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How technology can help us become more sustainable
April 14, 2016
We want to create technology that helps millions of others
understand our changing world
and live more sustainably—whether it’s connecting people with public transit routes, or using the data that powers Google Earth to help you see if your roof is good for solar panels. In honor of Earth Day this month, we’ve gathered together some of the ways Google can help you reduce your everyday emissions and learn more about preserving our world.
Monitoring forests and wildlife
Google Earth satellite technology gives scientists and environmentalists a way to measure and visualize changes of the world on both land and water. This technology can have great impact on monitoring endangered animal populations around the world. For example, with the help of
Global Forest Watch
, powered by
Google Earth Engine
, scientists at the University of Minnesota are suggesting that
wild tiger populations may rebound by 2022
, due to the efforts to restore tiger habitats in key regions.
Anyone can now view tiger conservation areas (in orange and yellow above) using Global Forest Watch.
Going solar
Looking to generate clean energy savings with solar power on your home? Check out
Project Sunroof
, a solar calculator that estimates the impact and potential savings of installing solar on the roof of your home. Taking Google Earth imagery and overlaying annual sun exposure and weather patterns, Sunroof is able to assess viable roof space for solar panel installation, estimate the value of solar and savings based on local energy costs, and connect you with providers of solar panels in your area.
As of this week, Sunroof expanded to 42 states across the U.S. (from
10 states in December
), which makes imagery and data available for a solar analysis to 43 million rooftops. We’re also working with organizations like Sierra Club and their
Ready for 100 campaign
to help analyze the solar potential of cities across the U.S.
Project Sunroof shows you the solar potential of your home and city, allowing you to realize its renewable potential. The image on the right shows how much sunshine Denver, CO residents can capture with solar.
Measuring air pollutants
For the past few years,
Google Earth Outreach
and the
Environmental Defense Fund
(EDF) have been working together to map methane leaks from natural gas pipelines under our streets. Since methane is a very potent greenhouse gas (GHG), even small leaks can add up to big emissions that can hurt our climate. By attaching methane analyzers to select Street View cars, we’ve driven more than 7,500 miles and have
mapped 4,200+ leaks in 10 cities
. What we found ranges from an average of one leak per mile (in Boston) to one leak every 200 miles (in Indianapolis), demonstrating the effectiveness of techniques like using plastic piping instead of steel for pipeline construction. We hope utilities can use this data to prioritize the replacement of gas mains and service lines (like New Jersey’s
PSE&G announced
last fall). We’re also partnering with
Aclima
to measure
many more pollutants
with Street View cars in California communities through this year.
Anyone can explore the maps at
www.edf.org/methanemaps
.
Technology is crucial to increasing energy efficiency, raising climate change awareness, and sustainability efforts. To learn more about what you can do to help, take a moment to explore our
Google Earth Outreach
site, where these tools and more are described in depth.
Posted by Rebecca Moore, Engineering Director, Google Earth, Earth Engine & Outreach
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bBL7AjTqQAk/VxU0akbSNEI/AAAAAAAASNs/x5Gzb7AxO2wujXWTCEboZUf1qbgZ_kjTgCLcB/s1600/1032%2Blupine.png
Rebecca Moore
Engineering Director
Google Earth, Earth Engine & Outreach
Find time for your goals with Google Calendar
April 12, 2016
Whether it’s reading more books, learning a new language or working out regularly, achieving your goals can be really hard. One day it's "I got called into a last-minute meeting." The next day it's "I have a friend in town." And before you know it, your goals are delayed or forgotten. In fact, with all the things you need to do in a given week, it’s probably harder than ever to find the time—even when your goal really matters to you.
That’s why starting today, we’re introducing Goals in Google Calendar. Just add a personal goal—like “run 3 times a week”—and Calendar will help you find the time and stick to it.
Goals are easy to set up
To set a goal (like “Work out more”), simply answer a few questions (like “How often?” and “Best time?”), and you’re all set. From there Calendar will look at your schedule and find the best windows to pencil in time for that goal.
Goals adjust to your busy life
Goals aren't easy—especially when the unexpected comes up—but Calendar can help you adjust in a number of important ways. For example, Calendar will automatically reschedule if you add another event that's a direct conflict with a goal.
You can also defer a goal at any time, and Calendar will make time for it later.
