your spreadsheet cell-by-cell.
Video player in the document list
Google Docs lets groups collaborate simultaneously on documents, spreadsheets, presentations and drawings, but you can also use it to upload and share a wide range of file types. Previously, if you uploaded and shared a video file, people you shared with could only download the file. Yesterday we released an update which lets you play many videos right from Google Docs, no file download required.
A safer email environment for customers
Organizations using Google Apps usually provide unrestricted email access to their users, but some organizations—like K-12 schools—want to prevent outsiders from interacting with a subset of their users over email. On Tuesday, we released a feature enabling an email “walled garden,” so organizations can meet this requirement. K-12 schools can help protect youngsters, and other types of organizations can provide limited email accounts to select employees, like contractors.
DKIM email authentication for improved email delivery
Yesterday we made it possible for customers to easily validate their outgoing email with DKIM digital signatures. DKIM allows many receiving email systems to verify whether an incoming message truly originates from the domain in the message’s “sent from” field. Spam filters can then use the reputation of the sender’s domain to help separate good mail from spam. For customers, using DKIM authentication means their outgoing mail is less likely to get caught up in their recipients’ spam filters.
Chrome browser for organizations
Google Chrome is built for speed, security and the ability to run the most sophisticated web-based applications. Until recently, it was tough for businesses to deploy Chrome as a successor or alternative to traditional browsers, but last month we added capabilities to Chrome so IT administrators can efficiently deploy and manage Chrome across their organizations. We’ve also made it possible for businesses to centrally deploy Chrome Frame to improve the performance of Internet Explorer®.
Improved tools for moving existing data to Google Apps
Customers are already moving data from legacy systems to Google Apps at an astounding rate, and we’ve just made improvements to our data migration tools. Whether you’re moving from Microsoft® Exchange, Lotus Notes® or other IMAP-based email systems, it’s now even easier to move email, calendar and contacts data into Google’s cloud.
Who’s gone Google?
Tens of thousands of businesses, schools and other organizations took advantage of the holiday break to move over to Google Apps. Some of the noteworthy additions include Compositites One, Broadway Maylan and BI-LO. We also heard some great stories from Traffic Konzept + Film GmbH a team of explorers and filmmakers on a first-ever expedition to sail both North Pole passages in a single season. You can learn more about their adventure and how they use Google Apps here:
I hope these product updates and customer stories help you and your organization get even more from Google Apps. For details and the latest news in this area, check out the Google Apps Blog.
YouTube Highlights 1/6/2011
This is the latest in our series of YouTube highlights. Every couple of weeks, we bring you regular updates on new product features, interesting programs to watch and tips you can use to grow your audience on YouTube. Just look for the label “YouTube Highlights” and subscribe to the series. – Ed.
Happy New Year! Since our last update, we’ve rolled out some new programs and features to help you share and discover great video content on YouTube. We’ve also got advice and tips on how to succeed as a videomaker, content publisher or advertiser on YouTube.
Sports favorites on YouTube and ESPN
More than 2,000 YouTubers submitted sports videos to “Play of the Year,” vying to make it onto ESPN’s SportsCenter. After closely reviewing thousands of entries, we’d like to congratulate the winner of the latest YouTube | ESPN Your Highlight Presented by AT&T, Jay Fleming of Nashville, TN. In this video, shot by his father, the one-armed swimmer won his heat in the 25m fly at the 2010 Nashville city swim meet. See the runners-up here.
YouTube Trends feature helps you find your favorite content
With 35 hours of video now being uploaded to YouTube every minute, keeping up can be a challenge. With YouTube Trends, you can watch the hottest local videos in your area and see how to stay on top of the latest popular videos and content overall on YouTube. Tune in so you don’t miss YouTube’s best content.
New capabilities for YouTube
We’ve been working to make it easier customize your YouTube experience so you can both discover and share great content.
Whether you’re a filmmaker, musician or other content provider, you can continue to build the next generation of media companies as a YouTube partner. To help spur our partners’ success, 500 of our top 2010 partners worldwide received new grants of $1,000 to $5,000 to help fund the necessary tools (cameras, sound equipment, etc.) to produce even higher-quality videos and garner bigger audiences.
Useful advice and tips for filmmakers
The web and YouTube continue to change filmmaking and online video publishing, and you can take part.
