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Remembering fallen journalists on video
May 16, 2011
We live in a world that feels smaller every day. As we become accustomed to nearly ubiquitous coverage of the news and events unfolding around the world, it’s easy to forget the price that is sometimes paid to obtain quality, accurate reporting on important stories—particularly in areas of conflict or in cases of government repression of the media. With this in mind, today, the
Newseum
in Washington, D.C., Google and YouTube are together launching the
Journalists Memorial channel
on YouTube to remember the journalists who have died in the last year while reporting news around the world.
Their stories are incredible: heading into a street battle with no weapon other than
your camera
;
talking about politics
over the radio, only to be
beaten to death
with iron bars by a group of thugs on the way to work. The risks and sacrifices that many have made in order to provide us with accurate information is remarkable. On the Journalists Memorial channel you can watch a collection of videos representing these journalists’ lives and their work.
This channel will become a digital version of the
Newseum’s Journalists Memorial
, which is re-dedicated annually to honor journalists worldwide who have died during the preceding year. This year, 77 names are being added to the list of the more than 2,000 journalists who have been recognized for their sacrifices since 1837. At today’s
rededication ceremony
, Krishna Bharat, the founder and head of Google News, will be delivering the keynote address, which the Newseum will post to the new YouTube channel later today.
In tribute to those who are being honored at today’s ceremony, we would like your help finding videos that profile or represent the work of all journalists who have risked or lost their lives doing the important work they do. We invite you to go to the
Journalists Memorial channel
and submit videos you think deserve recognition to the Moderator platform on the channel. The Newseum will be featuring additional submissions there.
Posted by Steve Grove, YouTube News and Politics
Celebrating 150 years of MIT
May 13, 2011
2011 marks the 150th anniversary of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, founded to speed along America’s industrial progress through scientific innovation. MIT has been at the forefront of computer science with key advancements in the field, like the
invention of core memory
,
the first file sharing system
and
RSA, the algorithm for public key encryption
. MIT and Google share many of the same goals and philosophies, and as part of MIT's 150th anniversary celebration, we wanted to take stock of the many ways we've been working together.
More than 500 MIT graduates work at Google, in Boston and beyond—on Android, Chrome, crisis relief efforts and more. At our Cambridge, Mass., office—just
down the road
from MIT’s campus—and at the newly acquired
ITA office
, you can spot many MIT alumni Googlers proudly sporting red and gray in celebration of the milestone anniversary.
We love our Googler MIT grads, but our partnership with the university goes beyond an alumni relationship: we also support the university’s mission of discovery and innovation in the sciences. Recently, we gave a focused research award to
CSAIL
to further research in computer science and artificial intelligence. We also partnered with researchers at the
MIT Media Lab
on
Konbit
, a service that helps communities rebuild themselves after a crisis. In the same lines, we’re sponsoring
MIT Next Lab
, a group that researches and develops ways in which people can use mobile platforms to solve global and economic issues. And finally, as part of their 150th anniversary celebration, MIT announced a major
Intelligence Initiative
(I²) that we’re helping to support. Beyond the pure scientific goals, it’s hoped that this research will lead to practical applications in the form of more intelligent systems and software that will benefit society broadly
In addition, we have close relationships with some of MIT's faculty, like Hal Abelson, Professor of Computer Science and a member of Google's Visiting Faculty program, who has used our technology to conduct education outreach. He started the
Young Android Project
in 2007 and helped design
App Inventor
, which launched in 2010. Hal also teaches classes to non-engineers about building Android apps.
This summer we’re looking forward to welcoming high school students into our Boston office through the
MIT MITES program
to introduce a whole new crop of future scientists to the joys of science and engineering. Plus, 50 MIT students will join Google as interns this summer alone.
Although MIT was established more than 100 years before the Internet was invented, the institution has continued to remain a world leader in technological research, development and advancement. We’re excited to celebrate the university on its anniversary, and look forward to a continued and strong relationship for the next century to come.
Posted by Steve Vinter, Engineering Director, Google Boston
Keynote and session videos from Google I/O now live
May 13, 2011
With Google I/O 2011 just two days behind us, we wanted to thank the nearly 1 million developers who joined us at Moscone Center, attended I/O Extended events and watched online via I/O Live from 161 countries around the world.
The keynote presentations highlighted the momentum and vision for two of our most important developer platforms: Android and Chrome.