Finally, Calendar actually gets better at scheduling the more you use it—just defer, edit or complete your goals like normal, and Calendar will choose even better times in the future.
Calendars should help you make the most of your time—not just be tools to track events. So as Google Calendar turns 10 today (🎉), we're excited to invest in more updates like Goals, and to help you find time for everything that matters—from your daily
must-dos
, to exercising more, to just a little "me time."
To get started, download the Google Calendar app for
Android
or
iPhone
, and set your first goal.
Posted by Jyoti Ramnath, Product Manager
https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-lU0tgNyzpzQ/VxUwPjEEjLI/AAAAAAAASNQ/ozR8-C_xTnIOzGqmXkIeZqxxe8Z5XNMwgCLcB/s1600/Calendar_hero.jpg
Jyoti Ramnath
Product Manager
Creating a world that works for everyone with Google Impact Challenge: Disabilities
April 12, 2016
More than a billion people have a disability. And regardless of the country or community they live in, the gaps in opportunity for people with disabilities are striking: One in three people with a disability lives in poverty. In places like the United States, 50 to 70 percent of people with disabilities are unemployed; in developing countries that number increases to 80 to 90 percent. And only 10 percent of people with disabilities in developing countries have access to the assistive devices they need.
Last spring, Google.org
kicked off the Google Impact Challenge: Disabilities
, an open call to global nonprofits who are building transformative technologies for the billion people around the world with disabilities. We’ve been amazed by the ideas we’ve received, coming from 1,000+ organizations spanning 88 countries. We’ve shared a
handful
of the organizations we’re supporting already—and today we’re excited to share the
full list of 30 winners
.
The organizations we’re supporting all have big ideas for how technology can help create new solutions, and each of their ideas has the potential to scale. Each organization has also committed to open sourcing their technology—which helps encourage and speed up innovation in a sector that has historically been siloed. Meet some of our incredible grantees below, and learn more about all 30 organizations working to improve mobility, communication, and independence for people living with disabilities at
g.co/disabilities
.
The Center for Discovery, $1.125 million Google.org grant
Power wheelchairs help provide greater independence to people with mobility limitations—allowing them to get around without a caregiver, or travel longer distances. But power chairs are expensive and often not covered by insurance, leaving many people limited to manual wheelchairs.
With their Google.org grant, the
Center for Discovery
will continue developing an open source power add-on device, the indieGo, which quickly converts any manual wheelchair into a power chair. The power add-on will provide the mobility and freedom of a power chair for around one-seventh the average cost, and will allow people who mainly use a manual wheelchair to have the option of using power when they need it. The device design will be open sourced to increase its reach—potentially improving mobility for hundreds of thousands of people.
A young man using the indieGo to greet friends.
Perkins School for the Blind, $750,000 Google.org grant
Turn-by-turn GPS navigation allows people with visual impairments to get around, but once they get in vicinity of their destination, they often struggle to find specific locations like bus stops or building entrances that GPS isn’t precise enough to identify. (This is often called the “last 50 feet problem.”) Lacking the detailed information they need to find specific new places, people tend to limit themselves to familiar routes, leading to a less independent lifestyle.
With the support of Google.org,
Perkins School for the Blind
is building tools to crowdsource data from people with sight to help people navigate the last 50 feet. Using an app, people will log navigation clues in a standard format, which will be used to create directions that lead vision-impaired people precisely to their intended destination. Perkins School for the Blind is collaborating with transit authorities who will provide access to transportation data and support Perkin’s mission of making public transportation accessible to everyone.
Perkins School for the Blind employee, Joann Becker, travels by bus. It can be hard for people with visual impairments to locate the exact location of bus stops and other landmarks.
Miraclefeet, $1 million Google.org grant
An estimated 1 million children currently live with untreated clubfoot, a lifelong disability that often leads to isolation, limited access to education, and poverty. Clubfoot can be treated without surgery, but treatment practices are not widely used in many countries around the world.
Miraclefeet
partners with local healthcare providers to increase access to proper treatment for children born with clubfoot. They will use Google.org support to offer support to families via SMS, monitor patient progress through updated software, and provide extensive online training to local clinicians. To date, Miraclefeet has helped facilitate treatment for more than 13,000 children in 13 different countries; this effort will help them significantly scale up their work to reach thousands more.
