DatenDialog - Big Tent goes to Berlin

In May, we held our first Big Tent conference near London, where we debated some of the hot issues relating to the Internet and society with policy-makers, academics and NGOs. The term "big tent” not only described the marquee venue but also our aim to include diverse points of view.

After the U.K. success, we decided to export the concept. Yesterday we welcomed more than 200 guests in Berlin, Germany to the second Big Tent event, entitled DatenDialog.

This dialogue about data tackled the issue of online privacy from a variety of angles. It was appropriate to hold it in Germany, which is a pacesetter both in its concern about privacy and its ideas for safeguarding personal data. During the one-day event, we debated questions such as: what does responsible collaboration between the tech industry and the data protection authorities look like? Do we need new regulation to manage the Internet and the large amount of data produced in the online world? Who is responsible for educating users and how does the tech industry make sure it builds privacy controls into its products?

Speakers included the German State Secretary for the Interior Cornelia Rogall-Grothe and the Federal Data Protection Commissioner Peter Schaar, alongside international authors and bloggers Cory Doctorow and Jeff Jarvis who appeared via live video chat from the U.S.



The debate was always lively, sometimes polarised—Cory likened amalgamated data to nuclear waste while Jeff appealed to governments not to regulate for the worst case—but all seemed to agree that it was a worthwhile and timely exercise to explore these important issues.

You can watch the highlights soon on our Big Tent YouTube channel, and stay tuned for more Big Tents on a range of topics around the world in the coming months.

Posted by Wieland Holfelder, Engineering Director, Germany

(Cross-posted from the European Public Policy Blog)

Celebrating LEO, the world’s first business computer

This year marks the 60th anniversary of LEO, the world’s first business computer—built by J.Lyons & Co, a leading British food manufacturer at the time that also ran a famous chain of tea shops.

Lyons management had long been keen to streamline their back-office operations. In 1947, two Lyons managers visited the U.S. to learn about the latest business processes, including whether the electronic computers they’d heard about during their wartime service, like ENIAC, might be useful. (At the time, the closer-to-home advances at Bletchley Park were still a well-kept military secret.)

They returned inspired by the possibilities and keen to build a machine of their own. After several years of development, LEO, a.k.a. Lyons Electronic Office, took on its first office job on November 17, 1951—weekly valuations for the bakery division, calculating margins on Lyon’s output of bread, cakes and pies.



Until LEO, computing in a work setting was treated like a specialist bit of kit on a factory production line. Each machine was dedicated to a single task. In essence, they were narrowly defined calculating machines. The vision for LEO, in contrast, was bravely broad. LEO was a single computer capable of handling a whole swathe of accounting and bookkeeping tasks, as well as producing daily management reports.

LEO was such a success that Lyons set up a commercial subsidiary to sell spare time on LEO to other businesses, including the Ford Motor Company, which used it to process the payroll for the thousands of workers at its U.K. plant. Later, Lyons also built entirely new LEOs and sold them to other blue-chip companies of the era. In total, more than 70 LEO’s were built, with the last remaining in service until the 1980’s (not bad for a computer that took up an entire room!).

Today we view IT as critical to any enterprise, but in the 1950s, this was by no means a given, as evidenced by a quote from a 1954 issue of The Economist: “There are those who do not believe in the desirability of introducing anything as esoteric as electronics into business routine.” Things certainly have changed, and in a sense, all modern day businesses owe a debt to the LEO team.

Last week at the Science Museum in London, we were delighted to sponsor a small gathering of early LEO programmers  to celebrate their accomplishments and reminisce about their pioneering work. Today, on this 60th anniversary, we invite you to have a cup of tea and join us in toasting LEO—a remarkable ancestor in IT’s family tree.



Posted by Lynette Webb, Senior Manager, External Relations

European Commission President Barroso takes your questions on YouTube World View

(Cross-posted on the YouTube Blog)

Tomorrow, September 28, European Commission President José Manuel Barroso will deliver his annual State of the Union Address. In these turbulent times, we wanted to give people a chance to make their voices heard and ask their questions about the EU. So we teamed up with broadcaster Euronews and invited President Barroso to answer your questions in a special, live YouTube World View interview that will take place on Thursday, October 6 at 10:00am Central European Time.