TED and YouTube have issued a challenge called Ads Worth Spreading, and you’re invited to submit an entry. TED’s mission is to spread worthy ideas around the world—and why should advertising be different? We believe that advertising should make you think, respond and want to share—whether it’s a great idea, a product that makes the world better or an initiative that might change the world. So create an ad that makes a difference—see the submission rules here.
We’ll update you again in a few weeks. In the meantime, get more info from us on the YouTube Blog.
Happy New Year! Since our last update, we’ve rolled out some new programs and features to help you share and discover great video content on YouTube. We’ve also got advice and tips on how to succeed as a videomaker, content publisher or advertiser on YouTube.
Sports favorites on YouTube and ESPN
More than 2,000 YouTubers submitted sports videos to “Play of the Year,” vying to make it onto ESPN’s SportsCenter. After closely reviewing thousands of entries, we’d like to congratulate the winner of the latest YouTube | ESPN Your Highlight Presented by AT&T, Jay Fleming of Nashville, TN. In this video, shot by his father, the one-armed swimmer won his heat in the 25m fly at the 2010 Nashville city swim meet. See the runners-up here.
YouTube Trends feature helps you find your favorite content
With 35 hours of video now being uploaded to YouTube every minute, keeping up can be a challenge. With YouTube Trends, you can watch the hottest local videos in your area and see how to stay on top of the latest popular videos and content overall on YouTube. Tune in so you don’t miss YouTube’s best content.
New capabilities for YouTube
We’ve been working to make it easier customize your YouTube experience so you can both discover and share great content.
- Personalize your own YouTube homepage. Opt in to try enhancements such as recommended videos based on your viewing history, what your friends are up to, a single place to view all the videos you’ve subscribed to and more.
- Send a personal video greeting. We’ve made it easier for friends and families to stay in touch through video greetings. Try the “Unlisted” feature to share videos with a specific URL so only those people you want to view a video will see it.
- Customize your personal video greeting using background themes and other bells and whistles. You can quickly make original videos starting with video templates from third-party tools from Animoto, Stupeflix and Xtranormal.
Whether you’re a filmmaker, musician or other content provider, you can continue to build the next generation of media companies as a YouTube partner. To help spur our partners’ success, 500 of our top 2010 partners worldwide received new grants of $1,000 to $5,000 to help fund the necessary tools (cameras, sound equipment, etc.) to produce even higher-quality videos and garner bigger audiences.
Useful advice and tips for filmmakers
The web and YouTube continue to change filmmaking and online video publishing, and you can take part.
- Gain insight and tips on why it’s important to surround your videos with context.
- Filmmaker Sam Kauffmann, Professor of Film at Boston University, has chosen to tell his stories using short documentaries and the web. Find out why.
- Learn how the web has changed film school.
- Learn how to share videos on YouTube courtesy of TeachParentsTech.org.
TED and YouTube have issued a challenge called Ads Worth Spreading, and you’re invited to submit an entry. TED’s mission is to spread worthy ideas around the world—and why should advertising be different? We believe that advertising should make you think, respond and want to share—whether it’s a great idea, a product that makes the world better or an initiative that might change the world. So create an ad that makes a difference—see the submission rules here.
We’ll update you again in a few weeks. In the meantime, get more info from us on the YouTube Blog.
A sneak peek at “Life in a Day”
(Cross-posted from the YouTube Blog)
Today we’d like to share with you the first in a series of clips we’ll release between now and the world premiere. In this clip, beautifully shot by Toniu Xou and Patricia Marinez del Hoyoa of Spain, a young girl climbs a human castle in the small town of San Jaume dels Domenys in the Spanish province of Tarragona.
If watching this clip gets you excited for more, subscribe to the Life in a Day channel to be automatically updated when new clips are released.
And, most importantly, don’t forget to tune into the world premiere of “Life in a Day” at 5pm PT on Thursday, January 27, to see the 1,125 clips—out of more than 80,000 submitted—that made it into the final film.
Live in an incompatible time zone? Not to worry. The film will be re-broadcast at 7pm on Friday, January 28, in your local time zone, whatever that may be. This will be your only chance to see “Life in a Day” before it is released later in 2011, so don’t miss out!
And for those of you who want to experience Sundance even more intimately, check out the Life in a Day channel daily from January 24 to January 27 to see on-the-ground updates from Kevin Macdonald and a group of contributors to the “Life in a Day” project whom Kevin has invited to join him for the world premiere. You can also submit questions on the channel during that time for a chance to take part in a live Q&A with Kevin and the 20 contributors following the world premiere.
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