On the topic of Android, Hugo Barra, director of Android Product Management, opened Day 1 of the conference with the themes of “Momentum, Mobile and More,” announcing
Movies in Android Market
,
Music Beta by Google
, Android @ Home,
Android Open Accessory
and a preview of the new
Ice Cream Sandwich
logo. Read the
blog post
summary or watch the keynote in its entirety below.
The Day 2 keynote was all about Chrome, which has grown to 160 million active users, up from 70 million last year. Sundar Pichai, senior vice president of Chrome, discussed the launch of the HTML5 version of
Angry Birds
built with GWT on App Engine,
Chromebooks
for consumers and businesses and
in-app payments
. If you missed it, watch the Chrome keynote below.
These launches are just a few of the more than
30 announcements
we made over the two days, including the launch of
Google App Engine 1.5
, a updated
Google Prediction API
, new additions to the
Fusion Tables API
and many more. For more information about these and the other news coming out of the event, visit the
Google I/O label
on the Google Code Blog.
Additionally, in case you missed any of these announcements, HD recordings of the
sessions
are now available online.
Find the highlights from this year’s event at
www.google.com/io
, where we’ll feature photos, announcements and the latest videos. Also stay tuned for a feature on “Backstage at Google I/O” where we’ll highlight the developers and artists who helped to make the event possible this year.
Google I/O kicked off the year as our biggest developer event—but we’re only getting started. As of today, we’re announcing locations for our eight
Google Developer Days
(GDDs), which will take place all over the world with more than a few
DevFests
in between. Stay tuned for more info on the 2011 event details, but we’ll look forward to seeing you in Brazil, Argentina, Prague, Moscow, Tokyo, Sydney, Israel and Germany for our Google Developer team world tour.
Posted by Vic Gundotra, Senior Vice President of Engineering
This week in search 5/13/11
May 13, 2011
This is part of a regular series of posts on search experience updates that runs on Fridays. Look for the label "
This week in search
" and subscribe to the series. - Ed.
This week, you can find what you’re looking for more easily, as we introduced Google Images with sorting and made Google Instant available for even more people.
Sort by subject in Google Images
When you’re searching for an image, sometimes it can be hard to describe in words what you’re looking for. Now when that happens, you can use
Google Images with sorting
to find that image more easily.
Let’s say you’re searching for a picture of [flowers]. It’s such a broad topic that instead of browsing through all the different results, you can click “Sort by subject” in the left-hand panel and your image results will be organized into related categories. The categories help narrow down your search and pinpoint what you need, whether it’s roses, lilies or tulips.
Instant on iPad and in Italy, Spain and Germany
This week, more people will experience the speed of Google Instant as it rolls out over the next few days to everyone in Italy, Spain and Germany, whether you are signed in or not. Additionally, if you’re an iPad owner and searching on
google.com
, you can now see search predictions and results as you type.
Are you feeling lucky?
If you’re feeling lucky this Friday the 13th, see how fast you can try and solve today’s
A Google a Day
puzzle at
www.agoogleaday.com
.
Posted by Mike Cassidy, Director of Product Management
YouTube highlights 5/13
May 13, 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.
More great content on YouTube
This week we announced the addition of 3,000 major movies titles on
youtube.com/movies
. We’ve been offering a slew of free movie rentals on YouTube since 2009, but now you can rent and enjoy your favorite movies right on YouTube for a few bucks, from classics like
Goodfellas
to newer blockbusters including
Inception
,
The King’s Speech
and
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
. There’s no downloading or software required—you can enjoy the growing selection of movies right in your browser.
Aside from professionally produced content, original content producers like like
Machinima
,
Annoying Orange
and
Ryan Higa
to reach TV-size audiences on YouTube week after week. In the coming year, we plan to equip more creators with the necessary tools to produce unique, valuable content.
Read more
from Salar Kamangar, head of YouTube, on how we plan to expand the availability of great content.
Inspired educators gather on YouTube
The Teaching Channel
, one of our newer
YouTube EDU
partners, is a great example of technology actively elevating education standards. On the channel, teachers can discover new teaching methods and classroom ideas, and get feedback from other teachers while sharing their expertise. The hope is that teachers and schools around the country will use video to learn from each other and improve the educational experience of every child. Explore the channel yourself and pass it along to teachers you know.