Starting today, we invite you to submit your questions for President Barroso via youtube.com/worldview. Questions can be on any topic, from the Euro crisis and austerity measures to growth and jobs, from foreign policy and immigration to ethnic minority issues, human rights and the environment. You can ask written or video questions—and view and vote on other people’s questions—in any of the European Union’s languages, thanks to Google Translate.

During the interview on October 6, hosted by Euronews anchor Alex Taylor, the President will answer a selection of the most popular questions, as determined by your votes. The interview will be streamed and broadcast in multiple languages on both YouTube and Euronews.



President Barroso’s interview will be the first multi-lingual livecast in the World View series, which gives anyone with an Internet connection the ability to pose questions, vote on what’s most important to them and get answers directly from senior politicians and world leaders. President Barroso’s interview follows interviews with U.S. President Obama, President Kagame of Rwanda, U.K. Prime Minister Cameron, Spanish Prime Minister Zapatero and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu.

Whatever your question, President Barroso wants to hear from you. Be sure to submit your question via the World View channel before midnight CET on Wednesday October 5.

Posted by Al Verney, Head of Communications, Google Brussels

Catch the London Underground with Google Maps

(Cross-posted on the Lat Long Blog)

Starting today, you can get public transport directions for London within Google Maps. One of Europe’s largest metropolitan areas, London is a major destination for both business travelers and tourists. More than 1 billion passengers are serviced by Transport for London (TfL) every year across over 18,000 bus stops and over 250 Underground stations.

Let’s say you’re at Trafalgar Square, and you want to visit Madame Tussauds. With a simple directions search, you’ll see all the possible public transport connections. In Maps, click “Get directions” in the left-hand panel, and then the train icon to see public transport directions. Enter your departure location next to A, and your destination next to B. These can be either street addresses or names of popular places, businesses or restaurants. When you’re done, click the “Get directions” button and suggestions for your trip will appear below.

Public transport directions are available on both Google Maps and Google Maps for mobile, so you always have access to a trip planner. When you’re on mobile, Maps even uses your current location to determine the best trip to your destination. Just search for your destination location, select it on the map and choose the “Directions” option. The suggested trips will be based on your location by default, and provide you multiple alternatives whenever possible.

If you’re using an Android-powered device, you can also get public transport directions with Transit Navigation (Beta) in Google Maps. With this new feature, which we launched earlier this month, you’ll get alerts when it’s time to get off the bus or train at your destination or to make a transfer. Transit Navigation is available in all regions where public transport directions are available, including London.

TfL is among the first agencies in a major European city to make its timetable information publicly available through the London Datastore. We’re strong supporters of open data and bringing information out into the open, and believe that making information publicly accessible can be an enormous engine of economic growth and innovation. ITO World has been a great partner in this launch by ensuring TfL’s data was adapted correctly and ready for our use.

Public transport directions are available for all Underground, bus, tram and Docklands Light Railway (DLR) lines, and we’ll include more public transport information as soon as it’s available. Whether you use public transport every day or infrequently, as a commuter, on a business trip or as a tourist, we hope that public transport directions in London make planning your trips more convenient!

Posted by Thijs van As, Associate Product Manager, Transit Directions

Generating Genius in the U.K. with young black talent

On July 14, Google U.K. launched a partnership with Generating Genius at an event in our London office. Google director Adrian Joseph, Member of Parliament Simon Hughes and advisor on culture and youth Munira Mirza spoke alongside Generating Genius founder Tony Sewell. They stressed the importance of encouraging students from underrepresented backgrounds to receive higher education degrees and inspiring them to become innovators in the technology industry. Afterward, two program participants shared their Generating Genius experiences and their plans for university this fall.

Joining forces with Generating Genius is part of our ongoing commitment to provide exceptionally talented young black students from London’s inner city schools with the key computing and technology skills needed to apply for the very best computer science degrees. We believe it’s crucial to get students engaged in computer science early and enable them to become creators—not just consumers—of technology.

Students accepted into the Generating Genius program are guided via mentors through engineering summer schools and weekend programs for a full five years (from 13 to 18 years of age). Early results of the program have been fantastic: all of the first participants to graduate from the program have received offers to attend elite universities this autumn. Ninety-five percent of them are the first in their families to go on to higher education. Google's funding is enabling Generating Genius to include girls this year for the first time, as well as helping to expand upon the computer science component of the program.