Miraclefeet helps partners use a simple, affordable brace as part of the clubfoot treatment. Here, a doctor in India shows a mother how to use the
miraclefeet brace
.
Ezer Mizion and Click2Speak, $400,000 Google.org grant
People with high cognitive function but impaired motor skills often have a hard time communicating—both speaking or using standard keyboards to type.
Augmentative and alternative communication devices
(AAC) help people more easily communicate, but are often unaffordable and restricted to specific platforms or inputs. Without an AAC, people may have difficulty maintaining personal relationships and professional productivity.
Ezer Mizion
is working with
Click2Speak
to build an affordable, flexible, and customizable on-screen keyboard that allows people to type without use of their hands. With the grant from Google.org, Ezer Mizion and Click2Speak will gather more user feedback to improve the technology, including support for additional languages, operating systems, and different devices like switches, joysticks, or eye-tracking devices.
A young girl learns to use the Click2Speak on-screen keyboard with a joystick controller.
From employment to education, communication to mobility, each of our grantees is pushing innovation for people with disabilities forward. In addition to these grants, we’re always working to make our own technology more accessible, and yesterday we shared
some of the latest
on this front, including
voice typing
in Google Docs and a
new tool
that helps Android developers build more accessible apps. With all these efforts, our aim to create a world that works for everyone.
Posted by Brigitte Hoyer Gosselink, Google Impact Challenge: Disabilities Project Lead for Google.org
https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-J50ZW-AEU9c/VwyJfVtGC0I/AAAAAAAASJs/geghloVcOQwGeoxmy2bURYFoZipAMIe0gCLcB/s1600/miraclefeet.jpg
Brigitte Hoyer Gosselink
Google Impact Challenge: Disabilities Project Lead
Google.org
Building more accessible technology
April 11, 2016
Nearly 20 percent of the U.S. population will have a disability during their lifetime, which can make it hard for them to access and interact with technology, and limits the opportunity that technology can bring. That’s why it’s so important to build tools to make technology accessible to everyone—from people with visual impairments who need screen readers or larger text, to people with motor restrictions that prevent them from interacting with a touch screen, to people with hearing impairments who cannot hear their device’s sounds. Here are some updates we’ve made recently to make our technology more accessible:
A tool to help develop accessible apps
Accessibility Scanner is a
new tool for Android
that lets developers test their own apps and receive suggestions on ways to enhance accessibility. For example, the tool might recommend enlarging small buttons, increasing the contrast between text and its background and more.
Improvements for the visually impaired in Android N
A few weeks ago we
announced
a preview of Android N for developers. As part of this update we’re bringing Vision Settings—which lets people control settings like magnification, font size, display size and
TalkBack
—to the Welcome screen that appears when people activate new Android devices. Putting Vision Settings front and center means someone with a visual impairment can independently set up their own device and activate the features they need, right from the start.
An improved screen reader on Chromebooks
Every Chromebook comes with a built-in screen reader called ChromeVox, which enables people with visual impairments to navigate the screen using text to speech software. Our newest version, ChromeVox Next Beta, includes a simplified keyboard shortcut model, a new caption panel to display speech and Braille output, and a new set of navigation sounds. For more information, visit
chromevox.com
.
Edit documents with your voice
Google Docs now
allows typing, editing and formatting using voice commands
—for example, “copy” or “insert table”—making it easier for people who can’t use a touchscreen to edit documents. We’ve also continued to work closely with
Freedom Scientific
, a leading provider of assistive technology products, to improve the Google Docs and Drive experience with the JAWS screen reader.
Voice commands on Android devices
We recently launched Voice Access Beta, an app that allows people who have difficulty manipulating a touch screen due to paralysis, tremor, temporary injury or other reasons to control their Android devices by voice. For example, you can say “open Chrome” or “go home” to navigate around the phone, or interact with the screen by saying “click next” or “scroll down.” To download, follow the instructions at
http://g.co/voiceaccess
.
To learn more about Google accessibility as a whole, visit
google.com/accessibility
.
Posted by Eve Andersson, Manager, Accessibility Engineering
Eve Andersson
Manager
Accessibility Engineering
Tilt Brush: painting from a new perspective
April 5, 2016
From the earliest cave drawings, to classical paintings, to crayon scribbles, humans just have a thing for visual expression. These days
digital art
has spurred new opportunities for creativity, going well beyond good old pencils and paper. It's against this canvas that we bring you
Tilt Brush
—a new virtual reality (VR) app that lets you paint from an entirely new perspective, available today on the
HTC Vive
.