Royal festivities around the world
On April 29, we live streamed the Royal Wedding on the official
YouTube Royal Channel
. While we knew many people would tune in, we didn’t expect numbers this large—the wedding was streamed 72 million times across 188 countries! Add that to the millions of people who caught the action later that day, and you have 101 million total streams on April 29 alone. Find more stats about the live stream event on the
YouTube blog
, and if you were one of the few to miss the wedding, the entire live stream and video highlights are permanently housed on
The Royal Channel
.
This week in trends
From the world of
YouTube Trends
:
A woman plays a tune across three instruments, becoming the most watched and shared video in Taiwan this week
News on Bin Laden draws reactions from around the country
10 ways kids are asking each other to the prom
Millions watched President Obama’s speech at the White House Correspondent's Dinner
Visit the
YouTube Blog
for much more from the world of video.
Posted by Neha Mandal, Product Marketing Manager, The YouTube Team
Blogger is back
May 13, 2011
(Cross-posted from the
Blogger Buzz blog
)
What a frustrating day. We’re very sorry that you’ve been unable to publish to Blogger for the past 20.5 hours. We’re nearly back to normal—you can publish again, and in the coming hours posts and comments that were temporarily removed should be restored. Thank you for your patience while we fix this situation. We use Blogger for our own blogs, so we’ve also felt your pain.
Here’s what happened: during scheduled maintenance work Wednesday night, we experienced some data corruption that impacted Blogger’s behavior. Since then, bloggers and readers may have experienced a variety of anomalies including intermittent outages, disappearing posts, and arriving at unintended blogs or error pages. A small subset of Blogger users (we estimate 0.16%) may have encountered additional problems specific to their accounts. Yesterday we returned Blogger to a pre-maintenance state and placed the service in read-only mode while we worked on restoring all content: that’s why you haven’t been able to publish. We rolled back to a version of Blogger as of Wednesday May 11, so your posts since then were temporarily removed. Those are the posts that we’re in the progress of restoring.
Again, we are very sorry for the impact to our authors and readers. We try hard to ensure Blogger is always available for you to share your thoughts and opinions with the world, and we’ll do our best to prevent this from happening again.
Posted by Eddie Kessler, Tech Lead/Manager, Blogger
3D dreams in the modern browser
May 13, 2011
Some of the most compelling experiences on the web come when inspirations of old are brought to life with modern technologies. Last August, “
The Wilderness Downtown
” brought the wistful feeling of nostalgia to the browser as you run down the streets where you used to live in an
HTML5
music experience based on the Arcade Fire song “We Used to Wait.”
“
3 Dreams of Black
” is our newest music experience for the web browser, written and directed by Chris Milk and developed with a few folks here at Google. The song, “Black,” comes off the album ROME, presented by
Danger Mouse
&
Daniele Luppi
, featuring
Jack White
and
Norah Jones
on vocals and soon to be released on the record label Parlophone/EMI. ROME is inspired by Italian soundtracks from the 1960s and the classic
Italian Western
genre. In fact, the album was recorded with the original orchestra from Italian director Sergio Leone’s westerns (remember
The Good, The Bad & The Ugly
?).
“3 Dreams of Black” is a visual voyage through three dream worlds, told through rich 2D drawings and animations that are interspersed with interactive 3D sequences. At various points in this web experience, you can take control with your computer’s mouse and guide your journey through the unfolding narrative. You can even contribute to the dream by creating your own relics using a 3D model creator. Some of the best user creations will be integrated into the experience and become a part of others’ “3 Dreams” exploration.
In “3 Dreams in Black”, the browser is transformed into a theater for these lucid virtual dreams through
WebGL
, a new technology which brings
hardware-accelerated 3D graphics
to the browser. With WebGL in modern browsers like
Google Chrome
, you can interact with 3D experiences with no need for additional software. For curious web developers out there, we’ve made all the code completely open and available so that you can dig in, have a look around and
try it out for yourself
.
Because “
3 Dreams in Black
” is an experiment built with the latest web technologies, it requires a browser that supports WebGL like Chrome, and Windows Vista / Mac OS X 10.6 or above to help ensure that your computer has up-to-date graphics drivers. For those of you who may have hardware constraints, we’ve put together a
short video
that we hope will provide a glimpse into this unique experience. To explore these dreamscapes, visit
www.ro.me
.
Posted by Aaron Koblin, Google Data Arts Team
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