Director of Generating Genius Tony Sewell (center) and two students who have completed five years in the program and are now headed to elite universities to study computer science and physics.

This partnership follows on the heels of the Top Black Talent Program that we kicked off in April, which recruits talented computer science students from African Caribbean Society chapters at U.K. universities for a mentoring program at Google. Paired with a Google mentor, the students attended a series of talks and workshops, including career-focused sessions with resume and interviewing advice and technical discussions that provided real-life insights into the tech industry.

You can hear more from Googlers, executives, scholars and partners about our programs and initiatives for minority students by watching our You Tube video. For further details on the Top Black Talent program or to register for the next cohort of Top Black Talent students, please get in touch. And for more on our general education outreach, visit google.com/edu.

Posted by Eleanor Mulligan, Diversity & Inclusion Programs Manager

Practical steps towards a greener, energy-efficient cloud

(Cross-posted from the European Public Policy Blog)

Update June 14, 9:14am: Videos of all the presentations at the Data Center Summit are now available on our website.

Data centers are very important to us—they’re critical to the cloud services we deliver. Over the last 12 years, we’ve put a lot of effort into minimizing the amount of energy, water and other resources we use—because it makes financial sense, and because it’s good for the environment too. That work means that today, we use half the energy of a typical industry data center.

Last week, we brought together more than 150 industry professionals in Zürich, Switzerland for our second conference on data center efficiency. Since our first conference two years ago in the U.S., the industry’s come a long way, with large operators now very focused on energy efficiency.



With “free cooling” we can dramatically reduce energy consumption by using the local environment to cool servers, instead of energy-intensive chillers. In our data centers we use both air cooling and evaporative cooling—and we revealed the details of the seawater cooling system we’ve custom-engineered for our new data center in Hamina, Finland.



Google is lucky enough to have the resources and experts to continually improve efficiency. But around 70% of the world’s data centers are operated by companies that probably don’t.

That’s why we shared five simple and low-cost steps that any company, large or small, can use. These include using plastic meat locker curtains to separate hot and cold air, or welding your own air-conditioning chimney out of cheap sheet metal. These techniques are proven to increase energy efficiency, reduce electricity consumption and improve environmental footprint.

We also announced that we’re now participating in the European Commission’s Code of Conduct for Data Centres, a framework for designing and operating data centers efficiently. It ties in closely with the way we build and run our facilities, and has a robust checklist of efficiency best practices that are well worth trying out.

The main take-away was that there is no magic in data center efficiency. With the right information and a bit of creativity, anyone can make their computing infrastructure efficient. If you operate a data center or server room, please visit our website and make use of the techniques we’ve outlined. Videos of all the presentations from the Summit will be available on the site next week.

Posted by Urs Hoelzle, Senior Vice President, Technical Infrastructure

Inside the Big Tent

(Cross-posted from the European Public Policy Blog)

At our European Zeitgeist event, held annually near London, we traditionally erect a large marquee for a partner dinner and entertainment. This year we wondered if there was anything else we could do with the space once Zeitgeist was over. In that instant, the Big Tent was born.

Canvas aside, the term "big tent" has, of course, a political connotation. Wikipedia defines it as "seeking to attract people with diverse viewpoints...does not require adherence to some ideology as a criterion for membership." That just about sums up the idea behind last week’s Big Tent conference, which focused on debating some of the hot issues relating to the internet and society.

We invited the advocacy groups Privacy International and Index on Censorship—both of whom have criticised Google in the past—to partner with us in staging the debates, and sought diverse viewpoints among the speakers and the delegates.

Topics on the agenda included: what was the role of technology in the revolutions in the Middle East? What are the limits of free speech online? Do we need tougher privacy laws or are we in danger of stifling innovation? Can technology and access to information be used to help prevent conflict?

The result was a stimulating day of debate featuring the likes of Big Brother television producer Peter Bazalgette, Mumsnet founder Justine Roberts and the U.K. Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt alongside Googlers including Eric Schmidt, Google Ideas’ Jared Cohen and the Egyptian activist Wael Ghonim, and a highly engaged and knowledgeable audience of NGOs, policy advisers, tech businesses and journalists.



You can watch highlights on YouTube and see event feedback on Twitter. We hope to bring the Big Tent to other regions over the coming year.