With Tilt Brush, you can paint in three-dimensional space. Just select your colors and brushes and get going with a wave of your hand. Your room is a blank slate. You can step around, in and through your drawings as you go. And, because it’s in virtual reality, you can even choose to use otherwise-impossible materials like fire, stars or snowflakes.
3D artwork drawn in Tilt Brush
One of the best parts about any new medium is just seeing what's possible. So, we brought Tilt Brush to
The Lab
at Google Cultural Institute—a space in Paris created to bring tech and creative communities together to discover new ways to experience art. Since then, artists from around the world and from every discipline have come to explore their style in VR for the very first time.
We've already seen some incredible pieces from professional animators, painters, and street artists, but even casual doodlers can start painting in seconds. To get inspired, check out #TiltBrush on Twitter for even more art created with Tilt Brush.
Posted by Andrey Doronichev, Group Product Manager, Google VR
https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-avD7HjpYPe8/VwQnoRHuXgI/AAAAAAAASHo/FYhf0ActxxUHaq5XnxiYLsiEIKV4tXOQw/s1600/Tilt%2BBrush%2B%25281%2529.jpg
Andrey Doronichev
Group Product Manager
Google VR
Putting the “real” in “virtual reality”
March 31, 2016
Virtual reality has brought us to places ranging from the bottom of the ocean to the surface of Mars. But as good as VR is, it’s never been quite as real as, well… real life. Google Cardboard Plastic, launching today, changes all that. It’s our latest step toward truly immersive technology—a new viewer that lets you see, touch, smell and hear the world just like you do in real life.
Cardboard Plastic is the world’s first actual reality headset, complete with 4D integrated perspective, 360° spatially accurate sound, 20/20 resolution, and advanced haptics for realistic touch sensations. Expertly crafted from polymethyl methacrylate, Cardboard Plastic is lightweight, waterproof, and engineered to last a lifetime—no batteries, no wires. And unlike other VR headsets, it integrates seamlessly into your life—so you’ll never miss a thing. Unless you blink.
Find more about Cardboard Plastic at
google.com/cardboardplastic
. The future is clear.
Posted by Jon Wiley, Director of Immersive Design, Google Cardboard Plastic
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_NDBFo_zubo/Vv3KupxthPI/AAAAAAAASGs/PX838Bywdmkt0k6yG3RBVELrxI5w0ubyQ/s1600/cardboardPlastic2.jpg
Jon Wiley
Director of Immersive Design
Google Cardboard Plastic
Take a virtual step into Abbey Road Studios
March 30, 2016
Last year, we opened the doors to the music landmark
Abbey Road Studios
, where musical legends like the Beatles and Pink Floyd have recorded. With a
click of a mouse or a tap of a screen
, more than 2 million fans from around the world have stepped Inside Abbey Road to explore the famous studios. Now you can go even further and experience what it actually
feels
like—and sounds like—inside the studios, using
Google Cardboard
and your smartphone.
To get this virtual reality experience,
download the app on Android
(iOS coming soon), then start your journey with a nine-part guided tour narrated by
Giles Martin
, the son of the late Beatles producer, George Martin, who shares the history of the studios from the 1930’s to present day.
After the tour, you can quite literally move around the studios at your leisure to see hidden treasures like Studio 3’s Mirrored Drum Room, where the mirrors help to create a close, bright and loud sound quality. Uncover one of Abbey Road's Mastering Suites, where a record gets its finishing touches before a release. In Studio 1, experience what it’s like to be in a recording session with the London Symphony Orchestra with surround sound.
With Inside Abbey Road for Cardboard, you can get even closer to the history, stories and innovation of the most famous music studios in the world.
Posted by Tom Seymour, Creative Lead and VR sightseer, Google Creative Lab London
https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-e6n8OBG9qn8/VvxsceGGcgI/AAAAAAAASGQ/ulbZa58NrEU2QvROv0bxmL991NijWP6Kg/s1600/Inside%2BAbbey%2BRoad.jpg
Tom Seymour
Creative Lead
Google Creative Lab London
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