Posted by Peter Barron, Director of External Relations, EMEA

Investing in news innovation in Europe

(Cross-posted from the European Public Policy Blog)

Journalism is changing fast. And as news businesses experiment with new ways of creating and delivering journalism in the digital age, Google is keen to play its part on the technology side. Over the last year, we’ve been partnering with publishers around the world to develop technological solutions—including, most recently, One Pass—to find new and engaging ways of presenting stories online and to generate greater revenues.

As well as our focus on technological experimentation, we’re also investing at the grassroots level. Last October we announced that we would be giving $5 million in grants to non-profit organisations working on developing new approaches to journalism. At that time, we allocated around 40% of the total fund to the Knight Foundation in the U.S.

Today, we awarded a $2.7 million grant to the International Press Institute, based in Vienna, which will be used to sponsor the IPI News Innovation Contest. The contest seeks to find and fund breakthrough ideas that will have a lasting impact on the future of digital news in communities across Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Grants will be awarded to both non-profit and for-profit organisations working on digital journalism initiatives, including open-source and mobile technology projects created by or for journalists and distributed in the public interest. From today until June 1, the IPI will invite proposals from around the region for projects devoted to online innovation in journalism, new economic models for news and training in digital reporting.

The IPI has a long tradition of working on innovation in journalism, freedom of expression and other important issues. We’re sure they’ll be able to find and advance some great digital journalism projects over the next couple of years—and we encourage anyone with innovative ideas, large or small, to apply for a grant from the IPI. In the meantime, we’ll continue to work with the news industry to help develop new projects, products and experiments that make it possible for journalism to thrive online.

Posted by Peter Barron, Director of External Relations, Google EMEA

International tourists find the Polish seaside through Google AdWords

(Cross-posted on the Google Small Business Blog)

Sebastian Hejnowski’s parents built the Villa Zdroj Bed and Breakfast in 2002 to share Poland’s beauty with weary travelers. Located in Miedzyzdroje, a city on the coast of Polish island Wolin, Villa Zdroj is one of the island’s first modern bed and breakfasts.

Sebastian’s parents handle reservations, property development and sometimes breakfast. Sebastian runs the advertising efforts for his parents’ Villa, including Google AdWords. “When we first started our AdWords campaigns, we focused on Poland but we soon realized that there was increasing interest from our neighboring countries,” says Sebastian. When he noticed an upward trend in drop-in visitors from other countries, he decided to launch campaigns across Poland’s borders as well.

Villa Zdroj - courtesy of Marcin Matecki Photography

According to Sebastian, the variety of outdoor activities combined with the relatively inexpensive cost of Polish tourism make Wolin a vacation paradise for Germans and Scandinavians. “Germans and Scandinavians were coming to Miedzyzdroje, but mostly staying in expensive five-star hotels,” says Sebastian. “B&B’s were never an option since they didn’t know where to find them.” So Sebastian made Denmark, Germany, Norway and Sweden his first international targets. The strategy proved correct: “We were one of the first Polish B&B’s to create a website in English. When we targeted an AdWords campaign to these people, they started calling and booking reservations.”

As time went on, Sebastian noticed that Poland had become more and more accessible to Europeans due to an increase in flights to the area. To capitalize on this trend, Sebastian expanded his AdWords campaigns even beyond bordering countries. “With time we extended the campaign to the Great Britain and the Netherlands.” says Sebastian. “Europeans tend to explore new places and travel extensively.”

Sebastian with his family - courtesy of Marcin Matecki Photography

Today, foreigners account for more than half of Villa Zdroj’s guests. And Sebastian estimates that up to 60% of those international guests book Villa Zdroj because they found his AdWords ads.

Thanks to his effective targeting, Sebastian now sells out all of the villa’s rooms during peak summer travel season. He adjusts his ad campaigns to reflect availability: “In summer, we track vacancies and adjust our campaigns accordingly. We pause the campaigns if we’re booked a few weeks out.”

In 2012, Poland will host the Euro Cup and Sebastian’s dad is already getting ready for an influx of visitors. “My father is considering buying a big projector so everyone can watch the games together in the communal room,” says Sebastian. “We’re already excited to share the Polish seaside with more out of town visitors!”

Learn more about Villa Zdroj Bed and Breakfast and Sebastian’s success with online advertising in this short video (it's in Polish, but you can view captions).

Posted by Piotr Zalewski, Communications Associate, Poland